Hey, guys.

Don't have much update or time on this one except to enjoy and thank you for all your support.

Next two chapters are going to be BIG.

I'm sorry I have no time to answer reviews tonight but I will resume such practice next update.

Thank you!

Chapter 18. Opportunity Strikes

A kind of in and out haze cast a shadow upon the preteen blond as he barely registered his grandfather's speaking on the phone. The words seemed to go in and out of his mind like the lazy speaker of a radio knob.

"Yes, I understand officer…no not that I'm aware of."

Arnold continued to stare at the hardwood floor, idly wondering the last time his grandma had taken a broom or mop underneath the living room carpet.

"Mr. Green should suffice as a witness….there shouldn't be a jury trial over this…lock him in the slammer….open and shut case."

Memories of the kiss Helga had given him continued to flash inside his mind as the tingle of her soft lips echoed across his. As the shock wore off, he could feel the pink return to his cheeks at the idea of what she had done.

"Alright, well I'm sure he'll be happy to cooperate with anything else. Just as long as you have the evidence you need. Okay….good day."

The click of the phone went up and Arnold soon found himself face to face with his grandfather.

"That two bit cop was trying to convince ya to stake the stand against that Frankie character or whoever the hell he is," the old man explained. "But with Mr. Green backin ya up there shouldn't be anything more they need to do. They already have a statement."

Arnold had spent the last two hours or so at the police station under the watchful eye of his grandfather as he gave testimony and verified it was Frankie G who had assaulted and nearly killed him. Apparently, the local precincts had been after him for quite some time as he had joined a prominent crime family as an associate and runner for all sorts of illegal operations. Unfortunately, Frankie had also developed a nasty addiction to heroin and alcohol and in the process had grown careless. With an attempted murder charge in addition to the white powder discovered on his person, he was looking at a twenty year sentence at minimum in the upstate penitentiary, far from Hillwood.

Believe it or not, however, that was not the primary concern on the blond preteen's mind.

"He'll be spending quite some time in the can if the system does its job," Grandpa continued with a hint of skepticism in his voice. "It's just a good thing Mr. Green was there…I hate to think what might have happened otherwise."

He placed a bony hand on his grandson's shoulder in a show of concern.

"Arnold, are you okay?"

Snapping out of his daydreaming, Arnold managed to pull himself back into reality.

"Yeah, Grandpa, I'm fine. A little shaken but I promise, I'm alright."

"You've been saying that for the past few weeks, yet your grandma and I have barely seen ya. Is there something you want to tell us?"

Before he could answer there was a knock on the door, which upon its opening revealed a highly anxious Gerald.

"Mr. Shortman, I'm sorry to bother you, but I heard what happened to Arnold. Is he alright? May I come in?"

"Oh, of course, Gerald. Yeah, I'm sure he'd be happy to see ya…Arnold, your little friend is here to see you!"

Arnold rolled his eyes ever so slightly. It was easy to forget none of them were so 'little' anymore.

"I heard, Grandpa, no worries. You can send him in."

Gerald wasted no time in checking in on his best friend as he sat down next to him on the couch.

"Judging by the fact your head is still attached to your body, I take it you weren't too badly roughed up."

"No, but how on earth did you find out so fast?" Arnold asked, surprised that news of this nature could spread around the neighborhood that quickly.

"Fuzzy Slippers," Gerald shrugged. "The man knows everything around here, including the underworld. As soon as word hit the streets Frankie G was arrested, he gave me the full low down."

"Wonderful," Arnold muttered. "Now the entire school is going to know come Monday morning."

"You're complaining about that? My man, you're going to be the hero who stood up to Frankie G, the scumbag of Hillwood. Why be upset?"

It occurred to Arnold that whatever was relayed to his best friend via Fuzzy Slippers was not entirely accurate. Apparently, the keeper of tales and street gossip was not always one hundred percent on the money. Which meant one key part was missing.

"That's not…the entire story," he admitted to his best friend. He couldn't help it but reveal the truth. It didn't feel right to leave Helga out of the picture, not after she had saved his life.

