Chapter 3: Behind the looking glass
Disclaimer: I do not own Hey Arnold. Although I really wish I did... I also do not own the lyrics I used in this chapter which is actually a song from Switchfoot entitled "This is your Life." I recommend Switchfoot's "The Beautiful Letdown" album...great songs and great lyrics to contemplate on.
This Chapter is dedicated to my Grandparents who both passed away when I was on college...and I miss them so much. I end this chapter on the death anniversary of my grandmother.
Life is just like a dream.
Like that nursery rhyme from Kindergarten, a song didn't exactly make that much sense, much like Life.
And now death.
The last memory I had, was getting shot and blacking out. The last thought in my mind was that I knew I was about to die at the dusty cold store-room of some quickie mart. And then my next conscious thought, is now. I don't remember anything else that went in between that and this moment.
I look around at my surroundings with a sense of puzzlement. Instead of the store-room where I expected to be, I'm outside in the bright daylight. Instead of lying in the pool of my own blood, I was lying in a soft blanket of freshly cut grass under a big oak tree.
A small distance away from me a small throng of people gathered in a tight cluster amidst some vertical marble rocks that stood within neat rows of each other. I was puzzled for only a moment when things slowly fell into place. I was at a place I was all too familiar with within the last few years of my life, the cemetery. I knew that a funeral service was being performed for someone who had recently passed away.
And I had a pretty good idea whom it was for.
Slowly, I stood up, brushed the dirt from my clothes, idly wondering if such an action even matters here in death and walked slowly towards the gathered group. The turn-out was slightly moderate, not too many people attended but I'm sure that whoever it was that was lying in the casket at the center of the crowd wouldn't have minded. After all, funerals are nothing more but something close to a rite of passage that just had to be gotten over with.
Most of the faces, I recognized although there were quite a few I did not know at all. Most of the people were wearing black or dark hues, except for a girl at the edge of the crowd who seemed to be dressed for a stroll in the park rather than a funeral. Well at least she had bothered to attend.
I can't deny that a small part of me was looking amongst the crowd for a face that I have never seen before but I would be sure to recognize in an instant. I was looking for a light blond haired man, perhaps in his early forties, sporting a strong jaw and a beautiful brunette, whose head is shaped oddly like a football, standing close in tears.
I wanted to see them...considering that their son has just passed away.
But much like life was there were nowhere in sight. I suppose death hasn't really changed the reality of the life that I had lived. My parents were not present and never will be, just like they never were in my life. And chances are they don't even know that the family they had left behind for their unknown quest is all gone, I thought bitterly.
At the thought, I feel myself literally sinking down as if the ground was about to swallow me whole. My vision begins to blur and I feel panic surge through me as an unknown sensation began to grip whatever is left of me. In an instant, several images seemed to flash right before me while I looked on as a passive observer...
I see a happy young couple carrying a small baby boy with a blue hat gurgling in delight at the attention showered upon him.
I see the same couple hand the baby boy to an old couple with looks of disappointment and sadness etched in their faces.
I see the old couple taking care of the little boy while occasionally darting earnest looks towards the door, as if they were expecting someone.
I see a little sitting quietly in a corner while other kids toured the school with their parents.
I see that little boy growing up to be me…
As fast as the images flashed so did it fade to nothingness. In the unknown darkness, I felt that I am being dragged to somewhere frightening and cold and I had an insane urge to claw my way out of this oblivion. I screamed and screamed, hoping to get myself out of what I know is a waking nightmare, but I could not hear my voice.
And I wonder if this was truly the end...
"Get a move on it!"
A voice shattered the darkness around me and in an instant I was back at the cemetery with the sunlight streaming down through fluffy white clouds. Instinctively, I took a step back in shock while grabbing my head in hopes to steady myself. Once I got my bearings straight, I looked towards the direction of the voice only to see that casually dressed girl with her arms crossed and frowning impatiently at something she was looking at.
What the hell just happened!
I gulped and put my hand towards my chest, surprised to feel my 'dead' heart racing like a wild horse. For a moment, I had lost control and was being hurled away from the present. The bitter taste of what I know as fear began to manifest at the back of my throat. Whatever happened just now could happen again at any given moment and without warning. Unconsciously, I took a deep breath trying to pull myself together and focus at something else, anything else other than fear.
I clung to the soft murmuring erupting from the funeral crowd, hoping that the distraction can keep me calm. I look up to see the crowd, parting a little as the minister, who was standing in front of a sealed coffin announced that someone has a decided to provide a song for those who have gathered.
