Author's Note: Wow, that was embarassing. In the previous chapter, I was reading it again and it just astounded me that it was riddled with so many errors that I had to rewrite some of the contents to correct it. Just like when Helga reviewed Arnold's article and told him how bad his article was. Wow, irony. Well, that's what you get for not proofreading, like this chapter >.>. I'm in a rush right now. Oh yeah, one more thing, I think I better be frank right now, if you're looking for a angsty, sappy lovey-dovey Arnold-Helga fic, you won't find it here. Seriously. Sorry to disappoint y'all.

Legal junk: I don't own Hey Arnold, but Nickelodeon does and Mr. Craig Bartlett created it. But this fic belongs to me. Clear? Good.

Chapter 9: Concern

Helga woke up from her bed only to listen to the sound of birds chirping outside of the window. Imagine that, being wakened up by tropical birds instead of a fowl or an alarm clock. It was music to her ears. She looked at a wall clock above the computer and showed that she woke up earlier than usual. She never woke up early before. After she wiped her face and eyes and shook her head violently to make herself more alert, she got out from the room and saw Arnold helping his mother preparing breakfast at the kitchen. "Wow…" Helga thought to herself. "What a momma's boy." She just smiled at them and went back to her room to pick up her towel and her toothbrush. She then went back out and proceeded to the bathroom outside the house. Today would be the first day of her working with Stella, so she wanted to make a good first impression to her.

After Helga closed the door to the bathroom, Stella turned to her son and asked, "Arnold, do you feel there's something peculiar about your friend?"

Arnold knew the peculiar-ness of his friend, but he wanted to avoid the subject as he wasn't uncomfortable of talking about it with his mother. "She's been like that ever since I know her, mom. It's nothing to be concerned about." He replied as he whisked the eggs in the bowl.

"Nothing out of the ordinary? The same old her?" she asked back.

"Yes ma'am." Arnold responded back. "Would you please drop the subject, mom?"

Stella furrowed her eyebrows at her son, "You're sounding as if you're keeping secrets from me." She said accusingly.

"I'm telling the truth, I know nothing. And I feel uncomfortable of talking about this." Arnold replied back rather sternly.

Stella still looked at her son with a skeptical look. Arnold let an exasperated breath out, stopped whisking and looked back at his mother. "Mom, really, I don't know anything. Heck, I don't even want to know why she's here. Now would you please stop looking at me like that?"

Stella sighed back, in disbelief. Her son never acted like this way before, but ever since Helga came here… no, no, she said to herself. She would not blame the guest for her son's actions. She let out a soft breath out, and tried hard to shrug it off. The hash browns she was cooking began to burn. She then quickly took it out from the frying pan. "I hope you're telling the truth, Arnold…"

---

"Helga, before we start, I want to tell you a few things." Stella said to her, "Once we arrive at the camp, I'll bring you to the back where we store the medicines so I can give you a quick crash course about which medicine is which. When the nurses or the doctors ask for something or to help them, you must do it quickly, because lives are very precious, and every second counts."

Helga nodded in understanding.

"If you have nothing to do, observe the doctors while they are treating the patients. You might learn a thing or two from them. And interact with the patients, because we want to lift their spirits up, to show to them that they still have hope and such."

"But I don't speak Spanish…" Helga replied back.

"It doesn't matter, as long as you are with them, they know that you are concerned about their wellbeing and they won't feel neglected by us. It is hope that makes them believe that they are still alive to this day."

Again, Helga nodded.

"But if you really feel that you need to learn Spanish, you can learn from one of the nurses there, if you want to. I'm sure they're happy to help. Finally, there's a mess hall next to the camp, so if you're hungry you can have lunch there. But don't eat too much because we're reserving it for the patients and the malnourished children. Are you clear about this?"

"Crystal." Helga replied back.

This particular conversation happened outside of Arnold's home. Stella and Helga were waiting for the carpool van to arrive as they were watched by Arnold at the veranda while he was tying up his shoes. He was quite worried about Helga, as he wouldn't want his mother to pester and disturb her with questions regarding why she was here. Hopefully she wouldn't get into much trouble with his mother, he thought worriedly to himself. It also occurred to him that his parents were very skeptical of him lately. He then just shook his head to repel those thoughts away from his mind. He then walked towards the two females and began a small talk with them.

