OH MY GOSH, I AM SO SORRY! [pulls on hair, gritting teeth] I am such an idiot! I almost completely forgot about my HA! fan-fics! Well, actually, I've been busy writing on my other favorite things (Wild ARMs 1, 2, & 3 [none posted yet], Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht [none posted yet], Dark Cloud 1 & 2, Harry Potter [none posted yet], Rurouni Kenshin, etc), and had kinda gotten into a MAJOR writer's block with HA! BUT, now, even though I still have the writer's block, I am going to write on my favorite HA! fan-fic to write on! I am, again, SO sorry to the people who read this fic! I probably lost your interest, didn't I?
How long did I take to update? A whole year almost? Next month, on the 30th, it will have been a whole year! Omg, I am such an IDIOT... please, please, don't beat me up too badly? ... [gets down on knees, pathetic begging look on face]
EXTRA NOTE: I warn you, I haven't been to Friday Harbor since before I began writing this fan-fic, so, I can't exactly remember the way the docks worked, so I might not be exactly correct on some things.
Disclaimer: I own Thomas, Lorelei, Emmaline, Janizzette, and any other characters I just so happen to put in here. And I do not own Hey Arnold!
Quote of the chapter: "So...we finally meet. Now, where does the real you exist?" - chaos from Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, speaking to KOS-MOS while she's "asleep".
...................................,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,................................
Arnold looked at his parents, wondering what their responses would be. Would they say something about it being rude to intrude, or just go ahead and accept the proposition? He hoped it was the latter. Why? He didn't know, but he thought it must just be the fact that he'd never slept on a boat. 'Or, is it, because you want to sleep in a room that Helga Pataki has been in before?' a voice in his mind mocked (A/n: Heheh... guess who? [if you've read 'Farewell, My Football Headed Love', you should know what I mean]), causing him to frown. Of course that wouldn't be the reason, he argued with the voice. 'Hmm... sure, sure. Whatever you want to think, kid. I'm not here to interfere or anything, I'm only your conscience.' the voice drawled sarcastically, fading away.
As soon as the voice left his head, he realized that he had missed something, because everyone was at least two yards away from him, walking towards the docks. Cursing the voice in his mind, and kicking the ground in frustration, he soon ran down the hill after them. Unfortunately, gravity decided to have a say in this, and he soon remembered that putting on the breaks from running down a moderately steep hill was not that easy. "Gah!! Stop! Watch out, I can't stop!" he shouted at random people who got in front of him.
One of them, however, did not hear his warning, and stood right where they were, causing a bit of a collision.
Arnold, annoyed with ramming into someone twice that day, cursed under his breath, and lifted his head up, from it's resting spot on the person's shoulder. He immediately looked at whoever it was' face, and his face turned a bit pink. It was a girl. A very pretty girl. 'Don't make me hurt you. I know your soulmate, I'll have you know, and that's not her!!' the voice, once again, showed up, shouting as angrily as it could. Arnold ignored it, and quickly got up off the girl, stammering apologies.
The girl sat up, narrowing her grey (he prefered to call them 'silver') eyes at him. "Next time, could you warn a girl before you jump her, you pervert?!" she exclaimed, trying her best to fix her shoulder length black with shocking pink tips hair; she then moved to fixing her tight hot-pink tank top with a broken, bleeding black heart on the front; and then lastly, moved to fixing her extremely short soft pink tight shorts, and black flip-flops.
Arnold had to scowl at her exclamation, crossing his arms over his chest. "Excuse me? I think I was just apologizing, and in case you hadn't heard, I HAD warned you, that I couldn't stop. I was trying to catch up to my family, and, well, running downhill isn't that easy, and... oh, no! Uh, er, I... I gotta go, they left without me! Sorry again!" he said in a rush, jumping up, and hurriedly ran after his family, Helga, and Emmaline. "WAIT UP!!"