A sealed coffin...
And I thank whoever it was up there for that blessed detail.
A thin pale looking young man stepped forward, his once curly red head now cropped short. He walked in silence towards the front, until he managed to stumble on some invisible rock, luckily getting his arm out on time to brace his fall on the uneven ground, eliciting some muffled laughter from the crowd in the process. He looked up and gave a feeble laugh before resuming his trek to the front. Yes, at eighteen, despite all the changes, Eugene still was something akin to a klutz.
It didn't come to me as a surprise that Eugene was the one who was supposed to sing the tribute to me. Ever since 9th grade, Eugene had continued to cultivate his singing talent. Whereas before, he used to sing in musicals, now he sings for a small rock band. I found his choice rather odd but I never asked him why. Gone was the impish childhood squeak his voice had and was replaced by a deeper drawl.
Thankfully, Eugene reached the front without any additional fanfare. He cleared his throat and began to speak. "I came here today with a song already prepared as we bid goodbye to our good friend, Arnold." He paused for a moment, staring into space, as if he was trying to wait for the words to come to him.
I wonder who put Eugene up to this considering I hadn't really known Eugene as much, even when we were younger. That was primarily due to the running joke of Eugene being the human jinx. But despite all that, our paths still crossed and for the bad that appeared to surround him, there was a strong boy bursting with talent. Sadly, it seems to me that we parted a lot more since I got back. Sure enough, we were civil and greeted each other but I rarely had time to talk to him and ask him how he was doing. It was only on a few occasions when I watched his band at a local restaurant that I found time to sit with him, but we never really had much to talk about other than music. Nonetheless, I felt glad that despite years he had still considered me enough of a friend that he would lend his talent to this occasion.
"As I stood here, I remembered what Arnold was to all of us. He was a good friend. We have all changed in the past years but Arnold was more than the forever optimist that we all have known him to be." Eugene continued, his eyes appearing to be glassy.
An optimist? Now there's one word I wouldn't use to describe myself. Of course, not many people actually know the changes and events that had haunted me in my life. If there was anything that the years have thought me, is that the world was not as happy as it seemed to be. Rather, it was indifferent to anything, to anyone.
When I was younger, I always thought that there was magic in the world and in the end it was the person looking in that made all the difference in the world. But as I grew older, I began to doubt such philosophy. I began to realize that you don't really have anyone but yourself. That there was really no magic. I always felt that the years has curbed down my childhood optimism in favor of a more subdued, yet positive, attitude. It was not something that I showed people outright. And of course, there would be no point in correcting Eugene, considering my current predicament.
"Until today, he remains to be the person that we all wanted to be more off." Eugene continued. "In his passing, he leaves us a question that I think he would want us to consider especially now that we are about to graduate and move on with the rest of our lives."
As he took a deep breath and began to sing, I felt as if time took that breath along with him, waiting in anticipation. If there was any testament regarding, Eugene's talent, it would be now as he sung without the aid of any musical accompaniment. This voice was melodic at the same time as it was haunting. What puzzled me was his choice of song for the dead; it wasn't exactly the standard issued funeral song.
Yesterday
is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you've
broken
Don't
close your eyes, don't close your eyes
This is your life and
today is all you've got now
Yeah, and today is all you'll ever
have
Don't close your eyes
Don't close your eyes
This
is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, are
you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you
dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger
And
you had everything to lose
I looked around, wondering if the others were as puzzled as I am and it came to me as a surprise that they weren't. Somehow, it was as if Eugene was singing, a song not for those who has passed away, but for those who have been left behind as it appeared to touch a chord in each of the people gathered in my funeral. It was at this moment that I took a time-out to study the people who have gathered here.
On one side stood a group of my high-school friends, most of which were my original batch mates from PS 118. Leading the group was Gerald and Phoebe. My best friend had a stony look and his eyes appeared to be detached, as if he was thinking about something else other than my funeral. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought he didn't really care and be disappointed, after all I am, or was, his best friend and he should be the one singing a tribute, not really Eugene.
But then again, Gerald never really had a good signing voice and upon closer inspection, his eyes held a tinge of red and I knew that Gerald was grieving much more than he was willing to show in public. Phoebe was on his side, holding on to his arm for support while occasionally dabbing a tissue under her glasses to try to stop the tears that kept on flowing down her eyes. It had always been quiet sight for me to see Gerald and Phoebe together, after all Gerald did tower over her oriental frame by more than a foot. But Phoebe held a quiet strength which held the two of them together through the years.
