3: Day One

"Hey Arnold, hey Arnold, hey Arnold, hey - "

Groaning slightly, Arnold Shortman rolled over and fumbled for the button on his alarm clock. The deluge of sun that swam in through the skylight was not agreeing with his burning eyes.

He considered himself a morning person, most of the time. Added to that was the fact that it was the first day of school - an annual occasion he'd long found himself excited for, from the earliest days of elementary school to his first day of high school last year. But the loneliness inside of him felt difficult to shake today. It had been clawing its way through his heart for the past two months, steeping his entire body in an unfamiliar sense of immobility during the moments he needed to move most.

Resolutely, he finally tumbled off of his bed and began inching towards his closet, his movements automatic as he fished out his standard jeans - sweater - flannel shirt. He'd showered the night before, luckily, a routine that was more often than not beneficial in a boarding house with too many people making a scramble for the bathroom on weekday mornings.

"Morning, short man," Grandpa told him cheerily, after Arnold had ambled down the required two flights of staircases and found his way to the kitchen. His grandfather turned his back to him, his face bent over a pan of sizzling French toast on the stove.

"Morning," Arnold returned, taking a seat at the table and looking at his watch. He was the first one present aside from Grandpa, and Grandma, who was humming merrily as she poured him a mug of tea - boysenberry licorice, or was it ginger anchovy today? Truthfully, Grandma's uniquely brewed flavors were hard to identify, and most of the time, Arnold felt that it was better to not know.

"Ready for the first day, Kimba?" Grandma asked him, her eyes twinkling softly. Arnold rubbed his shoulder with one hand, trying his best to retain some of his usual optimism.

"Sure, Grandma, I'm ready," he told her. "It'll be a new year. New classes, new teachers, new - "

"Friends?" his mother suggested as she entered the kitchen, dressed in her Hillwood Medical Center uniform. She stooped to kiss him lightly on the forehead. Her lips lingered against his skin for a long moment. "Hopefully a lot of the old ones too."

"Yeah," he nodded, staring skeptically into his tea as though deep sea creatures might be traversing the dark waters at the bottom of the mug. Not enough of the old ones, he added in his mind, but was careful not to say the words out loud. Anything but that.

"Just remember, Arnold," came his father's voice as he appeared in the doorway, still wearing a T-shirt and boxers. "Sometimes a fresh start is exactly what you need."

Miles grabbed a banana from the counter and began peeling it from the end, monkey-style, the way he'd shown his son during one of their cherished bonding sessions the summer before sixth grade. Sometimes, even now, his parents' little oddities still made Arnold's nerves clatter in his chest - like they had every day that year - his bones and veins and ligaments alight with a kind of zealous excitement he found impossible to describe to anyone else.

"Yeah," Arnold said, unable to contain the fondness in his voice. "You know, I think you're right, Dad."

"Well of course he's right!" Grandma cooed, pouring another two cups of herbal tea for Miles and Stella. "Jungle adventurers always know best."

After finishing his French toast and bacon - pausing to toss a plump and aging Abner a couple of slices - Arnold stalked into the hallway, double checked his carefully prepared backpack of textbooks and binders, and threw the straps over his shoulders, heaving a resigned sigh.

"I know you're still upset," his mother told him soothingly, her voice low. He hadn't even noticed her following him out of the kitchen. She stood by his side, eyes wandering the length of his body as if taking in the sheer size of his backpack, or the size of Arnold himself, for that matter, who'd sprouted up at least another two inches over the summer alone. "You just need to take it one step at a time. It's going to be okay, honey." She gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Thanks, Mom," he replied, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. "Have a good day, okay?"

A curtain of fog hung over the city outside, shrouding the asphalt and cracking front stoops in a silvery veil. The walk to Gerald's seemed to take forever, partly because the books in Arnold's backpack weighed heavily on his shoulders.

When he finally arrived, his best friend was waiting outside. Timberly was still in the house, watching for the bus with her face pressed up against the front window. The two boys wiggled their thumbs together in their usual way that Arnold secretly hoped they would never outgrow.

