Blathering away at her side as she drove, Olga displayed the typical chipper attitude Helga had grown up with-her sister being an early-riser for as long as she could remember. Choosing to drown out the eldest Pataki's unwarranted positivity, Helga instead focused her attention beyond the glass of the passenger-side window. On her lap, she balanced the to-go container of fancy latte Olga had purchased for her and fixated her eyes on the world just outside of her reach; a world illustrated by lustrous colors only Mother Nature herself could create.

Rose-colored hues of pinks and dull oranges swirled amid wispy clouds that painted the early morning sky with a romantic lighting even the most skilled of artists could never replicate. As much as Helga hated waking up so early, she did find that being alive at dawn had a few perks that she'd never imagined could feel so… strangely fulfilling.

The hours of the morning allowed her to witness the Earth rise for the day ahead. As the sun peeked out from under the blankets of the horizon line, each ray of sunlight illuminated the land below—warm beams dancing across the open fields between Hillwood's suburbs and the road leading away from town. Helga watched in awe as the sun extended its reach to graze the tips of tall buildings in the cities they passed. Light blanketed the lush leaves of newly bloomed trees which drifted with the waves of wind gusts that brushed through the branches like a comb through tangled hair. Helga sighed as the car sped onward while the world opened its eyes from a good night's sleep, though the blond teen could not sympathize with such a feeling.

Unfortunately, the night Helga was privileged enough to endure had been filled with tossing, turning, worrying, and overall restlessness.

Arnold's parting message had thrown her for quite the loop. His words, thoughtfully written on the blank autograph page of her yearbook, repeated themselves in her mind as though he'd spoken them directly to her face. Imaginings of his voice whispered the inscription in her ear which kept the young girl from slumber that she desperately needed. In conjunction with his sentiment, the ambiguous voice of regret continued to remind Helga of the choice she'd made and the fears she'd allowed to win. Over, and over again, she pictured herself by the trash can tearing out the original message she had penned for her beloved. Despite her best efforts, Helga couldn't shake the image of the crumpled-up ball of emotions that had inevitably found its final resting place at the nearby dump.

It had been a long night of wakeful sleep, neither conscious nor unconscious, and no matter how large the latte she drank was, the caffeine inside could never make up for the hours of rest she had lost to her anxiety. Even so, Helga continued sipping on the energizing liquid and stared out the window with tired eyes. While her mind remained far away from the vehicle they rode in, Olga kept trying to pull her back into reality; each futile attempt resulting in little to no success.

"I just love early morning car rides, don't you, baby sis?" Olga prompted, though she didn't give Helga much time to respond. "The roads are always just so quiet, and tranquil. It reminds me of how I felt when meditating during my 10-day silent retreat in Thailand," Helga rolled her eyes as her sister continued humble-bragging without the awareness that her younger sister was less than interested.

"Oh… Thailand," Olga repeated the country's name fondly in a soft swoon. "I had just the most wonderful time visiting Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and the various villages tucked away in the mountainsides." She shook her head with a smile as though in awe at her own memories that she was recalling. "That was during my college course for Theology in Buddhist Studies." Olga was careful to enunciate each word of the course distinctly in Helga's biggest pet peeve of her sister's boasting. "I had the privilege of participating in their Overseas Living Program to further study Buddhism and the practice of mindfulness in relation to religion and ethical studies. My teaching there while immersing myself into the lives of my twelve incredibly gifted Taiwanese students, was truly eye-opening Helga."

"You don't say," Helga replied without inflection, though Olga didn't seem to notice.

"I may have held the official title of teacher, but it was the children who taught me."

"Fascinating," Helga muttered in a lackluster tone. "Truly an illuminating story, there Olga." She continued to stare out the window of the passenger side; the upcoming town they passed through littering the sidelines with old houses. As she focused on each passing home, Helga couldn't help but try to see through the windows that gave her tiny glimpses into the lives which dwelled within—lives that would never intertwine with her own. From the distance and speed at which the siblings traveled, Helga imagined the countless worlds that were tucked away like figures trapped inside snow globes on a shelf.

As though characters behind their individual spheres of glass, the silhouettes she saw for brief moments through the curtains were mere strangers who had their own lives, loves, and problems. It struck her as odd to think of the millions upon millions of people she would never know and who would, in return, never know her. Hit with the sudden vastness of the world, Helga's thoughts were interrupted once more by Olga in her continued attempts at engaging the younger Pataki daughter in conversation.

"Is there something that you like about early morning car rides, Helga?" she wondered aloud as though trying to cling onto their previous conversation.

Without missing a beat, Helga gave only two words for an answer. "The silence."

Entirely missing the point, Olga nodded her head excitedly. "Absolutely! What an astute observation, baby sis! Did you know that the Buddhist mantra of 'OM' is often described as the sound of the universe, otherwise known as the sound of silence?" Helga rolled her eyes, though Olga couldn't see with her own gaze fixated on the road ahead.

"What's with everyone talking to me about Buddhism these days anyway, huh?" She snapped, more towards the world rather than her sister alone. "First Phoebe, and now you? I mean, criminy! What's so great about a bunch of people sitting around chanting a vowel and listening to silence?"

