Disclaimer: I've never claimed to own HA! Craig Bartlett should, but he doesn't.
AN: Thank you for reading.
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"So, you're telling me I'll get my weight's worth in Chocolate Num Nums and a six pack of Yahoo Soda if I help you guys pull this prank on Helga?" Harold considered Sid's and Stinky's deal, not entirely sure if meddling in the angry blonde's affairs was such a great idea. "I don't know, guys. It sounds kinda risky."
"Since when did you become yella, Harold?" Stinky asked narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the husky boy standing before him.
"Yeah," Sid concurred. "Since when did you become such a wuss?"
"Since you told me this prank was on Helga, that's when!" Harold leaned into Sid's face clenching his fists.
"Actually, the prank's on Arnold and it was Helga's idear," Stinky enlightened him, "so we're...uh...you're gonna get her."
"You mean we're gonna get Arnold? But I thought we were gettin' Helga," Harold threw his arms into the air and wailed, "Ahhhh! You're confusing me!"
"Here's the deal, Harold," Sid tried explaining to his feebleminded classmate, "Helga's the one who thought up this whole thing on Arnold. The catch is, she's forcing us to do her dirty work for her, so we decided we'd get even with her. That's where you come in."
"That means if I do this, I get the Chocolate Num Nums and a six pack of Yahoo Soda..." Harold scratched his left temple in thought, "but what happens if I don't do it?"
"Then you'll have to answer to us," Stinky threatened, lowering his brow meaningfully.
"Hey! No fair! That's blackmail! I oughtta pound ya!"
"Pound us," Sid smiled slyly, "and you'll be answering to both Helga and Arnold for a crime you committed all by yourself."
"Yeah," Stinky continued his best friend's argument, "pound us and you won't get nothin' but a bad whoopin' from Helga. I reckon if ya take that road it's a no win situation. So, what do ya say to our plan?"
"Ohhh, okaaaay," Harold sighed. "Just tell me what you want me to do."
"We'll let you know what we want you to do once we get our orders from Helga," Sid informed him. "In the meantime, you'd better mentally prepare yourself to pull the most humiliating prank you've ever pulled in your life."
"Oh, I will. I'm goin' home right now, so I can get a good night's sleep. I'll see you guys tomorrow at school." Harold started running down the sidewalk, then twirled around and shouted to the pair, "And when this is all over you'd better have my Chocolate Num Nums and my Yahoo Soda!"
"Don't worry, Harold," Stinky shouted back, "we will!"
"Well, that was easy." Sid eyed his accomplice deviously.
"Sure was!" Stinky returned enthusiastically and both boys shared a hearty laugh as they strolled home.
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"What's in the box?" Arnie asked Helga as he followed her and Phoebe on their route to P.S. 118 Elementary that morning.
"It's the costumes I sewed last night for our Americans All performance tomorrow night," she answered, feeling generous since completing Arnold's altered pants. Usually she'd tell the dweeb it was none of his beeswax. "Yours is on the top since you're the smallest girl in our class, Phoebes. Take a gander."
"Oh, my," Phoebe responded after peeking into Helga's box. "I'd have to say I'm rather impressed with your sewing ingenuity."
"If you like that one, then get a load of this," the pigtailed blonde rummaged through her handmade assortment of clothing until she found Arnold's altered trousers, then handed them to her best friend to examine. "What do ya think?"
"Oh, Helga," the petite girl giggled while adjusting the pale blue frames of her glasses, "you're terrible! However, I find your current scheme incredibly clever."
"That'll teach Hair Boy to try something like this on me," she growled, eyeballing Arnie. "That reminds me, this conversation between Phoebe and me...never happened."
"'Kay," Arnie replied, following up with his usual routine snort.
"Why don't you just tell him you don't like him," Phoebe whispered in Helga's ear, "because quite frankly, I can't take it anymore."
"Don't you think I've tried?" Helga returned, pulling her pigtails in frustration. "Ever since yesterday morning he's been following me around like a lost dog! I couldn't even get out of the house without seeing his lamo face at my doorstep! He's like a freakin' nightmare that keeps coming back!"
"Helga! Keep your voice down," Phoebe advised her agitated companion. "Remember, he is in our presence. I'm sure by rehearsal time tonight, we'll have remedied the situation."
"We'd better have," Helga grumbled through her teeth. "Hey, did you say tonight's rehearsal night?"
"Yes it is," the petite ebony headed youngster nodded.
"That means it's also dress rehearsal night," the other girl grinned mischievously, "which also means it's time for me to do some costume fittings! Come on, Phoebes! Let's hurry up and get to school!"
"Coming!"
The two girls rushed into a sprint entirely unaware they'd left their undesirable visitor behind. Arnie, displaying no change in emotion, kept a steady eye on Helga as she and Phoebe worked their way toward the school.