"So… you're looking forward to this?" He asked Helga. He had his hands inside his pants' pockets.

"Yeah, I'm doing charity work. I mean, all the cool kids are doing it now, right?" Helga couldn't believe that she said that. She wanted to smack herself for saying that.

Arnold smiled back at her, and he turned to his mother, "You think she'll do a good job, mom?"

"She will." She forced herself a smile. Not that she doubted her usefulness, but the words from his husband seemed to influence her and her dislike for Helga started to grow, but not by much. Hopefully it wouldn't become chronic, she thought to herself.

Arnold just nodded, and said back to Helga, "You know the article that we wrote last night? I've emailed to them and I'm going to post the hardcopy right now."

"Hey, good luck, Football Head. You're gonna need it."

He smiled back at her and said, "Well, I guess I better get going," He pointed to his jeep behind him with his thumb, "I have to pick up Marcelo and send medicines to the Red Cross Camp East. See you guys later." he held a hand up and parted. Helga and Stella did the same, as they watch Arnold walked up to his jeep. As he left the village, a van came from the opposite direction and into the village. At the hood, there was the Red Cross logo printed in it. The driver blare the horn twice at them.

"That's our ride," Stella said to the young volunteer. "Come on."

And they went in. They passengers were doctors wearing casual outfit rather than those white coats which doctors would commonly wear. Helga assumed they were doctors since 1) They were riding on a van operated by the Red Cross, 2) one of them were reading his patient's health log and 3) all of them, except the driver had their stethoscopes hanging on their neck.

"Good morning, Stella." The only female doctor besides Stella greeted her in English with a thin Jamaican accent. "Who's dat girl with ya?"

"She's my son's friend." Stella replied back as she took a seat next to a window. Helga sat next to her. "Her name's Helga. She's volunteering to help us at the camp today."

"Ah, how are yousa doin', girl?" she smiled at her, "Hopefully yousa will do a good job."

"Thanks," Helga said back. And after that, the conversation just seemed to die down. Everyone in the van seemed to be occupied with his or her own thoughts. Helga was no exception. She didn't know what to expect once they arrived at the camp. And also she really wanted to know more about the old lady she met yesterday inside the ward. She wanted to know why she spoke in perfect English, since every local that encountered before either spoke Spanish or in broken English. Maybe there was something more about her that Helga didn't know about. Hopefully she'd have time to have a nice conversation with the old lady.

Stella looked out of the window, drifting in her own thoughts. But mostly it was about Helga, Arnold and her actions as a parent. Were her motherly instincts true about Helga? Should she force her to tell her phone number so she could call Bob and Miriam? Or she should just wait for her to tell her the problem she was facing? Somehow, she could relate to what Helga was facing right now. She too, when she was in her teen years, ran away from home. Back then she ran away because her ideals were dissimilar to her father's. She hated him so much that she ran away from home. And that was the most stupid and regrettable decision she had made in her entire life. But, looking at Helga, she felt something different came out from her. It wasn't a difference in ideals or your basic teen angst, but she felt that Helga was… unwanted, or worse, hated.

The van drove on, passing through jungles, shallow rivers and small villages. The van suddenly slowed down, but nobody bothered to ask why. Helga, being the newest addition to the van, was perplexed by the driver's action. So she asked Stella:

"Why are we slowing down?"

"Local superstition: be quiet as possible when passing through a graveyard." Stella asked as she looked outside.

Helga raised an eyebrow, and looked outside of the van. The graveyard was not big, and it had the jungle surrounding it with shady trees dotting the place providing some shelter for the graves from the hot sun. Stella suddenly sat up straight and had her eyes looking at a very small grave under a very large tree. Helga could hear her sobbing. Stella placed her hand on the window and over the small grave, and rubbed it gently with a sort of motherly touch. The sobbing could be heard getting louder and louder, and Helga could see a tear dropped on her lap. Stella quickly took out some tissue paper from her purse and wiped her eyes. Helga was very perplexed and Stella's actions bewildered her. She wanted to know why.