"Oh Helga, it's much, much more than that," Olga responded in a calm and somewhat disappointed tone. "Meditation connects us with our inner selves and the universe… it's about observing our feelings and thoughts. It's about being still. In fact, while in Thailand, we met with this Buddhist monk named—"

Disinterested in the elder Pataki's tales from overseas, Helga tuned her annoyingly cheerful voice out while fishing through the backpack resting at her feet. In it were things she had expected to need during the long car ride: snacks, a couple books, an old portable CD player that she'd found in a closet with miscellaneous CDs, and of course, her journal. With it, she'd also packed a large selection of colorful felt-tipped pens that she'd slowly stolen from teachers throughout the last school year. There was something about the way the markers wrote across the blank pages that she liked. The way they stained each line with her bold words in even bolder hues had a calming effect on her, though she couldn't explain why.

Even though she didn't have much to say to her leather-bound sanctuary, Helga had decided that writing anything in it at this point was a better option than listening to Olga drone on about the 'spiritual release of being at peace with the universe.' Whatever that meant.

After successfully taking out the journal and pens, she returned the backpack to the floor, took another large gulp of her coffee, and flipped the book open to the first clean sheet of paper. Setting her cup of now-lukewarm latte into the cup holder at her side, Helga smoothed out the page before uncapping her pen and bringing it to the empty space to start composing a mindless entry.

So, you know how I am taking that trip to Olga's for the summer?

Yeah, well, I'm ON it and I'm ALREADY partially regretting it.

I know that Olga is… SOMEWHAT more tolerable than she used to be after the whole you-know-who thing. Criminy, I hate that I'm acting like Hair Boy is the Dark Lord or something, ARNOLD, okay? I said it.

A-R-N-O-L-D

ARNOLD

ARNOLD SHORTMAN

"Is that your little diary, Helga?" Olga interrupted the already-irritated teenager from her one true love's name that she kept penning on the page. "I'm so glad to see that you're still writing in it. Even after your… your mishap at the dance—"

Sharply turning her head to look over in her sister's direction, Helga hastily and angrily offered her correction to the statement. "Oh, you mean my breakup?"

"Yes…" Olga replied softly with a twinge of heartbreak wavering in her voice. However, to Helga it came across like pity rather than sympathy, and it made her physically cringe where she sat. "Helga, I know that things have been difficult for you, first with that little blonde boy—"

"Arnold," Helga muttered, though Olga didn't stop to register the name.

"—and with Mommy and Daddy's…arguments as of late."

Helga paused to register what she had just admitted before scrunching her eyebrow into a wiggled line of confusion on her forehead. "How… how do you know about that?" She asked before turning her head to look at her while maintaining her confuzzled expression. "I haven't even written about that junk in here—which, I'll have you know, is my JOURNAL and not some stupid diary."

Pausing as though waiting for Olga to interrupt her, her sister merely chewed on her lip and said nothing which gave Helga her cue to continue. "But journal or diary or whatever, as far as those two idiots we call parents are concerned, I am the only person who knows about that so how did… how did you?" Letting out a scoff of a laugh, Helga shook her head while saying more to herself than her sister, "I mean, I know that they certainly aren't advertising those arguments to their perfect little Olga who's off living the dream in the big city."

Waiting a beat before responding, Olga took a steadying breath before carefully beginning her answer. "Helga… There are simply things that I know without having to witness firsthand. And… and it may not make much sense to you now, but one day—"

"So, what you're saying," Helga interrupted with a skeptical expression tickling her features, "is that there's these… these words in between lines that, because I'm not adult enough, I can't read? Is that what you're trying to say, Olga?"

"Exactly!" she chirped out in agreement. "Nuances that, even at thirteen, you couldn't possibly fathom. Not at such a young age—"

"Hey!" Helga swiftly cut Olga off again as an artificial grin lined her lips. "You see, Olga, right now, you're doing that whole thing where you keep treating me like I'm some stupid little girl who doesn't have any intuition or common sense for that matter. You want to be this great big sister you're always trying to be?" She jeered before returning her nose to her journal where she began scribbling doodles in the margins of the page while mumbling out, "Then try treating me like one…"

"Wh-what did you say?" She asked, her voice now tentative as she knew that their first day together was already off to a rocky start. "Helga, I didn't hear yo—"

"Treat me like I'm an equal, okay?!" The teenager snapped while dropping her journal to rest on her lap. As she spoke, she directed her statement forward as though speaking to the windshield itself rather than the woman driving at her left. "Sure, you have all of these fancy degrees and you're practically Mary freakin' Poppins, but all of that doesn't mean that I'M not just as smart as you are." Stopping to take a small breath, Helga then added, "Well, at least I'm just as smart as you are in my own way, or whatever." Shaking her head, she soon returned her attention to the page that stared up at her before she resumed writing.

Yeah, I'm full-blown regretting it now.

She wrote the words slowly as if to savor the way they felt coming off the tip of her pen.

Doesn't matter WHAT I do or HOW MUCH I follow all of her inane ideas at 'bonding,' Olga Pataki will NEVER see me as more than her "baby sister." Spending the Summer at her place is completely POINTLESS…

But, we're already like an hour deep into this excursion and at least it's getting me out of Hillwood for a while. Out of Hillwood, and away from Arnold and his soft, thick, sweet-smelling flaxen hair.

Away from those pools greener than grass and brighter than any diamond.

Away from the gaze that twinkles in my direction, though his love ceases to align with mine.

Away from that yearbook entry to which my yearning for additional information will never be satisfied unless I talked to him about it, which I am DEFINITELY not doing so I guess I'll just never really know.

Away from HIM. Him and his stupid, giant, completely logic-defying football-head.

How I HATE him. Truly, and utterly DESPISE him… and yet

"Helga?" Olga whispered and she groaned dramatically in response while dipping her head back in sheer exasperation.

"What is it now, Olga?" She whined while closing her eyes as if to shut out reality for the briefest of moments. "I am just trying to write here, okay? Can't you focus on driving? You know, not getting us killed by some oncoming semi-truck, or something?"