The five stopped, just as they got to the bottom of the stairs to get onto the docks, and turned in his direction. By the looks on their faces, he noted, they hadn't even realized that he hadn't been with them.
At that thought, he had to frown.
He ran down the wooden planks, and then down the metal staircase, meeting up with the other five. He stood there, bent over, hands on his knees, panting for a bit, his head hung. When he caught his breath, he lifted his head, and glared at them. "Thanks for waiting." he said sarcastically, and straightened back up, looking around. "Well, what are we waiting for now? Let's go!" he said, making hand motions for them to move forward.
Once they were walking, Arnold found it slightly difficult to walk on a dock, finding that it swayed more than the ferry. Once or twice, he found himself almost falling into one of the small boats tied to it. Although, that might have been because he had been too distracted, staring down into the water at the bottom, and the fish swimming around in it.
Helga looked over her shoulder at Arnold, who she saw staring amazedly into the water, walking dangerously close to the edge of the dock. Smiling a bit in amusement, she stopped walking for a bit, until she was right beside Arnold. "You know, if you continue staring into the water, that close to the edge of the dock, evntually you're going to fall in. And, although it's not that deep, there are a few jelly fish in there that I'm sure wouldn't much like having you in there. And, I don't think you'd enjoy it much either." she teased, poking him in the shoulder, and making him look up at her, blinking.
"... oh, right." he replied after a moment, letting what she said register in his mind.
Helga put her hands together behind her back, and continued to walk, glancing at Arnold out of the corner of her eyes. "So... what held you up back there, Arnoldo?" she asked casually, using one of her old nicknames for him.
He blinked in surprise at the nickname, at first, then grinned slightly and shook his head. "I was running down that hill, and, well... I couldn't stop... and, even though I was shouting out to people to get out of my way, this one girl didn't hear me, and didn't move..." he started, reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck, chuckling slightly embarrassedly. "We kinda collided. Then she called me a pervert and to tell her the next time I was going to tackle her. Not that I would, jeez, it's not like I WANTED to in the first place -"
"What did she look like?" Helga cut him off, one of her eyes narrowed in thought.
"Well... she had silver eyes and short black hair with hot pink ends... oh, and light freckles... and she wore all black and pink... what's wrong?" when he glanced at Helga, he noticed that she was massaging her temples with her right index finger and thumb, and was shaking her head.
With a sigh, and a chuckle, Helga looked at him. "You've just met Strega Scura. Or 'Ragazza che prende il piacere nella tortura della gente', as Emmaline calls her." she stated, and at seeing confusion flash across his face, she continued. "Oh, sorry, I'm just calling her by what me and my friends call her. Strega Scura, in Italian, means 'Dark Witch'. At least, I think it does. You see, I have decided to create rude nicknames for people by using another language - by use of an online translater - that they don't know. And I told Emmaline about it, so she uses it too, but her nicknames never exactly... well... come out right... if I remember right, the translater said that 'Ragazza che prende il piacere nella tortura della gente' means 'Girl who takes the pleasure in the torture of people'... not sure..."
Arnold slightly nodded his head, once again looking down into the water beside the dock. "So, would Strega Scura be her real name or a nick name you made up for her?" he asked, looking up into Helga's blue eyes, which was slightly difficult, because she was rolling them.
"Honestly, Cabelo Menino, you actually think that's her real name, even after I said I knew what it meant? Of course that's a nickname I made up for her! Her real name's Janizzette Lennox." Helga stated, walking ahead of him, then his family, then Emmaline, and turned down a small dock that was right beside a moderately large white boat. She walked to the end of the dock, then grabbed the side of the boat, swung her left foot over the edge of it, then lifted herself all the way over onto it, turning back towards the rest. "You guys should probably use that," she pointed towards a lowered portion of the boat, with no guarding edge around it, so it was easy to use to get on.