"Um… Mrs.—"

"It's okay, Helga…" she said, sobbing in between, "I'm fine… I'm just okay. It's just, it's… nothing."

Helga furrowed her eyebrows in a quizzical gaze. She wanted to know why. She wanted to ask Arnold later about this.

---

Stella brought her to a small shack behind the ward tent where its inside was loaded with boxes of medicines for various diseases. They stopped at every shelf as Stella introduced her to a variety of drugs, courtesy of private donors and the Red Cross. Medicines in many forms, liquid and tablets, in assorted colors and sizes somewhat intimidated Helga. What if she got them wrong and all mixed up? Would the patient survive if he or she were given the wrong medication? There was one type medicine that quickly caught her attention though; it was called Arnold, a liquefied medicine that had to be injected into a patient's body. When inquiring about it, Stella replied that she and her husband were the ones who invented the antidote to cure the dreaded Sleeping Disease that killed thousands of San Lorenzonians. It was now called the Sombra Disease. Obviously the cure was named after their son.

After the short crash course, Stella and Helga walked out from the shack and back into the ward where they could finally began their duties as life savers. Helga followed the good doctor from behind as she approached a patient who was lying sick on the bed. Stella lifted one the arms up and checked the patient's pulse. She talked to the patient to comfort her and to gave assurance they she was going to be all right. But unlike Arnold, her Spanish was really good, Helga thought to herself. Her flow was smooth and even, and didn't stutter or stumbled like Arnold. She then thought to herself she really needed to learn Spanish for this. Stella then asked Helga to bring her a particular medicine located on a tray in front of the bed. Helga nodded, and did what she was ordered. Piece of cake, hopefully the rest of the day would be as easy as this…

---

"Marcelo, do you know where are we going to after this?" Arnold said to his somewhat adopted brother while driving through the jungle, splattering mud left and right and running over poor small jungle creatures that unfortunately happened to be at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

"Where?" he asked back, winding the window down and took his head out from the jeep.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Arnold said in a warning tone, "Get back in here!" he yanked the kid's shirt and pulled him in, "You wanna get hit by those tree branches?"

"But the trees are so far away from me!" he whined back.

"You rather take the chances?" Arnold asked back, daring him.

The boy looked back at him and said, "Sí." And he poked his head out once again. But Arnold, yet again, pulled him back in.

"Man, aren't you adventurous." He replied back, sighing. "Now sit tight. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Because you're concerned about me?"

"No, actually I couldn't care less what'll happen to you." He replied playfully, "I just don't want your grandma get angry at me and kill me." he replied, smiling.

"Culero…" Marcelo mumbled back under his breath as he crossed his arms. Arnold knew he spoke Spanish but didn't know what the uttered word meant.

"What did you say?" asked Arnold.

"Oh, nothing…" he said with a sly smile. "So, where are we going?"

"To meet your giiirlfriendddd," he said with a playful, affectionate and sweet tone, "Salma."

Marcelo's face blushed and reddened in embarrassment, but he quickly replied, "No she's not! You're dumb!"

"Ah, kids…" Arnold thought to himself with a wry smile.

---

So Arnold drove the jeep up on the small hill and stopped in front of a small old wooden building that arguably as sturdy as his mother's sick camp. It was the Red Cross camp East where Salma was working. He switched the engine off and with Marcelo they got out from the jeep and went to the back to deliver medicines inside the camp. Arnold took out the cart out from trunk as Marcelo lifted the boxes out from the jeep and put them on it. With a little effort, they finally finished the job and Arnold let Marcelo push the cart to the building since the little guy insisted, even though he had to walk with a stick, because he had a stubby left leg. Arnold just shrugged and let him be. Less work for him and Marcelo could impress Salma with his cart pushing skills, Arnold thought to amuse himself. So Arnold just followed his somewhat adopted brother from behind and into the building, where they saw Salma checking a patient up.