"Don't be silly, I would never get us into a traffic accident!" She practically laughed out loud. "I've never had so much as a speeding ticket, lil' sis. You have nothing to worry about."

Sighing loudly, Helga shook her head once while mumbling, "Sure," and returned to way lay on the pages of her journal.

I wonder how I'm going to last nearly all Summer with her. I'm not even sure what her house is like, though I bet it's huge and filled with extravagant things she bought with all the cash she gets from her fancy job with all her fancy degrees.

Whatever her house looks like, I just hope that I have my own room so I can hole myself in there and spend as little time as possible doing whatever 'bonding' activities Olga has planned. As far as I'M concerned, the less time that I spend making friendship bracelets with her, the better. The ONLY reason I even AGREED to this stupid trip is so I could get away from Arnold.

But then again… IS that my only reason?

"You know, Helga, when I was your age," Olga started out of the blue, though Helga seemingly ignored her while continuing to scribble away in her journal, "I also kept a diary."

"Journal," she was immediately corrected.

"Journal, Diary, they're both the same, aren't they?" Olga responded while her sister scoffed and shut her book altogether, though her index finger maintained the page she had been working on.

Holding the journal up as though Olga had never seen one before in her life, Helga firmly explained, "It's a journal, Olga. A JOURNAL." Lowering the leather-bound book back onto her lap, she flipped it open again and continued with her writing while saying, "People don't diary, Olga. They journal. Criminy."

With an elegant shrug of her shoulders, Olga merely smiled warmly while continuing to look beyond her windshield. "I'm just a diary girl, I guess," She declared, though Helga barely heard as her sister kept on with the subject. "Actually, I think that I still have all of my diaries somewhere… Maybe they're in the attic?" She was asking herself at this point and Helga had ceased listening altogether, even as Olga addressed her. "Oh, Helga, I hope that you keep what you write. One day you'll look back so fondly at all of the little details you forget over the years as you grow up."

"Mmhm," Helga hummed in reply half-heartedly, though Olga disregarded her sibling's lack of enthusiasm.

"You know what might be fun?" She asked instead while turning her head to look at her sister briefly before returning her eyes on the road. "What if I dug out all of my old diaries and we looked at them! Oh, wouldn't that be fun? We could read all of the silly things I wrote and talk about all of our little secrets and teenage troubles. Well, Helga? What do you say?"

There were plenty of things that Helga wanted to say. She wanted to tell Olga how disinterested she was in hearing about the magical time the eldest Pataki had throughout her years in school. The two were vastly different, despite Olga being unable to see that fact. From where Helga sat, she knew that her sister had swam through middle and high school as a kinder, yet just as popular Rhonda Lloyd. What was the sense in hearing entry after entry confirming that fact?

Rather than answer Olga's question, Helga let out a dissatisfied breath and scrawled a quick 'goodbye' onto the page she had been working on.

At this point, I think I may just try and take a nap. Listen to some CDs so I don't have to listen to Olga any more than I'll have to over the next couple months. Criminy. MONTHS. I can't BELIEVE what I've gotten myself into.

Can you?

Until next time, I guess—

Helga

Shutting her journal, she quickly shoved it back into the knapsack at her side before pulling out the old portable CD player she had found, along with a selection of three CDs to consider. Glancing over her shoulder to what Helga was up to, Olga allowed a small grin to overtake her delicately painted face.

"Are you looking for some music?" She asked, though to Helga the answer appeared obvious.

"I guess you could say that," she settled on, and Olga nodded her head before reaching out to press a button on the radio of her car.

"I do have a radio, you know," she offered while flipping through channel after channel in search for a song that caught her attention. "I doubt you're interested in listening to Mommy's old aerobics CD's."

"Honestly, Olga, I don't care much about what I listen to at this point so long as—"

"Great!" She responded before tapping a button that had saved one of her favorite channels. "The other day, I discovered this amazing radio station that only plays music from the latest shows on Broadway, isn't that something?"

Choosing a disk that looked as though it were a mix burned ages ago, Helga popped open the player and pressed the CD into its appropriate spot. Closing the device and waiting for it to load, she moved to slide the old headphones over her head and onto her ears. "It sure is something, alright," she stated, though Olga wasn't stopping anytime soon despite Helga's clear indifference.

"You… you don't want to listen?" She asked, a hint of disappointment falling from her sentence, though Helga offered no solace.

"Not really, no, I uh—" looking down at the CD player that sat on her lap, the screen blinked 22—the total amount of supposed songs hiding on the homemade mix. "I think I just want to sleep until we get there." Hitting the button with the 'play' icon, Olga watched her sister for a second before looking back to the road and nodding her head.

"Well, alright," her uncertain voice mumbled; Helga unable to hear her reply as violins and orchestral music slowly began to fill her ears.

As they grew louder with each repeat of melodic chords, Helga reached down to pull the handle allowing her seat to drop backwards; the chair moving just as the addition of drums mixed into the song. When the lyrics at last took their place at full volume from the cheap headphones, Helga listened intently to their message while staring up and out of the window that she had previously been using as an escape from the claustrophobic car ride.

'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life

Try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money than you die

The thick lines that fell against the background of clear sky dipped in droopy doodles with each mile they sped past. Helga's eyes followed the gentle curvature from each line as it rose upwards again to reach the next pole in the series.

