Chapter 2
Rude Awakenings
"HELGA! Are you up yet?"
"Oh, Arnold, I lov- WHAT?! Oh, criminy. Alright, Miriam, alright, I'm up! Sheesh. Right when it was getting good too."
The nine-year-old girl sleepily got out of bed and walked to her closet. She opened the door, walked in, and shut it. She clapped her hands, and instantly the entire room lit up. Amidst the colorful lights and boxes, behind a curtain of clothes, stood a pile of junk. That's what it appeared to be at first glance, but a further investigation showed that it was a sort of figure of a young boy with a football-shaped head.
"Good morning, my beloved," Helga said sleepily, kneeling in front of it. "I wish the dream I had 'twas real, and you gave unto me the feelings of love and passion that I have so long felt for you. Forever dancing our dance of everlasting romance until the end of time. Whoa, that's good," she said, as she pulled out a pink notebook from a box of many colored notebooks, all packed with poems about Arnold. She quickly wrote down the verse and then jumped up.
"Oh, criminy, school!"
She quickly pulled on a white short sleeved shirt and pink sleeveless jumper. Then she adjusted her blond hair in its two makeshift pigtails and adjusted the pink bow that she constantly wore.
"Miriam! I'm gonna be late for school!" she shouted, as she ran down the stairs. "Did you pack my lunch yet? Miriam?!"
"Huh…what?" her mom said lazily from the couch where she had been sleeping.
"My lunch, Miriam! My lunch! Did you remember to make it?"
"Oh…I was just, uh, looking for that thing…um, here it is!" she said, holding up a watermelon rind.
"Mom, that's not important right now! Now where's my lunch?!"
"Oh, oh, dear, um, let's see…" her mother said, getting up and walking around the living room. "Oh, here it is!" she said, as she pulled out a VHS box.
"Mom," Helga said, opening it up, "You packed me a plastic straw, a packet of instant oatmeal, and a tube of toothpaste."
"Oh, that's nice, de-" she mumbled, as she fell asleep once again.
"Oh, brother."