Chapter 1
Finally, it's Friday, but Helga Pataki isn't nearly excited and relieved for the weekend, as she would typically be, since she'll be forced to stay home for the entirety of this weekend, where her home life is, as always, when her family is visited by her older sister, even more insufferable than it usually is. Honestly, she feels guilty about her spite toward Olga, because the latter is actually sickeningly sweet to Helga, who she still refers to as her "baby sister," despite that Helga's now sixteen-years-old. Olga's presence has always been a catch-22. It's always distracted what little attention their parents already pay Helga, but Olga herself pays Helga twice as much, if that can be considered any consolation. At least, Helga thinks to herself, their parents call her by her own name, when Olga's around to be called by hers.
With a sigh, she surveys the classroom, and realizes that her friend, Lila Sawyer, is not at her assigned homeroom seat. At least, not yet.
Writing it off, Helga's eyes continue their sweep of the room, until they fall upon the love of her life, Arnold Shortman, who seems to be in deep conversation with his best friend, Gerald Johanssen, who happens to be Helga's best friend's boyfriend. Instinctively, Helga rips the bottom corner off a piece of her notebook paper, plops it into her mouth, and chews on it for a few seconds, before taking the straw out of her now empty milk carton, putting it to her lips, and spitting the wet wad of paper through it, at the profile of Arnold's football-shaped head. He whips around in his seat, and narrows his eyes at Helga, who smirks crookedly at him. After a pause, a smirk spreads across his previously unamused face, as he stares back at her, with half-lidded eyes. This trademark expression of his, has always caused Helga's heart to flutter, and butterflies to flap around in her stomach. She sighs inaudibly, as a dreamy expression plays across her face.
"Here's one for you," Rhonda Wellington Lloyd's voice interrupts Helga's reverie, "and one for you." Helga turns slightly, to see that wealthy, raven-haired girl is handing out flyers for another one of her invitation-only parties. "And, one for you." Rhonda skips past Helga's best friend, Phoebe Heyerdahl, who's seated behind Helga, before skipping over Helga herself, and proceeding to hand out flyers to the people in front of them. "And, one for you."
Helga turns fully around, in order to face Phoebe, and drapes her arm over the back of her chair. As she strikes the laidback pose, however, she accidentally spreads her legs slightly, and has to quickly close them, since she's wearing one of her many pink dresses. Contrary to her tomboyish nature, her style has always been stereotypically feminine, and her favorite color happens to be pink. Currently, there's even a tiny, pink bow clipped into her long, blonde hair, whose bangs fall over the perfectly manicured eyebrows that would form one eyebrow, if she didn't constantly wax and pluck the hairs. "Guess we're not cool enough to be on the V.I.P. list," she says, with the sharp bite she usually has to her tone.
"Guess not," Phoebe agrees. "Fortunately, I don't care to attend her parties, anyway." The petite, half-Asian girl pushes her cat-eye glasses further up her nose, as she rolls her eyes. "I'm sure they drink, and smoke, and find bedrooms to fornicate in, and partake in a wide variety of scandalous behavior." She shakes her head at the thought of it all.
"Man, you're a goody-goody." Helga rolls her eyes, as she dismissively waves off Phoebe's particular concerns. "She probably lays out all these dumb rules, though, like that you can only drink expensive wine from fancy glasses, and have to adhere to a specific dress code." She watches as Rhonda skips over a disappointed Nadine, who'd been the former's best friend throughout elementary school, but who she abruptly abandoned way back in junior high, when the latter began to pose too much of a threat to the former's popularity. Despite how negatively Rhonda worries it'll affect her reputation, however, she only lets herself grow closer to the school bully, Harold Berman, who she's always had an obvious crush on. She still attempts to keep their relationship on the downlow, though her attempts only make it painfully obvious. Her new friends hardly care, anyway, since they didn't know Harold in elementary school, and how unattractive he was in personality and appearance. In his sophomore year, now, Harold happens to be the quarterback for the football team, and is in considerably better shape. It probably helps his reputation, that Harold no longer associates with Stinky—a farmer boy, whose nickname followed him from P.S. 118, due to his perpetual smell of manure—or especially Sidney, who'd come to work as the middleman for Big Gino, and peddles weed to their peers for a profit. Of course, Sidney—more commonly referred to as simply Sid—will probably be invited to the party, since partygoers will want to buy weed from him.
"Where's my invitation?" Asks a boy with a black bowl cut, and large, round spectacles that magnified his eyes.