Emmaline got on the way Helga did, and the two waited for the four Dennisons to get on. Stella bent down, and lifted Lorelei up off the ground, then placed her into the boat. Arnold then stepped up onto the lowered platform, with a slight bit of difficulty, because the boat and dock were swaying under his feet. When he finally got onto it, he opened the small gate, and stepped inside the normal area of the boat, followed by his parents.
As soon as they were on, Helga said, "Wait here just a second, I'll be right back," and walked up to two sliding screen doors, slid one to the side, stepped inside, and slid it partway closed behind her.
Arnold decided to examine the outside area of the boat while he waited for Helga to come back out. Around the inner-outside area (A/n: Oxy-moron?) were a few white plastic bags filled with black things that Arnold couldn't quite tell what were, a pair of flip-flops, a couple of small car toys ("Huh... must be Helga's little sibling's..." Arnold thought, blinking), and on each side of the sliding glass doors were two white padded seats with no backs and no arms, and plastic coverings. In front of one of those seats, was a ladder, that led up to the top of the boat. Figuring Helga would take a while, Arnold walked over to the ladder, wrapped his left hand around the left bar, his right hand around the right, and began to climb up.
"Hey, you! Uh... Arnold, was it? Yeah, that's right. What are you doing?" he heard Emmaline's voice inquire huffily, and looked down at her, to see her scowling up at him, her hands on her hips. He decided he would ignore her, and glanced up over the top of the ladder, to see four seats like the ones by the glass sliding doors, except slightly bigger, with backs, and their backs connecting two together, so it looked more like only two chairs with four seats. And in the middle, at the front, was a higher seat, with a large wheel in front of it, and a control pannel.
"HEY! I asked you something! And I know you heard me, you looked at me when you did! What are you doing?!" he, once again, heard Emmaline's annoying voice, this time he could tell she was quite irritated. Frowning, he climbed back down, almost falling because at that moment the boat decided it would rock, and turned to look at Emmaline, crossing his arms.
"I was just going to look at the top of the boat. That's all." he stated, just as the sliding glass doors slid open, and a little boy with strawberry blonde hair stumbled out, looking around at the four people he did know, with large, curious teal eyes.
"Are you the people my sister told me 'bout?" he asked, his gaze landing on Arnold. "Hey! You're that guy that my sister has a picture of in that pink book!" the boy exclaimed, clapping his hands together once, grinning. Arnold's eyes widened slightly. 'Helga has a picture of me... in a pink book? Ok, now that's... weird...' he thought, blinking.
Just as those thoughts passed through his head, Helga stepped out out the inside area of the boat, smiling slightly. 'Wow... she has really changed, more than I thought...' he thought, his face going slightly pink, when Helga's eyes immediately landed on him. "Helga! Helga! Sissy! It's... it's that boy in your pink book-!" the little boy started excitedly, turning to Helga, while pointing to Arnold, but was cut off when she wrapped her hand around his mouth, laughing nervously.
"Yeah, Thomas, this is Arnold, one of my old friends." she stated plainly, letting go of her four-year-old brother's mouth, and fixing a deathly glare on him, indicating that if he went any further with his sentence, she would no longer be an admirable big sister. Gulping, Thomas nodded, and looked towards Miles, Stella, and Lorelei, his gaze actually landing on Lorelei. "And those are his parents and little sister. Why don't you go introduce yourself?" Helga gave him a push in their direction, and he shyly made his way over to them.
"Hi. I'm Thomas Pataki..." he murmered, looking up at Miles and Stella, then down at Lorelei, who was standing a bit behind her mother's leg, peeking around at Thomas. "Who are you?" he asked, mostly directing his question at Lorelei.
"Hello, Thomas. I am Stella, he's Miles, and she's our daughter, Lorelei. How old are you?" Stella asked, squatting down to be eye-level with Thomas, making Lorelei have to move a bit more to the side.
"Four." he answered, grinning at Lorelei, who smiled back, very slightly.
"Oh? You and Lorelei are the same age... Come on Lorelei, come and say hi." Stella smiled, reaching back, and pushing Lorelei forward, despite her slightly frightened expression.