Like her journal, these electrical lines acted as a journal all in itself; one that Helga could never fill the spaces underlined by the cables. As she thought silently to herself, her eyes drifting to the scattered birds which flitted through the sky like speckles of paint on a blank canvas. The soaring animals resembled dots like freckles; freckles reminiscent of the ones that sprinkled across Arnold's cheeks in the peak of summer. How she would miss that, those freckles, and the way they lifted on his cheeks when he smiled that dopey grin of his. With each thought she indulged in, the music of the unfamiliar song underscored her unfiltered imaginings.

I'll take you down the only road that I've ever been down

You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah

Paying closer attention to the message behind the song, Helga adjusted her mind to view each arc of the power-lines as veins which pumped pure energy, blood, through the body of the world as she knew it. An abstract thought, Helga didn't filter the idea away—her mind's eye instead choosing to allow any and all thoughts a safe space inside her somewhat-clouded head.

No change, I can't change, I can't change, I can't change

But I'm here, in my mold. I am here, in my mold

As the miles moved quickly passed her window, Helga's eyes began to flutter closed, the colorful thoughts behind her lids painting abstract images moving in time with the tune playing through her headphones. Just as she finally reached slumber, one line of the song continued to repeat itself; a line that resonated with Helga on a subconscious level as she awaited what the Summer of Olga had in store for her.

I'm a million different people from one day to the next

I can't change, my mold, no no, no no no

Well, Journal, I suppose there's no turning back now.

I just settled into Olga's house which, by the way, is absolutely NOTHING like what she had told our parents or led me to believe. The place is HUGE—something that I had always assumed because of Olga's wild successes in psychology and teaching and all that mumbo-jumbo.

What I WASN'T expecting, though, was the insane amounts of people just hanging around.

RENT FREE, by the way.

This house is practically SWARMING with kids of ALL ages, though most of them are oddly enough around mine. Here I was coming into this expecting to meet some stupid-perfect boyfriend, and instead, I was met with kids filtering in and out as Olga tried to give me the 'grand tour.'

"So, this is the main living room," Olga explained as Helga dragged her duffle bag behind her while inspecting the seemingly busy surroundings. "I know it seems a little messy right now, but someone has a hard time cleaning up after themselves, don't we, Raul?" Her blue eyes narrowed over playfully towards a young boy sitting on her couch eating from the bag of potato chips that he was holding.

"Sorry, Olga," he admitted sheepishly with a small grimace lacing his features. "In my defense, a lot of this was Jamal's fault."

"Mmhm," Olga hummed with a soft smile and a minimal shake of her head. Pointing one of her manicured fingers his way, she gave him a stern look and firmly stated, "clean it up this time, okay? You guys know the rules, by now."

Nodding his head, he began to clean up the scattered crumbs that littered the couch, coffee table, and floor that surrounded him. Helga's eyes widened in utter shock at whatever it was that she had just witnessed between her sister and the unfamiliar boy.

"What in cripes name was that?"

You see, dear journal, Olga runs some kind of… SANCTUARY, as she calls it, and not a teen-daycare as one may think. Of course I'm not SURPRISED because that's the kind of thing Olga WOULD do; trying to one-up everyone with her over-thoughtfulness and general practically-perfect-in-every-way attitude.

But there is something… DIFFERENT about what she's doing here, something that I can't describe any better than how she described it herself. You see, according to Olga, her home is—

"—a safe space for the underprivileged children in the neighborhood to come and be themselves, free from worry of toxic households or dangerous situations." A soft upturn of her lips hinted on her features, though Helga merely stared at her incredulously.

"So, what you're saying, is that you just let any old kid in your house because…?"

"Because I would rather them be here and feel safe than be on the streets after running away, or returning to a home they feel unsafe in," she explained as her smile drooped to one of complete sincerity.

With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Helga let out a sigh before muttering, "I don't know, Olga. Kinda seems like a great way to get murdered, but you do you, I guess."

"Murdered?" Olga repeated before letting out a full-bellied laugh at such a notion. "Oh, Helga, you shouldn't be so cynical! These kids," she gestured around herself though there wasn't many in the surrounding area besides Raul who was still cleaning up his mess, "I trust them. I know them, and they know me. They're good kids."

"Yeah, well," Helga replied skeptically while slinging her duffle back further over her shoulder, "all I'm saying is I've seen plenty of crime shows where 'kindness' like this ends up killing people. That doesn't concern you in the slightest?"

"Not at all, baby sis. You know why?"

Curious to her reasoning, Helga cocked her head to the side and indulged the question. "Why?"

"Because, even if something as tragic as that were to happen, I would be proud to know that I tried to do the right thing by these kids. No matter the consequences. Do you understand?"

I do NOT understand why she of all people would take a huge risk like that, but I also kind of DO understand. Olga is the 'fixer' of the Pataki family—always has been. Whether she was trying to fix me or our incredibly hopeless family, Olga was always there trying to mend the world in whatever say she saw fit.

Personally, I think she's a BIT deluded by letting random people into her home. To me, it seems like a surefire way to get things stolen or be taken advantage of or, even worse, be hurt. Lord only knows how Bob would take losing his precious, perfect daughter seeing as his back-up is anything less than a 'champion to the Pataki name.'

But I gotta hand it to her, considering that I was expecting this perfect home life and a sickeningly sweet boyfriend to match, her teenage-sanctuary was a welcome surprise to me and I have to admit, it will be nice to have some other people my age around since most of the gang is still in Hillwood.

Most of the gang… and Arnold, that is.

But I have plans when it comes to keeping a safely distanced eye on THAT football-headed dweeb, even from towns away.