"Um..." Helga watches, as Rhonda racks her brain for a plausible excuse to not invite Curly, as he snaps far too easily, and everyone suspects that he'll someday attempt to shoot up the school. "I can't invite anymore cool people," Rhonda lies. "I hope you understand."
Everyone looks toward Curly, who stares vacantly at Rhonda, before finally being like, "Oh, okay," and returning his attention to the papers on his messy desk. With a sigh of relief, Rhonda proceeds with passing out the flyers. "Ha, ha!" Curly laughs, when she places one on the desk of another popular girl. "You're uncool enough to be invited to Rhonda's party." The girl shoots him a dirty look, but obviously is too afraid to start any real confrontation.
"Hey, where's Lila?" Rhonda asks nobody in particular, as she stops beside Lila Sawyer's empty desk, with the intention of granting the latter an invitation.
Unlike Helga and Phoebe, their mutual friend, Lila, has always been extremely popular. Especially, with the boys, which in itself makes her slightly less popular with the girls.
"Yeah, where is Lila?" Helga asks, turning away from Rhonda, and back toward Phoebe, who shrugs in response. "Maybe she's sick."
"We should swing by her place, after school," Phoebe suggests, "and bring her assignments."
"If you're visiting Lila, give her this." Rhonda hands Helga the invitation, which has Lila's name specifically written on it, before proceeding to hand out the rest. "Here, you, go, Arnold." Rhonda places a paper on the blonde boy's desk. "One for you, too, Gerald." She hands the last one to Phoebe's boyfriend, before making her way back toward her seat, at the very back of the room.
"Of course, Gerald and Football Head have been invited." Helga sneers.
"Hey, Phoebe," Gerald shouts in his raspy voice, as he looks past Helga, and makes eye contact with his girlfriend, "wanna go to Rhonda's party, with me, next Friday?! It says 'plus one!'" In Helga's peripheral vision, she can see Arnold's head raise suddenly, but he quickly looks away from her, when she spares him a curious glance.
"Oh, dear," Phoebe says to herself, as she contemplates her newfound predicament. "What should I do?" She whispers to her best friend, who usually gives the best advice. "I'm not really into parties, but I don't want to say no to Gerald..."
"Go to the party, and trash Rhonda's mansion," Helga quips. "Maybe, steal an expensive vase, and sell it on eBay." Phoebe giggles.
"I can hear you, Helga," Rhonda says flatly, causing Phoebe to laugh harder, and a self-satisfied smirk to spread across Helga's face.
"Hey, Helga," Arnold says, catching the blonde's immediate attention, "um, do you wanna go to the party, with me?"
"Figures, you'd invite her." Rhonda rolls her eyes.
It takes Helga's brain a moment to fully process Arnold's question, as she can hardly believe that he's asked it, but, after an awkward pause, wherein she can only blink stupidly at him, she finally blurts out, "Yes!" She feels her face instantly heat, and shakes her head, as though it's an Etch-a-Sketch, and she can simply erase the blush that now stains her cheeks. "I mean, only because Rhonda doesn't want me there," she says defensively, as she turns toward the prissy girl, and smirks condescendingly at her.
"Sure," Rhonda says sarcastically, as she's well-aware of the sexual tension that's built up between Arnold and Helga, over the years. Hell, everyone and their mothers know. "You're right, though, I don't want you there; so you'd better behave yourself."
"How 'bout it, Phoebs?" Helga raises an eyebrow at Phoebe, whose familiar sigh can be interpreted as a reluctant affirmation.
"Okay," Phoebe says to Helga, before calling out to her boyfriend, "Count me in, Gerald!"
After school, Helga and Phoebe make their way toward Lila's dumpy apartment complex, which is nestled in the city slums. As they shuffle through the streets, guiltily avoiding eye contact with the many homeless, they pass a dead-end alley, down which they spot Sid, as well as Sheena Jefferson, who appears to be buying weed from the former.
As always, Sheena's dressed like the stereotypical hippie that she is, in a tie-dye t-shirt and ripped bellbottoms, while Sid looks like a '50s greaser, in his signature, black, leather jacket, and white Beatle boots. The only thing that looks slightly out-of-place, is the green baseball cap he wears backward, atop his head of stringy, black hair, which is always slicked back.
Once the girls finally reach Lila's apartment complex, they have to exert themselves even further, by tackling three flights of stairs. As they head up the creepy, dimly lit stairwell, toward the apartment Lila shares with her father, Helga and Phoebe hear loud fighting from inside one of the apartments, and loud fucking from inside another.
