Curly was now class president. In an unforeseen turn of events, history had proved once again that civilization itself is a defiance of nature- of man's roguish unpredictability smearing Thoreau's precious Walden into the ground for its own perverse and whimsical pleasure. Yet, conversely, the booms and busts of humanity have always been some symptom of a larger trend- the illnesses or strengths of society come to a fateful outcome because the man can never overcome or exceed its primal instincts.
Despot ideas swirled in the head of Thaddeus Curly Gammelthorpe. Arnold tried to ignore him by chewing on his peanut butter and grape sandwich. But as loudly as he chewed or no matter how open-mouthed, Arnold could not help but notice what was transpiring a few tables away. Under Curly's direction, Sid and Stinky were spreading a red tablecloth across the surface of one of the cafeteria's best tables. Both of Arnold's classmates now wore red boys ties and held towels across their forearms as if they were professional waiters. Silent, Sid and Stinky frowned mildly as Curly gave them a maniac grin and a thumb's up.
"Good job!" Curly declared. He propped his black shoes up on the tabletop and leaned backwards as cozily as if he were in a beach chair. As consequence, everyone could see his red, striped socks all the better.
"Now bring me a bottle of expensive European mineral water!" Curly crowed with his feet crossed on the table. "Rhonda my dear, care to join me?" Rhonda stopped dead in her tracks. She had been trying to scoot by as fast as possible without being noticed, but now she whirled around on her heel instead.
"No thank you!" Rhonda sniffed. She carried herself and her lunch away to the other side of the room, leaving Curly alone with his frown.
"Ah, but here's my meal!" Curly said in comfort to himself as Stinky carried a piping hot Salisbury steak to the table. Curly propped a knife and fork up on either side of it before digging into his meal.
"Seems Curly's still on his powertrip," Helga observed as she dug into her own lunch at the table shared by Arnold, Gerald, Phoebe, and herself.
"Yup!" Gerald agreed as Arnold grimaced deeper with horror. The boy paused his eating to stare distastefully at his sandwich.
The next evidence they had of Curly's mania was when they all arrived at the school supply store. Phoebe fished a dollar out of her pocket and held it up to the counter for Sheena.
"I'd like to buy four pencils, please!" she chirped. Sheena took the dollar but shook her head.
"I'm sorry but I can only sell you one pencil!" Sheena chirped. "Pencil rationing!"
"One pencil?! That's nonsense!" Gerald complained, squaring off his feet. The boy took a quarter out of his own pocket and set it on the counter.
"One pencil!" Gerald declared as if in victory. He received a single yellow-colored pencil from Sheena, then handed the pencil he had just bought to Phoebe. A very frustrated Sheena slammed shut the roll-down window to the store, then hung up a closed sign. Gerald shrugged.
"Sorry, Arnold!" Gerald apologized to the boy who stood in line behind him. Arnold had his own dollar bill out.
"That's okay, Gerald. I still have some pencil left before the stub!" Arnold said consolingly. It was then that all three kids heard a loud, "psst!"
"Say, I can sell you one pencil for seventy-five cents!" Sid said as he held up one side of his leather jacket. Whole rows of pencils were strapped to its interior.
"Seventy-five cents?!" Gerald complained, his eyebrows lowered with rage. "Why would I be willing to pay that?!"
"Well, the trick is I can sell you as many pencils as you'd like!" Sid whispered conspiratorially. But just then Harold and Helga walked up to Gerald.
"Bah, don't listen to Sid!" Harold complained loudly. "He's working for Curly. And Sheena's working for Curly, too!"
"Oooh, this is good dirt, good dirt indeed!" Helga said while scribbling away at notepad with her pencil. Its tip broke and she looked down at in disdain. But Sheena, at her counter, looked away from the despondent Helga with a sniff. She wasn't about to offer to sell a sharpened pencil to Helga.
"This is crazy!" Gerald complained. "Come on, let's go! We can go to the stationary supply store on Vine street any ol' time!" The kids all strolled away. Their footsteps brought them back to their classroom door.
"Man, rationing pencils!" Gerald sniffed. "I wonder how he pulled that one off!" Then Gerald swung the door open. Inside, Curly was seated at his desk. He had a cup full of multicolored pencils on his desk.
"Hey, Curly!" Gerald grimaced. "Haven't you heard? There's a pencil ration going on! One pencil per student! Don't you think that's a little unfair?" Gerald folded his arms and glared at the full pencil cup.
"Ha! Shows what you know!" Curly grinned with glee. "Rules are for peons! They don't apply to me!" Angry but still level-headed, Gerald and his friends walked away to the distant side of the small classroom.