"We do have this communal computer," Olga announced while gesturing to the one corner of another living room that looked more like a game room than anything. "There's no time limit or anything, but we try to be respectful of everyone in the house and share."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Helga noted with a smirk. "I'm sure I'll only be using it to check out FaceNetwork on occasion," her answer provoking a twist of features that contorted Olga's expression.

"Why would you need a computer for that?" She asked before letting out a nervous laugh. "I do have wifi, you know. And we don't have a password on it so you can always—"

"Wifi won't do me any good, Olga. Unless it can connect to a journal or something," she laughed at her comment, though her sister found it anything but funny.

Crossing her arms tightly over her chest, Olga frowned in her younger sister's direction, though her frustration wasn't towards the teenage Pataki. "Daddy hasn't gotten you a phone yet?"

Letting out a scoff, Helga rolled her eyes with a humorless grin. "Who, Bob? Ha, Yeah right. The man's a cheapskate, you should know that by now."

"But he told me that his new business was doing so well?"

Muttering more to herself than answering her sister's question, Helga stated, "Yeah, thanks to me and my ad campaign…"

Catching wind of Helga's comment anyway, Olga raised her brow in curiosity. "Your ad campaign? The one with the king and the—"

"The new castle, yeah." Repeating the slogan for the commercial in a frighteningly-accurate impression, Helga announced, "The King of Beepers has moved to a new castle! Stop into Big Bob's Cellphone Castle for all your mobile phone needs—we're just a call away!" Shaking her head as though to shake out the notion of her father altogether, Helga shrugged her shoulders and said, "Yeah. That ad campaign. It was a hit."

"And he still didn't get you a cellphone?" Olga asked, astounded. "In this day and age, a young girl such as yourself—"

"I'm not that young," Helga grumbled, though Olga ignored her and continued.

"—should not be without a cellphone. Especially in a city like here or in Hillwood! Oh, baby Helga, what if something were-were-were to… to happen to you?!" Tears began to well in her eyes and Helga knew that if she didn't act fast, the water would surely spill onto her cheeks in a classic Olga-weepfest that she just wasn't ready to deal with so early into her summer vacation.

"Hey, hey, hey, Olga!" She exclaimed as her sister peeked over to her while wiping at her nose. "I'm fine, alright? It's just a phone. Criminy. And since you have a computer, it's really not a big deal."

Sniffling back the tears that she thankfully had under control, Olga let out a shaky breath with a slight shake of her head. "Don't you worry, Helga," she said with sudden determination, "I can assure you that I will be having a talk with daddy about getting you a cellphone."

Raising her brow, Helga eyed Olga skeptically. "Oh, really? And you think you're going to be able to convince the old man?"

A confident smile spread across Olga's lips as she nodded her head. "You just leave it to me, baby sis."

Rolling her eyes without much hope in her sister's claims, Helga glanced around the make-shift game room they stood in before taking in a deep breath and slowly letting it out to ask her next question. "So, with all of these kids hanging around here, where is it you've got me sleeping, huh? Do you even have room?"

In-between creeping on Arnold's FaceNetwork from the shared computer, my home-away-from-home will be in this bedroom RIGHT across from dear-old-Olga's. I'm sure she figures we can have all of these 'bonding nights' together or something which, by the way, will DEFINITELY not be happening so long as I have anything to say about it.

It's a big enough room, probably bigger than my own at home. There's practically a million rooms in this joint, but I guess kids often sleep here if things get rough at their house, which, I have to admit, is pretty cool of Olga.

She said that she's had to call child services for some of the kids before, but I guess I'm glad that Olga is out there being the kind of 'amazing big sister' she always wanted to be—if not to ME, then to some kid who really, really needs it. I've been just fine on my own, but for some of these kids… maybe it's for the best.

Just kind of sucks that she'd rather do it for someone else than her own flesh and blood but who am I to complain? I don't even really like the girl ANYWAY.

Anyway, Olga told me she keeps the cupboards and fridge STOCKED with foods of all kind—her fancy homemade stuff AND junk food, which is what I'll REALLY be after. I guess this begins my summer with Olga! Here's hoping it goes by quick and successfully distracts me from a certain football-headed dingus.

Well, that is until I go looking at his profile later tonight.

~Helga.

Journal,

So far, this Summer-thing isn't going TERRIBLE, or at least as not badly as I had thought it might.

It's pretty cool being at Olga's place. There's this vibe to it that feel inviting and familiar—completely different than how it feels whenever Olga's at our USUAL home. Without Miriam and Bob fighting 24/7, I haven't spent all that much time in my room and find myself hanging out with some of the 'usual' kids who spend time around here.

Raul and Jamal are two of them—they're twins and I guess they live a couple of blocks away. Olga says they've been staying here the longest, but not because their home life is particularly bad, thankfully. They live with their mom who works something like three jobs and hardly has any time to spend with them. Rather than fend for themselves, Olga regularly has them over and makes food for them—though they are only ever here during the day when their mom is gone.

Then there's Marta. I don't know a whole lot about her other than that she keeps to herself and spends a majority of her time reading in the 'game-room.' Even Olga apparently doesn't know much about her other than her name and that she lives a few streets over. When I asked her why she'd never asked more about why she hung out here and what her home life was like, Olga's response was: "the kids don't need a reason to be here, silly. If they feel happier being here than at home, that's a good enough reason to me. Don't you think?"

Of course, I think that she should probably know more about these people she shares her home with, but it doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest. I guess that's one of the many differences between Olga and me—she's WAY less paranoid and 'cynical' as she likes to call me. She's always telling me to 'keep an open-mind' but in REALITY, all she's doing is reminding me of Arnold and how HE always used to tell me that lame advice.

