A/N: weeee! I feel so proud! Thankies sooooooooo much for the great reviews! I'm glad I'm not rushing things…I seem to like to do that. Anyway, sorry to those people who I took their idea…and again thanks for the reviews! I almost wasn't gonna finish it, but I see how much you guys want to read the rest. Sorry for the long wait…school's been a pain in the ass lately. Anyway, here's chappie 2!

Chapter 2 – The Essay Contest

The lunch bell rang and everyone filed out of the lunchroom. Helga followed behind Arnold and worriedly deeply about if she should give him back the journal right then and there.

"Some one had to have taken it, Gerald! There's nowhere else it could be. But the question I want answered is why," Arnold exclaimed, making Helga even more worried.

"Oh great! Now if I give it back to him myself, he's either gonna hate me or at least be suspicious. I'll just gonna have to drop it in his room while he's sleeping or something."

They entered the class one-by-one and sat down in their desks. Mr. Simmons was already at his desk, throwing away the Styrofoam tray that had held his lunch.

Phoebe leaned over in her seat, closer to Helga.

"Helga, have you noticed Arnold isn't acting quite himself? He seemed fine this morning and neither him nor Gerald was at recess. Have you any idea what may be bothering him, Helga?" Phoebe inquired her best friend.

Helga threw Phoebe a nervous glance, but was as quick as it had come and was replaced with her usual scowl. "N, no, Phoebes. How would I know anything about football-head?"

Phoebe suddenly got suspicious, but decided against asking any further questions. For the best of Helga and her. Phoebe turned her head back to the front of the class where Mr. Simmons was lecturing about the life cycle of sea sponges.

"I wish I knew what's wrong with Arnold. I'll bet Helga knows…either that or she has something to do with it. Don't think that, Phoebe! Of course Helga wouldn't do something to Arnold to make him this upset. I mean, she does, after all, love him…" Phoebe told herself mentally. She shook her head and started taking her notes on the sea sponge's mating season.

The rest of the day seemed to go by slowly. Geography, with studying the early settlers, was boring enough to make watching golf on TV seem exciting. (A/N: no offense to anyone who likes golf out there!) Science with the sea sponges, and then finally it was English class: last subject before freedom.

"Oh look! 2:50! You know what that means, class! It's English time! Take out your textbooks and turn to page 250…we're going to read about adverbs! Doesn't that sound exciting?" Mr. Simmons said joyfully to his silent-responding class.

Everyone noisily took out his or her English books and turned to page 250. Arnold did this along with everyone else, but was off in his own world. As Mr. Simmons babbled about the use of adverbs, Arnold thought to himself about the journal.

"Oh, I just don't know what do. If I find it, I'll forget this whole this thing ever happened and go on with my life. But if I don't…oh I don't even wanna think about it! I wish I could just find it and be able to concentrate on other things like school, friends, LIFE!"

Arnold throughout the entire period. His teacher's talking was just babble to him.

"What are you doing, Arnold? This isn't you! You always listen and pay attention during class! If I keep this up, I'm gonna fail English! And over what? A stupid little book…wait, it's not stupid! What am I saying?! Oh great! Now I'm arguing with myself! What next?"

Arnold continued not the listen until the bell ringing snapped him out of it. He was about to get up and go to his locker when Mr. Simmons stopped them all.

"Class. Go back to your seats. I have a special announcement to make," said Mr. Simmons calmly to his class. Everyone grumbled and sat back down in their seats.

"Now, there is going to be an essay contest taking place in all of the school's in the country. What the essay is to be about, we don't know yet, but whatever it is, I'm sure you're going to do a 'special' job." He put on a goofy smile at the class. "First prize is the winner gets to take their whole class on an all expensed paid trip to anywhere they want in the world!" The class suddenly got excited and sat up in their seats. "So you don't miss your buses, I'm not going to go over all the details, but I have them all out on this paper. If you're interested, pick one up on your way out the door. Class dismissed!"

Everybody seemed to have grabbed a paper about the contest.

Arnold folded up the paper and stuck it in his pocket to read when he got back to the boardinghouse.

He got his stuff out of his locker and left the school and got in front of Helga getting onto the bus.

Helga looked at him worriedly, still arguing with herself about returning the journal.

"I had no clue that he'd get this upset," was what she thought.

Helga sat with Phoebe as Arnold sat with Gerald. The bus left and started off down the street. Phoebe stood up in her seat.

"Um, Helga. I'll be right back. I'd just like a word with Gerald for a moment," Phoebe told her.

"Yeah, okay," Helga said, sounding as if she hadn't heard a word. Phoebe walked over to where Arnold and Gerald sat.

"Arnold, would mind if I could have a word with Gerald for a moment?" asked Phoebe. Arnold looked at her with a confused face.

"Sure." He got up and sat in an empty seat behind Brainy. Phoebe sat down beside Gerald and he noticed at once the concerned look on her face.

"What's wrong, Phoebe?" he asked her worriedly.

"Gerald, do you know what's going on with Arnold? You or him weren't at recess to day, and after that, he seemed very troubled. And all through class after lunch, he didn't pay attention at all. That's not like him, Gerald. Arnold always pays very close attention," she told him. Gerald gave her a sad look.

"He lost his dad's journal. He found it yesterday – which was the anniversary of his parents' disappearance – and brought it to school to day and lost it. We were looking for it during recess, but didn't have any luck. So he's really upset about it. I hope he finds it before he does anything…drastic…" Gerald trailed off and Phoebe noticed the look of fear as he looked back to where Arnold was sitting.

"Oh come on, Gerald. You don't really think he'd-," Phoebe stopped herself when the bus stopped and Arnold got off. Phoebe and Gerald watched as Arnold walked off down the sidewalk towards his home. But what they didn't know was that Helga was also looking at her beloved Arnold and wondered the same thing: how far can Arnold really go?