"What do you mean?"

It didn't take long for the truth to come spilling out of Arnold's mouth.

"Gerald….Helga saved my life."

That brought a sharp, flabbergasted look from his best friend.

"I'm sorry, what now?"

"She. Saved. My. Life," Arnold repeated, punctuating every word. "She was the one who knocked out Frankie and…"

Gerald noticed his hesitation, which drew a raised eyebrow.

"And what?"

"She uh…well…kissed me."

Aside from a slightly shocked, blank stare, Arnold thought Gerald's reaction was rather tame. No one else besides him and Phoebe knew that Helga was in love with him. Right?

"Two years ago my head would have exploded. But I know everything, buddy. She straight up told Phoebe and I how she felt about you," he admitted.

"I'm more surprised that she told you rather than Phoebe."

"Pheebs was always good about keeping Helga's secrets. She hinted a few times but never said it outright out of deference."

There was a brief silence, in which the sounds of Gertie cooking some kind of roast (she was very loud with the pots and pans) could be heard from the kitchen. A belch rang out, which was usually an indicator he had finished a beer.

"Soooo…what are you going to do now?" Gerald pressed a little.

"With Helga? I don't know."

"What do you mean? When someone kisses someone, that's a pretty good sign they like you. And I know you still like her."

"It's complicated, Gerald," Arnold said standing up from the couch, placing a hand on his forehead. "It's always been complicated with me and her. Every day is a like a roller coaster ride and given everything that's happened the past two months, I wouldn't know where to start."

"Well there's gotta be something that can be done. You can't just go around and pretend nothing happened," his best friend tried to reason.

"This is still too much to think about. Let's go do something…anything."

Gerald shrugged.

"We have an off day for baseball, you wanna see if the Jolly Olly man's giving out ice cream?"

"Sure."

Arnold shouted to his grandparents he was going out, something they affirmed (being products of the GI Generation they were content to let their grandson have a tremendous amount of freedom, even after being physically attacked), but as the two boys traversed the city streets once more, Gerald couldn't but feel that his best friend was purposefully avoiding the issue at stake. Insane as it was, the day of reckoning would come sooner rather than later for them both. He had come a long way in understanding Arnold and Helga's relationship, but if he were honest with himself, he realized that the two were made for each other to some degree. Though only twelve, Gerald had seen enough movies to know that the story of the two blondes wasn't something you could write in a script or witness on TV. But would it come to fruition as it usually did in those movies?

He wondered briefly what Phoebe's reaction would be when Helga inevitably told her the tale.

Word traveled fast from the mouth of fuzzy slippers, and by the following Monday when school resumed, P.S. 118 was abuzz about Arnold's incident with Frankie G. The poor boy was pelted with questions regarding the story.

"Is it true he was a part of the mafia?"

"I heard they found a strange substance or some such thing I reckon in his pocket."

"You better hide, Arnold! Frankie might break out and seek vengeance on us all!"

The badgering of Harold, Stinky, and Sid aside, Gerald had to clear the way as more people from all grades kept coming up to him seeking intricate details. It was all quite overwhelming for Arnold.

For her part, Helga watched it all unfold in silence. She had no desire to change the narrative or tell the stinking world about how she not only saved her beloved but gave him a big smack on the lips in a moment of heightened passion. There was no way to handle all of that emotion in one setting (the idea of Rhonda crooning about it to the rest of the girls was enough to make her want to crawl inside a hole and never come out). She was perfectly content to let the initial buzz die off and go back to the way things were…whatever that was.

Helga managed to get through the first part of her day without any interrogation from anyone, mainly due to the fact that Phoebe was strangely absent. She never liked to go a day without seeing her best friend but today might have been the exception. No part of her wanted to discuss or bring up what happened last Saturday. If that meant spending some time without Phoebe, well then, so bet it. Unfortunately for the blonde girl, her fortunes would not prove to be so lucky.

Whilst she casually ate a hastily made peanut butter sandwich from Miriam by herself (the rest of the girls still weren't talking to her), a tap on the shoulder nearly made her jump ten feet in the air.