Along the front row was Rhonda together with Nadine and their clique of girls and their corresponding boy friends. It was only logical for the "In Crowd" to be out in front. After all these years, Rhonda was still the fashion princess who wanted to be at the center of everyone's attention, with a slight twist that even I was surprised of. Apparently, Rhonda never got over those neat little 'clairvoyance' tricks she used to impose on us while we were younger, and she turned out to be more into the ethereal sort of thing than anyone else. Although, some people would have classified her as a Goth or gypsy like, that was not really the case once you mix fashion and style which Rhonda seemed to manage perfectly well.
Lila was also out in front, weeping visibly like some kind of widow. Beside her was her current boyfriend, some guy from the football team, with a comforting arm around her shoulder. Perhaps when I was younger, I would have felt jealousy surge through me at the sight of the girl with another guy, after all I had spent a part of my short life pinning after her. Instead, I feel a strange kind of relief. Throughout the years, Lila had grown to be more beautiful than anything in my childhood fantasies could ever fathom but I have developed a strange kind of detachment from her. It was difficult to explain what happened between the two of us...in fact I doubt I really understood it.
Harold was present with the rest of West Hillwood's varsity who's who. Harold was now sporting a shining bald head and had grown out the baby fat and converted them to sheer muscle that turned to out to be source of the school's football victories. A smaller group composed of Sid, Stinky and Sheena were solemnly hanging out in the back. Besides Gerald, the only ones that really stuck by me were those two guys. Occasionally, they would send me, a much appreciated, invite to play some ball or play a videogame over the Internet.
It was a surprise for me to see Curly and Brian, or rather Brainy, come to my funeral. Ever since junior high, those two drifted away from everyone. They kept mostly to themselves ignoring greetings from the rest of the gang. Brian, in particular, seemed to harbor some ill feelings towards me. He never said anything but every time we cross paths I feel like he's looking at me with contempt and I had no idea how that came to be. Sure, we weren't close when we were younger but we never really bothered with each other too much to harbor anything more than a passive acquaintance. I shook the thought away, perhaps I was mistaken about Brian, and after all he actually bothered to come to my funeral.
On the other side were "older" crowd. Mr. Simmons and a few of my teachers came. All the Sunset Arms boarders, both existing and those who had moved away, came to say goodbye. The old couple from the convenience store was present as well. They looked like they had just lost a son, whereas I was glad that they survived. I new wave of bitter memories was over me over seeing them sad. They reminded me too much of my own grandparents, who grieved when I left for my short trip a few years ago. I certainly, hope that there was someone out there to take care of me. I was all too familiar with how difficult it is to be alone and how much harder it be if you are older.
I wasn't surprised to see the Pataki family, with the exception of Miriam Pataki, out in full force. Big Bob Pataki's hulking form stood out with a gruff look on his face, as if he was attending a board meeting rather than a funeral. While Olga and her husband took turns handling their new baby. Given a few years back, I would doubt that that they would even bother to remember me and my grandparents. Certainly, time has a strange way of changing things. And it all started to change at the death of the youngest Pataki daughter.
Helga...
A soft cry pierced through Eugene's song, which made everyone look toward the baby that Olga was carrying. Olga blushed in embarrassment and whispered something to her husband's ear. Then she glanced at her father who gave her a curt nod before walking away with her crying baby.
I followed Olga away from my funeral. Perhaps, there was something about the way she whispered a hush lullaby softly in order to calm the young one that seemed to calm me as well. Or maybe, I really just wanted to get the hell away from my own funeral.
I smiled at the obvious affection that Olga was giving her son. The air around them seemed to shimmer as her baby responded with a small chuckle at Olga's funny face attempts, and I wonder if this is how happiness must look like.
I remember the moments I shared with my grandparents and the boarders. Those strange days where my grandmother actually mistook Christmas for Thanksgiving, causing a small, albeit fun, riot in Sunset Arms.
I remember the smile in the faces of people whom I knew and some I never exchanged names with, after I had helped them through one of their problems or even ran a simple errand for them.
I remember the moments, I spent with my friends playing baseball in Geraldfield and then after a tiring game grabbing some ice cream from the passing vendor.
I remember my best friend and our special handshake.
I remember that day when I helped saved the neighborhood and the bully in pink who turned out to be more than just an ally.