"Man! I kinda wish I had re-run for election now!" was Gerald lament as he threw up his arms. "But I didn't know this would happen!"
"No one did, Gerald!" Arnold consoled his best friend. Phoebe rested one of her hands on Gerald's shoulder to peer up at the boy with concern. She and Gerald exchanged a soft, tender, comforting smile with one another that made Arnold's eyes flicker away to create a moment of privacy for his friends. Then he smiled at them.
"Maybe we can talk to Curly. Maybe he'll calm down and consider our viewpoints!" Arnold voiced with hopeful enthusiasm.
"Or maybe he'll have a goldfish fountain built in the schoolyard with his name on it and his bust on the base of it," Helga said pointing out the school window.
"Curly? What's that?" Arnold gingerly asked the mad boy.
"A much worthier project than a skateboard park!" Curly grinned. "Principal Wartz agrees with me!"
"I can see why!" Helga said tipping her eyebrow. A statue of Principal Wartz was part of the fountain, too. Water spurted out of the part that looked like Principal Wartz's face.
"I don't know if I can stand this!" Gerald said as he let down the blinds to the room. Curly gloated.
"It's nothing personal!" said Curly. "I'm just a much better president than you!"
"Huh!" a black-haired, red-sweatered girl declared in a loud, strong voice as she swayed into the room on her short-peg-heeled shoes. "I don't know if I can stand this, either!" Rhonda Lloyd grimaced, her face full of disgust. "First of all, everyone, including you Curly, fail to vote for me as President! Then all of you continue to express a lack of appreciation for fashionable galas. I mean, all I was trying to do was bring a little bit of culture to all you neolithic-minded creatures! We could have elected me and I would have planned out at least one FANTASTIC school dance each semester. I could have even fund-raised for a really good field trip, to an upcoming fashion shop perhaps, but no! All of you failed to understand my superior creative vision!" Rhonda sniffed with hurt. Curly blinked hard with a true frown on his face. After all, Curly still had a crush on Rhonda. Thinking hard, the wire-haired boy rubbed a hand under his chin in thought.
"Rhonda my dear! My sweet, crisp-coated praline!" Curly purred with his arms outstretched across his desk. "How about I appoint you as Chairman of the Society 118 Board? You can plan as many events as you wish, my dear, so long as they get their final stamp of approval from me!" Curly flicked a thumb backwards towards himself. Rhonda stared at a wall, lost deep in consideration.
"Well," said Rhonda, her eyes flickering towards Curly. "Can we discuss redecorating the bulletin boards in this classroom, too? I mean, that boring old poster of the list of American Presidents has GOT to come down!" Rhonda purred with content. She smiled across the desk at Curly.
"Of course!" Curly said with swagger. "How about we continue to discuss our business arrangements by the water fountain?" Curly suggested while waggling his eyebrows. Rhonda shuddered for a moment, but then, suppressing her revulsion, Rhonda and Curly went out of the classroom arm in arm. Gerald made a face like he might be sick at any moment.
"UN-BE-LIEVABLE!" Gerald said.
"I know, isn't it?" Helga stared off in the direction of the blackboard with content. "Well, at least it isn't boring around here! And no, Arnoldo! The world isn't ending!" The girl studied the boy before her as he sat at his desk.
"Well, no. It's just getting a little weird around here," Arnold answered her gravely.
"I agree with ya there! I guess the only thing we can do is wait until tomorrow and see what new horrors it will bring."
Fretful or not, Arnold and his classmates all arrived at school on time. Mr. Simmons was prompter than usual. He fidgeted at his podium, his eyes wandering over to Curly from time to time. Was Curly really wearing a caped costume today, the balding school teacher wondered to himself. It was hard to tell from where he stood. Mr. Simmons rubbed his eyes.
"Uh, Curly, can you stand up and solve this equation for the class? Please?" Mr. Simmons asked while holding up a piece of white chalk for the boy to take. Curly got out from behind his desk. Just as Mr. Simmons feared, the boy was wearing a blue cape and a leotard, as well as a most peculiar spotted T-shirt and matching ears. There were giggles and stares.
"Helga!" Curly directed as he found a pair of feet dangling in his way between the narrow aisle of desks. Curly pointed downwards toward Helga's shoes before snapping with rage. "You're in the way of the President! Show respect for your betters!"
"Oh, so you want me to Moo-over, huh Holstein boy? Well the ears are cute but not that cute. What doing a promo for the ol' ice cream stand?"