And SPEAKING of Arnold…

I went on the computer the other day when most of the kids went home (with the exception of Jordan who practically lives here, but I have yet to learn ANYTHING other than his name—Olga seems particularly protective of him, but I'll get to that later) and I looked around at what Arnold has been posting.

Earlier last year, his parents got HIM a cellphone (and they don't even OWN a cellphone company, BOB) so I know he's been online more often than usual, even WITH his ancient computer he's always had. He hasn't posted all that much—a couple pictures with Gerald from before he left for his Aunt's and then some 'artsy' pictures he's been taking on his trips to the botanical garden with Stella and walks at the park with that stinkin' pig of his.

I hope he's okay. As much as I miss him, I hope that he somehow misses me more. That when he looks up at the moon each night as I do from my window, he is thinking of me the way I am thinking of him. Maybe, even just by doing that, the universe will bring us together when this Summer is over.

But what the heck do I know, anyway?

In other news, I overheard Olga on the phone the other day with dear old dad. For as long as I can remember, their conversations were filled with oozing accomplishments and floral statements of how proud he was and how humble Olga was about it. But this conversation? This conversation was WILDLY different.

Helga stood just around the corner from the kitchen where she could just hear the heated debate taking place between Olga and the mysterious voice on the other end of the phone. Standing close to the wall behind her, she tilted her head to face the opposite way in hopes that her outward ear would be able to hear more clearly.

"How can you say that, daddy?" Olga argued in a hushed tone, though Helga could tell her older sister was displaying a frustration one rarely saw. "Hillwood is a big city, too. I know that, should I have been her age amid such technological advances, I would have been the first to have a cellphone. Correct?"

A slight pause followed, though Olga seemed dissatisfied from what it was their father had said in response. "How is that any different? I'm quite certain that Helga goes out on her own, even if it isn't for piano lessons, tennis practice, swim meets, or any other extracurricular activity."

Helga rolled her eyes at her sister's slick slip in of her many accomplishments, though she wasn't as angry as she was intrigued. Yet another pause filled the air as Olga allowed Bob to deliver his next excuse in the argument. As she nodded her head to the phone, Helga perked her ears in hopes that she might be able to pick up just what it was her dad spoke from across the phone-waves.

Unfortunately for Helga, she had little success and could only rely on her sister's responses for context.

After a good minute of silence, Olga let out a deep breath and at last commented on whatever it was Bob had told her. "Daddy, I just don't see why Helga can't have her own phone. If the company is doing as well as you say it is, I can't imagine it being such an investment. Helga is a responsible young adult—"

Helga's jaw dropped at the statement, though her ears continued to eavesdrop on the conversation she wasn't meant to hear.

"—and I hardly think it's unreasonable for her to have a means of communication that you could easily provide…unless you just don't want to." There was a slight acid to her tone, and Helga couldn't help but allow a smile to perk up in the corner of her lips at her sister's sudden tenacity.

"It's important to me because it's a dangerous world out there, daddy," Olga soon argued as though she had cut him off from whatever he had begun to say. "Do you know, that one of Helga's first comments when she walked in my door was about murder? Daddy… she needs to have a cellphone and-and…" she hesitated for a moment before sucking in an audible breath and saying with obvious disdain, "and if you don't give her one, then I suppose that I'll have to do it for her."

Helga waited with bated breath for her sister's next sentence, though she didn't have to wait long.

"I most certainly will, daddy," Olga replied to the phone, "and I might just have to do it from one of the local agencies around here rather than continue my service with 'Big Bob's Cellphone Castle.'"

This struck a nerve with the father miles away as a mumbling that could only come from yelling emitted from the receiver. This muffled hollering could be heard by Helga as she maintained her silent stance out of sight while fighting the urge to give her sister the slow clap she rightfully deserved. In all of her years living with Olga her constant sucking-up to their parents, it brought a sense of satisfaction to hear the perfect sibling stand against her dad's wishes for once.

And while I'm not ENTIRELY sure how the conversation got brought up, I'm pretty sure that Olga is actually trying to keep her inane promise of getting me a cellphone. As shocked as I am, from the sound of Bob's muffled yelling on the other end, I don't think ANYBODY was as shocked as he was.

This might just be the first time in his LIFE that Olga has stood her ground against him. Is it weird to say that I'm proud?

Well, I guess there are a FEW perks to being the favorite child—but I'll only stand by that statement if this ends with me getting an actual cellphone. One can only wait and see, I suppose.

Olga's calling the troops (today, we have 4 kids with us) for dinner, so I guess I'd better figure out what high-end meal she's cooked up.

~Helga

I may have done something stupid.

No, not STUPID, something absolutely and utterly FOOLISH—even if it was an accident.

There I was, minding my own business on the computer when Raul comes up to me and starts pestering me about how it's "his turn" at the computer. Naturally, I told him to buzz off and that I was occupied using it at the moment and I'd only just been able to get on because Mysterious Marta refused to let anybody even NEAR her for a good hour and a half while SHE used it.

Anyway, that's not the point.

Point is, I explained all of this while I was RIGHT in the middle of my weekly Arnold-a-thon where I just go onto his profile and sneak around while looking at all of the things he's been up to over the summer, which is DEFINITELY not weird, okay?

So, as I was scrolling through this new album he had added from the not-so-July 4th Christmas Party his family held last week, Raul comes over and-

"Looks like somebody has a crush," Raul said in a sing-song voice while leaning over the top of the old computer and giving Helga a sly eye.

