I DO NOT OWN HEY ARNOLD!!! DON'T SUE ME!!! (I don't have any money anyway so you wouldn't get much out of it if you did)
Return To Innocence
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"You look tired," Lila says as she approaches me after school. Yesterday, I refused to go over to Charlie's house, which upset Helga quite a bit. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I don't know why, but I didn't feel comfortable going over there. Something… something MADE it uncomfortable, but I'm still having trouble figuring it out. The last bell has rung. The halls have cleared out. Everything is quiet now… everything except for the distant echo of Lila's absent-minded comment. She, again, absent-mindedly sets her hand on my shoulder. It feels like some sort of parental comfort, so I ease into her small sign of affection.
"I am." I say with a sigh.
"May I ask why? You look just awful." she says and lets her hand slide from my shoulder. I know she didn't mean what she said as an insult, so I let it go.
"I feel awful." I say, slowly. She gives me a weak smile and winks.
"Well, Arnold, I'm ever so sorry to be leaving you when you feel this way, but I've got to be going. See you tomorrow!" she skips off, almost childishly, and I smile a little. I wave, but she doesn't see me and I return to my locker. Ugh, curse the man who invented homework! Today I don't want to deal with work, I just want to go home and sleep.
"Where were you yesterday!" I hear Helga squeal.
So much for going home and sleeping.
"I had to get home right away, grandpa needed me to do some housework." I lie.
"Really?" she sounds unconvinced. "Well, while you were home doing housework I was with Charlie!"
Obviously? "I know."
"Well, so don't you think housework can wait?!" she says, placing her hands on her hips.
"Well, no. I mean, I would have gone but grandpa needed me!" I defend.
"Look," she poked me with her index finger, "Don't ever skip out on me like that again, EVER!" I back away from her. She slams my locker closed and follows me, backing me up against the wall.
"Why are you so upset?" I ask, almost in a pleading manor.
"Because I don't like-what do you mean why am I so upset? You ditched me!" she says, raising her voice even higher.
"So?! If I weren't part of this project you'd be alone with Charlie anyway, so why get angry if I can't make it one day?" I pause and examine her expression of anger, "And what don't you like?"
"What?"
"You were going to say something then you stopped. What was it?"
There is a pause.
"I didn't say anything, football head. Lets go; we have to go to Charlie's now." she turns and walks away from me. Confused, I stand alone a minute longer and watch her retreating form.
"Helga, come on… wait…"
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"You knock." Helga says, again pushing me forward to the door.
"How did you ever get along without me?" I ask, sarcastically. Feeling a small bit of comfort that Helga was stand with me, I confidently knock four times on the old, decrepit, door. There's no answer.
"Eh, this happened yesterday, too." Helga quietly comments.
"Where's Charlie's dad when you need him?" I jokingly say, but Helga remains silent. "Helga?" I turn to look at her, but I only get a quick glimpse as the door swings open loudly, but then closes a little to leave the door only slightly open.
"What is it?" Charlie's dad asks. I can't see him, as he's once again masked by the shadows, but I recognize his voice. I feel weird, as if the nothingness of the shadow is the one speaking to me, not Charlie's father. It's an awful feeling, and I shiver with eeriness.
"Let us in." Helga says quite boldly. There is no movement for several minutes between the three of us. Helga stands strong against this once 'scary' figure to her. I don't understand it… what did I miss yesterday? Helga begins impatiently tapping her foot. I turn to look at her and she frowns, keeping her gaze to the door. She pushes ahead of me and peeks into the house. "There's no one here, lets go in." she says and steps in. For how long were Helga and I standing there before we realized that Charlie's elusive father was no longer there? Oh well… so I follow Helga, the enigma, into the broken home. I realize I could have just gone home, but that wasn't an option today… it wasn't.
Helga moves through the house as if she's known it for years. She no longer fears the interior creepiness and freely walks about. I feel as though it's MY turn to cower behind her.
Cower behind Helga… yeah, like that's a new one…
"Charlie," Helga calls, as we approach his room. As familiar as Helga seemed to be with the house, she doesn't seem to feel that same way about Charlie's room… for whatever reason.
"So what did I miss yesterday?" I ask, walking in front of her so I can finally face her.
"A lot." is all she'll give me for an answer. She knocks on Charlie's door and we wait. …and wait. …and wait. No one's there, I know, but Helga doesn't want to admit it. The scarier thought, perhaps, would be that she and I are alone in the house with Charlie's dad. She knocks again. Frustrated, she pounds on the door once more, then…
"WHAT DO Y- Helga?" Charlie throws the door open, much like his father, and stares at the two of us.
"Took you long enough, what were you doing in there?" Helga asks, suspiciously.
"It's my room, what did you think I was doing?" He answers her question with one of his own. After a few moments of the two staring at one another Charlie sighs, "I was sleeping. I'm tired. I really want this to get over with quickly, so go in… hurry up." he looks to the floor. I nod and walk past the two into his room.
His room…
It looks… different.
