Disclaimer
(Just so I won't get sued…)
All related characters and settings found below are strictly based on the TV series Hey Arnold! created by Craig Bartlett as seen on Nickelodeon. In addition, no copyright infringement of the motion picture Saving Private Ryan is intended by the allusive chapter title.

2: Saving Princess Rhonda

"Sheena and Eugene, go search the second floor. Phoebe, Helga, downstairs." Arnold pointed to the staircase. "Harold, Stinky, check for Rhonda in the playground. Gerald and Sid, the cafeteria—"

Harold frowned. "Hey! I wanna check the cafeteria!"

Arnold rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine Harold, check the cafeteria. Curly, Nadine, Lila and me will look outside the school." He scanned his classmates' faces. "Hey… where are Curly and Lila?"

The others looked around as well.

"I heard Lila's with Lorenzo keeping him company. Weird, huh?" said Sid.

Arnold blinked. "Maybe he's not feeling well. We got no more time, guys!"

"Come on people, let's get this show on the road!" Helga pushed Harold aside and descended the stairs.

Phoebe followed close behind and called out in her tiny voice, "Coming."

Arnold and the others headed on their separate ways in their newly formed groupings. He turned to Nadine. "Didn't Rhonda scream or shout out before she vanished?"

Nadine shook her head. "I would have heard it. She was standing so close…"

"I understand." Arnold's brows knitted. "I wonder where Curly is. He was in class this morning…"

"Mm! Mm-mm! Mmmf!" Rhonda tried to speak while a gag was still stuffed in her mouth. "Mmmph!"

"Silence!" Her masked abductor cried out, dropping her onto a dilapidated desk inside the custodian's office.

"Mm!" She rubbed the rope bounding her wrists together to the seat, but the knot was mighty tight.

"Relax, my love! I'm no kidnapper!" Curly reeled back as he removed his facemask and put on his opaque glasses. "You're in my hands now!"

Rhonda, taken aback, threw her feet—with her ankles tied—towards Curly. He evaded her attack and pushed her seat back.

Rhonda screamed, gagged and all, as her chair fell with her back to the floor. She was about to get up when Curly tripped her and she fell back onto the seat.

He tied her up onto the back of the seat and lifted it upright again. "And now you're my hostage!" he exclaimed, laughing manically.

She pushed her face towards him, signaling to get the stuffing out of her mouth. Once he did, she burst out, "WHAT IN HEAVEN'S NAME ARE YOU DOING TO ME?"

He shrugged, a goofy smile on his face. "I just told you. I'm keeping you hostage."

"HAVE YOU GONE COMPLETELY MAD?" screeched Rhonda. Then she stopped. "Then again, you've always been completely mad…"

"Completely mad as a hatter in love with you!"

She snubbed his response. "Let me go, you ingrate! When everyone sees the horridness you've done to me! You carried me off, stuffed my mouth with that sock—"

Curly glimpsed at the bleeding flesh below his thumb. "But before I did that! You just had to chew on me!"

Rhonda turned her cheek away. "And you fully deserved it!"

"And I didn't use any sock!" Curly held up the gag he used on her. "This is my underwear that I took off after two weeks!"

Rhonda gawked at the article of clothing queasily. "I think… I'm going… to barf."

And she threw her head back and did.

"That football-headed freak!" Helga mumbled to herself. "He always wants Lila by his side. Lila, Lila, Lila. 'Where's Lila? Lila and I'll look outside the school.' Lila and I blahddy-blahddy-blah! It's always that Little Miss Perfect he's lookin' for. And jealous of Lorenzo! 'Maybe he's not feeling well.' Yeah, why doesn't he just get sick, shrivel up and die?"

Phoebe looked at Helga cautiously. "Helga, you seem a little… distracted. Maybe we should stop. Take a rest."

"Oh, no rest for me, Phoebes," Helga faced her with a sardonic look. "I won't stop to rest until we find the self-appointed best dressed girl in our class. Yeah, sure! As if that'll ever happen!"

"But Helga, if we go on in these conditions, our efforts won't be very productive." Phoebe held her by the arm. "We've looked around and found no sign of Rhonda."

"Well, DOY!" Helga rolled her eyes and threw her arms to the air. "What kidnapper in his right mind would keep his victim well within the scene of the crime? We could look in this floor all our lives and even dig our own graves in here and still never find her!"

"Still, Arnold's right, Helga. The abductor couldn't have gone very far as he hasn't had much time. We've been on his tracks. We'll find Rhonda."

"Yeah, maybe he and Nadine and Li-la will find her. Oh, that reminds me." Helga pounded her fist on her palm. "She's not here!"

"Helga…" sighed Phoebe.

Eugene and Sheena were discussing as they went down to the first floor. "I haven't seen Curly either," said Sheena.

Eugene was about to respond when he lost grip of the banister and toppled down the steps on his rear end one stair at a time. Both he and Sheena screamed. When he landed headfirst on the ground floor, he placed a hand on his dizzy head and cried his trademark, "I'm okay".

