A/N: Thanks to DarthRoden for the encouragement. :) I realise this chapter comes out rather soon, but I was struck by inspiration (at 04:30 this morning!)
Arnold and Gerald sat lazily on the steps outside of the Sunset Arms, idly tossing a ball to one another. It was Sunday, and both boys were broke and lacking in things to do. "You want to go over to Gerald field and play a bit of baseball?" Arnold suggested.
"No can do Arnold, we lost the bat under a bus last week remember?" Gerald replied, throwing the ball too wide for Arnold, who almost fell off his step trying to reach it. Arnold begrudgingly got up and retrieved it.
"You wanna go throw rocks at dumpster?" he said in a scowling voice, and both boys laughed.
"That's the best impression of Helga G. Pataki I've heard in a long time," Gerald said, and he began to laugh even harder.
"Whatcha laughing at fellas?" came the familiar drawl of Stinky Peterson. He was ambling up behind Gerald in his usual lanky fashion, accompanied by Sid and Harold. They too looked bored as sin, it was just one of thise days.
"Oh Arnold's just making with the funny as usual," said Gerald in a tired tone. The boys sat around on Arnold's stoop, not talking, just contemplating their wasted weekend. Suddenly, Sid sat up with a jerk.
"Right, that's it, I'm going frog catching. Who's with me?" This was followed by rallying cries of agreement, and together the five boys set off for the muddy pond.
It had been a great trial for Helga to heave herself out of bed that morning.Without Arnold to worship she felt empty and lost. She still had the feelings for him, they weren't as easy to throw out as all the poetry and chewed bits of gum, but she was repressing them, denying them in the hope that they would just melt away. She had sluggishly pulled her pink dress over her head and brushed her hair up into it's usual pigtails. For a second she had considered not looping her bow on top of her head as usual, it was her safety net on any other day. Arnold liked her bow. If she had it on her head, Arnold liked something about her, and that sustained her and kept her hopeful. But now that Arnold was no longer her be all and end all, she had no need for it. However, she put it on anyway. It completed her.
That morning, as she refused to spoon soggy cornflakes down her throat despite her mother's protests, Miriam just assumed she was still suffering the aftermath of her flu. Helga wouldn't have gotten out of bed at all if it hadn't been for Phoebe's late night call to her, begging her to meet her at her house. She said she had something very important to say, something that would explain everything and something that she couldn't just say to her over the phone. Helga knew that she just wanted to apologise in person, but she went along with it anyway. After she had left the house, with absolutely no protest from her mother, Helga trudged to Phoebe's house with her eyes fixed on the pavement. She was still battling the war inside her with her loyalty to Phoebe, her love of Arnold, and the undeniable need she had to defend him.
She rang Phoebe's doorbell and sighed. She had never realised that accepting the truth and letting go of Arnold would leave her feeling so low. It was Phoebe's mother who answered. "Hello there Helga," she said in her warm Kentucky accent.
"Hey Mrs. Hyerdahl, is Phoebe home?" Helga droned.
"No I'm afraid she isn't. That nice Gerald boy invited her to the pond with all the other kids. She said you'd be round though and she asked me to tell you to meet her there." Helga nodded and set off for the pond. She wasn't in the mood to face 'all the other kids', she wasn't much in the mood to speak to anyone, but she went along anyway. The whole journey there she contemplated giving in to her feelings, but she had suffered enough. She was just going through a rough patch, things would get better, they just had to. It's never easy to let go of the one you love.
When Helga arrived at the pond, she saw that Mrs. Hyerdahl hadn't been exaggerating. Every kid from Helga's fourth grade class was gathered around the pond, even Rhonda, who usually avoided mud like the plague. She was leaning against a tree, chatting to Nadine and examining her nails. "What are you doing here Princess?" Helga grunted as she shuffled past. Rhonda shrugged.
"Nothing else to do."
Helga scanned the crowds for Phoebe, but as usual, her eyes came to rest on Arnold. He was laughing and playing with a frog he had just caught. Her heart felt like it would shatter, and tears formed in her eyes. She couldn't let him go, she just couldn't. Without him, she had nothing, she needed him, no matter what Phoebe said. She felt someone tugging on her arm. "Hey Pheebs," she said, in barely a whisper.
"You're looking at him still, aren't you?" Phoebe sighed.
"I'm pathetic, aren't I?" said Helga, finally tearing her eyes away and plopping herself down on a moss covered log.
"No Helga, I get what you see in him, I really do," said Phoebe in her usual fairy voice. Something snapped in Helga's head, she made an equation of her own.
"Don't say you-" Helga gulped, "you like him too? God Phoebe, don't I have competition enough? You're supposed to be my best friend, and here you are conspiring against me!" Helga angrily got to her feet. "This is why you dragged me down here? To make my life that much harder?" She stomped off, and Phoebe made to stop her.
"Helga, I-" she began, but Helga was already half way towards leaving. Helga stopped next to Rhonda, not being able to carry on, the pain and hurt inside her building up and stopping her in her tracks. She leaned against a tree, clutching at her chest and doing everything in her power not to burst into hysterical screams. She wanted to run, but she couldn't move.