"Ha! You're just jealous that I, Emperor Curly, look smashing in a leotard!" Curly said while snapping his superhero cape tight to his shoulder in what was supposed to be an attractively, dashing gesture. Helga shook her hands out like two high-fives in disgust.
"Woah, woah! Don't capture my imagination, small fry. It'll go places we don't want it to go." Curly continued onto the blackboard. The math question read, "3x + 23= ?". Curly scribbled his name down on the board with the piece of white chalk.
"The answer is Curly! The answer to everything is Curly! Mwahahahaha!" the boy said, breaking out with maniacal laughter.
"Um, Curly? What's the matter with you? Are you not feeling well?" Mr. Simmons flustered. The man behind the podium looked nearly nervous enough to faint.
"What's the matter with me? What's the matter with you? What's the matter with everyone? All of humanity is flawed." Curly cackled. "Vote for Thaddeus Curly Gammelthorpe!" the boy said while making large peace symbol with his fingers. The boy whirled his cape around him and marched back to the desk.
"Wow. The boy might try to work for infomercials!" Helga uttered as she rapped her pencil like a percussion instrument against the wooden surface of her desk.
The next day came. Arnold peeled back the wrapper of his sandwich from his bagged lunch, then looked down the table at his friends. He smiled at them. "Well at least nothing strange is happening today," the boy remarked. But Gerald did not share his optimism.
"Yeah," Gerald said with great gathering doubt. "Who knows how long that will last before Curly does something again!"
"Actually," said Phoebe who was setting herself down in a seat next to Gerald. The girl had bought a hot lunch instead. "Curly is having a funeral for his pudding today. He dropped it three minutes ago," Phoebe explained. At Curly's "presidential" table, candles had been lit and everyone clustered around it were wearing ties and a grim frown of mourning.
"Oookay!" said Arnold. He shifted his eyes away from disturbing scene.
"Well, actually," said Phoebe catching her three friends' attentions. "There is something I wanted to share with all of you! When you are finished with all of your lunches!"
"Alright!" Arnold said, eager to be agreeable. After they had all thrown their trash away at the rubbish bin near the door, they all followed Phoebe through the exit to the school playground. Arnold and Gerald might have continued strolling forward, but Phoebe ducked between the two boys and tugged them to stop their strides forward.
"Stop!" Phoebe belted out in her soft voice before she dropped her voice to a hissed whisper. "Come over this way!" Helga, Phoebe, Arnold, and Gerald all snuck along the edge of the brick school building to the chain link fence on the corner. They hid within the shrubbery.
"Look!" Phoebe scouted ahead. "I don't know how he's done it, but Curly's recruited both Wolfgang and Edmund to do his bidding! See!" Phoebe pointed ahead. Both Edmund and Wolfgang were wearing sashes across their chests. There were shiny medals pinned to the sashes as big as the deputy badges in old cowboy films.
"Phoebe's right!" Sheena spoke suddenly from within the bushes. She poked her head out next to Gerald. Her friends could see she was wearing a beanie cap.
"Hey! Aren't you working for Curly?" Gerald asked with a mild frown. Sheena frowned back with guilt.
"Well, I was for a little bit. Then his demands became too unreasonable. Then Curly began a massive campaign against all those who wear beanie caps. He's had them thrown into the dumpster. Eugene and I wore them in solidarity with the other kids but maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Eugene got thrown into the dumpster, too.
"I'm okay!" a voice echoed out from far away in the dumpster. It was as if Eugene had guessed that his friends were thinking of him.
"Oh, wow! That's terrible!" Arnold lamented. He, Sheena, and the other kids crept away toward the safety of the school building while Wolfgang scooped up some beanie-wearing kid they didn't know and chucked him into the dumpster.
Where to go? Arnold, Gerald, Phoebe, Sheena, and Helga all gathered beneath the service pipes in the school basement. They clustered round a simple table placed in the center of the room before the water heater. Both Helga and Sheena now wore matching blue beanie caps.
"Okay!" said Helga pushing her beanie cap up off of monobrow as she stretched herself out over a diagram on the table. "We've got to stop Curly's madman behavior! Even I can't take it anymore! I mean, he's trying to bully the bully? Who does he think he is?!"
"Yeah!" Harold agreed from under the table. He had been curled up underneath it. After starting with shock, the other kids helped Harold out from underneath the table.
"Harold?" Helga asked her friend. "Weren't you working as one of Curly's henchman?"
"Nah!" Harold declared. "I figured it was my patriotic duty or somethin' until Curly told me to rewrite all of the history textbooks for class. I can't write an entire book! That's too much work so I ran away!"
