Hey Arnold Quote of the Chapter:

Helga: All I wanted was the hat! And world domination... But right now just the hat!

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Chapter 7 - Dream Girls

"Whoa! Wait a minute! Time out man! What do you mean 'you think you love her'?"

Arnold lets out a heavy sigh, "Exactly what I meant, Gerald. I think I love her."

"No, this isn't happening." He holds head in his hands, "You're not really saying what I think you saying. How could you even say that man?! She's only been going to PS 118 four days! How could you say that after just four days?!"

"Because I feel like I already know her Gerald!" Arnold shouts, unintentionally, "For some reason, I have this weird feeling that I've always known her." He shifts his gaze out the bus window, stubbornly, "I don't care if it's four days or four years, I love her."

"No Arnold. You said you 'think' you love her. There's a big difference."

He looks back at him with a frown, "Why is this such a big deal to you anyways? Is it that hard to believe that I love this girl?"

"It's a big deal because I know how you acted with Ruth and Lila. And when you tried to "go out" with both of them, it blew up in your face." He shakes his head, "I just want you to be careful bro, that's all. I don't want it to blow up in your face again."

Arnold smiles in gratitude for the concern. Gerald may act like the cool cat most of the time, but Arnold knows he's a softy at heart. "Don't worry about me, Gerald. This time, I'm positive I'll end up with the girl of my dreams."

Gerald shrugs his shoulders, but is still unconvinced. "Whatever man. Just be careful, a'ight? I worry about you and your girl troubles sometimes."

"Sure Gerald, I will. Even if it's unnecessary." The bus slows to a halt at Arnold's stop. He gets up and turns to his best friend, "I'll meet ya at the theater tonight, alright?" he sticks out his fist.