"Helga?"

"CRIMINY!"

She looked and was both relieved and horrified that it was only Phoebe standing there, lunchbox in hand, posture slightly recoiled at Helga's reaction.

"I'm sorry I startled you," she said sheepishly. "In hindsight, I probably should not have approached you from behind."

"It's fine Pheebs it's just….why does everyone think it's a good idea to startle me like that? And I thought Arnold was bad…."

She trailed off, her cheeks going noticeably red at the mention of that time. Munching on her sandwich, Helga tried to deflect the conversation back towards another topic.

"So, where were you anyway? You've never missed a homeroom before. Or any day of school, really."

"Doctor's appointment," Phoebe told her as she sat down. "Last minute rescheduling so I had no time to warn you. I'm sorry if you were left wondering where I was this morning."

"It's fine, don't worry about it," Helga muttered.

"Are you fine, Helga?"

"We're not playing twenty one questions right now, Pheebs. Let's just eat lunch while we can catch a break from all the commotion over what happened last weekend."

"Do you mean the attack on Arnold by Frankie?" she asked gravely. "I heard. It's a miracle he wasn't hurt or killed. Thank goodness Mr. Green arrived in time."

"Yeah…how bout that," Helga muttered.

That caused Phoebe to take a pause.

"Helga, forgive me, but you seem off somehow."

I'm never going to be able to finish my sandwich am I?

"The love of my life nearly perished. How do you think I'm going to feel?"

"It's not that," her best friend continued to observe. "You seem distressed, but not in the manner of a person who just found about the incident. What are you not telling?"

Helga cursed the day Phoebe became so good at reading her, but then again very little got past her anyway. She was too clever for her own good really.

"It's nothing."

"Helga, you never look away when telling the truth about something. You suddenly seem quite interested in your sandwich."

"That's because I'm trying to eat it!" Helga hissed. But there was no getting away from Phoebe's questioning. In its own way, her methods were relentless and there was no getting away from the subject until she spilled the beans. "What do you want me to do?"

"You know what really happened that day. You were there, I can see it in your eyes."

"FINE!" the blonde girl said was exasperation, throwing her hands in the air. "Not only was I there but I single handedly saved his neck from being slashed open. And why not top it off with this little nugget of information, I kissed him once I whopped the bastard over the head with a giant salami! Happy now?!"

Helga was lucky the lunchroom was rather crowded and noisy because her volume level had grown with each passing sentence. No, she did not need a repeat of when she had almost revealed her secret in front of the entire school, which was partially responsible for the predicament she was in now.

Phoebe's reaction was predictably shocked.

"Helga, you're…you're serious? You kissed Arnold?"

"It was in the heat of the moment," the blonde moaned, burying her hands in her face. "I was so terrified I might actually lose him that I just sort of operated on autopilot. Everything I've been feeling for the past nine years just spilled out of me."

"But, Helga this isn't a bad thing, it's quite wonderful," Phoebe said, taking her hands in her own. "He knows how you feel now. You saved his life!"

"That's exactly the problem. He knows how I feel but I have no idea what he thinks of me. For all intents and purposes he could still hate my freaking guts!"

"You could always try asking him."

"Yeah, because that's never gone wrong before," Helga said sarcastically. "If I don't mess it up, he'll probably spit in my face and I wouldn't even blame him."

"It seems we're back to square one," Phoebe sighed, rubbing her glasses with her shirt. "After everything that's happened, you have to let him know the true extent of your feelings or else it's going to be the same cycle all over again."

"Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be," Helga huffed in a defeatist tone. "It's never ending with us. Each time he or I try to make things work, something always gets in the way….I don't even know if he feels the same way. Or that he ever did."

"This isn't the Helga Pataki I know. You may have struggled with your affection for Arnold in the past but you never let it conquer you or your sense of purpose."

"He is my purpose, Phoebe. My entire life, he's the only thing I've been able to hold onto besides you of course. But now it feels as though I'm at the dead end of a maze with no other moves left. I just don't know if I can keep doing this.

