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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"So is there a reason you've come here? Or are you TRYING to make my life miserable with your presence?" she asks, trying to sound threatening… trying to sound like my child-hood bully again.

"I came to see if you were ok, although I don't know why," I say sarcastically with a sigh.

"I'm fine, obviously… but you knew that." she says and tears her eyes away from her window, finally, to look at me.

"Yes," I confirm.

"So why are you here?" she reiterates.

"Phoebe said you were sick. I didn't believe her," I shake my head, "so I wanted to come see for myself WHY you decided to stay home and also not go to Charlie's."

"I see." she looks back out through her window.

"Yeah, so why did you stay home?" I ask, folding my arms. Confidence is slowly seeping into me as I stand before her.

"Just wanted to is all," she says, sounding unconvincing.

"Right," I begin walking to her. "Can I ask you something?"

"Ugh! Not this again," she huffs, rolling her eyes with a mixture of comic disgust and resignation.

Her groan goes undignified as I sit myself down on her bed.

"Ok, so what do you wanna know, hair boy?" she asks, falling into an 'absent minded' stare at the sky.

"Why did you really stay home?" I repeat, leaning dangerously close to her. She looks at me with a kind of terror in her eyes, but then 'relaxes' into a sort of uncomfortable staring game with me.

"None of your business," she raises her eyebrows, "got it?" She sits, inches from me, challenging me in a way I'm not sure I understand at the moment. She looks at me… not really AT me, but in a way that is unsettling. Almost as if she's looking straight through me. Suddenly she mistakenly, I assume, makes eye contact. This strange event brings a sort of intimacy to the situation that neither of us expects, or wants. Her eyes dart around, looking, searching, for somewhere to rest, but to no avail.

I smile almost sadistically at her, "What's wrong?"

"Why are you so close to me?!" she growls, and tries to move back. It's then I realize how close indeed I was. I blush, gulp, and move back uncomfortably. An almost innocent blush creeps onto her cheeks as she pulls at the hem of her shirt, drawing her knees to her chest. "Now," she starts, "For the last time, are you going to tell me why you're here?"

"I told you why," I say, laying my weight on my palm as I lean toward her. My body still refuses to back away from this girl! It must be some sort of gravitational force, I muse, laughing inwardly at my own observation.

"Well I don't believe you," she says in a neural tone that hurts me so. Something in her eyes… those beautiful eyes that had just made contact with mine… tells me there's an underlying meaning in her comment, whatever that meaning may be.

"Well, I don't believe you either. I'd say we're even." I reply, looking out through her window. There's this sudden, unintended, understanding between the two of us at those words, and she simply sighs loudly and rejoins my gaze.

"Arnold, do you ever wonder why Charlie's… you know, the way he is?" she asks, in a seriously-friendly manor that surprises me at first… coming from her.

"Yeah, but I worry more about that father than anything else," I reply, leaning closer to this enigma sitting uncomfortably next to me.

She says nothing.

The lighting in the room dims slightly from the quick arrival of evening. It's beautiful… As the sun fights one last time for a break in the sea of clouds, rays of light pass through, illuminating certain things… darkening others. Suddenly, without proper warning, the sun is gone. Hidden somewhere below the horizon. Now, something strange has happened. The once distinctly bright and dark things have blended. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I can't help but see a certain message come through with what's happening. It's almost as if the lines between light and dark--good and evil--are becoming almost nonexistent. The sky as a whole has become one blended color. Not quite dark enough for night. Not quite light enough for day. The blurred lines between seem to be something ominous.

"It's getting dark," she says, stating the obvious. She pushes a few loose strands of hair behind her ear and continues to stare out her window. I laugh inwardly at our lack of conversation. How, suddenly, the sky is so interesting. "Well, this is stupid," she starts, standing up from the bed abruptly. Her sudden change makes me immediately interested in what she's going to say.

"What is?"

"This! I mean, sweet Jesus, what's so damn interesting about what's outside my window?" she almost yells, walking to her door. I smile, finding it funny that I was just thinking about that exact same thing.

"Where are you going?" I ask, getting up instantly.

"I'm not going anywhere, you're going home." she says, opening her door and leaning against it's frame. She taps her foot irritably as she waits, cross-armed, for me to follow her to the door.

"Why?" I quickly ask, shortly thereafter receiving a funny look from her.

"Yeah, football head. This is just what I need, Big Bob coming home to find that I was alone in the house with Alfred."

I suddenly want to ask her if he'd really care, but I don't. it's mean and inappropriate, and what right do I have to question her about her family like that? She stands, irritated and angry, impatiently waiting… yet no matter how hostile she tries to seem, or how intimidating she tries to be, I can't see it, and she knows that. The funny thing about this is that only makes her angrier.

"What are you waiting for?!" she scolds, and I find that I haven't moved an inch. I'm just standing there, motionless, finding it hard to move. Slowly, but surely, I regain the use of my legs and walk to her. For the hopelessly poignant thing to me is not my having to leave this room, this house, this place… but, instead, simply having to leave her. Maybe everyone's right… maybe something has changed in me.