Gerald moves his own fist out to complete their special handshake. "A'ight. Keep it real bro." Gerald watches as his best friend walks off the bus and disappear from sight as the bus starts again. He shakes his head in worry. "I hope you know what you're doing man."

~~~~~

With a sigh of relief Arnold plops down on his bed, glad that the long day was over. It was an eventful day. Definitely a long day. He closes his eyes as he goes over in his mind what happened. First Curly wanted to beat him up because, for some weird reason, Curly thought he was going out with Cecile. He was glad when she stepped in and stopped the fight. He would have hated to use the karate that Grandma taught him.

And then there was Eugene. To be more precise, Eugene's check. It is so weird that it would just appear out of nowhere like that, by an anonymous person. He wasn't hurt, so there wouldn't be any reason to feel obligated to do such a thing. Arnold lets out a long sigh as his mind settles into calmness. It doesn't make any since to him whatsoever, so he's not going to think about it.

Arnold's eyes open and is shocked when he doesn't find himself in his bedroom. Instead he's standing in the middle of a wide, flower covered field. The stars shining brightly in the night's sky and the moon is full and glowing a luminous white. His clothes have changed also. Instead of his usual school clothes he's in his deep blue Romeo costume from the 'Romeo and Juliet' play he was in.

A heavenly voice fills the air with unearthly music, seeming to urge Arnold to look for the singer. In the distance is a hill just beyond the meadow Arnold stands in. Maybe this singer is on top this hill.

Treading through the never-ending field of flowers, he arrives at the foot of the hill. There's someone on it.

Crawling on hands and knees, he climbs the steep hill for what seems to be an eternity. The shadow of a figure sits on a rock on the very top, singing even more beautifully than ever, though that hardly seems possible.

"Who are you?" he calls to the stranger.

The music slows to an end and several long moments pass in silence before the singer speaks, "I? I am the lover of your heart, the paramour of your essence, and the reason of your being. Why do you ask who I am my love?"

Arnold's arm is suddenly yanked forcefully away from this person. He is shocked to find Helga, dressed in filthy beggar's rags, roughly pulling on his arm, a desperate look on her face. "Don't listen to her Arnold! Don't fall for it!"

"Helga?! What are you doing?!"

"I'm trying to save you Arnold! It's not too late!"

"Too late? For what?"

"She's slowly poisoning you." tears involuntarily start falling down her cheeks, "You can't go with her Arnold."

Arnold looks back and finds Cecile emerging from the shadows, dressed in a beautiful light pink princess gown. A small golden crown on her perfectly golden hair. Her blue eyes half lidded, a smile on her lips. "My Arnold." she coos, "What foolishry is she speaking of? I would never do such a thing to you my love, my all." Her smile widens, making Arnold's heart flutter, and she holds out a gloved hand to him. "Come my love. Let's leave her here with her lies. She will never understand what it is like to love and be loved."

Without warning chains appear around Helga, trying to drag her into the darkness. "Arnold!"

"Helga!" he grabs her arms and tugs against the force of the shackles, "Hold on Helga! We can save you!"

"Arnold, don't worry about me!" her breathing is short and labored, "Run! You have to run! Don't let her get you!" she struggles against the ever tightening chains, "I'll never forgive myself if she gets you!" she grabs his arms also, "Arnold, I need to tell you something!"

"What is it?" he asks through gritted teeth.

"It wasn't the heat of the moment!"

The sudden confusion is apparent as he snaps his attention to Helga, "What? What are you talking about?!"

"On the top of the FTi building when I said I love you, it wasn't the heat of the moment!" a single tear rolls down her dirtied cheek, "I've always loved you Arnold, and I always will! Now run!"

"No Helga! I'm not giving up on you! You don't either!" he shouts.

"No Arnold! You can't save me! You have to run! I love you too much for you to get caught!" Helga looks up at him and gazes into Arnold's eyes deeply. He has only seen extreme anger from her eyes until now, which reflects a deep feeling of sadness and regret. "I'm so sorry…" she barely whispers.

Almost instantly the iron chains began to glow a fierce red, growing fire hot within seconds.

"Ah!" his hands instantly let go of the burning chain, his hands screaming from the pain. Quickly he realizes what he did. "Helga!" His hand automatically shoots out to grab Helga but all he see was her body being dragged into the blackness.

He falls to his knees in deep grief. Why? Why did this happen? How could it happen? He places his head in his burnt hands, but he doesn't notice the pain. All he knows is that Helga is gone because he couldn't save her.

"Oh Arnold…" He looks up to see Cecile crouching next to him, deep worry etched in her face, "What is wrong? Why do you mourn for the girl in chains?"

"Because I couldn't save her! She was my friend, and I couldn't save her…" he looks down at a red rose that seems to appear from nowhere between his legs.

She shakes her head sympathetically, "Oh Arnold my love, no matter how hard you could have tried, in the end it would have been the same. She was doomed to be forever lost into the darkness of her own black heart. She did this to herself and she knew it from the beginning." She places a hand on his cheek and lifts his head to look into his eyes, "Why do you lie and say that you were her friend my beloved?"