"Are you ok Helga?" asked Rhonda, for once genuinely concerned. Helga had a cutting remark on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't wheeze it past her lips. Thankfully for her, everyone's attention was grabbed by Sheena's voice crackling over a megaphone.
"Ok everyone, time for a little competiton! You've been divided into two teams and Sid, you're not allowed to compete." Sid's cries of outrage could be heard without a megaphone, but he was appeased when Sheena told him it was only because he was too good and it would be unfair. Helga snorted and sat back down to compose herself, as the teams dove into the water. She noticed that Arnold, too, wasn't competing. Phoebe came and sat next to her, and before Helga could say or do anything, Phoebe spoke.
"I don't have a crush on Arnold, Helga," she said quickly.
"Oh really, so what's with the pretending to hate him all of the sudden?" Helga said, emphasising the word pretending, half to accuse Phoebe of lying and half to make it not true.
"I'm not pretending," Phoebe said meekly, and Helga's heart sank.
"But you said you could see why I..." she couldn't say 'love him'. It was what she was trying to escape.
"But now I understand why I... object to him," Phoebe said eagerly. "You're my best friend-"
"So? What's that got to do with anything?" Helga snapped, cutting her off.
"You see-"
"You guys not catching frogs?" came a familiar voice, and Phoebe rolled her eyes at being interrupted once more.
"Well doi," said Helga scathingly, cursing herself and feeling Phoebe's reproachful look.
"Oh, well, they're coming back in now, I hope Gerald's team wins," Arnold said supportively, trying to get along. He had never had a reason to believe Phoebe disliked him, and he liked Helga, regardless. He couldn't explain it, he just did. Maybe it was because she was so different to all the other girls he knew.
"Whoopee," Helga said sarcastically and slumped forward. Even Arnold noticed that she was feeling low. Just then all the other kids swarmed in from the pond and begun counting their frogs and tossing them back into the pond. Gerald's team won by a long way, and he and Arnold exchanged their usual best friend's handshake.
Later that day everyone was gathered at the side of the pond, watching the sun set and lazily chatting amongst themselves. Phoebe and Helga had stayed too, Phoebe talking about anything except Arnold, although she had now made it very clear to Helga that she had no romantic intentions toward him. Helga herself had been drawing love hearts in the dirt with a stick, tracing in Arnold's initials and hastily scratching them out when she thought someone was coming, not really listening to Phoebe at all. Eventually the whole group got into a discussion about school, even Phoebe participated but Helga sat on the sidelines, feeling sad.
"I don't see why we have to go to school five days a week," wailed Harold, "why can't we learn just one day a week, or none?"
"This way we can learn the most while or brains can absorb it much easily Harold," Phoebe chimed in.
"And Simmons is such a "special" teacher," Rhonda mocked.
"Hey, c'mon," interjected Arnold, "he's not that bad."
"Oh of course, you'd defend him," Phoebe cut in, and Arnold looked at her, amazed. No one else seemed to have noticed it though and Arnold let it pass.
"Don't we have that project next week, that one that's supposed to 'ecourage co-operation'?" Sid sneered.
"Oh, the one with the lurve story?" Stinky drawled in a dreamy voice.
"What project is this?" Arnold ask, genuinely not knowing what they were one about.
"Oh you know," Rhonda explained, "the project where we have to pair up and write a love story, and we have to agree on every detail. Like whether it has a sad or happy ending and everything. At least we get to pick who we pair up with." My love story would have a sad ending, thought Helga. She hated Simmons and his love of pairing them up and making them co-operate. Especially when Simmons knew how astounding her creative writing could be when she was left to her own devices.
"That sounds ever so wonderful," Lila gushed.
"It's going to be a nightmare, I hate all that schmultzy stuff," groaned Gerald.
"I don't know Gerald," said Arnold cheekily, slyly looking at Lila, "it could be fun." Phoebe snapped.
"Oh Arnold, that's it! You're always so upbeat, aren't you! Well stop it! Stop walking around like everything's so great for you, forcing your sickly-sweet optimism down our throats! You don't know how everyone here is feeling, maybe they're not in the mood for you to be so bright and sunny, maybe it's killing them!" Her eyes flicked to Helga, who was watching her in astonishment, as was everyone else. "You drive me, and I'm sure some other people, crazy! And do you know what the worst part is? Do you?" She was shrieking at Arnold now. He was sitting with his mouth hanging open as if Phoebe had slapped him. He slowly shook his head. "The worst part is that you're so damn dense!" And with that Phoebe stamped out of the woods and walked home on her own for the first time in her life.
Helga quickly found herself the centre of attention, which was the last thing she wanted to be. "What was all that about?" Gerald said to her, throwing Arnold a worried sideways glance. Any feelings he may have been slowly building up for Phoebe had been burned out in that second. Arnold was staring at his hands, he'd never been yelled at like that before and he certainly didn't expect it from Phoebe. "Well?" Gerald demanded of Helga again. The dejected shrug and incoherent mumble that came from Helga seemed to throw everyone off. She didn't even look up from the dirty ground. Everyone made their excuses at this point and began to wander home, until only Arnold and Helga were left alone, both too absorbed in their sadness and disbelief to speak.