Chapter 18 – How Helga Got Her Mean Back
Helga didn't even wince as Dr. Marshall slowly pulled the stitches from her hand. It wasn't even as though she was lost in thought, quite the contrary as she was desperately trying not to think at all. The bet, losing, leaving, Arnold, it had all come together in her head and caused an almighty explosion in the corners of her brain. Everything toppled inward and now it lay in a smoking heap on the bottom of her mind, and all that was left was the one idea that Helga was nice. Nothing else mattered as long as she didn't curse, as long as she didn't scowl and bully, because then the one last idea in her head would be lost and she would break down.
'Break down?' she thought. 'Whoops, too late.' She knew that she was acting in a most peculiar fashion, but she couldn't hide from the fact that it made so much sense to her. All the roundabout ways she had gone to try and make Arnold love her really were needless complicated. Arnold liked nice. Helga was nice. Arnold liked Helga. It really was that simple. As Dr. Marshall pulled the last stitch from her hand, she chuckled lightly.
"That's the first time that's ever tickled anyone," he said with a small grin. Helga smiled politely and said nothing. "I asked her out," the doctor said suddenly as he dabbed Helga's hand with cotton wool.
"Hmm?" she said distractedly, staring at the curtains.
"The pretty blonde nurse," Dr. Marshall said. "I asked her out." Something flashed in Helga's mind, her last meeting with Dr. Marshall when he had been yammering on about some bimbo or other. Helga mentally kicked herself. That wasn't very nice.
"Oh," she said softly. Whether Dr. Marshall was crestfallen or confused at Helga's lack of enquiry even he wasn't sure, but he ploughed on regardless.
"She said yes! Isn't that fantastic Helga?" Helga, who was now swinging her legs wildly back and forth on the edge of the bed, stopped suddenly and blinked her eyes at him rapidly.
"I guess so," she mumbled. Dr. Marshall frowned at her. The last time he had seen Helga he had gotten the distinct impression that nothing would please her more than to hear there was hope for those who had carried a hefty amount of unrequited love around with them for a long time. Now it seemed as though she felt whole deal was a little silly and pointless.
"Helga, is something wrong?" he asked tentatively, getting the distinct feeling that he had just put his foot in his mouth. What if Helga had asked her boy out, but he had flat refused her? The last thing she would have wanted was someone else rubbing their success story in her face.
"No, I don't think so," she said quietly, in a sweet voice that seemed to indicate that she wasn't sure if she was alright or not.
"Are you sure?" he said as he wrapped a fresh white bandage around Helga's hand.
"Absolutely. Thank you doctor." She got to her feet and almost floated away through the curtain, she was walking so lightly. Dr. Marshall frowned and followed her. Not only was she talking to him as though they had never met, she had also left without waiting for his instructions about her hand.
"Helga, wait!" he called as he skidded around the corner. He was most surprised to find Helga standing perfectly still, staring at a vending machine with fiery intent. "Helga?" he asked her gently. She didn't look up, or even acknowledge the fact that she was no longer alone. "Helga?" he tried again.
"I'm thinking about getting Arnold a present," she said in a monotone, leaning her fingertips against the glass and scanning the contents of the machine more closely. "Do you think he would like that?"
"I'm sorry?" Dr. Marshall said, utterly confused.
"A present," she repeated, finally removing her eyes from the rows of candy bars so she could roll them at the doctor. "People like presents, and they like people who give them presents."
"Perhaps," the doctor mused, both catching on and noticing the glazed look in Helga's eyes at last. "But maybe Arnold would prefer something a little more special than a Mr. Nutty Bar."
"Do you really think so?" Helga said eagerly, blinking at the doctor in a way that just served to make her look crazier.
"I do. Look, Helga, are you alright?" Dr. Marshall said quickly before she had a chance to get away from him again.
"Yes, I'm fine," she said delicately, clearly wishing to get away but her new found, (and overly-stressed) politeness would not allow her to move.
"Are you on your own?" Dr. Marshall asked, walking forward in a way that indicated Helga should follow him back to the waiting room.
"No, Arnold is here," she said with a manic smile.
"Really? Shouldn't he be at school?"
"He ducked out," she said, before adding breathlessly, "For me."
