Chapter Nine is here for your visual reading pleasure!!!! Not much to say today…Oh and Jae B, that gives me an idea for the story (your review) Hmm…my brain is working now. Thanks for that!! Okay, on with the story! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold
Chapter Nine: West Side Strawberries
"I am leaving in 10 minutes!!"
"You said that 10 minutes ago…", Helga said, non-chalantly. She'd (more or less) locked herself up in the bathroom since they'd gotten home.
"Well, seeing as I have your ticket, I could very well leave this very moment, and you'll have wasted a hundred dollars.", Arnold said, flopping down on the bed, again.
"Oh, pipe down! We'll be there on time, with plenty of it to spare, okay?", She said, now outside of the bathroom, and putting on her coat. "C'mon, let's go before you have a cow."
"Wanna walk, or flag down a cab?", Arnold asked in the elevator. There was no real reason for the question, merely to break the awkward silence that seemed to follow them around.
"I dunno, cab?", she replied, more of a question in itself than a "reply".
"Okay."
"I'll pay.", they both said, once again, in unison, despite that they were facing away from each other. This may have been one of those little signs that no matter how much their thought and opinions opposed that of the other's they would forever have a bond, a connection.
After standing in front of the hotel for exactly six minutes and being passed off by approximately four cabs, Helga smiled as one finally neared the curb, loud music pounding from inside. Helga slipped in, and slid over in the seat. She waited until Arnold got in before telling the driver where they were going.
"The theatre up the street, please.", she said, shrugging at Arnold, not quite knowing the name of the theatre. Unfortunately, the music was so deafening, she wasn't quite sure if he heard her. The fact was solidified when the cab stayed in place.
"THE THEATRE UP THE STREET, PLEASE!!!!", Helga said, close to shouting this time. It seemed to work, this time, because he seemed to start the cab and proceed down the street. It wasn't until halfway through the car ride that Helga was able to adjust her hearing to understand the song that deafened the rest of the vehicle. Without really thinking about it, she began to stare out of the window, and lip sing the words, even though they were being sung rather quickly.
Arnold quickly took note of this and abruptly began to fidget. "Do you mind? It's kind of annoying.", he finally said.
At this point, Helga began to wonder if every action of hers really bugged Arnold. For a few brief moments during their vacation, it seemed as though Helga couldn't breathe, eat, drink, even blink, without it rubbing Arnold the wrong way. Despite her inward habit to come back with some smart-allecky comment to shut him up, she merely shrugged it off and continued to stare out of the window, until they arrived at the theatre, wherein her gaze turned to near shock.
Arnold, who stepped out of the cab first, seemed to notice the same, as he stood distraught at the sight outside the theatre. There stood about thirty college age kids, probably waiting for the play to start. But worse, may have been their attire. It was nothing like that of Helga and Arnold's. Everyone seemed to dress as if they'd just come out of class: jeans, T-shirts, sweatpants, as opposed to Helga's long gown and Arnold's tuxedo.
"Think we overdressed?", Helga said, trying to lighten the mood. Seems like they both wasted $100.
"What do we do now?", Arnold said, turning back to Helga. The cab had already advanced down the street, leaving them on the curb, dressed for the Grammy's, but faced with those dressed for a Green Day concert.
"We go back and change.", Helga replied, stating the obvious.
"But we'll miss the play.", Arnold said, unintentionally sounding much more like Helga than previously intended.
"No, we won't.", she said, removing her heels and taking off down the street. Arnold followed, finally catching up as they neared the hotel. She disregarded the elevators completely as she soared through the swiveling doors and passed a few bellboys, heading towards the stairs. She'd told him once already that the stairs were faster, but he had enough running for 48 hours and hurried into an elevator.
When he did finally get up to the room, still huffing for air, opened the door to find Helga fully dressed in a black and red sweater and black jeans.
"Took you long enough, hurry up!", she said, looking up to see him standing a the door as if they had time to burn.
For a moment he wondered if she'd let him use the bathroom today. She wasn't using it at the moment, so he figured that she was through using it. He grabbed his clothes from his open suitcase in the closet, and slipped in the bathroom.
Helga, outside the bathroom, proceeded to fill her purse, that she sparingly used to begin with, with the few little things girl's had the insatiable need to carry around everywhere they went. Against her own vow to never look vain, she popped open a mirror and stared at the tiny red spot that found it's home just above her eyebrow. It wasn't hideously huge, or grossly gargantuan, just a normal sized little red bump. She didn't think much about it, and tossed the mirror back in her suitcase, closed it, and slid it back under the bed. She walked over to the closet, forgetting about the rush they were in, and put on her coat. Tapping ever so lightly on the door, she mimicked Arnold from earlier in the evening. "I'm leaving in ten minutes."