"You ready, man?" Gerald asked, surveying Arnold as though checking him for ticks or signs of illness.

"Ready," he said, measuring his words carefully. "C'mon, let's get going."

They made their way to Hillwood High, starting in on chatter about lunchtime - what their classes would be like - what they had first period, which was English for Arnold, and Chemistry for Gerald.

"You realize," Gerald said suddenly, casting Arnold a serious glance. "That even though we're not in the same class, we both have to take Honors English with Mr. Turner?"

"Yeah," Arnold replied. "Why? You've met him before?"

"Met him?" Gerald repeated. "Well, no. This is his first year teaching at Hillwood. But he's s'posed to be sort of a giant dick."

"How does anyone know?" Arnold asked, raising an eyebrow. "If it's his first year at Hillwood?"

"People know. I have sources remember?" Gerald said casually. "Fuzzy Slippers is never wrong," he added, his voice full of the usual gusto it took on whenever he was recounting insider information or an urban legend.

"Fuzzy Slippers gave you intel on a new English teacher?" Arnold asked skeptically. "Come on, Gerald. Whoever this guy is, he can't be that bad."

"Whatever you say," Gerald told him darkly. "Phoebe's all excited for everything. I don't know how she does it, man. She's taking three extra classes on top of what we're taking. World history, calculus, and some other thing. Maybe it was creative writing?"

"I didn't even know they offered creative writing."

"Well, they do. I think."

"I hope Helga's taking that. She'd be great at it."

Gerald stopped in his tracks, casting Arnold a resigned look.

"What?" Arnold asked. "You don't have to look at me like that."

"I know, man, but-"

"I was just saying-"

"I know," Gerald said, shaking his head.

"What? She would be!"

"What's going on with you and Lila now, anyway?" Gerald rose his eyebrows. "Sure seems like you been hanging out a lot with her lately."

"We're just friends," Arnold said hesitantly.

"Yeah? You sure about that? No lingering feelings of lust and adoration? That girl's grown up real nice, that's for sure."

"Gerald, I don't know what lingering feelings you're talking about. We've been just friends for years now. Besides, weren't you the one who was always telling me to get over Lila?"

"Yeah," Gerald admitted, and shrugged. "Look, I was just thinkin it might help you to... ya know, move on... if you actually tried. With anyone."

"Gerald..."

"Helga broke up with you months ago," he added blatantly, sending daggers through Arnold's gut.

"I am moving on," he insisted, trying not to sound defensive. "Just because I'm not jumping at the chance to try to make a move on any girl I've ever come in contact with-"

"I know," Gerald cut him off. "I know. I'm just tryna look out for you, that's all. I want you to be happy."

"Thanks, Gerald," Arnold sighed. "But I'm fine. Seriously."

"Whatever you say."

When they reached the steps of Hillwood High, they found it swarming with people. Students congested the hallways in droves, rushing off to their homerooms and first classes, while teachers ushered frenzied freshmen through the maze-like halls, trying their best to keep them from getting lost or misdirected by conniving upperclassmen. The building was certainly overwhelming for new high schoolers - full of enough floors and twisting corridors to throw off even someone who was shameless enough to show up with a school map. It had been a puzzle the year before, but thankfully, Arnold and Gerald knew the ropes well enough by now to know where they were headed.

"Pheebs!" Gerald hollered suddenly through a throng of anxious-looking new students. Arnold followed his gaze to the two girls slipping around the bend in the hallway.

"Gerald, there you are!" the small dark-haired girl called back to him, hurrying over and immediately seizing his hand, even while her arms were filled with several textbooks. Gerald had to bend over to kiss her.

"Hey, guys," Arnold greeted them. The blonde by Phoebe's side hung back, her humid blue eyes suddenly focused determinedly on the floor. Arnold couldn't help but notice how pretty she looked, dressed in jeans and a sweater that hung loosely over her lanky frame. His eyes zigzagged towards her ponytail, tied with her soft, worn-out ribbon: pink like her sweater. He swallowed down the burning feeling at the back of his throat.