Helga bowed her head slightly, tossing the sandwich behind her and into the trash can.

"I'm not hungry anymore. Come on, let's go outside."

The bell rung, which signaled recess, but it also signaled something much more grim for Phoebe. Playing the role of cupid really wasn't something she was well versed in but to see Helga so pessimistic awakened a sense of passion in her that was atypical of her personality. Wherever this runaround between her best friend and Arnold led, she would not stand idly by just to see it blow into smithereens. That almost happened once, it need not occur again.

Phoebe and Helga didn't do much during recess, chucking rocks at the wall and talking casually about whatever came up, but the former knew that she needed to see Gerald right away.

The fate of the two blondes might depend on it.

It didn't take long for the couple to touch base at the end of the school day and judging by her boyfriend's panting and odd sense of urgency (Gerald liked to portray himself as rather unflappable) he needed to speak with her right away.

They met at the bottom of the P.S. 118 steps.

"I have to talk to you about something," he said as they kissed briefly, ignoring the funky smelling exhaust of the bus in front of them.

"Coincidentally, I do too," she replied back. "Or perhaps not coincidentally."

Gerald eyed her carefully.

"This wouldn't happen to be related to our mutual blonde friends, would it?"

"Indeed, it does. I take it Arnold told you about what happened last weekend?"

"He did. Did you manage to get Helga to spill the beans?"

Phoebe nodded slowly.

"So it's true then? Did she really save his life? Did she…"

"Kiss him? Yes, apparently she did in what she called a 'moment of passion'."

Gerald shook his head in a moment of personal disbelief.

"I swear, I will never understand that girl."

That earned him a slight punch in the arm, thought it didn't hurt that much he feigned offense.

"Ow! Pheebs come on I was kidding."

"So was I," she said with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. "I'm sorry, Gerald, I didn't mean it, but I do think there's a serious dilemma with Helga and Arnold. And it just so happens you and I are caught in the middle of it."

"You don't have to tell me twice. Those two are something else. Arnold won't do anything, he's too scared."

"Helga shares similar anxieties. I'm afraid. She's scared that her opportunity with him as expired and that any further attempts at expressing her feelings will only backfire."

For a split second, Gerald as though he were at a loss, a solution close by but just out of reach simultaneously.

"All I know is, I'm glad you and I didn't have to jump through a million hoops to get together, but yet….I know somehow those two are better off with each other than without. Call me insane, but maybe I pegged Helga wrong. I pegged them both wrong."

Phoebe was extraordinarily happy to hear her boyfriend express personal support for their two friends for the first time.

"You're finally okay with this?" she asked.

"I don't pretend to have all of the answers," was his response. "Just that my buddy needs to stop hiding how he feels. Somehow, some way, Arnold and Helga need to talk. After that, what happens is their own business."

"But how are we going to get that to happen?" Phoebe asked pragmatically. "There's no current setting in which they would willingly interact. Not unless a miracle occurred in the coming weeks where they might be within the same vicinity."

As if on cue, their prayers were answered by none other than Rhonda Wellington Lloyd, who handed them both paper invitations to a get together of some sort.

"Ahem."

"Yes?"

"Are you two so wrapped in each other you don't have time for a simple 'hello'?" the socialite scolded them haughtily. "In any case, I'm inviting you both to my sixth grade graduation party being held this upcoming Friday before we officially move on to middle school. You may bring a plus one guest if you wish, but no more than that."

Rhonda moved onto other patrons she thought worthy of her time, but Gerald and Phoebe thought nothing of it, for their prayers had been answered by the virtue of the pink, sequined invitation they had just received. For it was their ticket to the all time biggest drama story in P.S. 118.

"You thinkin what I'm thinkin?" Gerald winked at his girlfriend, shaking the invitation up and down like a basketball player in need of a fan.

Phoebe merely smiled in return.

"Oh, I'm way behind you."

What do Gerald and Phoebe have planned?

Stay tuned!

~The Wasp