"Well, that was nice of him…" Dr. Marshall said half-heartedly, wondering if it actually was a good idea for Helga to spend so much time with the person who was clearly responsible for her strange behaviour. They rounded the white, sterile corners and entered the plastic waiting room, where Arnold was no longer sitting down but pacing around like an anxious expectant father. Dr. Marshall left Helga to her own devices and pulled Arnold to one side. Arnold followed, trying to look surprised but knowing full well that the doctor was going to question him on the way Helga was acting.
"Arnold," Dr. Marshall began gently, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"If this is about Helga, I don't know what's making her-"
"It's you," Dr. Marshall cut in.
"Me?" Arnold replied, shocked to his very core.
"Yes, you," Dr. Marshall said again, wondering how he could both blame Arnold and tiptoe around Helga's feelings for the young man at the same time.
"What did I do?" Arnold said defensively.
"It's not so much what you did," Dr. Marshall began uncertainly. "More who you are." Arnold was clearly bewildered, so Dr. Marshall decided to try a different tack. "What I mean to say is… Helga's got this strange idea in her head that she should be… more like you?" The last word was uttered as a question because for all Dr. Marshall knew he was making the whole thing up. There was always the possibility that Helga's mental troubles were being caused by an entirely different factor, her father for one was bound to be some sort of heavy presence on her mind, but then, he thought as a pretty blonde nurse swept past winking at him, it probably was Arnold. He knew what unrequited love could do to a person.
"Why would she want to be more like me?" Arnold asked, looking uncertainly at Helga, who was now sitting on a plastic chair with her legs crossed and her back straight, an odd little smile on her face.
"Well, someone like you is someone you'd like…" Dr. Marshall said, hoping that if he dropped enough hints Arnold would finally see he big picture. It was obviously useless; Arnold was still all at sea.
"She wants me to like her?" Arnold chanced after a moments intense thought.
"Yes!" Dr. Marshall exclaimed, stopping himself from breaking into a small jig with some difficulty.
"But I do like Helga," Arnold insisted. Dr. Marshall surveyed him through narrowed eyes.
"You do?" he asked, hardly daring to believe his ears.
"Yeah, I mean, I know she bugs me sometimes, but she's nice enough." Dr. Marshall brought his hand up to his forehead and closed his eyes completely. "Is something wrong?" Arnold asked.
"No, nothing's wrong," Dr. Marshall lied.
"I'm really sorry Dr. Marshall, I don't know what you're getting at." Arnold looked back to Helga again. "I wonder why she hasn't come over yet?" he thought out loud.
"Would she have usually?" Dr. Marshall asked.
"Well, Helga's a little impatient… on any other day," Arnold added as an afterthought.
"But not today?" Dr. Marshall pressed.
"She's not been herself at all, not since…" he trailed off, reconstructing the scene in his mind. The snobbish woman had taken Helga's magazine, and Arnold was pushing Helga to take it back. When she had said she wouldn't his first thought had been 'How un-Helga like.' Was she trying to prove him wrong?
"Since?" Dr. Marshall continued.
"Since I accused her of being temperamental," Arnold finished lamely.
"And is she?" Dr. Marshall asked.
"Yes," Arnold said, and to Dr. Marshall's surprise, he smiled. "That's what Helga's supposed to be." Dr. Marshall beamed at the young boy.
"So why is she acting so strange?" Arnold took a deep breath and filled the doctor in on all the unpleasant business of the bet, and the lasting effect it seemed to have had on Helga. Dr. Marshall nodded and looked thoughtful for a moment, before rounding on Arnold and taking him by the shoulders.
"Right, here's what you have to do," he said solidly. "Helga's got herself into some sort of strange funk, and you have to get her out of it. I don't know how, aggravate her temper or something, just bring her back to being her old self. She's going crazy Arnold, and from what she told me when she first came in she doesn't want to leave Hillwood at all, let alone as a crazy person, so at least make it a little easier on the poor girl." Arnold nodded and Dr. Marshall disappeared back into the ward after giving him one last smile.
"Come on Helga, let's get you home," Arnold said warmly, and Helga leapt to her feet and followed her crush to her mother's car.
