Chapter 5

"Janet Buttermore? The psycho bitch Helga's always complaining about?" Alec asked Arnold after he said that horrible name. Helga's stomach was in a knot still trying to process what happened.

"Well when you put it that way..."

Helga tried her best not to implode right then. To her luck she managed to bump her head on the counter, hard. "Ow, my knee," Alec said to cover. "I'll tell her you stopped by. Have fun with that chick."

Once Arnold was gone Helga stood from the counter and just screamed her lungs out. "WHAT THE HELL?! JANET? HOW THE BLOODY HELL COULD IT BE JANET?"

"Calm down."

"HOW DO YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN? HE THINKS IT'S JANET BUTTERMORE!"

"Okay so this is bad, but he'll find out it's not her."

Helga dropped to the floor again, holding her head to her knees. "This cannot be happening. I'm Cecile! Not Janet. Why would he ever think it was her? She's a monotoned bitch."

"I don't know what to tell you Helga."

"This is all my fault. I can't believe I didn't tell him."

"I can't believe you never told me,"Arnold said to Janet as he stepped into her clean white room. Everything was neatly organized in her shelves, to the point where it was weird.

"You knew I couldn't tell you, what would you think of me?"

Arnold took a seat in one of her white chairs facing her balcony. "Why didn't you tell me? I don't understand why. How did you even know me in fourth grade? I was in Mr Simon's class."

"I'm very persistent, Arnold. I wanted to tell you everyday after I met you, but I was afraid. You have to understand that. Look at us now, you're questioning me as we speak."

"I don't want to be rude, but you have to understand that I never thought it would be you."

"Why? Because I'm a nerd? Because I'm this amazing?"

"No. I just never really saw you that way. Look this is just a shock to me."

"I know how you feel. Who would have thought you were going to post this on facebook. Now everyone will know I snuck around pretending to be some Italian chick."

"French."

"What?"

"Cecile was french."

"Oh yeah, sorry totally forgot. It's been so long, since fourth grade."

Arnold shook it off and listened to Janet as she spoke. As much as he tried to think of her as his Cecile, he just couldn't find it in himself to do it. She was Janet Buttermore, the girl that beat him in the spelling bee, and then laughed in his face. Cecile is kind, sassy, and amazing. Arnold decided to give Janet a chance, if she really was Cecile he didn't want to let her go. Maybe it would just take more time for her to warm up to being herself around Arnold.

That morning Helga forced herself out of bed as her mother called her to breakfast. She didn't want to go to school today, and with a bit of convincing Miriam would let her stay. Bob was already at work and Miriam was tossed on the couch like a rag doll.

"Mom, I don't think I can go to school today, I feel awful. Can I please stay home?"

Miriam brought her head up to her, hardly opening her eyes. "Uh yeah sure Helga, whatever."

Helga walked back upstairs to try to go back to sleep. Even in the comfort of her own bed, she couldn't find it in herself to close her eyes. She thought of her beloved and how he could fall into the lies of Janet Buttermore. He had to be smarted than to believe her. He had to be. It was Arnold, one of the smartest boys Helga knew, he couldn't fall for it. Right.

Arnold walked into school that morning feeling both nervous and excited. He had finally found his Cecile and now he one thing off his shoulders. He wasn't quite sure if he would ask Janet out or anything, he did try to kiss her in the party, but he felt like now he had to get to know her from scratch. Honestly, he was looking forward to that. It amazed him that one day Janet would come out of her arrogant shell and show off her sweet interior.

By his locker, Janet lingered with a subtle smile on her face. "Hello Arnold."

"Hi, how are you?" Arnold opened his locker then.

"Fine, but this english homework was very difficult."

"Really?"

"Yes. It's this poem by Emily Dickinson. I have never read something so ludicrous in my life. You can't believe that an untitled poem would be this difficult."

Arnold nodded and continued to take out some books he needed. "Sounds rough. You'll do fine."

"Of course I will. I always do fantastic." She smiled. "Well I have to head out. I have to get to government. We have a debate today."

"I hate debates," Arnold said.

"It's better when you get to beat Helga Pataki, she thinks she knows so much."

"You don't like Helga?"

"Not at all. She and I are up for valedictorian, and I intend on being it. I better do. Tootles."

With that Janet was off. Now that she mentioned it, he had to see Helga about that charger. Hopefully he would remember later.

Phoebe sat in her last class without Helga by her side. She texted her saying she was sick, but Phoebe knew that wasn't so. There was something wrong with Helga, she didn't know what, but she intended to find out. Behind her Gerald and Arnold talked before class started. Phoebe tried not to listen in, but they were pretty loud.

"So you're convinced it's Janet?" Gerald asked.

"Yeah, Janet's Cecile."

Phoebe's eyes widened. "What?!"

Suddenly the entire class was silent. She turned around and saw the two boys looking right at her. "Ugh, sorry about that, but did you say Janet? As in Janet Buttermore?"

"Yeah," Gerald replied. "Arnold's Cinderella."