As Helga and her best friend reached the doors of P.S. 118 Elementary, Arnold and Gerald stepped onto the city bus, discussing yesterday's Arnie/Helga fiasco.
"I swear, Arnold," Gerald started, "even if you did apologize to her, what makes you think Helga's gonna forgive you?"
"For one, Gerald," Arnold speculated, "I don't think she's as bad as everyone else thinks she is."
"Are you kidding, Arnold?" Gerald raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "That girl's gonna get you one way or another. She even said so herself!"
"Look, Gerald," Arnold elevated his voice slightly, "whatever happens, happens. Right now, I need to concentrate on tonight's rehearsal."
"That's right!" Gerald realized. "That reminds me, how are you feelin'? You sound a lot better."
"I still have a slight tickle in my throat," Arnold smiled, "but Grandma's herbal remedy and some much needed sleep helped a lot. So yeah, I guess I'm feeling a little better."
"Good," Gerald heaved a sigh of relief, "that means I won't make a fool of myself tryin' to sing your solo."
"Don't go thinking you're out of the woods yet," Arnold cautioned his exceedingly confident partner. "I said I felt a little better. That doesn't mean I'm over my illness yet."
"Aw, man, Arnold. You really know how to suck the morale outta someone."
"Even if I couldn't sing tomorrow, I know you'd perform my part just as well or even better than I would."
"That's better, Arnold. How'd your conversation with Arnie go?" Gerald glanced out the bus window, failing to realize it was passing P.S. 118 Elementary.
"It's hard to tell," Arnold gazed in Gerald's direction watching the school go by. "Whoa! Wait!"
Arnold and Gerald scrambled through the bus passenger doors in time to see Arnie reach the front steps of the school.
"Guess we'll find out soon enough," Gerald mused as the two boys followed the eccentric cousin to class.
Entering the room, Arnie headed straight for Lila, greeting her in his usual snorty way.
"Hey."
"Arnie!" Lila's eyes lit up upon seeing him, "what an ever so pleasant surprise. Whatever brings you here to my desk?"
"We need to talk," Arnie stated flatly.
"Well, sure," the delicately freckled faced redhead accepted uneasily. "Whatever would you like to talk to me about?"
"I like you," he blinked his left eye followed by the right, then added, "but I don't like you, like you."
"I understand," Lila frowned, but kept her emotions under control, "but this means we can be ever such good friends, right?"
"Friends, right. 'Cause I love Helga," Arnie repeated his snort, then strolled to the empty desk near Helga's. Lila lay her head on her own desk and sighed.
"That went well," Gerald commented as he and Arnold viewed the situation from afar.
"Yeah," Arnold let out a breath of exasperation, "I ask him to make her feel better and he ends up making her feel worse."
"I don't know, Arnold, but I think you've got bigger problems than Arnie and Lila," Gerald motioned his head toward the back of the room where Helga and Phoebe sat at their desks snickering. "They're up to something, aren't they?"
"No," Arnold corrected him, "Helga's up to something."
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"These rehearsal outfits are atrocious!" Rhonda Wellington Lloyd voiced her candid opinion as she modeled her navy blue dress littered with white stars. "They're an abasement to fashion itself, and this color does not go well with my black hair. What was Helga thinking?"
"Well, I think they're oh so adorable, Rhonda," Lila smoothly persuaded the girl into reevaluating her point of view. "The fine needlework stitched into these handmade costumes only proves Helga's dedication to her classmates and to her country. With a few alterations and some cleanup around the hems, I'm oh so certain you'll look ever so elegant in your own."
"When you put it that way," Rhonda considered, "I guess my dress isn't so bad."
"Helga also asked me to distribute these ever so charming hair accessories. There's only one left." She offered Rhonda a slim navy blue headband dotted with tiny white stars.
"Where did she get these?"
"She made them." Lila turned the headband upside down, revealing a set of tightly woven stitches along its center.
"Wow. I'm impressed."
"I'm oh so amazed at how accurate the size of each costume is considering she didn't have the chance to measure all of our classmates. Take a look around."
Each student fiddled with his or her article of clothing while Helga pushed pins through the hem of a pant leg or around the waist or underneath the underarm of a shirt or a dress. Most of Mr. Simmons' fourth grade behaved exceptionally, except for Curly, who after Helga finished marking his alterations, tied his pants around his head and burst into an incoherent chant. Then there was Harold, who kept whining about the size of his shirt.
"Helga, this shirt's too tight around the stomach!" He tried to button his white dress shirt to no avail.
"Aw! Suck it in, Pink Boy!" Helga shouted, attempting to remedy his discomfort. She hadn't anticipated running out of material when she came to Harold's shirt. "I should have done this one first. Can't you suck that gut of yours in any farther?"
"I..I..." Harold struggled to breathe, then let it all loose, wailing, "I can't do it, Helga!"
