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 15: Trying to Intervene
Next day in school…
"Okay guys, listen up," Gerald said to his crew, "What we just saw yesterday was out of the ordinary. It was FUBAR, and downright bizarre." He, Stinky and Harold were having a discussion during lunch hour in the cafeteria, "We – hey, where the hell is Sid and Robert? They should be here by now." He said, looking at his watch.
"Sid said he wanted to see Nadine first 'fore he joins us." Stinky said to him.
"Okay, justifiable… and where's Robert?"
"He wants to forget all the things he saw yesterday, said that he doesn't want to get involved." Harold answered.
"That's a freaking lame excuse." He said in annoyance, "Ah, screw him then. Let's just wait for Sid, guys. Knowing him, he won't bail on us." He said to all of them in assurance, yet he was in doubt himself. "Hey, have you guys heard?" Gerald then asked to all of them, as they waited for Sid to arrive.
In another part of the school, Sid was at his locker, putting his books inside. He wanted to see Nadine after this to ask her why did she left him at the cinema last Saturday, "Sid…" somebody called him lowly from behind. He turned around, and saw Nadine, looking at him apologetically.
"Hey." Sid greeted her in a low tone, still upset that she left him just abruptly.
"Hey…" she replied back, "about last Saturday—"
"No… no." he halted her as he motioned his hand as to say 'no', "S'right. Maybe there was something important going on that day and you had to go. It'd be selfish of me to ask you to stay. I—"
"Hush now…" Nadine cut her off, putting her index finger on his lips, "It's not all right. I shouldn't have left you alone like that… I—"
"Then why you left?"
"I… I-I…" she stuttered, didn't know what to reply to him, "It was an emergency. I had to go. I can't tell you why, but I just had to!" she snapped weakly. "I'm… I'm so sorry Sid…"
"Why?" Sid asked again in disbelief, "Why can't you tell me! Don't you trust me?"
"It's not like that…" she replied halfheartedly, "It's an oath… I can't tell anyone… not even you…"
"Nadine, I'm having a very hard time about this! If you have any problems at all then please tell me about it! C'mon, you know me: we've known each other ever since we're kids and I'm willing to do anything to help you out! Please, tell me…" he implored hopefully. He then remembered the incident that occurred last night, "You joined that spy organization, didn't you?"
Nadine was stunned, but an oath must not be broken. A brim of tear began to develop on Nadine's eyes and she said to him, "I'm sorry Sid, I just can't…" feeling that the conversation was too hard for her to carry on, she then unwillingly left Sid, and disappeared through the crowd.
"Nadine…" Sid called her softly, but there was no answer back. He then tried to find her in the crowd, but to no avail. In frustration, he went back to his locker and banged it angrily.
Back at the cafeteria…
"You've got to be kidding me man. This is hard to digest, even for me…" Harold said incredulously. "Who's the father?"
"What I heard it was Iggy… and I also heard he didn't want to take the responsibility about it." Gerald replied to him, almost in a whispered tone.
"That bastard…" Stinky said angrily, "Poor Gloria…"
"You guys shouldn't take this story too seriously man, because I'm not keen on telling rumors either." He reminded them, "Rumors are a very vile thing…" he mumbled to himself. The table went silent, as they got nothing to further the conversation. A few moments later, Sid finally arrived and took a seat. He still looked upset.
"Sorry for being late guys." He sighed depressively.
Gerald raised an eyebrow, hearing his depressed tone, "What's eating you?"
"I don't know, dude… Nadine is keeping secrets and stuff and she doesn't want to tell me about it. I kinda worry about her, man. Do you think it was really them running after that dude you hit last night?" he asked to all of them.
"I's ain't know either. T'was like a spur of the moment thing when I saw dem mysterious figures come running front of us…" Stinky gave his input.
"Yeah… I didn't know why the hell I yelled out Phoebe's name either. The silhouette kinda looked like her, but it was all dark and stuff, so I could be wrong." Gerald said.
"Oh come on you guys!" Harold disagreed. "It was really them yesterday! Why do we have to be so damn skeptical about it!"
"It's because we can't assume, man! What if we were wrong? We'd be the biggest laughing stock ever for having some idiotic idea that the girls joined some spy organization!" Gerald snapped back, and the table went silent again. Gerald paused, as he put his elbow on the table with his palm holding his forehead as he tried to think of something. "That's what happened to me and Arnold when we were nine." He explained, "You see, there were these two guys that we thought that they wanted to kill Mr. Green, but they were actually friends of him and they actually wanted to throw him a party. It was pretty embarrassing when they learnt about it, but thankfully they were being a good sport. So that's why I don't want the same thing to happen again. I learnt from experience. We just can't assume."