"Good morning, Arnold," Phoebe returned. "Are you feeling prepared for your classes?"

"I'm not sure," he told her honestly. "We'll see, I guess."

"I have chemistry first period with Gerald," Phoebe said. She glanced quickly at Helga.

"That sounds nice," Arnold offered.

"I have trigonometry," Helga grimaced as she said the words, as though they left a sour taste in her mouth.

"You'll be okay," Gerald told her. "Just copy your homework offa Phoebe. Then you won't have to worry about anything. I mean, not till your first test at least."

"Gerald!" Phoebe scolded.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he said hastily.

"That's certainly not the right foot to start the school year off on - so to speak," Phoebe said, frowning. "Besides, Helga is very intelligent on her accord. She doesn't need to copy her homework off of anyone."

"I was kidding, Pheebs," Gerald repeated, looking slightly put out as he rubbed his shoulder with one hand.

"Yeah, well, it oughta be a blast," Helga spit out, rolling her eyes. "A whole hour and a half collecting protractors and graphing calculators with a bunch of drooling dweebs."

"Maybe you'll end up liking it," Arnold suggested. Helga snapped her eyes toward him, nearly burning a hole through his skin with her laser-like glare for a whole half second before she directed her gaze towards the floor again.

Gerald coughed pointedly. "Yeah, maybe."

"We'll see you later, I'm sure," Phoebe said finally, offering Arnold a smile as she turned to walk back down the hallway, Gerald at her side. Helga trailed behind them quickly, muttering something about needing to stop at her locker.

"See ya later," Arnold told them faintly, wondering if Mr. Turner could possibly be as bad as his friend had said.

The first thing he thought about his new classroom was that it smelled like lemon Pine-Sol. He recognized it immediately, since the scent was a favorite of his dad's, who had recently taken to throwing the stuff over every kitchen and bathroom surface in the boarding house at odd intervals. Just a few weeks prior, in fact, Arnold had ambled out of bed in the middle of the night to use the bathroom - only to find his father scrubbing the toilet down in a fit of inexplicable two A.M. cleaning frenzy.

Already sitting in the front row of the class were Rhonda, Sheena, Iggy, Stinky, and Lila, chattering softly amongst themselves.

"I ain't sure how I ended up placed in an Honors English class," Stinky was musing proudly. "I reckon they musta seen somethin in me."

"Well, I think it makes ever so much sense, Stinky," Lila told him. Her hair had been straightened to perfection; it fell down her back in a shining auburn curtain. "You're smart, and you have such a nice way with words."

Stinky beamed at her, his face flushing slightly. "Garsh."

Arnold sat in the second row, emptying his notebook and writing utensils onto his desk. It was a few minutes before a very tall, broad-shouldered man rose from the desk at the front of the room. Strangely, Arnold hadn't noticed that he was already there. He looked to be in his early forties, with slightly graying sand-colored hair and an almost stonelike quality to his face.

"Ahem," the man said drily, clearing his throat. The scattered chatter ceased immediately; everyone's attention was now on Mr. Turner, whose beady stare seemed to command instant respect.

"Hello," Mr. Turner continued. "And welcome to Honors Ten English."

He turned unsmilingly to the blackboard behind him, which had already been filled with a neatly-scribed list of the names of several books.

"This class," Mr. Turner said, his voice still dry, eyes slightly glazed, almost as if he were bored, "Is for literature. If you can't keep up, you will know immediately."

From the front row, Stinky and Iggy gulped audibly. Lila, on the other hand, straightened up in her seat, hands folded neatly on her desk in front of her.

"If you can keep up," Mr. Turner added. "You might later find you were mistaken."

Arnold attempted again to swallow the dryness at the back of his throat. He always tried his best to give people the benefit of the doubt, but he could feel dislike blooming in his stomach.

"S'cuse me, sir?" a slightly manic-sounding voice rang out from behind him, somewhere in the last row of students.