"Pssh," she brushed him off while keeping her eyes locked on one particular picture that showed Arnold mid-laugh atop the boarding house roof: sparkler in hand. "Looks like somebody knows nothing."

"Nah… I'm pretty sure that, given how often you look at this kid's picture, you got it bad for him. Don't you Helga?"

Pushing the rolling chair away from the desk that the computer sat on, Helga turned her head to give him a narrow-eyed scowl. "For your information, Raul, this kid just so happens to be a complete dunce and without someone looking after him, even from afar, he'll—"

"Sure…" he elongated the vowel with a smug expression on his naturally tanned features. "Because, all the way from here, you'll definitely be able to save the local town fool from any embarrassment."

"Hey!" she soon exclaimed. "I didn't say he was the town fool, bucko, I said he was a dunce. There's a difference, okay? And you know what?" She continued while twisting her body to look more directly at the boy who was roughly her age, "The things I look at, and the people I watch from the safety of a computer screen, are frankly none of your business so how about you buzz off?"

"Helga!" Olga called out from where she emerged into the room. "Why, that isn't any way to speak to other members of this household."

"He's hardly a member, Olga," Helga grumbled which provoked a glare from Raul and a disappointed gaze from her sister.

"Raul is just as much a member of this house as you are, Helga, and" she went on with a more stern voice than her sister was used to hearing, "if I were you, I'd remember that you are a visitor here, even more than Raul or Jamal, or Marta, or any of the other kids."

With that, the eldest Pataki exited the room to leave Raul and Helga with one another around the computer with Arnold's smiling face plastered on the screen.

"Criminy," Helga muttered before turning her body to face the computer and resume her weekly stalking, "count your blessings that you're only stuck with Jamal and not her once again."

"Olga?" Raul confirmed before shaking his head vigorously. "Maybe it's you who should count your blessings."

"Oh yeah?" she countered, her hand still on the mouse though her head was tilted upwards to where Raul remained standing. "And how is it you figure?"

"Your sister is singlehandedly the nicest person that I've ever met," he argued with a definitive voice, almost as though he were debating passionately rather than explaining himself. "She's always putting the needs of everyone else in the neighborhood first… making Christmas dinners for those of us who's parents work all the time, bringing baskets of food and blankets to the homeless… I mean jeez… who wouldn't want a sister like that?"

Utterly unshaken by Raul's enthusiastic defense, Helga shrugged her shoulders while clicking on another picture in the album. She stared apathetically ahead at the much clearer shot of the football-headed boy and his smile that shone brighter than the sparkler he held. "Yeah, well, why don't you join the club of other people who are so eager to have Olga as their sister. I'm sure by now they all have jackets."

"You're pretty bitter, you know," Raul noted with a frown while crossing his arms. "For a teenager, that is."

"Lucky me," Helga responded, her finger poised above the left-hand click of the mouse underneath her hand.

"Maybe you should try looking on the bright side of things for once, like your sister does," he suggested, though Helga wasn't looking for advice on the matter; especially not from a kid she hardly knew. "She loves you a lot. More than most sisters love their siblings I bet."

Dropping her finger on the mouse as it hovered above the picture she'd been looking at, Helga gripped the mouse and lightly tossed it aside while standing herself up to meet Raul at his eyeline. "I don't need you telling me that my sister loves me, alright? I know my sister loves me. What she doesn't do is show me that she loves me, you get it?"

Pausing in her rant, she outstretched her arms to gesture around at the house they stood in. "Look at this! I mean, LOOK, for cripes sake! This, this healthy space that you and the neighborhood get to use is great and all, but where was it when I needed it, huh? Where was she when I needed this perfect sister you and everyone else goes on and on about?" Shaking her head in a combination of irritation and hurt, Helga let out a long breath before returning to her place in the computer-side chair.

"She was off kissing our parent's ass while I walked myself to school…" the blonde teenager mumbled before her eyes widened in sheer horror. "Oh my god…"

"What?" Raul interjected as though everything she had just told him had been entirely forgotten. J

"The picture…" Helga said softly, her mouth growing dry with each word she spoke. "I-I… I liked it."

Unimpressed by Helga's freak-out, Raul stepped back and waved her off. "That's it? You liked a picture? Jeez… you really do have it bad," he commented before turning around and beginning to leave the room; his last words as he left being a reminder that she had five more minutes left of computer time.

But Helga didn't hear. All she could see was her name as the sole person to have liked this incredibly flattering picture of Arnold in an album he had posted days ago. Swallowing hard, she immediately un-liked the picture, though she feared it was too late. The green circle surrounding Arnold's profile picture told her that he was online.

And if he was online… that only meant one thing: he had seen her mistaken 'like'. And if he'd seen this like, he would know she'd been inadvertently checking up on him. And if he knew that, then he'd know that she was still thinking about him and that meant that she obviously still liked him and if she liked him who was to say that she didn't still love him?

Catastrophes of all kinds swarmed Helga's thoughts as she 'un-liked' the picture and soon pulled up an individual chat window for Arnold himself.

"Oh criminy!" She said to herself while licking her dry lips in preparation for figuring out what she should say. "I gotta say something. I gotta explain myself…"

-just as Raul distracted me, I managed to LIKE one of Arnold's pictures like some kind of idiot!

Naturally, I tried to cover it by removing my like, but the kid was online and I couldn't just LEAVE it at that. Arnold may be dense, but he isn't STUPID and it was only a matter of time before he hit me up and asked why I liked the random picture DAYS after he'd first posted it.

I must have typed a MILLION different things to say to him in that stupid chat window.