At that moment, Arnold emerged from the bathroom, slipped passed Helga and got his own coat from inside the closet. He made sure to check the coat pockets for the tickets, in fear of rushing back to the hotel and having to tear the place up looking for them.
Back on the same street, they concluded that walking would get them there faster, than would trying to get a cab and directing them to the same place they'd just been dropped off at. They, instead of walked, "power-walked" and in time, reached the theatre. By this time there was only a few of the remaining people standing outside, waiting for the show to start. Helga and Arnold passed them and handed their tickets to a guy not much older than them, behind a booth. Despite getting there two minutes before the show began, they managed to find seats close to the back, but with a better view of the stage than the ones up front. It wasn't until they actually sat down until Helga started to fell…funny. Not Saturday Night Live, Adam Sandler funny, the "Am I about to throw up?" funny. Which, in reality, isn't very "funny".
"These are good seats."
"Uh huh…", Helga replied squeamishly.
"You can see the whole stage from here."
"Uh huh…"
"Oh look, the curtain's rising.", Arnold said excitedly, pointing at the stage.
"Oh…", Helga said, literally gripping her stomach. She tried, despite Mt. Helen erupting in her stomach, to concentrate on anything besides her stomach. At some point, she found herself staring at the socks of all the Sharks, and mentally recording them. The last thing she wanted to do was walk out in the middle of a play. She, instead, did as Arnold had earlier in the evening, and told herself she'd go in ten minutes, only to repeat it ten minutes later.
Halfway through Maria complaining about her white dress, the pain in Helga's stomach seemed to be shadowed by the itch that swept over her face. At first she'd brush it off casually, as if she were scratching her nose, but then, it seemed as though every part of her face itched so much, she practically had to rub it to keep it from bursting into flames. Arnold, as excited with the play as he was, couldn't help but notice.
"What's wrong?", he said, a mixture of concern and fear for Helga on his face. All he could see in the limited light was Helga rubbing the palms of her hands up and down her face, as if in a trance.
Not being able to bear it much longer, she hopped over Arnold, who sat, dumbfounded, and out into the main lobby and searched for a bathroom to soak her face in. Arnold followed, only to see Helga, facing away from him darting from one end of the lobby to the other.
"What's wrong?", he repeated, firmer this time.
"I don't know, my face is just killing me, I don't get it!!!", Helga said, turning around to reveal the problem.
Arnold's eyes reached the size of golf balls before he was able to speak clearly. Helga's face was red. RED. I mean R-E-D, beet red, she was a walking raspberry. Among the R-E-D that covered her face from chin to forehead, were smaller darker bumps. "Helga…do you have a…a mirror?", Arnold asked, expecting her to scream before she even saw the extent of it.
"No, I don't carry mirrors.", Helga said, slowly calming down, but still in pain. Part of her may have very well regretted tossing her mirror earlier in the night, seeing as Arnold's eyes usually didn't bug out over nothing.
"You might want to look in one.", Arnold said.
Immediately, Helga rushed outside and stared at a poster that advertised the play, displayed in a glass case. She restrained herself from screaming until after turning away and looking at it again. She began to whimper, half out of the mere sight of her rose-colored face, the other half out of sheer, unadulterated pain.
"Look, you have to go to the hospital.", Arnold said. Whatever was wrong with her wasn't going to go away with just some Vicks Vapo-Rub and Chicken Soup.
"No, it's…nothing.", she replied, trying to convince herself of the same thing, but doing a rather terrible job at it.
"At least let me see your hand.", he said, the plan being formulated little by little in his brain. Helga was just tiny enough for his plan to fall through.
Helga, like the impressionable person she was, held out her hand and figured it was just one of those "doctor" things. That is, until…
Arnold took her wrist and swung it behind his own neck, hoisting her up into the air, and draping her tiny frame over his shoulder. She could have easily wiggled her way out of his grasp, had he not gripped his other arm on the crease of her knees, and began to walk steadily out passed the ticket booth. Helga immediately began to kick and scream, so vigorously, that one of her shoes came off, revealing the hint of gray on the palm of her foot from running to the hotel barefoot earlier. The pain of her stomach only worsened from the pressure she received from Arnold's shoulder. After a block of stares from innocent passersby, and yelling "Put me down!!", almost endlessly, Helga finally surrendered, mostly out of exhaustion. Being in pain can get rather tiring.
