CHAPTER 3 - Destroying Arnold

Helga only just managed to get back to her desk and set everything up before Mr. Simmons entered the classroom. She was short of breath but she tried to hide it and act like she had been drawing the whole time. "How's it going Helga?" he asked, sitting back down behind his desk.

"Really well Mr. Simmons," Helga replied innocently, "but it's not quite finished yet. Is it ok if I complete it some other time?" The bell rang to signal the end of recess.

"Of course Helga, you haven't had the full hour the other children had and I don't want you to rush anything. However, maybe it would be for the best if you stayed behind this afternoon to finish it? You were supposed to do it in class you know." This was Mr. Simmons' way of tiptoe-ing around giving her detention. This way she was alright to leave as soon as she had finished her picture, there was no defined time and no lines to be written, so it couldn't really be deemed 'detention'. "I'll call your parents during last period and tell them." Helga smiled politely and nodded. If the was the least punishment she received today she would count herself as one happy camper.

The rest of the class filed in and Mr. Simmons launched straight into his History lesson by showing them a video tape about the Civil War. The class sat there in the dark, some passing notes to others, some looking bored and resting their chins on their hands and some, like Phoebe, totally engrossed in the film. Helga sat nervously in her seat, biting her lip and trying to hush her conscience.

It's not fair Helga, a small voice said.

"Shut up," she muttered. "He has it coming."

What did he ever do to you?

"He didn't notice me, that's what."

Yes he did. He noticed you every time you tripped him in the corridor, he noticed you every time you sprayed him with the drinking fountain, he noticed you every time you called him football head.

"I said shut up!" Helga hissed, causing Curly to turn around in his chair and give her a strange look.

Meanwhile, Arnold and Gerald sat next to each other at their desks, passing notes.

I'm going to finish the project tonight Gerald, that way I just have to get through tomorrow and the weekend's totally free. Assuming Mr. Simmons doesn't give us any more homework.

Are you sure man? I mean, it is our project.

It's only writing up the conclusion, the stuff we know already. It's not like I have to do any thinking.

You sure Arnold? I don't mind helping.

It's one paragraph, no problem. You want to go to the arcade this Saturday?

You're on. I got a stack of quarters at home as tall as me since Jamie O started buy those $2.75 wrestling magazines. And that includes my hair.

Arnold let out a small laugh at the last note Gerald sent him. Phoebe turned around in her chair, and pressed her finger to her lips. Arnold looked guiltily at her before turning and grinning at Gerald. They exchanged their handshake once again and then turned their attention back to the movie.

Meanwhile, Helga was still having trouble silencing her conscience at her desk. What she had managed to rig up in little more than a minute or so promised to be one of the best pranks PS118 had ever seen. Kids would talk about it long after she was gone, if it went as smoothly as she planned, and she would have a name at this school, and not just the one she shared with her sister. Olga Pataki might be famous, but Helga Pataki was going to be infamous. She would become an urban legend one day, Gerald's replacement would whisper her tale in the halls of the school as though she was nothing more than a ghost. Her name would live forever.

But then, so would Arnold's. As the victim.

The credits rolled up and Mr. Simmons shut off the VCR. There was no going back now, Helga thought to herself. With one final shrug she pushed it from her mind. What the heck, I'll be gone in two months.

"Alright class! Now, take out your History text books and turn to page seventy-nine," he said, turning to the chalkboard. Helga bit down hard on her lower lip. She was looking at Arnold, her insides a mixture of excitement and dread, her eyes half closed in a vain attempt to look away. Arnold reached down and opened his desk...

Her plan was fairly simple. When Arnold opened his desk, a bowl of tapioca would twang up and hit him in the face, with the aid of a clever launching mechanism that involved a ruler, an elastic band and a stretched out paper clip. Hopefully that would distract Arnold long enough not to notice that the sellotape holding the open ended bags of paint and charcoal dust on the inside of the lid of his desk had given way, and the bags were now slowly leaking their contents all over his school books. It was a simple prank that Helga had once seen on some sitcom, and with a little bit of tweaking she was certain it was going to work.