"Well, that's not exactly a reason I was expecting but you're welcome here, Harold," Helga said with dangerous sweetness. "Unless you rat on us and then you'll get my fist much worse than ever Curly or Wolfgang could!"
"Okay, okay! I won't rat!" Harold waved Helga's rage away. "Besides going along with what Curly says is really getting on my nerves! I just want things to go back to ordinary and simple and boring so I'll I've gotta do is play baseball and eat munchies!"
"Yes, Curly's actions might negatively impact our daily lives," Phoebe observed. "But more importantly, our core values of justice, equality, and liberty might be trivialized during Curly's regime. It is just as the old American saying, which is sometimes but unprovenly attributed to Thomas Jefferson goes, 'When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty'." Phoebe quoted. "It is something I can not forget as a proud citizen born in Kentucky!" Phoebe shouted, laying a hand against her chest.
"Kentucky existed at the same time as Thomas Jefferson?" Gerald asked as he squinted one of his eyes shut, his chin placed in his hand as he did some serious thinking.
"Well, yes they did. Thomas Jefferson was American president, effective March 4, 1801 to March 4, 1809." Phoebe shifted her glasses then continued. "Kentucky became a member of the Union on June 1, 1792, to be precise."
"Huh. You mean it wasn't one of the original thirteen colonies or something?" muttered Gerald as he thought back on what he knew of history. But Phoebe glared at him.
"It was 15th state to join the country, Gerald! Fifteen out of fifty is a pretty good score!" Phoebe hollered at Gerald fiercely.
"Woah, woah! Babydoll, there's no need for anyone to feel hurt here," Gerald soothed his sweetheart. He placed a hand on either shoulder. Phoebe took a deep breathe, then heaved a sigh.
"Right. Sorry everyone. I guess I'm a little tense."
"Yeah? Well, I'm in with you guys," said Harold. "After all… I heard that…. Well I heard that it is hope, not despair, which makes successful revolutions."
"Oh wow, that's inspiring. Who wrote that?" asked Phoebe. "George Washington?"
"Nah. My fortune cookie," answered Harold. "Give me the beanie cap!" His eyebrow lowered, Harold put a blue beanie cap on his head to match Sheena and Helga's.
"For Eugene!" Sheena said, her fist pumped high in the air. Off in the schoolyard, Eugene was muttering his famous line again.
"I'm okay!" Eugene shouted for someone to hear. But only Wolfgang and Edmund stood next to the dumpster.
"Shut up in there!" the bully said raping the steel box with his fist.
"Um, so what are we going to do?" asked Sheena, still in the basement. After such patriotic speech, everyone fell silent.
"Well, I suppose we should try and get Eugene out of the dumpster!" Arnold offered helpfully.
"Right. I suppose we can do that," said Helga. "We might offer Wolfgang twice as much as whatever Curly paid him."
"It was five dollars!" Harold said holding up his fingers. "Well, five dollars for each of them."
"Humph!" Helga sniffed. "That's chump change. I'll take care of this. I'll pay Eugene's jail bond. Or I'll just wait and see how long their attention span is. They can't wait around the dumpster forever. Then we'll sneak over there and fish out Eugene. And any other incidentals we find," said Helga walking her fingers as if they were people's marching feet.
"That's so kind of you, Helga!" Sheena beamed. But Helga's mood soured.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm just like Santa Clause. I keep giving and giving even if financially it makes no sense."
"Helga, I'm not so sure that will work in the long term," Arnold countered. Helga glowered across the table.
"Oh, Arnold, you don't have to be such a naysayer all the time."
"No, really Helga!" Arnold continued forcefully. "Think about it! We have to get Curly to listen to us somehow. We have to get him to behave more reasonably. I think we should speak with him face-to-face. Get him to know our feelings and find a peaceful resolution."
"Well, really Arnoldo! If you wanna play diplomat for us go ahead! But I don't know if Curly's in a mood or mind to listen," Helga disagreed firmly. "But I think we should do everything we can do to fight him from here!"
"What do you mean?" Arnold asked nervously.
"Well, think about it!" Helga asked, pacing. "It's called a country by the people, for the people! Now why do you think that is?! It's because we do a lot of things for ourselves. You don't have to be president, Arnold, to fundraise for a skateboard park! Gerald, you don't have to be president still to be a leader! You can help Sheena with the ecology club or something! And Rhonda doesn't have to kiss up to Curly to have parties. We can have parties on our own without Curly's approval. And me? Well, I guess it's tragic I wasn't elected dictator instead of Curly but I can have fun causing trouble for him. I'll start a polling agency or something and write nasty articles for the "Weekly Word" or somethin'! Things are finally getting exciting enough to print around here." Helga said crossing her arms around her waistline. She then smiled dreamily.