"Because she is my friend!" he corrects her, the reference to Helga in past tense is upsetting him greatly, "I wasn't lying."

Cecile frowns, "How can that be true? You ignored her since the first day preschool. The only reason you paid any heed to her was when she bullied you." She stands up gracefully and holds out a hand for him, "Come. Let us leave and forget this place. Let us go where can not be troubled by our pasts."

Arnold hesitates a moment, looking back at where Helga disappeared. He let's out a deep sigh. For some reason Cecile's words didn't help his aching heart. He looks back up at Cecile's beautiful face. It seems to glow with kindness and love. He smiles back at her. He reaches up and grabs her hand and pulls himself up.

Cecile's smile widens, "You are mine now Arnold. Forever."

He looks down at his hands and is shocked when he sees them completely healed, with no scars anywhere on them. In its place is a cursive C on his right palm in jet black ink.

"Arnold." She coos, "Arnold... Arnold... Arnold..."

"Arnold! Arnold! Wake up Shortman, you have a phone call."

"Ah!" Arnold's torso shoots up in panic, his heart racing.

"Gee Arnold, you okay?"

Arnold looks over to see Grandpa sitting on the edge of his bed. He's back in his room. He nods, "Yeah Grandpa, I'm okay. Just a strange dream."

Phil raises an eyebrow in curiosity. "Weird dream huh? You didn't happen to eat raspberries before you fell asleep, did ya?"

Arnold frowns, "No, I didn't eat raspberries, Grandpa."

"Well that's a relief!"

"Didn't you say something about a phone call?"

"Oh yeah! I plum forgot. Gerald's on hold for ya downstairs. I told him I'd wake ya up so he could talk to ya." Grandpa stands up and walks to the door, stopping in the door frame. "He sounded kinda anxious if ya ask me. But it's none of my business. Say hello to Gerald for me Shortman."

"Thanks Grandpa, I'll tell him." Arnold lets out a stressful sigh as Grandpa disappears through the door, his mind still on the weird dream. It was so weird. It felt so real. Was it suppose to mean something? If so, what? He rubs his forehead irately. It's doesn't make any sense to him. Helga's fine. She isn't in any kind of trouble. She's at her Aunt's out of town. So why would he have a dream about her and Cecile? What could it mean? He shakes his head and stands up, walking down the stairs. It just doesn't make any sense to him.

He picks up the phone in the hallway on the first floor and presses the hold button. "Hey Gerald. What's up?"

"Quite a bit is up brotha. Quite a bit."

Arnold frowns, "What happened?"

"Uh..." he hesitates, "Well it's about Eugene's check."

Arnold blinks, slightly confused. Why did Gerald call to talk about this? "Yeah?"

"You see, Phoebe told me at school today that it's exactly £100."

Arnold nods to himself, thinking, "So the person that wrote it must be English. That's not going to help much."

"Yeah, but she also said she wasn't sure if it really was written by an English dude."

Arnold frowns again, "She's not sure?"

"Yeah, that's what she said."

"Wow. Someone's actually baffled Phoebe. That's a first."

"That's not the half of it. Phoebe just found something... well..." he struggles, "Unbelievable if you ask me."

"What'd she find?"

"Here, let me give the phone to her. She can explain it better."

Phoebe's at Gerald's house? "Alright." A little shuffling is heard on the other end as Gerald gives the phone to Phoebe.

"Arnold?" she asks uncertainly.

"Hey Phoebe. What did you find?"

"First, let me ask you a question."

Arnold raises an eyebrow in curiosity, "Sure, I guess."

"Have you started 'Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde'?"

He grimaces, he had forgotten all about Mr. Simmons' reading assignment until now, "I tried a couple of nights ago, but I kinda got distracted. Why?"

"I am regretful to say that I, too, have also procrastinated on reading the novel also. So I began to read the story today, unwilling to put it off any longer, and I found a rather interesting event." She takes a deep breath, as if to brace herself, "In the first chapter Mr. Enfield is telling Mr. Utterson a story about a strange door, also mentioning that a man named Mr. Edward Hyde tramples over a little girl. She was okay, but her family demanded that Mr. Hyde would pay for it. To repay them for their troubles he writes a check for £100."

Arnold's eyes widen in amazement, "It sounds exactly like what happened to Eugene!"

"I contemplate this is not a coincidence Arnold. Someone is coping Edward Hyde from the book."

Arnold shakes his head, "But who would do something like that to Eugene? Of all people, why him? That part doesn't make sense."

"Well, the most logical answer I've come up with is that it was pure chance. Eugene was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I guess that makes sense."

He hears Phoebe sigh on the other end, "In the end there's still not enough evidence to find out who ran into Eugene last night, or if something else will happen to someone else."

Arnold bites the corner of his lip in deep thought, "Hmm…"

"Do you have a thesis on this subject Arnold?" Phoebe asks hopefully.

He scratches his head, still thinking, then lets out a sigh of submission, "I really don't know. Maybe this doesn't mean anything. Maybe we're making a big deal out of nothing."

"We can only hope."

He nods in agreement, mostly for himself, "Yeah, I think so too." He lets out a long sigh, "Well, I'll see you and Gerald tonight at the theater."

"Six o'clock, correct?"

"Yup, six o'clock."

"We'll see you then Arnold."

"Yeah, see ya." He places the phone back on it's receiver, more puzzled than ever. He shakes his head. Everything that happened this afternoon is giving him a headache. Arnold rubs his temple as he walks up the stairs back into his room. Hopefully it will go away by six.