My heart beat raced as I awaited my love to walk in. I notice the TV is on and I hear the voice of Dino Spumoni. They still play that guy? I am remembered of Arnold's short relationship with him. Maybe I've been sent to an alternate universe. One where my parents are nice, my sister is below average, and Mr. Simmons is actually a doctor.
(I am switching persons. It is easier to stay true to the character in 3rd person instead of first)
She looks around the room, fashioning her signature scowl. The door opens slowly, Arnold walks in cautiously, not wanting to disturb her. He stares at her with immediate recognition. He looks at the door and shuts it quietly behind him. When he looks at her more closely he smiles. She's awake. It was always more interesting when she was awake. Instead of telling her stories, he was able to make his own. It scarred him for five years, watching her get hit by the car. He blamed himself. He had no reason to, but he always felt as if he could have stopped it.
While Arnold tries hard to enter the room quietly, Helga is on her bed doing a great job of keeping quiet as well. She is speechless. The person before her is not the boy that she grew up teasing. He is not the same kid that she fell in love with. There is no doubt in her mind that he is not somewhat attractive to her, but he is just different. "Who are you?" She stammers.
"Helga, it's me. Arnold." He says, still smiling. His outfit is weird. Instead of the normal red flannel and blue sweater, Arnold is wearing a short sleeve green shirt and a blue sweatshirt on top. His hair is still long but it falls beneath his ears. Luckily for Helga, he is still fashioning his blue cap, which is the only thing that Helga can use to recognize him.
"I'm sorry, you just look different." Helga explains.
"I know. You used to draw pictures. And at some point you used to call me, what was it?" Arnold chuckles thinking of the name.
"Football head?" Helga suggests.
"Oh yeah. That's right." Arnold laughs. "It's weird actually talking to you."
"Wait. What do you normally do?"
"Well Mr. Simmons, (not Dr. Simmons. This will be explained later) has an extra credit thing where we come and tell you stories, so that you don't miss out on 'the pleasure of learning.' I feel bad about that first day of preschool, so I come the most often. I basically tell you stories about what happens at school. Like on Valentine's Day when I got a visit from my friend Cecile. I had to keep switching restaurants between her and Ruth." Arnold laughs. "It was awful."
Helga is remembered of her own Valentine's Day: One where she is Cecile and she wrote the invitation for him. It was the first day that she actually felt that Arnold could like her. Then the real Cecile came over and Helga left in panic.
"You seem weird today. There have been times when you would wake up and start talking to me as if it was normal. But today, you actually just seem, I don't know how to explain it."
"Me neither." Helga fights back the urge to call him football head. His voice is the same but he looks almost nothing like himself. Still she thinks about what she said. Her Arnold never lied to her, so why should this one. She decides to play along. "Maybe I'm finally back."
"Oh, well in that case, why do you call me football head?" He asks. He is leaning forward in his chair, an action that Helga could not imagine him doing beforehand.
Instead of explaining it, after all she thought it was self-explanatory, Helga asks for paper and a pencil. He reaches inside his backpack and grabs some out. Lucky for Helga, he has an extra notebook where almost all of the pages are blank. Helga takes the pencil in her hand and hopes that somehow her artistic abilities somehow transferred over. She attempts to draw what he looked like but it comes out incredibly cartoonish. She laughs and shows him the picture. Arnold's eyes open wide and he lets out a chuckle. "Is that me? I look like a cartoon character."
"I did the best I could!" Helga yells.
"Hey." Arnold says semi-angrily. "I was just kidding."
"Sorry. Old habits." Helga explains. "Can you tell me more about what it's like here? Tell me about the kids at school. Like Rhonda."
"Well Rhonda is this girl with Dark hair who is just obsessed with being rich and having money, she can be really mean. Deep down though, she actually isn't that bad. There's also Harold who is just about the opposite. He doesn't' care about his looks and he is the school bully. Sometimes he really bugs me..." Arnold says. Helga thinks back to what her life was like, for the most part the two lives seem insanely similar, but she remembers being the one who put people like Rhonda and Harold into their place. She never really let them become bullies. Everything is just really messed up without her. "… he's just happy all the time but bad things happen to him quite a bit."
"I have to go back." Helga interrupts.
"What?"
"I have to go back to school. Everything is going to be chaotic.
Arnold thinks briefly about it, but he comes up with his own opinion. "You're right. Hang on."
Arnold leaves the room and comes back in a couple of minutes. With him is a tall slender woman with brown hair and a smile that lights up the room. Helga recognizes her as Dr. Bliss. One of the few people that she remembers as being normal.
"They agreed. After talking with your mom, I guess they think that you might be okay." Arnold smiles. "They just want the psychiatrist to agree to it first."
Helga's grin expands. "I'm going back."
also just a quick reminder that everyone should check out the save the jungle movie fan pagknob Facebook. If you haven't already, sign the petition. The goal of 15,000 has been reached (congratulations) but having more could only help. Thank you for reading. Sorry I didn't post this as soon as I said (family tragedy). But ya know as Eugene says... "Keep your sunny side up." And again thank you all soo much. :)