Bracing her fingers against the keys, Helga took a deep breath to steady herself and tried to type out something that wouldn't make Arnold any more suspicious than she imagined he already was.

"Hey Arnold," she spoke aloud as she typed, "you might have noticed that I 'liked' one of your pictures, but it was a total mistake. Why would I like one of your pictures?"

Staring at the sentence she'd typed and re-reading it over three times, Helga shook her head and held down the 'delete' key until the message had disappeared altogether. Taking in a soothing breath, Helga prepared herself to begin again. "C'mon Helga ol' girl," she encouraged herself, "it's just Arnold and it was just some picture."

Tapping away at the keys again, she read aloud the message she carefully crafted in the pop-out message screen. "Dorkwad, don't think that just because I liked your picture means that I like you in any way. I un-liked it just as soon as I did it and—" she was already groaning and deleting each letter before she could finish the sentiment.

"One more time," she told herself with a lone nod. "Arnold," she began again as her palms started to sweat without an end in sight, "please disregard any 'likes' as it was an accident and—"

"Times up!" Raul called out from behind her, sending a jolt of adrenaline through her lanky form; her pinky mistakenly hitting the 'enter' key as she jumped.

But none of what I wrote even MATTERED, Journal, because stupid Raul came up and scared the living daylights out of me and my STUPID pinky hit the STUPID enter key and STUPIDLY left my STUPID incomplete message to Arnold.

And since my time on the computer was up, there was NOTHING I COULD DO ABOUT IT.

So now, Arnold has this completely random message from me, that isn't even FINISHED by the way, and I can't even respond to it until tomorrow because of Olga's stupid time-limit rule.

Criminy. I hope he doesn't think I'm crazy.

Then again, at this point, I'm pretty sure he already knows.

~Helga

"Arnold, please disregard any 'likes' as it was an accident and"

Arnold stared at the words in the messenger screen as the green color encircling Helga's profile picture disappeared to show that she was no longer online. Squinting in confusion at the words she had clearly mistakenly sent him, Arnold sighed sadly before turning his attention back to the task at hand.

Sitting in his lap was the yearbook opened to where Helga had thoughtlessly scrawled her entry to him. As his fingers traced over the words she'd inscribed, his focus honed in on the words she had ripped out; the shadows of what Helga had wanted to have said.

Thankfully for Arnold, the summer had been fairly quiet with his best friend out of town and many of his other friends occupied at camps, on vacations, or with their respective families. All of this had given him ample enough time to attempt his reconstruction of the original message left only by indents on the page of his autograph section.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

Three raps on the door startled Arnold and he turned around to see his father holding a plate of freshly baked cookies and two glasses of milk. "How's the case going?"

"It's not a case, dad," Arnold said with a smirk as Miles approached him and handed his son one of the cups he'd brought with. "I just want to know what it was she was going to say."

"Well, what's this?" his father soon asked while setting down his own glass of milk and picking up a cookie to nibble on. With his eyes facing the computer screen, Arnold knew at once what he was talking about, and the boy shrugged his shoulders with a disheartened sigh.

"I don't know," he said. "She sent it a few minutes ago but then disappeared seconds later. I'm not sure she wants me to respond to it… whatever it is." He sounded sad, but his attention wasn't on the cryptic message blinking on his computer screen—it was on the few words that he had managed to decipher and had traced out in the lines left behind from Helga's heavy hand.

I'll be far, far away from this stupid town.

…be a little less dense…somewhat regret-…feelings…freakish head care about…

…I…really mad…at you…

Glancing over his son's shoulder while munching on a cookie, Miles frowned. "That doesn't look very good…" he noted, though Arnold shook his head assuredly.

"Maybe from this point, no. But there's a lot left that I have to figure out still." Staring at the words he had uncovered thus far, he made a face while tilting his head slightly to one side. "I don't think this was a mean message… I think she was actually telling me…the truth."

"The truth about what?" Miles wondered while adding another cookie to his mouth and offering Arnold one soon thereafter.

Taking a cookie from the plate, Arnold took a small, thoughtful bite before answering. "About how she feels. Really feels. And I want to figure it out."

"Why's that?" Miles asked next, though he was nearly certain that he knew the answer.

"Because when she comes home from her summer at Olga's, I'm going to confront her about it. And I'm hoping that maybe—"

"You two will get back together?"

A deep red filled in Arnold's cheeks which was the only answer his father needed. With silent understanding, Miles set down the plate of remaining cookies beside his glass of milk and stretched his neck back and forth once on each side.

"Well," he announced, "we'd better get started."

"We?" Arnold intoned quizzically as Miles let out a laugh while setting his hands on his hips.

"I may be old, Arnold, but I've cracked a few codes before—and NONE of them were as easy as this one. And, since it's already mid-July and that's all you've figured out so far," he let out an artificially concerned breath, "I'd say that you need to call in an expert if you want to figure it out by the time Helga gets back."

Beaming at his father's idea, the two began their inspection of the remnants from Helga's original yearbook entry; all the while, her mistaken message still painted on the screen of Arnold's computer.

Okay folks! I hope this was well worth the wait! I tried to do something a little different in terms of the way the entries intermingle with 3POV so you will have to let me know if you like this format or if you absolutely hate it. Personally, I think it's pretty cool and it breaks it up so you see Helga's main thoughts on it but also see it from an objective point of view.

Anyway, please PLEASE let me know what you thought of this chapter! Remember, I am posting on a schedule now, so the next chapter will be posted on: Saturday, October 17th (roughly) 5pm/CT.

Thank you so much for reading! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this chapter :)

Polka