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.
5: Analyze
"We're burnin' daylight just moping around! Set up camp in here, for all I care! See ya when pigs fly and it's raining malted milk balls, or when ya dig up some useful news on Football Head's whereabouts!"
By way of that cantankerous farewell, Helga excused herself from the fourth grade Arnold search party and hastened home. Oblivious to the direction her legs took her; Arnold's secret admirer took out her heart-shaped locket and presented its picture to her nerve-wrecked self.
"Oh Arnold, where amongst the unkind recesses of this earth could you be? And are you well out of harm's way, my love? I worry and I fret, for you dare to stand in the line of fire for the sake of another, never considering yourself, your own safety and good! Dearest Arnold, if only the two of us share some mystical bond that would lead me to you when we do part! Oh, if only…"
Finding herself in front of her own home, she darted up the stairs and into her bedroom. Once safely in her clothes closet, she clapped her hands twice, and the million Christmas lights framing her Arnold Shrine number eighteen shone with a blinding glow.
"Arnold, the one object of my heart's desire, more than once I've bore my yoke of losing you to another woman more fortunate than I. Hearten me on, that I may cope with having lost you to titans who spell ill, to winds that blow no good! I mustn't concede—I shall get you back, even as my knees grow weak and my heart faint with fear for you, my darling! Hold strength for both our hearts, my love, and have faith in me; I am coming for you! Oh, if only you'd spare a sign, a portent of wherever you may be—"
Her soliloquy of lamentation was gradually yet rudely disrupted by the ringing of the house phone.
"Criminey, I don't have the time!" In spite of her grunt, the distressed girl abandoned her shrine and picked up. "WHAT?"
"You Big Bob Pataki?" Asked the sinister voice on the other line.
Helga's eyebrow wrinkled. "Do I sound anything like Big Bob Pataki?" She planted a hand on her hip. "Whaddya want?"
"We got yer son Arnold."
Helga covered the mouthpiece with her palm as her jaw dropped. "Arnold's captor! And he thinks Arnold's a Pataki!"
She listened in again.
"If you want 'im back without a scratch, lady, tell Big Bob t' surrender his beeper empire to us. Or else."
"Or else what?" Helga's scowl deepened more than ever before.
"Or else you'll never see him alive again!" The man hung up.
Helga hammered the receiver down. "If that knucklehead said Arnold is Big Bob's son and asked for the beeper empire as ransom…" She gasped.
"…He was mistaken for me!"
"I was mistaken for someone else." Sighed Arnold as he gingerly clutched his wrists, which were wounded from the tight ropes.
Rex the Third meticulously fingered his belt with the golden buckle and strap. "Ah, now I understand. When I knew it was you in the sack I wondered why they wanted to close a deal with your 'king father'. I've never met your father, but I'm certain your father's father had been no king in his time."
"They wanted my classmate, the daughter of Big Bob the Beeper King. They'll ask for his beeper emporium as ransom."
Higgins looked up. "Certainly your classmate's father will never give up his emporium for you!"
Arnold clenched his fists. "I know. That's why I've got to escape. We all do."
He scrutinized the dark room for any means of escape. He tried the door.
"Your efforts are futile, my football-headed fellow," said Rex. "We've all tried that… except for Miss McDougal, who refuses to break her nails."
Arnold scaled the walls with his eyes. He found a barred window well above their reach. It would be well within if someone stood on the tall Ruth's shoulders…
Arnold's expression brightened. "I've got an idea!"
The three looked at him curiously.
"Ruth, could we use your nail file to… uh, file through those bars?"
The girl tossed her file to him nonchalantly.
"Thanks. Let's just try this. Chocolate Boy, do you think you could get a hold of the bars if you stood on Ruth's shoulders?"
Chocolate Boy nodded repeatedly. "Yeah, yeah, if you give me chocolate."
"I don't want him to get a hold of the bars if he has to step on my clothes." Ruth crossed her arms across her chest. "You already took my nail file…"
"We can get you a new one and you can change your clothes once we get out of here." Arnold tried to reason with his fellow captives. "And you can get all the chocolate you want, too."
"What's in it for me?"