"Lady of chaos," Gerald complained.
"Oh, I will be someday," Helga promised. "But for now we should really be focusing on ourselves. We can rule ourselves- find our own solutions for everything we can- without Curly. And sure, Arnoldo, if you can keep our names out it, by all means stand up for the little guy! Try to get Curly to listen. If anyone stands a chance you do. So we'll all do our own thing."
"What can I do?" Phoebe asked eagerly. Helga shrugged.
"I dunno. Become an inspiring novelist or something."
"Will do!" Phoebe said giving Helga a thumbs up.
"Yeesh, well I'm tired of talking so I'm gonna scram," Helga declared as she stomped for the door. She dragged Harold along with her.
"We'll keep in touch," Gerald promised with a tranquil grin. Phoebe hesitated a moment before tottering after her best friend.
"So Arnold?" Gerald said turning to his best friend. "Do wanna give that skatepark thing a go again?" Arnold stretched his arm up and rubbed the back of his neck in thought.
"Well, okay. Let's do this!" Arnold said cheering up. He and Gerald prepared for their friendship thumb shake.
But in the warm light of the afternoon, many months later, the two boys did their friends shake handshake again. The two boys now stood beside a recently completed skatepark instead of a dark basement. Both boys wore sashes with tiny badges on them, as did four five-graders nearby. They all stood beside a red ribbon, waiting for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to begin.
"And now!" one woman said moving to the microphone. "I would like to applaud all for their bold, sustained, community effort! I would like to thank the fifth graders, current and graduated, who first began this project, as well as the two fourth-graders who joined it help bring this project to fruition! Arnold and Gerald!" Adults and school kids clapped all around them. "And now! Ava Sporken, the first to come forward to me to work with community leaders to agree on a design, will cut the red-ribbon!" Arnold and Gerald both clapped.
"Well, we didn't get the glory," Gerald remarked as the clapping died down. "But we did help. That's something!"
"Yup. And Curly's still president," Arnold heaved a sigh. "But at least we accomplished something. Maybe our other friends will, too."
"Yeah, Phoebe's working on an encyclopedia of the history of P.S. 118. To counter Curly's strange stories about himself, I guess. Helga's gotten involved in the newspaper again, even if it has a new editor."
"Who?" Arnold asked.
"Brainy, of all crazy things!" Gerald shrugged. "Well, the skatepark's open! You wanna give it a try?"
"I've been waiting for months!" Arnold laughed. "Let me go grab my board!"
Arnold fished his blue skateboard out from under a bench. Gerald grasped hold of a red one and held it aloft. But before both boys could get in line at the start of the skatepark course, they heard a mighty crash. Helga stood beside Eugene at the sidelines. Eugene had just skated through a tall stack of paint cans to skate into a cement wall. Helga peeled the boy off the wall like a sticker from a windowpane.
"Hm, that has an almost artistic charm, if I do say so myself!" Helga complimented. She smiled as Arnold and Gerald approached to check on Eugene. "Look, boys! As an added bonus, every time you pass by this paint smear on the wall you'll remember not to skate into it!"
"What are you doing here, Helga?" Arnold asked flatly.
"What do you mean, what am I doing here? I can be anywhere I like!" Helga grumped.
"Hmm." Arnold acknowledged. It seemed that Helga was stalking him again. "Say, Helga?" said Arnold, abruptly thinking of something to say. "I'm sorry how we argued so much about the skatepark. Especially since, well, one got built after all. And now I know there's just so much I didn't know back then."
"Well, I didn't know much, either!" Helga shrugged. "I just wing it most of the time! But really you aren't the suave president Gerald is. You don't have to feel bad you didn't make president, Arnold. That's not your hat and that's okay. You're the skatepark kid, and that's good in own way, too." said Helga.
"I'll take that as a compliment," Arnold said. "Coming from you."
"Yeesh. Whattaya expect?" Helga leered. "I don't do compliments. And I don't ride skateboards, either. I was just checking out the place."
"Okay," Arnold smirked. "But are you sure you don't wanna stick around and watch? I'm gonna practice a few tricks!" Arnold promised. Just then, Eugene whirled by and ricocheted like a pinball off the landscape in ways never intended.
"Maybe, but I don't think you'll ever show up Eugene when it comes to spectacle," Helga observed. Eugene had skated and flown away somewhere off the horizon to leave them wondering where he went. The end.