Suddenly the door to the right of the staircase opened, and Curly's head peeped out. "What's all the racket out there?"

"Oh there you are, Curly." Sheena helped Eugene up. "Have you seen Rhonda? She's been kidnapped."

Eugene was cracking his back straight when Curly guffawed. "KIDNAPPED! HA-HA! KIDNAPPED, YOU SAY!"

And to Eugene and Sheena's surprise, a familiar voice resounded from inside the room that Curly occupied. "SOMEBODY! HELP!"

"Hey, that's Rhonda!" exclaimed Eugene. He and Sheena looked at each other.

Curly looked inside the room and then at the two. "You didn't hear nuttin'!"

And he slammed the door behind him.

Eugene went to the doorknob and turned it. "It's locked."

When he let go of the knob, it came off the door.

"So it was Curly all along." Said Sheena.

"Let's tell the gang." Said Eugene, staring at the brass knob in his hand.

Arnold rapped on the door of the janitor's closet. "Curly? It's Arnold. We know Rhonda's in there. Open up."

A muffled voice came from inside. "I—I dunno what you're talking about! And who's 'we'?"

"Aw, give it a rest, ya twisted li'lfreak! We're tired of your little kidnapping game!" Cried Helga.

"So you're all there, thinking you know something I don't!" barked Curly. "Well, your precious Rhonda's not here, so leave me alone!"

"LIAR!" Another voice came from inside the room. All eyes outside widened.

Helga chuckled. "Yep, that's Miss Wellington Lloyd all right."

"No bout a-doubt it." Agreed Stinky.

"All right, I admit! Rhonda's my hostage! And as my hostage, she's under my every whim and demand! And if you boneheads dare so much as lift a finger on that door, she'll receive the worst treatment you could ever imagine!"

The kids groaned and sighed. Curly's done it again: snapped.

"Well, he's already given me the worst treatment you could ever imagine!" began Rhonda. "He just suddenly made off with me and then…" As Rhonda continued, Gerald, Harold, Stinky, and Sid huddled with their shoulders to the door. Gerald whispered, "That's it Rhonda, keep distractin' him. On three! One… two…"

Arnold gritted his teeth watching the four. "Maybe that isn't such a good idea…"

"THREE!" All four boys hollered at the top of their lungs and knocked the door down with all their might.

The rescue party clustered into the room, leaving Arnold by the doorway. He examined the fallen door. "That was terrible. We damaged school property."

Little did he or anyone else know that two men, masked and clad all in black, were creeping along the hall. The skinny one retrieved a slip of paper from his pocket and read its contents hoarsely. "P.S. 118… fourth grader… wide blond hair."

The burly one poked his shoulder and pointed at a fair-haired kid in sight. "That one?"

The lanky man read the note again and scrutinized the nine-year-old. "I'll bet'cha ten bucks I've seen that kid someplace…"

"Where?"

"I—I dunno! Shut up and get crackin'! We got phone calls t' make."

Inside the janitor's room, the fourth grade class formed a huddle surrounding Rhonda and Curly. Not minding her beloved, Helga waved her hand dismissively. "Aw, don't sweat it, Football Head. We just tell Wartz that Curly snapped again. He can't keep our whole class indetention."

Arnold was to beg to differ when two powerful arms seized him by the torso and raised his feet clean off the ground.

"Huh?" The boy dug his fingers deep into the fleshy arms around him, preparing to strike his assailant when he heard a muffled undertone.

"No monkey business, Pataki."

Arnold gasped. He threw a bewildered glance at Helga, who did not catch it. He was about to cry out when a second man clutched him by the hair and leveled faces—masked to enraged—with him.

"Say one word and all your little friends get hurt."

The captive grunted and smoldered in fury as his two captors took him away.

Expecting to gain a disapproving response from the conscientious Arnold but did not, Helga peered outside the door. "Hey, Football Head!"

Her love was nowhere to be found.

She gasped and looked in all directions. "Arnold? Arnold? Arnold!"

All eyes turned to her.

"Listen up, ya bunch of clods!" she shrieked at the fourth graders, tightening her fist to get a hold of herself.

"Arnold's gone!"

End of 2: Saving Princess Rhonda

Actually, Helga's scorn of Lila in this chapter (unmistakable with her statement, "That football-headed freak! He always wants Lila by his side. Lila, Lila, Lila. 'Where's Lila? Lila and I'll look outside the school.' Lila and I blahddy-blahddy-blah! It's always that Little Miss Perfect he's lookin' for…") is now UNFOUNDED because this story ought to take place AFTER Season Five episode "Timberly Loves Arnold", in which Arnold tells Gerald: "It's over with (Timberly and) Lila". Here, even if Arnold "assigned" the absent Lila to work with him, he DOESN'T like her like her anymore. Oh well, you'll see in chapter eleven.

Since you got this far, why don't you Submit a Review? The next chapter won't fly away or something! Here's what to expect…
The youngest martial art black-belter in Hillwood (let's just assume that he is) handicaps himself for a cause in chapter 3: Arnold's Sacrifice.