-
"Hello, Mrs. Hyerdahl? Is Phoebe home?" Arnold lay on his bed with his head hanging off the end, staring up at the cloudless sky. He pinged the phone cord back and forth while he waited for phoebe to pick up at her end, and noticed that his mouth was incredibly dry.
"Hello?" a timid voice squeaked.
"Phoebe? It's Arnold. I need to talk to you about Helga," he said quickly.
"Helga?" Phoebe repeated. "Is she ok?"
"Yeah, she's fine. Well, ok, no, that's a bit of a lie. She's alright she's just gone a little… crazy."
"Crazy?"
"Well… I think I broke her." A thousand horrific images thundered through Phoebe's mind of Helga finally breaking down and confessing her feelings to Arnold, (which she had always denied she'd had, Phoebe noted with an air of contempt), only to have Arnold turn around and strike her down. Now she was wandering around aimless and soulless and lamenting for the love she had never had the chance to have. She shook her head slightly, knowing she was being stupid, but when she went to talk to Arnold again she found she couldn't swallow.
"Oh… really?" she croaked. "How so?"
"Well, she's got the idea into her head that I think she's incapable of being nice… so she's going overboard with the niceness." Phoebe frowned at her end. Arnold was never the king of clarity but now he was just being stupid.
"I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean Arnold," she said politely. Arnold promptly filled her in on Helga's odd behaviour and everything Dr. Marshall had told him. Phoebe remained quiet throughout, trying to seem shocked but knowing inside that this was exactly the kind of thing Helga had been building up to all her life.
"So, what do you think we should do about it?" Arnold asked nervously.
"Huh?" Phoebe replied, lost in her own thoughts.
"About Helga," Arnold prompted.
"Oh," Phoebe said quickly, very glad that Arnold could not see her blushing. "Well, perhaps Dr. Marshall was right. We should try to goad Helga into her usual, and dare I say it, volatile response when faced with situations that could provoke her negative emotions."
Now it was Arnold's turn to "Huh?"
"We should encourage to show her old fiery side. You know, bring out the Helga we all know and love." Phoebe half expected Arnold to snort, and was most pleased when he did not.
"How do we go about that?" he asked genuinely. Phoebe finally managed to swallow thickly. Provoking Helga into a fury was not only something Phoebe felt was slightly mean, it was also exceedingly dangerous, and something Phoebe usually avoided at all costs. The pair spent the next hour running up Arnold's phone bill in a vain attempt to devise a plan, but they were both in agreement that this would be no easy task. Helga had avoided Rhonda's attempts to get a reaction so well when she was sane, (or as sane as Helga got, anyway). There was nothing supporting the idea that Helga would snap so easily after her little episode.
-
Helga's change of heart and mind was immediately apparent to the rest of her classmates when she shuffled into school the next morning. She had a smile on he face that looked as though she had robbed it from the nearest cheerleader, and her bunches were done up so tightly that they stretched the skin on her forehead. She greeted them all in such an over-the-top fashion that even Lila thought it was a bit much, and she absolutely refused to sit down until everyone else had taken their seats. When Mr. Simmons finally swept into the room, she gave him a cheery wave and sat down sedately with her hands folded in her lap.
"Helga, what on earth has gotten into you?" Rhonda drawled, leaning over to the stiff-backed blonde. Helga merely smiled and pressed a dainty finger to her lips, before turning her full attention back to Mr. Simmons. Arnold watched all of this from the safety of his desk which was hidden in the corner. He knew what he had to do, he and Phoebe had worked tirelessly to find a way to 'cure' Helga, but that didn't make him feel any better about it. Arnold was not, by nature, a mean person, and that didn't stiffen his resolve that their plan would actually work. What was the point in being horrible if you were going to hold back because of your guilt issues?
"Ok class, divide into pairs and get started on your art projects," Mr. Simmons called with a polite smile. "And Helga, may I have a quick word please?"
"But of course Mr. Simmons," Helga said sweetly, getting to her feet amidst small guffaws of laughter. She ignored them all quite expertly and waltzed up to Mr. Simmons's desk.
"Helga, are you quite alright?" he asked the young girl as he ruffled some loose papers on his desk.