It's not clean. In fact, it looks as though a hurricane has just blown through… which surprises me. What happened to his tidiness? Charlie and I sit down on the floor and watch as Helga walks over to the bed. She throws her backpack down and searches through it for the book… the Lolita book…
"Here's what I think," she starts, flipping through her 'property of the public library' book she checked out. For a second I wonder if her version is the same as the one Charlie lent me. "I think Charlie's right."
"About what?" I inquire.
"I think we SHOULD do something on Humbert Humbert. He's the one telling the story, he's the one with the 'problem'… it would work."
Now, see, to properly understand this I must tell you what I know about this Humbert Humbert character. He's a man in his forties, who moves to America to take up a teaching position at Beardsley College. Humbert Humbert (yes, that's his name) has a troubled past, though. See, at the tender age of 14 he met and fell in love with Annabel… who died four months later of typhus. He never quite deals with her death and so he seems to never really grow up… he stays a child at heart for the rest of his life. Even after Annabel's death he searches for her… in other girls… long after he leaves his own childhood behind.
Humbert needs somewhere to stay, and after finding out that the house he was originally supposed to stay at has burned down, Charlotte Haze agrees to accommodate him. So here he is in America, living in the home of Charlotte Haze, who seems to have an attraction for Humbert, but he does not feel the same way… in fact, Humbert has an attraction for her daughter… little Dolores of only 12 years of age. Like I mentioned, he searches for Annabel… and only finds her again in Lolita.
Disturbing, huh?
Anyway, as Helga begins to explain her idea… the same idea that Charlie had proposed days before… she stops and looks at me. She frowns, "Are you even listening to me?!" she says, raising her voice a bit. I realize that I had actually began to daydream as she was speaking… no, I wasn't listening to her, I comment to myself, a bit humorously.
"Yes, of course," I reply. Before she can question me further I say, "Yes, I think that idea about Humbert is a great one. I think it would be really interesting to show that he's actually a human being, not the pedophile people would think he is."
"But isn't he?" Charlie asks, looking at me dead-on.
"Isn't he what?"
"A pedophile. Yes, we should stress that he's human, but you can't escape the fact that he likes little girls."
"Wait a minute… aren't you supposed to be on my side? Helga was the one saying this stuff and you were against it." I say, laughing a little at the irony.
"So maybe I've had time to think about it." he says, without humor.
"But… I don't understand, last time-"
"It's different now, ok?" he says, deadly-serious.
"Ok, then…" I look over to Helga, who's not really paying attention to Charlie and I. She seems too engrossed in her book to notice.
"Hey, you know what?" she starts again, "What if since we're doing a character analysis for Humbert, we do one for Lolita too?"
"Hey, that's a great idea!" I spout, maybe a bit too excitedly.
"Yeah, of course it is, I said it." she says smugly. I smile. She blushes and smiles too.
"You know, Arnold," Charlie interrupts, "I think I left my backpack downstairs. Do you think you could get it for me?"
I frown, why can't he get it himself? "Uh, sure… I'll be back in second." I stand up and walk to his door. Helga looks to Charlie with an expression of… anger? Why? Did she also see how unfair it was to make me get the book bag?
Downstairs it's quiet, almost too quiet. I don't see his backpack anywhere in the living room so I step into the kitchen. No sign of the thing. I take a step back into the living room and happen to look down the shadowed hall. Could it be there? I'm not sure, so I begin to walk down the mysterious part of the house. The light is getting dimmer and dimmer and I come to the conclusion that there aren't many windows in this part of the house. I hear the faint sounds of a television set and see that one of the doors in the hall is slightly ajar. I walk over to it and see the greens and blues reflected in the dark room by the television set. The room seems empty so I push it open a little. Could Charlie's backpack really be in this room? No, it's probably not, but my curiosity has quickly made finding the backpack not the top priority.
Disgusting.
There is food everywhere. Old bags of chips, dirty clothes, dirty plates with roaches crawling about, and the room as a whole as a foul smell to it. Obviously this is Charlie's dad's room. It's horrible and such a stark contrast to his son's usually clean room… although right now, the two rooms seem to have a few things in common. I walk over to the small, 19 inch, television set to see what the father has been watching, but am unable to because of the extensive amount of commercials on this particular channel. I look over to the bed and see sheets spread everywhere in a state of disarray. The bed posts look mangled and I walk over to inspect them when something catches my eye. I look to his closet and see something sticking out. Just barely, but enough to get me interested. I kneel down and touch it for a second… and realize it's rope. Why would-
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE! GET OUT! GET OUT!" Charlie's father roars from the door, carrying a plate of food.
"What?! I'M SORRY!" I jump to my feet, but am unable to move.
"GET… OUT!" he screams and begins walking quickly towards me. I almost squeal like a girl as I finally find it in me to sprint to the door. Am I fearing for my life, now? Without looking back, I run to the front door, throw it open, and dash to the outside world…
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Wow, I haven't updated in a long time… sorry, heh. I've been busy with school and such so I haven't really had the time to write. I hope you're enjoying this story of mine so tell me what you think ;D
A/N: the rating will have to change soon in upcoming chapters, so be prepared.