"Are both of you in some sort of psychosis? Janet Buttermore isn't Cinderella."

Arnold sighed, "I thought that too, Phoebe, but it's really her. Janet is Cinderella."

Phoebe felt disgusted by what she was hearing. "That is incorrect, Arnold. Janet Buttermore is a coldhearted monster, nothing like Hel... like hell she's not! Cecile is poetic, beautiful, funny, and sweet."

Arnold looked at Phoebe suspiciously. "Phoebe, how would you know that?"

"Wild guess?"

"What do you know that we don't?" Gerald asked.

"I know nothing."

"Arnold!" This teacher called from the front of the classroom. "Can you come here for a moment?"

Arnold walked up there where his teacher had a stack of papers in her arm. "I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

"Anything Miss Lee."

She smiled. "Thanks goodness. See Helga Pataki is out sick, something about chicken pox, so I need someone to take her her assignments."

"Couldn't she get them tomorrow?"

"Nooo. Helga needs to keep her grades up to be valedictorian, we wouldn't want that other girl to get it. She and I have been working on her speech already."

"I didn't know Helga was so dedicated to this."

"Oh yes! Helga is crazy about this. She's already applying to Columbia and Yale, she needs to keep her rank of one."

Arnold was surprised, he always thought that Janet was one. "Wait, Helga's ranked one?"

"Oh yes, she hates saying it but she is. She's my top student, she's planning on majoring in either literature or psychology, she can't decide yet."

"Literature?"

"Oh yes, Helga's a little poetry lover. Dickinson, Cummings, Elliot, all her favorites."

"I never knew this."

"She doesn't really like to talk about it. So would be you a dear and take this to her?"

Arnold took the stack of papers form his teacher. "Sure."

"Thank you so much Arnold."

That afternoon Arnold walked to Bob's to take Helga her homework. Miss Lee had gathered all her work from every class. Arnold noticed that Helga took difficult classes. AP Government, AP Physics, AP Literature, AP Calculus, AP Art History, and Creative Writing. Arnold never thought that Helga did so much with school. The stack of homework was so big, he couldn't imagine when she'd get the time to do it all. Helga worked in the store almost everyday, and she took all those advanced placement classes, it was surprising how she did it.

The bell rang as Arnold walked into Bob's and he saw Patty in Helga's usual counter. He walked up to her, she was alone with the guy Arnold had met the other day. "Hi Patty."

"Hello Arnold. How may I help you?"

"I was looking for Helga, is she in?"

Patty looked over to the boy next to her. "She's not, she's sick."

"Chicken pox," the boy added.

"Oh, I should have thought that if she wasn't in school, she wouldn't be here."

"Don't worry about it," Patty said.

"Is she okay?" Arnold asked.

"No," the boy said.

"Don't listen to Alec, Helga's fine."

"No she's not," Alec said. "Why are you even here? I thought you didn't even like Helga."

"I had to bring her some homework." Arnold looked at the paper at the top of the stack. "See, Untitled by Emily Dickinson."

"That's Helga's favorite poem," both of them said at the same time.

"Is it really?"

"Yeah," Alec continued. "She only tells us every time she can. The one about the ships of purple, right?"

"Right."

"It's a pretty difficult poem to understand."

"Yeah, I was talking to Janet about it and she found it really hard."

Patty winced. "That girl Helga hates? Why would you be talking to her? I heard she's a jerk."

Arnold was about to turn red, it seemed like he always had to explain himself to everyone about Janet, was she really that bad? "Well she and I kinda have a thing going on. She's my Cinderella."

Patty looked both furious and surprised. "As in the girl from your party? It's not Janet. What would ever make you think it's her?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that? I know it's Janet. I'm going to go give this to Helga. See ya."

Helga felt bored after hours of doing nothing around the house. She thought about going out for a walk. There was nothing interesting on tv today, wrestling had just ended. She went to grab a jacket to head out. No one was home, so she grabbed some keys too. Maybe she could get herself out of school tomorrow too, the last thing she wanted to do was see Arnold with far avoiding him was working. She went over to open the door when she saw Arnold halfway up her stoop.

"Helga," he said as she came into view. He carried a stack of papers with him and his backpack.

"Arnold, what are you doing here?"

"I just came to drop this off. I thought you had the chicken pox."

Helga took a breath, this was not going well. "Wow, you caught me Football-Head."

"Here, Miss Lee sent you your homework."

Helga took the stack from him. The first paper she saw was her favorite poem. "Dickinson. I love this poem. She is a genius, who else would think of using 'sea of daffodil'?"

"Janet said it was pretty difficult."

Helga rolled her eyes. "Yeah cuz she's a stupid geek. She knows nothing about art and poetry."

"You really don't like her?"

"Arnold, I hate her with the burning passion of a thousand suns. I hope you and her are happy with each other."

"Listen Helga-"

"Just get off of my stoop. Thanks for the homework."

sorry it took too long to post, I've had waay too much homework