Salma smiled at them and called the head doctor to announce that the medicines had finally arrived. The bald, white haired and thin old man quickly came over and greeted them. He humored Marcelo by making a joke and rubbed his hair and gave Arnold a handshake. Salma walked over to Marcelo and gave him a kiss on the cheek as a gesture of gratitude for bringing the medicines to them. Other nurses, who had grown to like Marcelo, playfully teased him as Arnold, the doctors and the patients laughed softly at his antics. The little boy really lifted their spirits up every time he was there. Marcelo continued to blush and his face was flushed with red for being too embarrassed, and yet happy that his little crush gave him a little kiss. He then hid behind Arnold as he could only laughed at him and rubbed his curly black hair.

"So will there be any shipments coming in upcoming weeks, sir?" Arnold asked the head doctor.

"Yes, in fact there is son." He replied back in a thick Brazilian accent, "Let's go to my table so I show you the shipment schedule."

Arnold then followed the doctor to his desk as Marcelo played around with Salma for a moment. After being shown the schedule from the doctor, Arnold then shook his hand with him and parted. He then went to Salma to pick Marcelo up so they could go to their next destination.

"Why, aren't you having fun?" Arnold playfully teased him.

"Oh, shut up." Marcelo replied back, smiling.

"Go wait inside the car, will you? I have something to ask your girlfriend right now." Arnold asked him. Marcelo punched him in the legs for teasing him, and ran off to the jeep as he waved at Salma. Salma did the same.

"He's a playful kid, isn't he?" Arnold said to her.

"He sure is." She sighed back, "It's a shame that my nephew isn't as spry or adventurous as him. That's the difference between kids here and the States I think, kids here climb trees, go outdoors and let their imaginations run wild, while kids back home sit around in the house play videogames all day and let their imagination restricted…" she sighed again.

Arnold nodded, seemed to concur with her, "Hey Salma, you've met my friend Helga, haven't you?"

"Yeah, I brought her to your house. What a weird girl. Nice, though."

"Yeah, she told me that earlier. Thanks for bringing her."

"Hey man, no prob. I was just helping a traveler going about the country."

Arnold sighed back, "Well, thanks again for that. By the way, she asked me to ask you something. She said she wants to crash at your place three days from now."

"Huh? Why?"

"She… kinda told my parents that you invited her over to stay for a while."

"Now why does she want to stay with me, all of the sudden? Don't tell me you're treating her like crap back at your house." She replied accusingly.

"What?" he chuckled, "Heck no. My parents are assuming that she ran away from home, but I don't want to believe that. She's probably using you as a reason to evade my parents' suspicions."

"Well, if what you said is really true, then I really think she's running away from home, judging from those elaborate stories she made."

"I'm going have to disagree with you then. I still think she did not run away from home."

"Whatever you say, Arnold."

"Well I'd better get going. Marcelo is probably tired of waiting right now. Be sure to say that only if my parents ask you."

"Okay, will do. Don't worry about it. See ya."

---

"Come and sit next me, child." The old lady said to Helga while she pushed a medicine cart to the doctor's desk at the end of the room. "You look very tired. Take a rest." The old lady added. Helga nodded, and after she put the cart back, she then went over to the old lady, took a chair nearby and sat next to her. 'Interact with the patients,' Helga remembered Stella's helpful words. And so she did. Helga opened her listening ears.

"I see you are in great distress." The old lady said to her.

Helga was in shock. How could she know when they barely knew each other? "You think?" she replied sardonically, but it didn't sound rude. The old lady was humored by it, and she chuckled a bit.

"I can see through your eyes that you are experiencing sadness and anguish from a very recent incident. I will not ask what troubles you. It's all up to you whether you want to tell me… or not."

Helga looked at her again. Should she tell her about her family and the reason why she was here? A part of her told her no, while the other one said yes. Helga's feeling was mixed. She was somewhat angered that a stranger wanted to understand her problem. Who did she think she was, the Voodoo Lady? Helga thought bitterly to herself. But on the other hand, telling her feelings to an old lady that looked caring and understanding wouldn't hurt. But when Stella walked past them, she changed her mind. Maybe the old lady and Stella made a pact together so Arnold's parents would intervene in her affairs. Something that she really did not want to. If anyone should be intervening, it would be Arnold, and only Arnold.