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I get home shortly after leaving Helga's and find myself thinking not only about her, but about Charlie, and Gerald, and Mr. Reiker, and, to my surprise, Roxanne, even. I pass by the living room quickly, afraid I might get caught up in another conversation with Mr. Potts and Grandpa about the unknown predator attacking young girls in our humble little city. Something I think, quite frankly, is hard for me to accept, let alone something I want to hear about. Grandma is the only one whom I announce my presence to as I begin my quick ascent up the stairs. Upon reaching my room, I recklessly toss my backpack to the floor, and--what's this? That Lolita book has fallen out of the book bag and lays on the floor before me. Should I read it now? I look down at the piece of (somewhat) obscene literature and contemplate my next move. I still DO need to be prepared for this project with Helga and Charlie, and it would be nonsensical for me to have the book in my possession and not read it. I slowly kneel down to it. Yes, reading it would be good.

With the book, I walk back to my desk and plop myself down into my seat. Eagerly, I flip through it to find the last place I left off.

Again, I begin to read…

Lolita. There's something about this book, about this story, that just draws me in. Reading about this pathetic Humbert Humbert character who hopelessly, in a doomed passion, desires little Dolores Haze… little Lolita, His Lolita, as he calls her… makes me think endlessly about the father. Charlie's father to be exact. A man who, if I were given the simple task of describing in as few words as possible, would be called something of a pedophile. I've never seen him do anything really, and I've never really seen his 'tendencies' to look at little girls other than the incident with Helga , but still… something about him, that man, makes me angry. Unjustly? I feel, strangely, as if I have to protect people from him when, do I really have just cause to feel that way? But then again, is my own intuition not enough? Something is happening to me, something that makes me both angry and relieved at the same time. I've never tried to judge anyone based on some outside trait, like Roxanne's excessive gum chewing and Charlie's father's 'rough' appearance (dirty, I could even say), but now it seems that I've been doing this almost too much. On the other hand, I feel almost happy… happy that, for once, I'm able to hold opinions about people. The fact that these opinions are perhaps rude only makes me feel better, oddly. I must sound like a mad man, but please understand… all my life up until now, I've had to be the neutral one. The one who likes everyone. The one who cares about everyone. I'm only human though, you can't possibly expect me (or anyone else for that matter) to like everyone, right? …Right?

Right.

As I put the Lolita book away and get ready for bed, I can't help but think back to my earlier encounter with Charlie. His nonchalant attitude and careless way reminds me so much of how I was as a young boy. The way he sat in the freezing cold, letting the wind comb through his rough hair... Somehow I feel a little animosity toward this 'free sprit'. Jealousy even. Oh, how I wish I could be that way again! …so care free… But, shamefully, I realize that maybe that's his only outlet? Perhaps his home life is so terrible that his only means of escape is sitting alone with his thoughts and letting the autumn breeze move swiftly through his un-kept hair?

Guilty about my earlier ill-thoughts of jealousy towards the poor kid, I slide into bed and soon after fall into a toss-and-turn-filled sleep.

My dreams, lately, have been almost nothing but a tribute to Charlie and his sad home life. It's always the same one. I see him, in my dream, walking away from me through a never ending hallway. Like an endless quest I chase after him, but always fail. He never walks faster, or slower, he simply walks at the same casual-paced rate yet poor Arnold can't catch up. I call, scream, yell… but he ignores me and continues on his mysterious way. Then I see his father standing patronizingly at the end of this seemingly endless hallway. He smiles, that same sadistic smile I saw him with that day… of course you know what day I speak of. He then looks at me with a mixture of sympathy and disgust. Ha! It is I who should pity him, not the other way around, yet it isn't so. Charlie seems to be walking toward his father, head hung, and shoulders hunched, as if he were walking straight into his own demise. This puzzles me, because when I see Charlie's (however rare) interaction with his father, I see him being the strong one. The one who 'calls the shots'. In my dream though, it's the father who seems to be controlling the son. And so the father stands waiting for him, taunting his son in a way…

Suddenly, Charlie will stop. He doesn't make a move and it is always me who breaks the disturbingly fitting silence.

"Why are you doing this?" is my one burning question for this odd boy.

It will go unanswered.

Instead, he turns to face me… eyes weary and warm… something I don't think I've ever seen from him yet. He opens his mouth to say something, and then…

Darkness…

Bleakness…

Loneliness…

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You know what's funny? The fact that I said I would be updating soon, yet it took me this long (yeah, I know it isn't very long, it just felt that way to me). Anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter, even though it didn't have much mushy stuff in it ;D. Just to warn you guys out there who didn't see this the first time… I hope that if you're reading this you have an open mind and are mature enough to handle the subject matter.

Hehe, I hate sounding like someone's mother, but you know… I just want to make sure you guys understand this because in one of the upcoming chapters I'm going to have to get a little more adult. That's all I'm going to say about that, but I bet you all can figure out what I mean ;)