"Why I'm just fine Mr. Simmons," she said through her glazed expression. In her mind all she could think about was Arnold, Arnold, Arnold, and there was very little room for anything else except for his wild plan to impress him. And, she thought with an excited smile, it must be working too. He hasn't taken his eyes off of me all morning!
"Are you sure?" Mr. Simmons pressed. "You seem a little different this morning. Is everything alright at home?" Helga merely nodded and looked over to Arnold, and she felt her old temper try to flare up when she spotted he was working with Phoebe. She glanced over at Gerald and noticed that he didn't seem too happy with the arrangements either. She quickly squashed her temper back down when Arnold caught her eye.
"Ok," Mr. Simmons said fussily, before indicating that she could go back to her seat. Helga sat down placidly and glanced around to see who she could work with, that little trickle of rage reminding her once more that she really ought to have been working with Phoebe.
"Helga?" a soft voice asked. Helga looked up, and saw Lila Sawyer standing over her, a hopeful twinkle in her warm brown eyes.
"Yes?" she said in an equally soft voice, as though they were in a contest to see who could be the vilest.
"Would you like to work with me?" Lila asked. She had not forgotten Helga's words of kindness and Helga had not forgotten her half-baked plan to detract Arnold's attention from her. Admittedly the boy was still swooning over the auburn haired country girl like some very sick puppy, but that, Helga supposed, couldn't really be helped.
"I'd love to," she said quickly, and she was only dimly aware of how unnatural her voice sounded.
Over on the other side of the classroom, Arnold and Phoebe had their heads together, still plotting ways to make Helga lose her temper. Phoebe had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach; she wasn't working very hard and it was making her feel uncomfortable. She stared down at the plain white paper with her pencil hanging fruitlessly in her hand, listening intently to Arnold muttering in her ear.
"Insults," Arnold said firmly. "No one likes being insulted."
"Well," Phoebe said softly, tiptoeing around the truth as it always broke her heart to say it. "Helga gets insulted so much I imagine it would be like water off a duck's back." Arnold only took a moment to feel sorry for Helga before ploughing onto the next idea.
"We could push her over or something… you know, in front of everyone. Really embarrass her." Phoebe thought that was the lamest thing she had ever heard.
"Arnold, I certainly don't possess the upper body strength to foul a girl like Helga and while I in no way wish to emasculate you, I don't think you would be able to. Not for the fact that Helga is stronger than you or anything. I believe you are simply too much of a gentleman." Arnold frowned at the pretty oriental girl, but he couldn't help himself from smiling just a little bit. Phoebe blushed and looked over to Helga, whose eyes were darting between Arnold and Phoebe, a faint trace of her old scowl on her lips. Phoebe positively beamed.
"I've got it!" she exclaimed.
"I'm glad one of us does," Arnold murmured into the desk.
"Jealousy, that's the key," she breathed.
"Jealousy?" Arnold repeated, lifting his head off the desk, bringing with it the piece of paper which had firmly stuck itself to his cheek.
"Yes, she's absolutely terrible at handling it," Phoebe said, her eyes dancing.
"Well, what makes Helga jealous?" Arnold asked.
"You –" Phoebe caught herself just in time before she said 'you do'. Arnold raised his eyebrows at her. "Er… you know, I'm not quite sure," she finished, congratulating herself on a most excellent save.
-
The next few weeks passed almost without incident, much to Arnold and Phoebe's chagrin. In fact, the class had grown so used to Helga's scarily polite ways that the ones who didn't choose to simply ignore her found she was very easily exploited, and as the date of her departure inched ever closer, Helga found herself doing the homework of no less than three of her classmates. Arnold tried to step in on Helga's behalf whenever he could, but he found that it was impossible when Helga was still in earshot. She would insist that it wasn't needed and though she would retain her extreme polite demeanour, Arnold found that her grip on his arm was actually rather painful.
Their attempts to push the poor girl into a jealous rage fell flat on their faces. By parading about pretending that they admired Olga like some sort of goddess, they only inspired Helga to actually agree, something which made Phoebe's insides squirm with ill-feeling. They tried to impress upon her the idea that she was not the most creative, talented poet in the class, and that perhaps that title was best suited to Harold, but Helga merely fluttered her eyelashes and gushed for hours about Harold's great potential. Phoebe never expected any of these ideas to work. She knew that the key to Helga's jealousy was Arnold, but she could find no way of telling him that without revealing Helga's big secret, (which technically, she wasn't supposed to know).