"You know..." Olga's voice broke me out of my reverie. "Funerals are supposed to be sad but you shouldn't be sad for Arnold. I know you haven't really met him yet, but he's a great boy. And I know he'll be okay. I know she'll be out there to help him wherever he may be."
I could feel my brow furrowing at Olga's words. Who was she talking about? I step closer hoping to hear more of what she was saying and perhaps find the identity of whoever she was talking about. Then Olga seemed to look right at me, making me freeze at my tracks. I wonder if she could see me giving me a strange kind of hope. But then Olga blinked and turned away from me...and I knew there was no way for her to know that I am actually "present"...I'm dead after all.
"I hope she's happy right now." Olga whispered wistfully while staring at the bright blue sky. "I miss her so much..." A small gurgle brought Olga back to her baby and she hugged him closer. "Do you want to know who I'm talking about?"
Yes. I whisper hoping that she would grant my request.
Olga laughed lightly. "I wish you could have met her. She was really something else. She's my..."
"Football head!"
I haven't heard that name for a long time. Nor was it something I couldn't forget. My focus immediately went from the soothing sound of Olga's voice to some brash high-pitched sound of what I have always known to be as my childhood nemesis. I whirled back and what I saw left my mouth hanging open. And I wonder how I could not have recognized her from before. That casually dressed girl from the funeral...
My actions elicited a soft chuckle. "Take a picture football head. It'll last longer!"
For a moment, I didn't want to believe what I was hearing. After all, I'm already dead and who knows if there's anything left out of my 'physical' senses. Yet that moment of hesitation was squashed the moment I looked up and saw the same crystal blue eyes of a girl I had known since pre-school.
"Helga?" I whispered, my jaw hanging slightly in awe.
"In the flesh." She flashed me that trademark bully smirk. "Or shall we say, in the spirit."
I don't really remember grabbing her or holding her in my arms. But I do remember how sweet it was to hold her and somehow knowing that she too can feel me. I don't know if I imagined it but I felt her return my hug ever so slightly before shoving me away like always.
"Crimeny!" She grumbled and shot me a piercing look. "Don't get too mushy on me football head!" She made such a big production out it and appeared to dust some invisible speck from her shoulder.
"I'm sorry…" Instinctively, I put my hand behind my head, a sure sign of my discomfort and that was the way it has always been with this girl. To be honest, I wasn't exactly sure why I reacted that way to Helga, I suppose it comes naturally along with the fact that I haven't exactly seen her for the last four years.
"It's just that…you're dead." I stammered, knowing fully well that it was exactly the best thing I could say to tick her off.
"Doi." Helga flashed the same scowl that haunted my childhood years. "Tell me something I don't know, Arnoldo!"
She was wearing her trademark colors as I have always remembered; soft pink shirt, white baggy shorts and a pair of worn running shoes. Her blonde hair was tied back in a neat ponytail held firmly by a pink ribbon. But there was something odd about her the way she looked, something I can't seem to put my finger on. There was something about her that seemed too familiar and yet it was out of place. Then it hit me, and I couldn't help but say what was going through my head.
"Helga!" I gasped not sure to be amazed or alarmed. "Why are you like that?"
"Like what?" Her frown deepened and somewhere at the back of my mind, a part of me was telling me to stop pissing her off before I get reacquainted with the famous 'Ol Betsy while another was dying of curiosity but then again I'm already dead so I just took the plunge.
"Like you're…"
"A kid?" Helga asked, while one of her thick eyebrows shot up.
"Not really…" I trailed off, feeling more and more embarrassed by the second. She wasn't exactly the same kid with two spunky pigtails with a matching unibrow and scowl to match. But none the less, she has looked unchanged ever since I last remembered her. And I never really knew Helga that well to be asking things quite bluntly. "Not really a kid but you know…younger…older..."
I looked down and if I could see myself, or what was left me, I swear I'd be red in the face. I was surprised that rather than getting angry, Helga just gave a small laugh. I looked up and when she saw the confused look on my face, it made her laugh harder.
After a while, her laughter subsided into small chuckles and she was able to answer back. "You haven't changed at all." She flashed me one of those rare smiles catching me a little off guard. "Does it really matter that I look like this?"
Did it matter? I suppose I part of me was surprised because a part of me expected Helga to be my age. It's not like I had to look down that much to meet her eyes; Helga has always been a tall girl. Even if I'm supposed to conversing with a younger version of herself, I didn't have to look down too much to meet her eyes. But it did make me feel a little weirded out and it I wonder what more oddities are out here in the after life. But then again, Helga never had the opportunity to turn eighteen.