Arnold sighed. "Your freedom, Rex. Stand by for assistance. I appreciate this, guys."
He gave his two schoolmates a thumbs-up as he helped Chocolate Boy up Ruth's shoulders and handed the file.
After around twenty minutes of rubbing against the window bars, Chocolate Boy had barely nicked an inch off just one. Arnold looked at his watch. "This isn't working. Sorry Ruth. Sorry Chocolate Boy. Let's try something else."
Chocolate Boy hopped off the senior's shoulders. "All that and no chocolate!"
Ruth dusted her dress. "All that and no change of clothes!"
"All that and no freedom!" cried Rex, kneeling on the floor next to Arnold's sack.
Freedom… Arnold caught himself gawking at the sack and the ropes. Then another strategy hit him. "That's it! The ropes!" He pointed at the many ropes that bound him together. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
The three simultaneously muttered their disagreement.
Arnold inwardly shrugged off their reactions. Oh yeah. None of them is Gerald. "Let's knot these ropes together to make one really long rope!" He picked up the twine. "Then we attach the rope onto the bars and pull until the bars give way!"
Rex was slowly picking up Arnold's train of thought. "Yes. And once the bars give way, we get out through the window."
Arnold beamed and handed pieces of rope to his co-conspirators. "We can do it!"
The three nodded off as they coiled the ropes together.
Sid sniffled. "Boy howdy, we'll never find him!" He took off his hat, buried his face in it, and wailed. "I'll sure miss that Arnold!"
Eugene placed a hand on his sulking classmate's shoulders. "We'll find him, Sid. It's only a matter of time."
"All right, suck it up ya big crybaby!" Cried Helga from afar. The fourth graders looked up to see the toughest of them all stomping towards them with a slip of paper in her hands. "I got another clue!"
The Arnold crew all brightened and stood up, their ears perked up.
"I got a call from the kidnappers! They got Football Head all right!"
The kids murmured amongst themselves.
"Did they hurt him?" asked Harold.
Helga thrust herself at him in impatience. "Do I look like one of 'em to you, fat boy? How am I supposed to know if they hurt him?"
She put the paper forward. "I called the operator and got the number of the phone they used. I asked where we could find that phone, but the stupid lady said it was 'confidential'!" She stressed the word mockingly. "Criminey! 'Confidential' at a time like this!"
Her classmates stared at the numbers jotted down on the paper in awe.
"What now?"
"We gotta trace the location of this phone number, ya bunch of brainless slobs! The phone the hoodlums used won't be that far from their headquarters! That phone will lead us to where they're keeping Football Head!"
"Sounds like a plan." Said Sid, donning his cap back on. "So what's the plan?"
Helga rolled her eyes and grunted to herself. "The lousy operator tried but didn't find this number in the listings, so those troublemakers used a payphone. I say we split up and guard every single public phone in the city! Phoebe and I'll give this number a ring, so wait for it watchfully! Whoever's phone rings is closest to Arnold!"
"Got it!" Most of the fourth graders cried out, except for Stinky.
"I don't get it. How do we listen to a phone watchfully?"
"I meant keep your ears open, Peterson!" Helga prodded his back. "Now move it or lose it, bucko!"
As the others scurried off to occupy all the payphones in Hillwood City, Helga paced the floor back and forth while Phoebe stared at the piece of paper with the contact numbers.
"I hope you're right, Helga."
The girl with the pink bow threw a fraught look at her best friend. "I've got to be, Phoebes." She said evenly. "If something happens to a hair in Arnold's head, the guilt's gonna burden me for the rest of my life."
The girl with the yellow scrunchie returned her best friend's expression. "I'm sorry Helga, I… can't understand…"
"As hard to believe as it is, I was supposed to be their victim, not Arnold. They called up my house and wanted to speak to Bob about his 'son'."
Phoebe hid her mouth as she gasped. "You mean—"
"Yeah, Phoebes. That crazy Football Head took the fall for me."
End of 5: Analyze
The tables have turned: Helga is now the one pacing back and forth while Phoebe remains in one spot. Oh, the things Arnold does, to Helga and to everyone else on the show…
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Arnold proves himself worthy of his nickname "Short Man" in chapter 6: Arnold's Maneuver.