Arnold on the other hand, was forced to stop every once and a while to ask which way the hospital was. Even after arriving at the hospital, Helga remained limp over his shoulder, as he questioned every nurse on the direction of the Emergency Room. It must have been the one day of the year where everyone was healthy or just packed into the lobbies of the hospital, because when Arnold arrived through the automatic doors, only three people sat in the waiting room, and all but one were being attended to. Even though carrying Helga the short distance couldn't be titled strenuous, he sat her down on a similar blue chair, and rushed up to the desk and rang the tiny bell a few times to get the nurses attention.
"What can I help you with?", she said. The woman was in her mid-forties, with frizzy blonde hair.
"My friend…there's something wrong with her.", Arnold said, nervously. He was no brain surgeon, but could clearly tell when something was wrong with someone.
"Let's take a look", she said, sensing his anxiety, and walking from behind the counter and over to where Arnold was pointing. She immediately looked at Helga, in her sleeping state, and pulled out a small flashlight/pen. She pried open Helga's eyelids with her thumb and index finger, and shone the light in them. "Well, her pupils are dilating, but this…rash, I've never seen one like this in awhile. Has she eaten any unusual foods within the past few days?", she asked.
"Not that I know of.", Arnold replied, slightly disappointed that he wasn't able to diagnose Helga, and could do little to help.
"Well here,", she began. "Can you get her into this room over here, I'll send in Dr. Holmes.", she said, returning to the desk and paging the Emergency Clinic for him. Arnold again, lifted Helga over his shoulder, this time the task being more difficult, being as she had little control over which way her body weight was directed.
Inside the room was a regular looking hospital seat/cot, the kind used to test reflexes and blood pressure. The only way to put her on the seat, and keep her there without falling, was to lay her lengthways, and pray she didn't roll over. With one end of the cot elevated, her chin fell solemnly towards her chest, but fell in such a way that it almost frightened Arnold. Figuring he'd already moved her enough, he sat in a seat near the door and waited for Dr. Holmes to come in.
Dr. Holmes, eventually walked in, with a file tucked under her arm and arranged her glasses on her nose to better see Helga. She went flipping through the manila folder, and pulled out a form, and handed it to Arnold.
"I'll need you to fill this out, for her."
The form was pretty basic. It more or less just asked about Helga; Date of birth, Full Name, Address, the usual.
Arnold wasn't quite sure of everything on the form, like Helga's Social Security Number, or her Blood Type. A few things he was able to answer with little or no trouble. However, when he got to allergies, he suddenly felt as though a crater had formed in the depths of his stomach.
'Is that what's wrong?', he thought. He vaguely remembered her mentioning something about strawberries a while back, asking a waitress not to put strawberries in something she ordered. Immediately, Arnold knew why the crater had formed in his stomach. The muffin. The muffin, he'd grabbed off of a plate in the hospital, and given to her. She must have eaten it since then. So it was him. He poisoned her.
He tried not to over think the situation, and continued to fill out as much of the form as possible, before handing it back to the doctor.
"Looks like a commonplace allergic reaction. She should be fine in a little while. I'll have to give her a shot, and she'll need to take these for the next two days, just to be safe.", she said, turning and handing Arnold an orange bottle of tiny white pills. The label for them just said to take one pill twice a day, followed by a bunch of words his cousin Arnie, would have had a field day trying to pronounce. "You can wait in the lobby, she'll be fine.", she said, reassuringly.
Arnold exited the room, and took a seat far enough away that he could see when she came out. The shot couldn't have been too painful, since he didn't hear so much as a scream come from the room. After about fifteen minutes of watching a very old rerun of Law and Order, Helga came and sat down in the seat next to Arnold, without saying much of anything, but looking sleepy nonetheless.
"Helga! Are you okay?", he asked, noticing that most of the red had disappeared from her face but leaving a pinkish blush across her face.
"Oh, I'm fine.", she replied, the slightest bit dreamily.
"She'll be back to normal by tomorrow.", Dr. Holmes said, behind them. "She's already had her medication for tonight so don't give her anymore pill until morning. And there are a few side effects.", she said.
"Like what?", Arnold asked, afraid it might be something serious, like memory loss.
"Nothing too serious. Mostly she'll just be a little restless. But after it wears off she'll sleep like a baby.", she said, smiling.
"Thank You.", Arnold said, standing up and leading Helga out the door.