"Hi, Thomath..." Lorelei muttered, hiding her hands behind her back, and looking back at her mom. Stella just smiled, and nodded once. "I'm Lorelei Dennithon..."
"Hi Lorelei! Wanna see my cars? They're cool! They would like you, and you could play with my purple one! Come on!" he exclaimed happily, grabbing Lorelei's hand, and dragging her towards the cars next to one of the white seats. Lorelei, her face cherry red, looked back at her mom, obviously for help, to get her away from Thomas. Stella just smiled widely, and shook her head, much to Lorelei's horror. Thomas stopped walking, and Lorelei looked at him, to see him holding a small purple hot wheels convertable with silver flames out to her. She took it, looked down at it, then back up at Thomas, blinking.
"... I love cars..." she stated, quietly, smiling a bit at Thomas, who simply beamed like Christmas had come in July.
Thomas turned around, and bent down next to the white seat, reaching underneath it, and pulling out a bit larger of a toy car. As soon as his hand, holding the car, came out from underneath the seat, three moderately large fuzzy black jumping spiders (A/n: That is what I call them, at least) came running out from under it, and as Thomas raised his hand, one of the spiders was raised into the air with it. "... cool! Spiders!" Thomas exclaimed, grinning even more, and whirled around, causing the spider attached to the spiderweb on his hand to fly off it, and right towards - of course - Miles.
The spider landed on Miles' shirt, making him emit a loud shriek. "I HATE SPIDERS!!" he screamed, and began trying desperately to wipe the spider off his shirt. When that didn't work, he began shaking violently, still trying desperately to dust it off. Stella just sighed, smacked her forehead, and shook her head.
Helga was trying hard not to break into hysterical laughter, because while Miles was having a fit because of the spider on his shirt, the two other spiders had crawled in her and Arnold's direction, and Arnold had climbed halfway up the ladder, backwards. Choking back her laughter, Helga stepped on the spiders, and looked up at Arnold, smirking. "You can come down, now, Arnold. The big bad spiders are smooshed." she teased, causing him to scowl, and climb back down.
"Ha, ha, ha. Very, very funny, Helga. Might I mention all those times you've gone into fits over rats? Like that time on the subway-" he started, but was cut off by Helga.
"Ok, ok, so I have a paranoia of rats. You dislike spiders - and I can tell where you get that..." she glanced in Miles' direction, seeing that he was practically doing a jig to get the spider off - the spider that was already off, in the water, and drowned. Chuckling, she looked back at Arnold, who still had a bit of a scowl on his face. "Oh come on, Cabelo Menino, I am just teasing you. I've changed - I don't mean it anymore. I mean, I do mean that I now know that you have a bit of a fear of spiders..."
"No I don't, I just... uh... dislike them, like you said." he interrupted, and Helga just snickered, shaking her head.
"Right, right, whatever you say. Anyway, I don't mean any of it in an insulting way. It's ok for everyone to have something they fe... I mean, hate that much. I would be a hypocrite, if I actually meant it, wouldn't I? Don't listen to me." she stated, then suddenly remember why they were there in the first place. "Oh! Right, anyway, Miriam says that it's fine for you to stay here. She said that your parents can sleep on the fold out couch, Lorelei can sleep in the v-berth with me and Thomas, and you can sleep on the floor."
At the last part, Arnold rolled his eyes. "Oh good. The floor."
...................................,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,................................
A/n: Ok, so, it's not a very long chapter, sorry about that... but, it's a chapter! And, gah, I meant for it to be funny, but it came out kinda stupid... Grack... sorry... And I'm sorry again about the LONG delay! Forgive me? Please? If you don't, because of how long this took and how bad it sucked and how short it is, then I understand. But I plan to update much sooner this time! I really do!
And please, those of you who actually are still reading this, review! Please! I miss seeing those wonderful little emails in my inbox...