"This was what I looked liked when I died." She whispered it so softly, that it I wasn't standing so close to her I wouldn't have been able to catch it. "If you remember, I died a couple years before you."
"I remember..." I whispered just as softly. And I remember it wasn't actually something that I considered as a happy moment.
"Time doesn't matter here, football head. Neither will anything that resembles the world that you lived in." Helga went on, as if she hasn't heard me. "And pretty soon you won't care about those things anymore. You'll be able to do anything you want. "
To be honest, I wasn't exactly listing to Helga that much. I was too busy studying the girl in front of me. Nine years ago, I remembered her death came so sudden that not having someone call me football head and annoy me on a regular basis was something out of the ordinary. It was Helga's death that seemed to have knocked the wind off my sails. It was the first time I encountered death and since then things were never be the same. And there was that questions that lay between us that have never been answered.
I squashed those thoughts, now didn't feel like the right time to even bother thinking about that. Helga seemed to have moved on, in more ways than one. It was only luck that Helga didn't notice my absent minded behavior and had not bothered to grate me about it. Or maybe she did but she was just looking at me with a small sad smile on her face and tilted her head to the side as if she was waiting for an answer to something that she had said.
"What?" I asked sounding a little breathless for my own good.
Helga stepped closer and gave me a pat on the back. "It's been nice to see you and all but It's time to get going now, Arnold."
Arnold. It has been quite rare that Helga has addressed me using my name and on those occasions I felt that something has always been up. "What are you talking about?" I surveyed the cemetery which was as tranquil as ever.
"Well the service is over." Helga jabbed a finger at the direction of dispersing crowd and I was surprised at how fast it actually ended where for me it had barely just begun. "I hope you've said your goodbyes since you have to get going now."
"I just got here and I don't think the dead has anywhere else to go." I asked, voicing my confusion.
"Sure they do." Helga gave me an all knowing smirk. "You started to go just a while ago."
"A while ago?" I scratched my head trying to figure out what she was trying to say.
"You started to go when Olga was singing or whatever to her kid or something." Helga gave an exasperated sigh.
Olga and her baby? I had a brief recollection of Olga singing something to her baby and how wonderfully loving the lullaby sounded. But I didn't go anywhere at that time. I only left when...
"Are you talking about the darkness?" I asked her quietly feeling the dread fill me once again at the possibility that I have to face such thing again.
"Of course not! This is why you shouldn't stay here." She sighed and shook her head. "This place will just bring you bad memories, it will tie you down. It will just bring you down and keep you locked here forever. You got a better place to go."
"How do you know that?" I found it strange that she could have read my mind but then again, even when we were alive, Helga had that uncanny ability to know my thoughts. I looked up in the sky hoping to see some kind of a miracle that only the dead could. But then again the sky remained the same.
"Other ghosts and spirits floating around this joint." Helga answered in a matter-of-factly tone. "The dead has to move on, that's the rule. There's a better place out there, devoid of pain and suffering."
"Heaven?"
"Heaven, Nirvana, Paradise whatever bucko." Helga shrugged. "You can call it whatever you like but you can't stay here."
"Why not?"
"Dammit, Footballhead!" Helga muttered, clenching her fists. "What's with all the questions?"
"Give me a break, Helga" I laughed hoping to disperse her stress and mine as well. "I just died. Weren't you a little bit curious once you finally realized that there really was life after death?"
"Of course I was!" Helga threw her hands in the air in exasperation. "Well that is after I got over the fact that my body was six feet under with a bunch of maggots tearing through my flesh and…"
"Umm…" I was beginning to feel queasy with the imagery. "Can we skip that part, I just got buried you know."
"You asked for it." She shrugged. "So look you wanna leave now before your body turns into ashes and you get to see that mental image for real."
"Come off it, Helga. Look what's so wrong in staying here a while. Looks like I got nothing better to do and if the stuff in religion is true, I got the whole of eternity ahead of me."
"That's not the point! You're supposed to spend the rest of eternity away from this joint. Living people don't call it "hell on earth" for nothing you know. Somewhere out there is a place where you will be happy and float around with the angels and stuff!"
"Then what are you doing here?" I paused and narrowed my eyes at her in scrutiny. "You're not my guardian angel right?"
"I suppose I don't look like your regular cherub huh?" Helga laughed.
"Nah...more like the grim reaper."