Harold gave into Gerald's explanation, "A'right, so what're you saying? What are we going to do?"
"We'll try to extract some information from them piece by piece. Just act natural, and ask them what they were doing yesterday: really casual stuff. But don't be so blatantly obvious about it. Then after we think we have enough information about it, and we're positive that they've join the agency, then we can finally help them out."
"Help? Help them with what?" Stinky opposed, "Okay, let's just say the gals 'are' a member of the spy organization. What can we do? They already have all them training and whatnot. They can take care of themselves. Why should we bother?"
"Because they are our friends, Stinky." Gerald answered back, "We should help them out. And if I recall correctly, the agency is offering a position as an informant."
"Okay… so what you're saying is that we're going to play detective?" Sid said sarcastically, "Why don't we just put them one by one into a small room and interrogate the hell out of them? That'll save us some time rather than creeping our way in."
"Hey, if you have a better idea then by all means, tell us!" Gerald snapped back. "You don't have to be snide about it!"
"I's hate to interrupt," Stinky interjected, "but before this conversation begins to heat up, I'd thought y'all might take a gender at that." He said softly, pointing to a table across the room.
"Holy crap…" Harold said in disbelief, "Rhonda, Nadine, Helga, Phoebe and Lila are sitting on the same table together!"
"Whoa…" Sid blurted, "I've seen so many unusual things in my life, but seeing Rhonda and Helga sitting in one table together really takes the cake. It's just like seeing pigs fly!"
"I would understand if Nadine, Pheebs and Lila were sitting together, but Helga and Rhonda?" Gerald said amazed disbelief, "Man… then there's definitely something screwy is going on here…"
"Hey Sid, Nadine's over thar, why dontcha go and try again?" Stinky suggested to him.
He contemplated for a while, and replied, "Nah… not right now. I wanted to, but I think the time's not right. We need some time to gather our thoughts first…"
All of them were practically in incredulity when they saw the girls sitting together, chatting. But, that was not the case actually at their table. They were seriously discussing a strategy for their next move against Michael. After the incident with the sniper, they wouldn't want to take any chances anymore. He and his mobs must be defeated, and be defeated quick.
"All right, listen up," Helga said to all of them as she took out a piece a paper and a pen out. "Bridget has agreed to Gino's offer and an alliance between him and us will follow suit. But despite the alliance, I really, really don't trust him. He could be in the same league as his brother, using me to destroy our agency. And it could be much worse too, he might one of these days successfully kill Olga."
"Affirmative, Helga. What do you propose?" Phoebe asked her.
She then drew something on the paper, "According to the map that Gino sent to us, his brother's base of operations is located right here, near the abandoned train station. Now, we might—"
"That's all the way across town from the our base!" Rhonda interjected in surprise.
"Wow, that's a very constructive input, Rhonda." Helga replied sarcastically, "If you don't have anything productive to say, just shut it, will you?"
Rhonda took the remark as an offence, and immediately she retorted, "Oh, and I suppose that you are magically elected as our leader huh? Who died and made you one, anyway?"
Helga glared back at her, "Fine! Let me see you come up with some plans! I bet yours are definitely better than mine since you're always criticizing them!" she then shoved the paper and the pen to Rhonda, but she could only glared back in disbelief at her since she couldn't come up with one. Still, she was in defiance as she still glared at her in detest.
"Thought so." she then pulled the paper and pen back to her. "If you don't know jack-shit about this, I suggest you to shut up and listen to me." Helga said angrily to her. Nadine had enough with Helga's mocking, and she riposted back to defend her best friend.
"You know what Helga? You're not being a team player. All you do is barking orders all day to all of us, thinking that you're superior and almighty than us. Well guess what? You aren't. We don't like it, and we certainly don't want to be under your thumb forever. Nobody asked you to be the leader, and I don't think anybody, especially from us, will ever want you to be one. So back off." She said vehemently, which added more weight to the already tense atmosphere.
The guys observed the heated conversation from their table, as they made a small commentary about it, "Getting along with each other my ass. I'd say it's going to be an all-out flame war after this…" Sid gave his opinion.
"No wait…" Harold said, "I think Helga is standing down."
"Helga standing down? Are you new here? This is Helga G. Pataki we're talking about here, man." Gerald interjected, "She'll probably explode into furious anger and her permanent state of PMS-ing will do nothing but to make the discussion more incendiary than ever."