"Your name, young man?" Mr. Turner asked icily.

"Gamelthorpe. Thaddeus Gamelthorpe."

Several students' heads turned towards the black-haired boy behind them, whose reputation for causing mayhem merited a certain level of worship of its own. Despite the varying strands of gossip that travelled Hillwood - he was insane, he was suicidal, he was going to shoot up the whole school - kids enjoyed being in classes with Curly, if only because the drama he seemed to instigate at every turn made their lives more interesting.

"Continue, Mr. Gammelthorpe."

"What if we appreciate literature but simply don't like any of the books listed in the syllabus?"

Arnold could practically feel Curly vibrating in his chair behind him as Mr. Turner stared daggers across the room. "Then you will write your first ten-page paper, Mr. Gamelthorpe, on the merits of your opinion."

"Ten page paper?" came the horrified mumblings around the room.

"Yes," Mr. Turner nodded swiftly. "Your first assignment, due when we return for our block period next Monday, is a ten-page paper."

"But we haven't even read anything yet!" Rhonda cried out, appalled. "What's the paper on?"

"Your expectations for this course. What you hope to take from your readings and from this class as a whole."

Lila raised her hand. "Please, Mr. Turner, sir. Will we get penalized if we write more than ten pages?"

For the first time, a shadow of a smile splintered across the teacher's face. "Your name, miss?"

"Lila. Lila Sawyer."

"No, Miss Sawyer. You will not be."

"Ain't she just the smartest thing," Arnold heard Stinky whisper loudly and adoringly. Arnold found himself chewing on his lower lip. She was smart, he thought.

"But you will be penalized," Mr. Turner continued. "If your thoughts are overly dry, unrealistically optimistic, or nauseatingly uninformed. So I would advise you to think carefully, and edit any words that make their way from your obtuse minds to your papers. Any questions?"

Not a one.

For Helga, the first day of school ended much the same way as the day before: horribly. She slammed her bedroom door shut and lay upside down on her bedspread, sunshine locks hanging over the edge of the blanket. The blood was rushing to her head, but she was oddly refreshed by the dizzying feeling.

Phoebe didn't always rant, but when she did, it went on and on. And on. Helga closed her eyes as she halfway listened to her joy-filled rambling through speakerphone.

"Chemistry was enthralling," Phoebe was explaining brightly, "But I simply can't wait for my global history class tomorrow. I've been excited for it for two years. Mr. Davis is supposed to be one of the most wonderful teachers at Hillwood, and considering the superior nature of the subject matter in comparison to the history classes we've taken in the past, I have no doubt it will live up to the expectations."

"Yeah?" Helga said lazily. "That's great."

"I'm so excited. I'm already two-thirds of the way through the textbook."

"You're the only one I've ever met who reads their textbook before there are even chapters assigned, Pheebs."

"Well, I just can't help it!"

Helga laughed. "It'll prolly be really fun for you."

"How have you been feeling?" Phoebe asked, her voice suddenly considerably more tentative.

Helga bit her lip. It wasn't that she didn't trust her very best friend in the world. In fact, there were few people she did trust, and Phoebe was one of them. But when it came to her feelings, she still wasn't particularly good at saying the words out loud. At least not to Phoebe, who wouldn't, from Helga's perspective, understand.

"Fine," she told her. "I mean, it's the usual bullshit. But there's an ice cream vending machine in the cafeteria now, so there's that," she added as an afterthought.

"We have creative writing together this week," Phoebe said optimistically. "That should be fun."

"Yeah," Helga replied, but she was incapable of concealing the gloom in her voice.

"You've always been so creative, Helga. I think you'll really enjoy that class."

"Yeah," Helga rolled her eyes. "I got a lot of inspiration going on right now. I can see it already. The Wrath of Big Bob and the Wasteland of Miriam, a haiku by Helga G. Pataki."

"Oh, dear. Does your mother have AA on Wednesday?" Phoebe asked.

Helga scoffed. "Yeah, she's supposed to. What a freaking crock. She always says she's gonna go. Then the next thing you know she's downing two bottles of wine and passing out on the couch."