The old lady felt that the girl was reluctant to give an answer, judging from how long she sat idly without replying back to her. It was humbly justifiable though. A scared, insecure young girl like her would doubt and distrust her. The old lady figured that she would comfort her by telling her a story of her own. A story that she shared with only a few people that as far as she remembered.

"You're probably thinking why I am speaking English so well, aren't you?" she asked her.

Helga seemed surprised. She read her mind. Maybe she was a Voodoo lady after all. "Yes." She replied with a nod.

The old lady chuckled, "That's because I was born and raised in Puerto Rico." Helga gave her a dry smile.

So she asked, "So why are you here? Are you on a vacation or something and just struck jungle fever?"

"Malaria to be exact. But don't worry about me, though. The doctors are just exaggerated my condition, I'm going to be fine." She replied warmly. "And I'm not on vacation, sadly. Hadn't had one ever since I was young. But a vacation would be nice though."

"So like, why are you here?" Helga asked again.

"I was no older than you when I came to this country. I am here because I joined the San Lorenzo Revolution many years ago. My father told me it was all a fool's dream, overthrowing an evil dictator and all that. But I stood affirm to my believes and wanted to prove him wrong. So I ran away from home."

Helga raised an eyebrow in shock disbelief. How come everything seemed to intertwine with her problems right now, she shouted in her mind.

"But I was on the wrong side, apparently. The government kept winning and winning, until all of us grew tired of fighting, and we just stopped. I was ashamed. Maybe my father was right. I was chasing a fool's dream, trying to bring utopia into this madness. I felt I made the worst decision in my entire life. My decision also strained my relationship with my family. So I decided to go back home to my family and ask for an apology, but there seemed to be no transport around and I had no means to contact my family. So I went back, met my old group but by the time I was there, they decided to resort to one last plan. Something drastic and radical, and it worked."

"So you finally won huh?"

"Yes, but by the time we won, my father died and I couldn't even go home for the funeral. It was the saddest day in my life. What I heard that it was because of me my father died, because he was too worried about me that he became a complete mess of himself. It struck me so hard that I decided to stop fighting, and let my rebel friends maintain a government. But the irony was that their governing style was even worse than the dictator. I was a fool to believe them. And they restrict everything to the point that San Lorenzo is what you see right now, poor and undeveloped. I couldn't get out from the country due to the restrictions, so I had to stay here for the rest of my life. Going back home again would be too late right now."

The old lady's story about her father in someway also struck Helga hard. Maybe her parents were worried about her too. She wondered what happened to them right now, back at the home that she despised so much…

---

Back at the Pataki's residence…

Olga opened the door to Helga's room quietly and took a peek inside. Quiet and silent, just like yesterday, and the day before it. It had been two days since Helga left home, without her family knowing about where she went and when she'd be coming back. Olga wandered in further and looked around her sister's room. The room pretty much described her sister in a lot of ways: crying for help. She then took a seat at the desk and looked at a picture frame in front of her. It was a family photo with Helga the only one with a scowling, angry look on her face. Olga had always thought that she did that because she loved to ruin a perfect family picture.

Olga then looked at herself, smiling a winning smile and always looked perfect in every way. She then realized she, in a way was the root of all this. She overshadowed her and made her little sister feel like her existence was insignificant. Unloved. Olga looked at Helga again, but this time, she studied her face carefully. It wasn't because she wanted to ruin the portrait, but she was miserable in every way. It was a cry for help.

Olga's eyes became teary, thinking the fate of her sister right now. Is she safe? Is she alright? Where is she right now? There must be something that Olga didn't find to clue her in about Helga whereabouts. She tried to remember again. Did she leave any clues? Did she leave anything behind at all? Did she leave any note? Note… of course! The note that Helga had left for her in her room! Oh, she was so stupid that for forgetting about it! She probably was too distraught over her sister's running away that she forgot to observe the most important clue of all. So she quickly ran out from the room and into hers. She dug out her wastepaper basket in search of the note, reopened every crumpled paper in it. Thank goodness she didn't take the trash out. Finally she found what she was searching for, so put it on her desk, took a pen out and underlined this one particular remark many times:

By the time you read this, I'm probably on a plane right now, contemplating on my next journey.

