Chapter 38

Summer Love

Helga's thoughts began to drift back to what had happened on that fateful trip, what she couldn't discuss with Arnold.

It had all happened on spring break. Helga had gone to the beach with her family, who couldn't seem to do anything but complain. She hadn't really been looking forward to this vacation, especially considering the fact that she would be away from her beloved Arnold for a whole week. But all that soon changed.

It turned out that Arnold was staying at the same beach. In fact, he was staying in the same beach house. She made up her mind to be nice to him, but she never got the chance. Summer had come.

She was just going over to Arnold to put her plan into action, but she was too late. He was talking to an annoyingly beautiful girl, who kept going on and on about how wonderful Arnold was with sand. She had only been gone for two minutes, and already someone was moving in on her territory! She promised herself that Arnold was going to be hers' this vacation, and that nobody, especially not this girl, was going to stand in her way.

She had stopped at nothing to try to pry the two apart. She followed them all day, making their life a living nightmare. She was thoroughly enjoying the progress she was making, until Arnold caught her in the act.

He told her to stop been mean to him and Summer for no good reason and to stay out of their way. For awhile she had planned to do just that. After all, neither one of them had done anything wrong. She was just jealous. She had no reason to wreck Arnold's relationship with Summer, just because she hated anyone who was a threat to any chance of a relationship she might get.

But all that changed when she overheard Summer talking with her boyfriend, Sandy. It turned out that she was just using Arnold to build her a sandcastle that would win a competition. The prize was to be on Babewatch.

Helga had to do something. There was no way that this trampy little surfer girl was going to take away Arnold and a chance to be on her favorite show.

She had tried her hardest to get Arnold to listen to her. She had even resorted to going to his window in the middle of the night, begging that he would at least try to believe her. She told him everything she had overheard, but he thought it was all just another one of her tricks. She kept trying to tell him numerous other times but to no avail. He wouldn't believe her.

The day of the sandcastle competition had arrived. Arnold had been waiting for Summer, but Helga had spotted her first. And she was with Sandy.

Helga ran over to Arnold, took hold of his arm, and dragged him over to where Summer and Sandy were. They hid behind some bushes and spied on Summer while she discussed her entire plan. Arnold dumped Summer before she even knew what was happening. To Helga, it was revenge of the sweetest kind.

Arnold had said that he was sorry for not listening to her. She was so happy that she had started to tell him why she had helped him in the first place but had stopped herself before she gave anything important away. He smiled at her almost knowingly, and for a second she was going to tell him everything. But then she had quickly snapped out of it and pretended to be all business. She had told him that they still had a sandcastle competition to win, and to her surprise, he had seemed rather eager to do it.

They had worked beautifully together. They built a humungous castle with towers, and turrets, and bridges, and a moat, and even a drawbridge. Sandy and Summer had still entered to contest, but they had been too busy throwing wet sand at one another to get anything accomplished. Helga and Arnold had won, hands down.

The next day they had made their "big appearance" on Babewatch. Arnold was the drowning victim, pretending to die in the ocean. Helga stood with two other life guards. She was wearing the trademark swimsuit, even thought her's was too big.

The cameras turned on. The male lifeguard swam out to sea and expertly hauled Arnold to shore. Then the female lifeguard bent down to resuscitate him.

Helga didn't know what had happened, but the next thing she knew she was shoving the lifeguard out of the way muttering, "Move over Barbie, I've got this one." Without thinking what she was doing, she kneeled down next to Arnold. He opened his eyes in shock as she leaned closer to him. She could tell he didn't want her to, but she didn't care. She had worked long enough to get him away from Summer. It was time for her reward.

She closed her eyes and put her lips to his. She felt him stiffen in her grasp, but she only kissed him harder.

"This is even better than I expected," she thought happily. "Okay, sure, he's horrified, but he had better get used to it! This is the highlight of my vacation, and nothing is going to ruin it. Actually…this is the highlight of my entire life."

She opened one eye a little and met his stare. Then something happened. She didn't know what or why, but she suddenly knew that he was enjoying this as much as she was.

She could faintly hear the director screaming "Cut!" in the background, but he must have shut up eventually because the cameras kept on rolling. She kissed him for ten seconds and would have kept going if that stupid stagehand hadn't come over and threatened to pull her off of him. Sure, she was getting a little carried away by that point, but did he really have to do that?

Helga sat up to break the kiss, but then something happened that she never would have imagined in a million years. Arnold didn't let her. He sat up with her and continued to kiss her for a few seconds. Then she pulled away, mainly because she was so shocked.

She stood in the sand, blushing like crazy, still not able to believe what she had done. Arnold had gotten up shakily and looked at her in mock surprise, but she refused to meet his eyes.

When the director announced that their scene was over, and they could go, she had run out of there like the demons of the fiery underworld had been released. She hadn't looked back until she had made it back to the beach house.

The next day she had gone home, and she didn't see Arnold until two days later when they went back to school. He hadn't said a thing about it, but he looked at her in a way that clearly said that they should both just keep quiet and pretend it never happened. So, that's what she did. She never mentioned it again, at least, not until today.

"But it doesn't even matter that I mentioned it," Helga thought gloomily, "because you'll never love me back." Her tears came faster and stronger now, and she desperately hoped that Arnold was sound asleep and couldn't hear here. But she was wrong.

Arnold was half asleep, but he was still aware of her crying.

"I hope I wasn't too hard on her," he thought. "I didn't mean to make her cry. I just…I don't know what. I'm too tired to think about it now. I'll worry about it tomorrow," he thought, as he dropped off to sleep.