Helga almost had another clumsy moment when she stepped off the bus in front of her house. She quickly caught herself, but shook her head at her own klutziness. 'Since when have I become such a klutz?'

As soon as Helga walked into her house, she could hear I Will Always Love You blasting from the living room. Big Bob was home. He still hadn't got over all those soap operas he watched when he injured his back years ago and Miriam had to take his place at the Beeper Emporium. Now, he recorded them on a daily basis and watched them when he returned home after a long day at work.

"Dad?" Helga crept into the living room to find her dad lounging in his favorite chair.

"Oh, it's you, Olga. You scared for me a second."

"It's Helga, Dad. H-E-L-G-A. Helga."

"Right, right. Anyway, could you polish the trophies tonight? I want them to look good for Olga when she comes home next week."

'Of course he would want the trophies polished for when Olga comes home next week. She won them all, and besides those pieces of metal, she's the only person he cares about…' Helga couldn't stand the fact that her sister Olga was the perfect and only daughter in her parents' eyes.

"I can't tonight, Bob. I'm going to my friend's house. Like I do every Thursday night."

"Whatever. I want those trophies polished this weekend, young lady."

"Okay, Bob." Helga snapped, and left the living room to enter the kitchen for a snack. Instead, she found her mother stacking dishes into the oven.

"Hi, honey. How was school?" She singed as she stacked a coffee mug on top of a pile of plates.

"It was just peachy, Miriam. How was your day?"

"Fine, fine. Do you know where I put my…" She looked around.

"Your glasses are in the refrigerator, Miriam. Right next to your "smoothie" collection." Helga poured her glass of milk and snagged two cookies out of the cookie jar that she baked last week with Phoebe.

"Thank you, dear." She hobbled over to the fridge, and began searching for her glasses.

Helga sighed, forgetting about her hopeless parents and how they would never notice her. But that was something she got over a long time ago, way even before her high school transformation. She regularly talked to Dr. Bliss about it, but even Dr. Bliss soon discovered that Helga's parents loved her, but couldn't see her the way they saw Olga.

After Helga trudged up the staircase and entered her bedroom, the only place she could seek privacy in this "home", she threw her backpack and purse in the corner. Lying back on the bed, she closed her eyes, running through her day in her mind.

She couldn't get the thought of colliding with Arnold out of her head. Over and over, the memory repeated in her mind. Arnold's arms wrapping around her, them laughing, him blushing as she touched his hand.

'Wait. What am I doing? Helga, you don't love Arnold anymore. You don't love Arnold.' Why was she freaking out over the exchange with Arnold today? Any feelings she had for Arnold disappeared during her transformation, and she was determined for them not to return. He had consumed most of her life so far, and she wasn't going to let it happen again.

While trying to get Arnold out of her brain, Helga grabbed a piece of paper out of a binder in her book bag and headed over to her desk. She saw a letter addressed to her, and read the return address. It was from Olga all the way in Alaska. 'Criminey! Why does Olga continue to send me letters, even when I don't respond? Can't the woman take a hint?'

She shoved the letter into a drawer along with all the other unanswered letters. Even though she loved Olga, she couldn't stand her, just because she was perfect and her parents adored her. Helga had been jealous of Olga her whole life, and upset that it wasn't her. She knew it was wrong to ignore and be mean to Olga, but she didn't know how to fix it. Maybe she should bring it up to Dr. Bliss.

Helga attempted to push Olga out of her thoughts and get down to the business she tried to start. After all, the sleepover was in a few hours and she still had to get ready. She glanced over to the piece of paper she had set down on her desk, Arnold's advice column from this month's issue. This month, someone named, "Homecoming Honey" wrote a letter to him for advice on asking someone they liked to homecoming. Helga reread what Arnold had replied.

Dear Ask Arnold,

There's a boy in my biology class that I have a crush on. He's my lab partner. We've hung out with friends a couple of times and we talk on a daily basis, but he has no idea I like him and thinks we're just friends. I really want to ask him to homecoming, but I'm afraid he'll say no because he doesn't like me that way. What should I do?