"Oh, hey!" Lila enthusiastically answers the door, about thirty seconds after Phoebe knocks on it, then steps aside to let the girls in. "What brings you over?" The dainty redhead stands before them in a ratty bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, with her freckled nose red and raw from overuse of Kleenex, and her scarlet hair clearly uncombed, but she still looks as pretty as she always does. This dumpy environment, Helga thinks to herself, as she surveys the apartment, truly isn't suited for someone as prim and proper and seemingly pristine as Lila, who's always been otherwise associated with matters like ballet, figure skating, and opera.
"We've come to see how you're doing, since you weren't at school, today." Phoebe rummages through her backpack, and pulls out a thin pile of papers, which she passes to Lila. "Also, to bring your homework."
"Oh, thank you!" Lila politely accepts them, and places them on the coffee table. "You probably shouldn't come too close, or stay too late," she warns. "I'm ever so sick, and don't want either of you to catch my cold."
"If you caught yours from Nadine, it's probably the same one we had a couple weeks ago," Phoebe figures.
"We've also brought chicken noodle soup." Helga sets a grocery bag on the coffee table, which she also props her feet upon, as she plops down onto the ratty couch. She crosses one ankle over the other, as to keep her legs closed, and crosses her arms behind her head.
"And, oyster crackers," Phoebe adds, taking a seat beside her.
They both know Lila's always been reluctant to accept charity, but a cold happens to be a good excuse to buy her food.
"Oh, thank you ever so much."
"Mind if I have a pizza delivered here?" Helga pushes, because Lila is more likely to accept food, if others are having some for themselves.
"Feel free," the redhead says, taking a seat in the armchair, across from her friends, just in case they'd be at risk of catching her cold.
"Almost forgot," Helga says, once she's ordered the pizza, and put away her cell phone, "we have this for you, too." She produces a crumpled piece of paper from her backpack, which Lila gently takes, ands unfolds, before skimming its contents. "Naturally, Arnold and Gerald were invited, too, so we're tagging along with them."
"You're going with Arnold?" Lila beams brightly at the idea of this, causing Helga's face to instantly flush.
Aside from Phoebe, Lila's the only person, to whom Helga's ever confessed her love for Arnold, and the redhead surprisingly never told him, or anyone else, which earned Helga's trust, and eventually her friendship. Still, Helga secretly envies Lila's apparent perfection, and will always be jealous about Arnold's childhood crush on her. To be fair, Lila's probably still somewhat jealous of Helga, too, since her own boyfriend—who ironically happens to be Arnold's cousin, though they strangely look more like twin brothers—once dumped Lila, back in elementary school, in order to pursue Helga. Even now, years after the couple eventually reconnected, Lila probably still has a complex about it.
"Yeah, it's not a big deal," Helga dismissively waves off Lila's excitement. "Anyway, you wanna go to the party, with us?"
"Oh, I don't know," Lila says. "I'm sure I would be a perfect wallflower, and, well, no offense, but I've always felt kind of awkward, as your third wheel."
"Technically fifth wheel," Phoebe can't help but correct, "but we're sorry we've made you feel that way."
"Hey, why don't you invite Arnie?" Helga suggests. "Do you think he could come up for the weekend?" Unfortunately for Lila, her boyfriend lives on the outskirts of Hillwood, and attends a separate school, so they have to settle for a long-distance relationship. Of course, this only makes Lila feel more lonely and depressed, and keeps in her in a constant state of paranoia.
"That sounds quite fun, but I don't think he would be very comfortable at a party," Lila says, in reference to Arnie's autism. He's always been socially awkward with everyone, except Lila, who has an inexplicable connection with him. "I could always ask him, though."
"It wouldn't hurt," Phoebe says. "By the way, Gerald said that Nocturnal Ned's supposed to DJ."
"Sounds like you really wanna go, for someone who was so against the idea," Helga observes.
"Well, maybe it'll be fun."
The trio continue to idly chat, until they're interrupted by a knock on Lila's door, which Helga answers, to the sight of a high school dropout named Torvald, who Arnold once tutored in elementary school.
"Hey, aren't you with Arnold Shortman?" His question seems to be rhetorical, as he doesn't bother to wait for answer, which Helga honestly doesn't know how to give, before asking in the same breath, "How's he doin'?"
"Pretty good." Helga shrugs, hoping that Torvald won't notice how red her face must be, as she accepts an extra large, pepperoni pizza, in exchange for a twenty dollar bill, plus a five dollar tip.
"Tell him I say hello."
"Will do," Helga promises, gently closing the door, once he's started to walk away. She places the pizza box on the coffee table, which Lila and Phoebe have already cleared off, and commands her friends to "hurry up, and dig in."