Helga couldn't believe that of all people, Nadine would be the one who'd said all those things to her. She got up from her seat to show dominance and tried to retort back at her, but suddenly she was shoved back down by Phoebe, who wanted to defend her best friend from Nadine's vitriolic remark.
"And I suppose she would do a better job than Helga!" she shot back, referring to Rhonda. "When was the last time she show her leadership proficiency and her ability to coordinate an efficient strategy? The only thing that I can see her capable of doing is navigating through shopping complexes to purchase overpriced clothes and useless trinkets from an equally inept store!" she counter-retorted angrily, slightly not being herself since she was too enraged by Nadine's remark.
"That's what you think of me, Phoebe!" Rhonda shot up from her seat, pointing at her accusingly. And the whole table went to hell as all four of them flew into a rage. Everyone in the cafeteria stopped what they were doing currently and focused at the blazing table.
Realizing that the table was too out of control, Lila tried to calm them up, "Girls… please…" she said timidly and fearfully. "Let's just calm down and—"
"SHUT UP! They all shouted at her in unison. Lila then decided not to open her mouth anymore, as she closed both of her ears with her hands and closed her eyes tightly, nearly in tears, as the other girls quarreled fumingly over the table. Back at the guys' table, they wanted to help, but some of them can't help but to be amused by it.
"Wow…" Harold said in awe, "This is even better than that scene in Mean Girls…" though the only thing they did was bickering.
"This is ridiculous. I think we should intervene, Gerald." Sid said to him worriedly.
"Yeah, c'mon, let's go before they start pulling each other's hair off…" and with Sid, he then got off from his seat. Just after a few steps, they stopped at their tracks, turn around and saw Harold and Stinky still not budging from their seats.
"Well? Aren't you guys coming?" Gerald asked them.
"Are you kidding? You don't break up a girls' fight! You just don't!" Harold answered back.
"What he sayed." Stinky concurred, pointing at Harold with his thumb.
Dissatisfied, and unhappy with their answer, Gerald said to them, "You guys are such assholes…" he grumbled, and he and Sid went over to the girls, trying to break them up.
-
Outside the cafeteria…
"You're okay, Pheebs? Wanna talk about it?" Gerald asked concernedly, after he and Sid successfully broke up the fight between the girls. Gerald brought Phoebe out from the cafeteria, whereas Helga stormed out to nowhere, wandering about in the school hallways as she tried to cool herself down. Rhonda and Nadine also went out from the cafeteria, as they tried to calm themselves down. Other girls like Sheena and Patty came over to Lila and helped her out.
"Yeah… I'm okay. Thank you for your concern, Gerald." She replied softly. They then walked together, heading towards Phoebe's locker.
"Phoebe… I'm worried about you." Gerald said anxiously, "What I see just now is not the Phoebe I know. What's wrong? If you have any problems at all, then by all means tell me. I might just help you out."
"Well, while I do appreciate the effort Gerald, but I have to reiterate that despite the condition I am in now, I am perfectly fine." She replied, with a little exasperated tone hidden in her voice, while she opened her locker up and took some books out from it.
Gerald wasn't satisfied with the answer that she gave to him, "From the tone of your voice you sound pretty aggravated. Is there something bothering you?"
"Please, Gerald. Enough with all of this. Just how many times do I have to tell you that I am fine!" she snapped back. Gerald was stunned at her remark. Phoebe then continued, "If you're really want to help me, then please…" she was in reluctance to say the next sentence to him, as she gazed deeply into Gerald's eyes, "leave me be…" Gerald was shocked, and absolutely in dismay. Phoebe looked down in sadness, closed her locker up softly, and left him. "I just don't want you to worry about me…" she thought poignantly, as tears began to brim in her eyes.
Gerald was in complete disbelief of her. She had never done anything like this before, he thought. He then leaned back against the lockers behind him, sighing heavily with his head facing downwards to his feet, thinking what was wrong with his female friends lately. "Maybe Harold was right; maybe we shouldn't be bothered by it. Maybe they did – hel-lo… what's this?" he saw something on the floor. It was a black colored flat thing that could easily fit into a grasp of a hand. It looked like an electronic device to him, but he didn't know what it was actually, since he never saw anything like it before. He then picked it up to examine it.