"In fact that's what I do around this place." She smirked, making me feel a little nervous. To be honest, I haven't gotten over those little things that remind of the bully from the 9th grade. "I escort people to the next level...or at least I try to."
"Did God ask you or something?" I asked curious. I don't even know if there is a God but right now, I think there's something more to the afterlife than I have begun to grasp. "Is there a God?"
"Something like that." She muttered. "I can't really tell you much. That is something you have to realize for yourself."
"Do you need a helper?" Helga seemed to be taken aback by the question.
"You can't stay here, Arnold. You just can't." She paused a little, her big blue eyes becoming clouded.
"Why not?"
"There are things that I don't completely understand. Things I can never really explain to you. This place is not what it seems to be. It's dangerous here. And You know what I am talking about." She gave me a pointed look. "You were slipping away a while ago."
My experience with the darkness was not something that I think I will forget anytime soon. It was something that I didn't understand that happened unexpectedly without warning. I know that the right thing to do was to move on to whatever Helga was referring to. I know I can easily escape it but right now I don't want to go... Just not yet.
"Wouldn't we safer now that we're together?"
Helga looked liked she was about to protest but then stopped in mid stride. "Okay whatever floats your boat. If you get in trouble here don't expect me to sell my soul or something to get you out. So what do you want to accomplish before you cross to the great beyond?"
"I dunno." To be honest, I was a little surprised that Helga gave up so easily in trying to get rid of me. But then again, perhaps its just plain luck that she agreed. "Find out who killed me. Bring a little bit of justice to this place. Save the neighborhood once again?" I rambled without really putting much thought behind my words.
"Yeah right." Helga snorted disbelievingly. "You wanna try to bring down the sky while we're you're at it?"
"As I said I got nothing better to do." I shrugged. "Perhaps before I go I want to make my mark here..."
"You already have! Several time even!" Helga threw her hands in exasperation. "And why should you bother now, I mean, no one will really know what you're doing anyway."
"Does it look like the same place that lived in when we were kids?"
"You're evading the inevitable and things change. And there's nothing you or me can do to stop it."
"We did it once right? We can do it again."
"Doi, you're forgetting one important thing football had. Last time I checked you weren't Casper the friendly ghost when you saved the neighborhood."
"Well I think ghosts will make excellent spies. For one we are totally invisible! Nobody will ever catch us. Besides we can probably scare the living daylights out of the bad guys, you know like what they did in Poltergeist."
"You watched too many movies. Don't get me started on the supernatural stuff ok!"
"What supernatural stuff?"
"I said don't get me started!"
"Are we partners again, Deep Voice?" I extended my hard towards her and smiled.
"You're asking for a helluva lot of trouble, football head but what the heck, being dead gets pretty boring at times." Helga shook her head and gave me a firm handshake.
And at that moment, I feel like it was old times again. It was so easy to slip into the way things was with her. In its own way it was like I was given an extension on life. And I felt a feeling that I haven't felt for a long time...I was actually surprised that I was feeling optimistic for a future that will not necessarily be marked as part of my history but something unforeseen.
Somehow, I know the magic was back.
A/N: Whoa...that was long. I would like to apologize to those who liked my story and had to wait a long time to read its next installment. I'm a computer programmer and in the past few month's I have been very busy with my work which sapped most of my creative thought. I hope you guys like this chapter. It was originally shorter than what it is now...basically I wanted Arnold to remember his life. But then again, I felt that it was high time to introduce Helga in this story again. So in a way, I had to fix certain plot events to make room for what I wanted. I hope this chapter wasn't as convoluted as my thought process as I rearranged the story internally...
I promised the last time that I will reveal the book that inspired this piece of HA Fanfiction...it's "Remember Me" by Christopher Pike. It was a book I have read 10 years ago when I was in early high school (yes I am that old). For those of you who are familiar with that book, there are certain events / situations that I 'lifted' from it and put in this chapter.
I don't want to promise that the next chapter will be coming soon...perhaps within a few months, since I'm reaching the critical point in my work project. But I would like to thank all those people who actually took time to review my story. I constantly read your reviews to give me inspiration to write and complete this story. This story wouldn't get this far without your encouragement. Thank you so very much!
I ask for pardon for grammatical errors I have committed (particularly the past/present tenses) and I hope to fix them if I have time to re-read this chapter.
However, just as parting note...Yes this is a story where I intend to make Arnold and Helga end up together. That is pretty much a given...it's the how that I intend to be sweet. Don't worry I'll be throwing a lot more twists in this story as well...