Sincerely,

Homecoming Honey

Dear Homecoming Honey,

My suggestion to you is to go ahead and ask him. If you are friends, then the likelihood that he'll say yes is very likely. Even if he does say no and doesn't feel that way about you, he still should take it as a compliment that you asked him and ask to stay friends. If that doesn't work out, perhaps you can go with friends or ask someone else. Either way, everything happens for a reason, so don't get too discouraged if things don't happen the way you want. I hope this helped and that you have fun at homecoming whoever you go with!

Sincerely,

Ask Arnold

The advice Arnold gave to her sounded exactly like Arnold. He was always giving people advice, telling them to look on the bright side, or helping them out with their problems. That's why when Arnold joined the newspaper, she knew he would be perfect for an advice column. Arnold agreed with her, and he wrote the column each month with ease.

Students loved his column; Helga received dozens of emails each week for Ask Arnold. However, it was her responsibility as editor in chief to determine which ones Arnold would answer. Arnold's reputation as a nice, funny, helpful, caring guy spread around the school, and he was one of the most popular students in their grade because of it. Helga herself loved to read his responses, and wished that she could see him respond to all of them.

Each month, when Arnold turned in his column piece to Helga for the paper, Helga secretly made a copy of it and took it home with her. In her desk, she kept a binder of all the Ask Arnold columns that he's ever written. So, she took it out again after rereading this month's column, and added it to all the others.

At first, Helga thought what she was doing was similar to what she did in elementary and middle school with the shrines, poems, and the locket. Then, she convinced herself that she was simply being professional by keeping records of all the articles her staff wrote. Except for the fact that she only kept Arnold's.

'Just because I keep all the columns he ever wrote doesn't mean I love him. I'm just keeping them for record purposes. Maybe I'll give the collection to him as a present someday…'

As she debated in her mind whether she was being a stalker or not, her cell phone buzzed in her back pocket. Someone was calling her. She fished the phone out of her pocket and read the caller ID. Phoebe.

"Hey, Phoebs. What's up?"

"Konichiwa, Helga." The little Japanese girl answered back. "I'm so glad you answered. Rhonda texted you, but you didn't answer, so she wanted me to call you."

"I was in the newspaper meeting and I just got home. What does she want?"

"The slumber party's a hour earlier tonight. Apparently Rhonda has some juicy gossip that she's eager to discuss."

Helga tried to hold back a laugh. "That sounds like the Princess. Well, tell her I'll be there at seven."

Phoebe squealed. "Okay. See you tonight!"

"See you." Helga hung up the phone and glanced at her alarm clock. "5:32. That gives me time to take a shower and get ready. Perfect."

Helga rose from her desk and looked in the mirror on the nearby wall. Her long, blonde, silky hair fell past her shoulders, and her pink ribbon had been pulled into a bow around her hair today. She smiled, and decided to keep this look for the slumber party tonight.

As quickly as she could, Helga threw pink pajamas, toiletries, movies, nail polish, and anything else she could think of for a slumber party in a bag. She hustled into her closet to select an outfit for tonight, and her eyes discovered a few boxes that she had snuggled into the back of the closet.

It was all of her Arnold shrines, poems, lockets, and anything else that reminded her of Arnold. She remembered packing those boxes freshmen year. Helga bent down and stroked the edge of the box, remembering those days back in the past.

'I don't love Arnold. I don't love him. I can't love him. He doesn't love me…" Arnold clouded Helga's thoughts as she picked out a pink, fuzzy sweater and a pair of jeans shorts to wear tonight.

'Why do I keep thinking about Arnold? I fought so hard to forget him freshmen year and now I can't get him off my mind! I can't fall in love with him. I can't. But maybe… Just maybe... There is something between Arnold and I…'

She hopped into the shower, and began to shampoo her blonde locks, imagining feeling Arnold's blonde cornstalk of hair.

'It must be so soft, but yet, stiff… Why am I dreaming about Arnold's hair? Wow. I really need a girls' night.'