She then quickly ran downstairs, where Bob and Miriam were inside the family room waiting next to the telephone waiting for the cops to call them incase there was any news regarding about their daughter. They both look weary and tired from searching her daughter and looking for every clue about her whereabouts.

"It's been two days now…" Bob said wearily to his wife. The bags under his eyes grew bigger and darker, and he didn't shave for the last couple of days.

"We can't give up hope." Miriam replied tiredly. Her eyes were all bloodshot and her hair was messy due to the lack of sleep.

"I wonder what she's doing right now… hopefully she's safe." He replied back.

Miriam nodded, "All we can do is hope for the best now, and pray she isn't hurt." A series of thunderous thumps was heard descending down from the stairs. Bob and Miriam turned to the entrance and saw Olga running towards them with a piece of paper on one of her hand.

"Mommy, daddy! I think I know where Helga might be!" she then showed the piece of note to her parents. They both were in shock.

"Quickly!" Bob pointed to the door, "To the Pataki-mobile!" to refer to the Hummer.

---

At the airport…

"Please! Have you seen this girl?" Miriam showed a perky, happy, cheerful airline clerk behind the counter a picture of a scowling, angry looking Helga. "We've been looking for her for days now. I'm begging you, if you have any information, please tell us!"

The airline clerk tried to recollect her memories from the past few days, and she could remember vaguely that uncertain, weary and feeling just plain miserable girl that asked her for a ticket to a foreign land. But unfortunately, she had forgotten the name.

"Well, she does look familiar to me. What's the girl's name?" She asked, "I could find her in the airline database." So Bob told her his daughter's name. It was the first time that Bob said her name correctly.

After some effort, the clerk finally found the name, "Yeah… I think I got her. She left the country a few days ago to San Lorenzo."

Helga's family was horrified.

"San Lorenzo?" Bob bellowed out loud, "Where the heck is that?"

"It's in the Caribbean, somewhere near Puerto Rico, daddy." Olga informed her.

"When's the next plane bound for that country?" Miriam asked. The clerk checked the computer again.

"The next plane to San Lorenzo will not arrive until next week on Friday, ma'am." She replied back.

"Please, could you please find us an earlier flight?" Miriam begged and pleaded her, "I'm begging you! My daughter ran away to that country and I'm really, really worried about her! Please! Help me!"

The clerk sympathized with her, and doubled her efforts to help the poor mother. Alas, she couldn't find anything. "I'm sorry ma'am, there aren't any earlier flights. But I'll book you into the flight I mentioned earlier, just in case."

"No flights at all?" Miriam asked back disbelievingly.

"Sorry ma'am," the clerk sighed. "Nothing. I'll book tickets for all of your family, okay?"

Miriam accepted the painful truth, and nodded. She softly said thanks to her as the clerk typed some information on the ticket. While she was doing that, the Patakis stood in a circle, trying to think up what would be their next move.

"We should call the State Department and tell us our situation." Bob said to them, wiping his face.

"But the thing is," Olga replied, "from what I've heard from my friends that San Lorenzo just formed a new government and our country has yet to recognize its existence. It means that we have no embassy there to for us call. So they can't do anything."

"So, what are you saying?" Miriam asked her daughter.

"We can't do anything but to wait for the flight we're taking. Unless of course, we directly ask the San Lorenzo government to help us…"

"So go and call them or something Olga! Do the internet stuff that you always do!" Bob said back, rather harshly.

"Ma'am, here are your tickets." The clerk said.

Why did Stella cry when they passed by the graveyard? How did Marcelo lost his leg? Will Helga's family fly to San Lorenzo? Why am I asking you these questions? Why am I imitating that fishhead newscaster from Spongebob? I know there are errors in this chapter because I didn't bother to proofread, so if you found any, please tell me. Kthxbye.