The first three seconds of the plan went as smooth as clockwork. It was just after that that everything started to go downhill.

The porcelain bowl had shot out of the desk with a little less speed than Helga had hoped for. Arnold's cries alerted everyone in the class and soon everyone was on their feet, watching as the cold dessert hit him square in the chest. Arnold lept up, trying to scrape it from his front before it began seeping down his shirt. In the process Arnold managed to knock his desk with his knees, cause the paint bag to fall with a wet plop in front of Helga and begin seeping it's contents all over the floor. Most of the class was having trouble concealing their laughter at this point, Helga was almost bent double with hysteria.

It was then that the bowl finally slid off of Arnold's chest and fell to the the floor with a loud crash, sending sharp chips of porcelain in every direction. One caught Helga painfully above her left eye, and she winced. Sheena, who had already had a flu shot that morning and wasn't feeling too brilliant, was the first to notice the small trickle of blood running down Helga's forehead. She swooned and fell, and while Helga made to catch her she really had no chance. Sheena reached out to grab the edge of Arnold's desk, presumably to break her fall, but instead she just brought it down with her, scattering all of Arnold's books into the puddle of paint.

Arnold's first instinct was to help Sheena up, but as he lent over the bag of charcoal gave way and exploded all over his face, his clothes and the floor. As he tried to wipe it from his eyes he lost his balance and slipped on the tapioca mess in front of him. On the way down he noticed Helga's charcoal smeared fingers. He should have known this prank was her doing. The whole class' eyes were fixed on them, some of them with looks of shock on their faces as Arnold grabbed the front of Helga's pink dress and dragged her down with him.

Unfortunately he took her somewhat unawares and instead of falling into the sludge puddle like Arnold had intended, she swayed left instead and hit her cheekbone with a sickening crunch on Arnold's chair. For a moment she saw stars, and then panicked as her vision turned red. However, she quickly realised that this was blood from the cut above her eye and she blinked it away quickly. She must have been dazed for longer than she thought, because when she looked up again both Arnold and Sheena were on their feet, Sheena telling Mr. Simmons that she was absolutely fine and Arnold staring down dejectedly at the pile of what had once been his belongings, covered from head to toe in the gooey mess.

Arnold did not offer his hand to Helga and she had to push herself to her feet. Her face was throbbing wildly from where she had hit it, and the cut was starting to sting. Arnold didn't even look at her as he left the room to clean himself up. At least they'll remember me now, she thought, staring at Arnold's manically saddened face like everyone else as he left the classroom to go clean himself up. She slumped back in her chair, depressed. No one seemed to notice that her head and cheek were cut, so she took it upon herself to get up and go to the nurse's office to get patched up.

-

Sheena's aunt had put a band aid over her forehead and given her an ice pack for her cheek, telling her to get a drink of water from the fountain before she returned to class. Helga was more than willing to do so, she didn't want to return to class yet. Everyone was sure to hate her for what she had done, she had never meant for it to go that far. At least Arnold would remember her now, she thought bitterly, and wandered off to the girl's toilets to spend the rest of the day in the sanctuary of the far end cubicle.

As she turned the corner the familiar feeling of running headfirst into Arnold reached her. She fell to the floor harder than usual, and saw that Arnold winced in pain where his wrist struck the cold tiles. For a second she was lost in her usual pleasure, thoughts of Arnold swimming around her brain and making her smile. Then she remembered that Arnold probably detested her at that moment, and her insides knotted into an uncomfortable ball of guilt.

"Watch where you're going," she spat at him, rubbing her exposed elbows. Arnold looked at her.

"How's your head?" he said spitefully, as though he hoped the answer would be bad news. Helga felt like someone had plunged an ice cold blade into her. What had she done?

"It's just fine actually, Arnold-o, no matter how much you try to split it open," she said, her voiced laced with malice.

"Yeah well, I always thought you had a pretty thick skull," Arnold said, getting to his feet, and for the second time that day he left her hanging, not offering to help her up.