'Restless? Helga's always restless.', Arnold thought.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Helga stood on her bed, once a neatly arranged place of rest, now flipped, as it were, revealing the underside of covers and the pillows spewed out across the room, with her neck straight, and her head facing the ceiling that loomed over her head just a mere six inches. She was ready to belt.
"Mi gustari a compra de flores cada dia, Hace cada dia una vacacion, y habla mas y mas y mas de ti y de los quesas que haces!!!!!!"
"Helga! You have sung that line over and over for the past twenty-seven minutes.", Arnold said, his irritability growing.
"But it's my favorite part of the song.", She said, smiling.
"Do you even know what that means?", he said.
"Yes, and if you let me finish my song, you would have found out.!", she said. "Now I have to rewind the whole thing…", she said, pushing a button on her CD player.
Arnold turned away, hearing about as much of the song as he could possibly tolerate.
Helga, on the other hand, clearly under the influence of medication, took the headphones off her own ears and adjusted them on Arnolds. She pushed play and watched for his response to the song, also clearly identified as her favorite. Arnold didn't seem to mind that she'd taken it upon herself to give him some musical insight, or that the volume was loud in the headphones.
I'm so happy again, to be stuck here again
And you're so happy again, to be stuck here again
Now we can rap about the good old days
Laugh at dumb jokes that you make
It's great to be here and I'm just elated
To be someone you once hated
And it's all so complicated
At first listen, Arnold seemed slightly perturbed at the song, but as it went on it seemed to express how both of them felt in the predicament of sharing a room. Instead of removing the headphones, as he previously was going to do, he continued to listen on through the chorus.
I'm so sorry again, You say you're leaving me again,
Cuz you're not happy again, and I'm left stuck here again,
Now you can scream about the little things, Slap me twice across the face,
Then it would be great if I could…
Again, the chorus was repeated, which Arnold finally figured out was what Helga was screaming in Spanish over and over. Finally, near the end of the song, the chorus slowed down and the lead singer belted out, much like Helga did the whole chorus in Spanish:
"I just said I'd buy you flowers everyday,
Make everyday a holiday,
Carry on and on and on about you,
And the things you do."
Eventually, Arnold returned the headphones, not saying much. He mumbled something about "That was nice", and tried not to look as though he'd actually enjoyed that.
Helga, was now tired of listening to other people sing and decided to hum for as long as she decided. The tone was a little shaky, but more or less, but the song was easily recognizable. She'd gone from Bowling for Soup to Cyndi Lauper in a record of .12 seconds.
"Must you do that?", Arnold said turning back to her.
"Must I do what?", Helga said innocently. These pills made her the slightest bit immature.
"Must you hum and sing, and…everything.", Arnold said, impatiently.
Helga sat in silence for a few moments. She almost looked dumbfounded, like someone had just broken horrible news to her. "Does everything I do annoy you?", she said, maintaining the tone of a freshly scolded five year old.
"No, not everything. Just…", Arnold said, slowly. For the first time, probably in his entire life, he felt as if he'd really hurt someone.
Helga, had immediately begun to make her bed as neatly as possible in her half conscience state. She put everything back where it was before, and sat on her bed, pretending to be interested in the hockey game Arnold was.
"Helga, I'm so-", Arnold said, interrupting himself, realizing at this point, he may as well have been apologizing to a brick wall. Helga, even in this condition, would have acknowledged it, but the first thing she'd remember in the morning was that he had hurt her.
"Goodnight.", she finally said, an inch higher than a whisper, and climbed under the covers, still in her jeans and sweater.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It seems as though my chapters are longer now. Hehehehe Antoinette is happy!! I'm not sure if I L-O-V-E this chapter as much as I thought I would. Oh well, I've written worse, right?!!! The next chapter is supposed to be funny, but there's not as much going on as in the past two chapters.
I've been really happy with these past two chapters as well, I've been meaning to throw Helga's allergy to strawberries in somewhere. It didn't quite fit in "Back Home", and I might decide to pop it in the oven with my other story (that some of you got an accidental peek at, during an upload error for chapter four of "Back Home") Don't worry, it's all better, the real chapter is up and running!!!
Oh and was I the only one who caught this, but didn't anyone notice something a little "familiar" about the name of "Party Wagon's" main character? His full name was Russel P. McDuff, if I'm not mistaken. And I know I'm not mistaken when I say that this HAS to be the work of the one and only Craig, because Arnold's crush in Season 1, up until "Arnold's Valentine", was Ruth P. McDougal. See? Russel, Ruth. P., P. McDuff, McDougal…never mind then!
Okay, See you guys later!!!!! Please Review!