Chapter 62

What now?

Helga awoke with a start. She glanced at her clock.

"Seven fifteen," she muttered. "I must have fallen asleep."

She sat up, and her poetry book fell to the floor. She picked it up numbly and put it in her pocket. Then she crossed the floor and opened the door to her closet. She stopped short at the sight of her shrine.

"So…" she slowly spoke to it, "I guess this is as close as I'll ever get to you, huh? A monument in my closet. Gee, that's a good soul mate."

Helga quickly shut the closet door and then went downstairs. She walked into the kitchen and found her mother asleep at the table.

"Hey, Miriam!" she exclaimed, shaking her. "What day is it?"

"Huh…what? Oh, it's, um…" Her mother trailed off, as she dropped off to sleep again.

"Miriam!"

"Wha…? Um…go ask Olga…"

"Why do I even bother communicating with these people?" Helga muttered under her breath, as she climbed the stairs. She burst into her sister's room without bothering to knock.

Olga was sitting at her vanity, working on her hair, but she looked up when Helga came into the room.

"Good morning, Baby Sister!" Olga chirped. "How are you this morning?"

"Depressed and heartbroken. How are you?" Helga said sarcastically.

"I'm doing simply wonderful, now that I'm back home!"

"For good?" Helga asked worriedly.

"No, silly! I'll be going back to Alaska at the end of this week. I just had to come back to make sure that you were okay. Now, what did you say about being heartbroken?"

"None of your business," Helga snapped.

"Oh…okay then. Well, you know if you ever need to talk about anything-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't need your sympathy."

"Well…if you're alright…"

Helga sighed. "I'm fine."

"Oh, goody!" Olga exclaimed, once again her chipper self. "In that case, I'll go check on breakfast. I'm making a triple-decker Pavlova and this delicious bread I learned about when I visited Thailand!"

"Great!" Helga said, faking excitement. "Oh, and one more thing. What day is it?"

"It's Monday, silly! And you'd better get ready or you're going to be late for school."

"Criminy!" Helga exclaimed. "I can't go to school! Arn-"

Olga looked at her suspiciously.

"Arn…aren't you going to go check on breakfast?" Helga said nervously.

"Oh, that's right! I'll see you later!" Olga cried, as she rushed out the door.

"Phew, that was close." Helga fell backwards onto Olga's bed. "I can't believe today's Monday! I can't face Arnold! And what about Lila? She'll jump all over him…and he'll jump right back! Oh, what did I do to deserve this?"

She sat up and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She was a little confused for a moment as to why her hair was down, but she quickly remembered. Arnold finding out that she was Cecile, the kiss, her confession, the kiss in the cave, thinking he loved her, finding out he didn't; everything came flooding back to her.

"He said it looked good down," Helga thought sadly. Her eyes filled with tears, but she held them back. "What does that matter anyway? He doesn't love me. I doubt he even likes me." With that, she walked over to the mirror, grabbed Olga's brush and tied her hair back into pigtails.

"I'll just have to pretend that nothing happened," she told herself. "It's not like he'll say anything about it. But…I almost wish he would."

Helga walked downstairs and headed for the front door.

"I'm going to school now!" she called to anyone who would listen. She got no response, but she was used to it. She closed the door and started the two blocks to school.