"This isn't working," she grunted as she tried to reach up and tie the banner proclaiming Rhonda 'Queen of the Fourth Grade', a little tighter. Arnold sighed and looked to his feet, still holding his hands steady on the stepladder.
"I know," he agreed, and with one violent motion, Phoebe ripped the banner down from above the blackboard.
"Arnold," Phoebe said as she stepped off the last rung, simultaneously throwing caution to the winds. "We need to talk." Arnold bit his lip and looked over Phoebe's shoulder. If his experiences in life had taught him anything, it was that when a woman said she needed to talk, it would usually be about bad news.
"Ok," he said nervously, running his hand over the back of his neck.
"It's you," she said stubbornly, fixing him with a stare whilst crumbling from guilt on the inside. Arnold was shocked into a flash back of his last meeting with Dr. Marshall. So it's me, is it? Arnold thought wildly. What the heck does that even mean? "You're the one that drives her crazy," Phoebe said, now poking him sharply in the chest. "You're the one who makes her jealous and mad, and you're the one that finally pushed her over the edge." Arnold took a few steps back from Phoebe, who it seemed was taking care of Helga's rage while she wasn't using it.
"Me?" he uttered stupidly. Phoebe rolled her eyes, which were now blazing with fury. "What did I do?"
"Just take my word for it, football head" she snapped, neither wanting to divulge details nor feeling that Arnold had earned the right to hear them. Arnold nearly fainted at the use of that particular nickname as it escaped from the mouth of Phoebe.
"O…k…" he said slowly, not sure whether to stand his ground or run screaming from the room. A light seemed to switch on his brain, and he fixed Phoebe with a triumphant smile. "Ha!" he proclaimed.
"What?" she said, hardly daring to believe that he had finally caught on.
"It can't be me!" Phoebe felt as though she had been punctured.
"No, it's definitely you," she said absently, fiddling with a loose cord that hung from the flag.
"But it can't be, or all those other times I tried to make her jealous would have worked!" Phoebe thought he was about to break into a victory dance.
"You're stupid," she said simply, cutting Arnold down. A tense moment passed between the two, in which Phoebe continued to play with the cord and Arnold huffed loudly.
"Ok fine, Miss Smarty-Pants," he said in mock severity. "Tell me what I have to do." Phoebe leaned in and whispered her whole badly-concocted plan into his nervous ear.
-
Helga was quite surprised to find that Phoebe had invited her out. Since her new approach to life, in which she was certain Arnold was warming to her, so obvious were his attempts to glean her attention, she hadn't been out very much at all. Aside from the extra workload, people seemed to be a little skittish around her, as though with one false word her head would turn three-hundred-and-sixty degrees and she would breathe fire. So it was with a happy sort of smile that she sat on a paint-peeling bleacher in Gerald Field, waiting for everyone else to show up.
The rest of the class showed up in drips and drabs, the last two to arrive being Arnold and Lila. Helga narrowed her eyes at them dangerously, before checking herself and instead giving them a friendly wave. Lila smiled nervously at Helga; Phoebe had filled her in on her and Arnold's plan, and while she was willing to do whatever she could to help Helga after Helga's act of kindness, she was still a little uncomfortable with her role. She was to pretend that she was head over heels for Arnold, to perhaps inspire some sort of anger in Helga, but Lila couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the boy. His feelings for Lila were genuine after all, but the ones she would be returning to him were not.
Phoebe, in her eternal wisdom, had managed to convince Arnold that Helga wasn't jealous because he was with someone who wasn't her, but she was jealous because she hated seeing people happier than she was, and Arnold seemed to be happy most of the time. Arnold had swallowed this like so much tripe, and found that the idea of Lila only pretending to be his girlfriend wasn't that bad anyway. Maybe his feelings towards the country girl were fading, but he couldn't really be sure.
Quite wisely, Arnold took Helga's wave as a reason for the pair to go and sit by her, especially seeing as everyone else seemed to be giving her a wide berth.
"Hello Helga," Lila said sweetly. "How are you?" Helga didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed on Lila's fingers, which were entwined in Arnold's own. Arnold followed her line of sight and picked up the slack immediately.