"Phoebe must've dropped this when she took out her books…" he said to himself as he inspected it. He then scanned the place around, and Phoebe was nowhere to be found in the crowd. He was amazed by the device himself. Maybe it was a prototype gadget that Phoebe volunteered to use it. There were only two people he knew who'd go head over heels over high-tech gadgets, and they were Phoebe, and Eugene. But, the cloud of suspicion was still in his mind. Maybe this was one of the equipment she used for her spying activities. He needed a clarification, he needed Eugene. But first, he had to go to class first because he was getting late.
The final bell for the day rang, and the students thronged into the hallway. Gerald too, needed some fresh air since stuffing himself with other people in Geometry class really wrecked up his nerve. Immediately he went out to his locker, put his books in, and went outside to the front entrance of the school. Gerald knew that his friends would always wait there until everyone had assembled so they could walk home together. He saw them hanging out at the school's stoop, waiting for him to arrive.
"Dude, there you are." Sid greeted to him. "So like, you wanna go 'investigate' this thing right now?" Sid said snidely, making quotation marks.
"Yeah… and I thought you wanted to join me?" he replied back.
"Of course I do, dude! I won't bail on you!"
Gerald smiled in approval, and turned to Harold, "How about you, Harold?"
"You know, I really forgot to mention to you guys about this." He said, slightly nervous, "Do you remember last week that I had to go for a wrestling match competition in the nearby city?"
Gerald was practically in disbelief, "Harold, please don't tell me it's today…"
"Sorry guys, the coach forgets easily. So that's why we're waiting for him to get fired or quit or something." he muttered the last word angrily under his breath.
"A'right. How 'bout you Stinky? Do you have, if any reason at all to run away from us?" Sid asked him.
"Hell naw. I's start with Lila, providing that she still wants to talk with me…"
"Cool. All right then. Let's go." then they all split, except for Gerald and Sid, "Sid, I need you to follow me to Eugene's house."
"Eugene's house? What for?"
"Because I think I may have a lead in my pocket right now." He rummaged through his pocket and showed him the black colored device.
"What the hell is that?" Sid asked quizzically as he took the object from him to examine it.
"It's some sort of an electronic device thingy. I saw this baby on the floor near Phoebe's locker. It could be one of those spy gadget doohickey."
"How'd you know?" Sid asked again, giving the device back to him.
"I don't, because I don't want to assume. That's why we're going to Eugene's house, since he's like, the biggest computer geek we know. He can tell us what this thing is."
"I hope you know what you're doing Gerald." He replied back concernedly.
"Hey, I'm a bold kid, man. Bold kid." He said smoothly. "You know, to be honest, I really hope that they didn't join that spy agency…"
"What spy agency?" somebody interjected. It was Lorenzo.
"You mean, you don't know?" Gerald asked back disbelievingly. "Sid, he doesn't know."
"Heresy! Sacrilege!" Sid blurted out, "by now, every one of us should already know the tale of the…" he paused for dramatic effect, "Ladies of Espionage Sisterhood."
"The what?" Lorenzo raised an eyebrow in a puzzled gaze.
"Sid my man, lead me in." Gerald said with a smile, as he hopped on one of the steps of the stoops.
"Glad to! Wait… I don't have a guitar." He replied to him. Sid had replaced his bongo with an acoustic guitar ever since he learned how to play one.
"Hey, Park has one." Gerald pointed to him. "Yo, Park!" Park answered the call by nodding his head and pointed to him, "Sid wants to borrow your guitar!" Park then excused himself from his group of friends and went over to Sid and Gerald.
"Here ya go." He said as he gave his guitar to him.
"Stay around for a while to hear our urban legend, will ya." And Sid then began to get into his character, "People of this not-so-fine education establishment; the story you are about to hear is an urban legend, passed down from teen generation to teen generation. And our own Gerald is the Keeper of the Tale. Take it away, Gerald." People then gathered around the two guys, wanting to listen to his tale. Sid then stepped aside so the attention could be focused on Gerald. He then sat on the stone railing of the stoop, and played a soothing calm music with the guitar to accompany Gerald's oration. It was all depended on the tone of Gerald's voice, actually. If the story became intense, so would the music.
"O gather around jocks, preps, populars, cheerleaders, geeks, nerds, goths and other stereotypical mischievous motley group that I failed to mention." He said in his best Jesse Jackson impersonation, "For I, Gerald Johanssen, the Keeper of the Tale is telling you a legend of the…" he paused for dramatic effect, "Ladies of Espionage Sisterhood."
I added some gritty realism in this chapter for experimentation. Like Gerald said, they will visit Eugene. I know he's a theatre geek and all, but that doesn't stop him from being a programmer or a prodigy of Redhat! Err... just wait for the next chapter, and as always leave a review for this one!