"All right! All right! Pipe down, ya big cry baby! I'll figure something out." She lifted the right side of her unibrow, studying Harold's body structure. "I'll tell ya what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna take my clothing marker, mark the shirt just above your belly button so you can wear it just like you wear all your other shirts."
"Aw! But this is a school performance!"
"You'll wear it and like it, Bucko!"
"Oh, okay," Harold surrendered, but not without complaint. After she'd left to attend other classmates, he let her know what he thought of her. "Madam Fortress Mommy!"
On the other side of the auditorium, Arnold and Gerald discussed their own attire among other subjects. Each boy agreed he looked ridiculous.
"I look like Uncle Sam," Arnold confessed, adjusting the buttons on his specially made vest. Although he'd clothed himself in the same white dress shirt and red and white striped pants as his peers, the navy blue star patterned vest was specifically sewn for his upcoming solo. He peered over at Lila, who wore an identical vest aside from its red and white striped design.
"Football Head! Tall Hair Boy! Need any last minute adjustments?" Helga approached the pair holding a pincushion in one hand and carrying an overstuffed bag of hats in the other.
"No," Arnold glanced over his shoulder around the back of his pants. "I think we're good, Helga."
"Yeah," Gerald chimed in, "all I need is my pants hemmed."
"Great," the young blonde grinned suspiciously, "Geraldo, I need you to hand out all these hats and American flag pins to the boys."
"What are we?" Gerald inquired holding up a small hat trimmed with red and white stripes above the rim, "a barber's quartet?"
"There are more than four of you, Geraldo! Sheesh!"
"I know. I was jus' sayin'." Helga eyed Arnold while Gerald made his excuse. He tried his best not to burst into laughter.
"Here's your hat, Arnoldo," she stated firmly, placing a navy blue top hat sprinkled with tiny white stars onto his head. Just above the rim appeared the same red and white striped trim as Arnold's other classmates' hats.
"Now, you look like Uncle Sam," Gerald chuckled while Helga pulled out a similar red and white striped top hat trimmed with the same star pattern as Arnold's vest. "Must be Lila's. How'd ya manage to do all this on such short notice?"
"I have my ways." She'd never admit to staying up all night into the wee hours of the morning sewing.
"You did a really good job, Helga," Arnold complimented.
"Guess I'm finished here," Helga announced. "I'll see you two chuckle heads tomorrow night. I know I'm looking forward to it."
"Yep, she's up to something," Gerald presumed once Arnold's arch-nemesis was out of earshot.
"Ugh!" Arnold grumbled, "and it's all because of Arn-..."
"Class! I need you to settle down," Mr. Simmons broke off the conversation with his command. "Everybody please return you garments to Helga, who's done an absolutely fantastic job...Curly, I need you to stop using your pants as a slingshot and return them to Helga so she can make the final adjustments to them. People! Let's all take a fifteen minute break and when we come back, we're going to get on the stage for rehearsal practice."
"Hey, Arnold," Gerald beckoned his best friend onto one of the platforms. "I wanna show you something."
"What is it, Gerald?" Arnold climbed up next to Gerald.
"This is Helga's position, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"If I remember correctly," Gerald stroked his chin, pointing to a relatively large opening directly underneath him, "This vent blows out bursts of cold hair when it gets too hot in here."
"Actually, that's not a vent. They throw dry ice into it to make smoke. There's a mechanism that blows it up into the air."
"It's the perfect gag," Gerald told him, "should Helga pull a doozie on you. It'll blow her skirt right up into the air."
"I don't know, Gerald," Arnold hesitated. "It's a little drastic, but I guess we'll be ready if she tries something."
"And you know she'll try something. Well, here's to tomorrow."
"To tomorrow."
Unseen by Arnold and Gerald, Sid and Stinky stood behind the stage discussing various cable maneuvers with Harold.
"We'll be working the stage right cable while you work the stage left cable over yonder," Stinky instructed him. "You're to lift Helga up by her dress and plant her on center stage next to Arnold. You gettin' all o' this, Harold?"
"I don't get the stage references, but I think I'm supposed to hook Helga's dress, lift her up into the air, and then drop her down by Arnold. Is that right?"
"Perfect!" Sid slapped Harold on the back. "Now all we gotta do is get the timing right for both cables."
"Don't forget about the music, Sid," Stinky reminded him.
"Got it right here," Sid pulled the black jewel case from the inside compartment of his jacket.
"I wanna know," Harold's curiosity ate at him, "what are you guys gonna do with the other cable?"
"That's classified information," Sid informed him.
"Courtesy o' Helga G. Pataki." Stinky looked at Sid, whose wild grin revealed all.
"All I know is I can't wait for tomorrow!"
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AN: If there are typos etc...I'm only human...I do make mistakes. Thank you for the constructive criticism.
-Jae-