"Oh yes, Helga, Lila and I have some very good news!" he gushed, layering on the happy tones quite thickly. Helga found she had a lot of trouble controlling her voice.
"Really?" she squeaked. Was it her, or had everything just turned a funny shade of red?
"Oh yes," Lila said in a dreamy voice. "Arnold and I are a couple! Isn't that just ever so wonderful, Helga?" she said, her eyes positively sparkling. Helga wasn't certain that she should open her mouth at all, the threat of vomiting was so strong.
"That's… fantastic," she said through gritted teeth. Arnold beamed at the fact that she was clearly bubbling over, but Helga mistook his grin for one of satisfaction.
"Isn't it?" Arnold said in a dramatic fashion, looking out over the baseball field where a game was now in progress. Phoebe winked at him from second base.
"I'm…so…happy…for…you," Helga forced out, gripping the bench so tightly her knuckles turned white.
"Really? You are?" Lila said in an almost alarming way, causing Helga to draw back a little. "It would mean so much to me if we had your blessing." Helga's rage was temporarily forgotten while she fixed Lila with a confused stare.
"Why do you need my blessing?" she asked. Lila looked to her hands and let out a small giggle.
"Oh…" she said loftily. "No reason." Helga felt as though she were going to explode. There was just something so knowing about the way Arnold looked at her. What had Lila told him?
"You didn't," she breathed heavily, her niceness now clearly forgotten.
"Didn't what?" Lila continued, rather bravely Arnold thought, as Helga looked as though she was going to murder the redhead. Helga leaned in closer.
"You didn't dare tell him!" she hissed in a frightening whisper that Arnold couldn't hear. Lila blinked her eyes at the blonde girl, smiling in a silly manner.
"Oh, was I not supposed to?"
Helga's screams could be heard all through Hillwood. She knew that there would be some serious patching up to do with Arnold later on, but right now her only concern was taking Lila Sawyer to a dimly lit ally and skinning her alive. Lila got to her feet and fled the field at top speed, with Helga in close pursuit. She was followed by Arnold and Phoebe, who were far too worried about Lila's fate to feel too victorious. They followed her heavy footfalls down Vine Street and into a side ally that led on to some neglected allotments. As they rounded the corner the pair could hear two voices: One timid and scared, the other seething with rage.
"…didn't say a word! I was just trying to help!" Lila squeaked.
"Help!" Helga exclaimed viciously.
"You've not been yourself," Lila offered gently. "It's not right." Phoebe and Arnold held the sound of something heavy being dropped to the floor, and then an audible sigh of relief from Lila. Arnold made to walk around the corner and face the two girls, but Phoebe held out her arm to stop him.
"Why do people keep saying that?" she uttered softly. Arnold smiled; he could almost hear the scowl that had returned to Helga's face.
"It's true," Lila said quickly. "I don't know, maybe we all thought we'd like you if you were…" 'Choose your words carefully Lila,' Phoebe thought desperately. "If you were… nice. I mean nicer," she amended. "But it turns out we like you just the way you are." An awkward silence passed between the two girls, in which Arnold and Phoebe exchanged shrugs, before Helga spoke again.
"Not everyone likes me this way," she said faintly. "I guess it was stupid of me to try and be anything different. I just wanted to be liked by certain people, in certain ways. Don't you get it?" she asked Lila. Lila nodded, though Arnold and Phoebe couldn't see that. Lila knew how badly Helga wanted Arnold to like her like her, she actually felt quite sorry for the Pataki girl.
"I know," Lila said sweetly. "But you know, he-"
Arnold didn't get a chance to find out the rest of the conversation as Phoebe pulled him roughly away from the scene and back to Gerald Field.
-
A/N: Sorry this one took so long, but, like an idiot, I've busted up my hand. Bones and nerves are all as one, or so the doctor tells me. Anyway, progress is slow yet steady, and I hope to have this fic finished soon.
Also, the part where Helga is sitting on the bleachers growing ever annoyed at Arnold and Lila's PDA, I first wrote "…gripping the bench so tightly her knickers turned white." Just thought I'd share that with you, hehe. Must be the painkillers getting to me… -Sky.