Phoebe paused for a moment. "I'm sorry, Helga."

"Yeah, me too. Get this, last week Olga comes by with her husband looking all special in his dumb suit and Marina all bundled up in her arms like the perfect adorable little dumpling she is. They were going on some two-day business trip for Ricky's job and Olga had to go along, I guess, so she could be his stinkin arm candy and eat hors d'oeuvres with all the rich assholes. Bob goes 'Your mother is gonna watch the baby while you're away, sweetheart.' Then Miriam stumbles over and she can barely even talk, she's so drunk."

"Oh, no."

"Yeah. So then Olga starts crying and refuses to leave Marina with Miriam."

"Oh, no."

"Yeah, it was a real sob story. Olga going on and on like, 'I just want you to be better, Mommy, I want to trust you with my daughter.' So now of courseBob's down Miriam's throat about it every chance he gets, telling her she needs to get her act together and stuff, cause once his little princess gets upset, it's all over from there."

"Perhaps the incident will inspire your mother to finally face her deep-seated emotional issues head on."

"Hope so, cause I sure as hell never inspired her to do it," Helga said bitterly. There was another tentative pause.

"Oh, Helga, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-"

"It's okay, I know you didn't. It's just the truth."

"Well-"

"Anyway, to make a long story short, Olga left me in charge of Marina and I took care of her for two days."

"You did?" Phoebe replied, sounding surprised. "I didn't even know. Why didn't you tell me last week? I could have helped you if you needed anything."

"I know, but I didn't wanna bother you. You had your special anniversary date with Gerald and everything."

"Next time you should ask me. I'd be there immediately."

"I know you would," Helga told her gratefully. "Anyway, listen, I'm gonna get to bed soon, okay? I'm kind of tired."

For a moment, Helga stared over at her dresser after she hung up the phone. The razor blades - the ones she'd taken inconspicuously from Curly's bag - rested there, their edges dulled and gray. She wondered, sometimes, what those blades looked like in his eyes. Did they call out to him? Did they flirt, sending comfort in their message of primordial pain, crying sideways with the promise of release?

They sat on a bench in the park, shaded by the leaves of the Japanese Maple above them. The large tree, with its roots and twisting trunks laden with sparrow nests, was one of Nadine's favorites in the whole city. Rhonda had chosen it carefully for that reason.

"You know, you really look great," she told her friend. "Two months in the wilderness is a good look for you."

She wasn't lying. Nadine was a lovely shade of nutmeg brown, and she had allowed her hair to grow longer over the summer. It hung down her back in glowing yellow braids that contrasted with her tanned skin.

"Thanks, Rhonda. So do you."

"So," Rhonda held her breath. "Go ahead and show me."

Nadine's fingers flipped gracefully through the pages of her spiral notebook, her face filled with the eager devotion of a woman staring straight into the eyes of her love. The lined pages were filled with carefully pressed bug carcasses. Shivers ran down Rhonda's back.

"See, there are a lot of arthropods out there that shed their exoskeletons when they're ready to. It's called ecdysis. It's one of nature's most beautiful and mysterious processes."

"That's..." Rhonda started, but found herself helpless to offer anything else. She held her hands out in front of her to examine her nail beds instead - why was the cuticle on her pinky peeling? Clearly she'd have to start moisturizing more than three times a day.

"This is the alderfly. The lacewing. The silverfish Lepisma. Micaria romana, the most cryptic of-"

Rhonda couldn't help herself anymore. "That is revolting, Nadine," she shuddered.

Nadine whipped her head up, annoyed. "It is not!"

"I'm sorry but it is."

"Why'd you ask to see my book, anyway? You already knew you'd hate it."

"I did not! Well... maybe I did, but I just wanted to make you feel like it was special."

She knew instantly she had said the wrong thing when Nadine slammed her journal on the bench beside her. "It's already special without you needing to make me feel like anything!"

"I know," Rhonda said quickly in an attempt to backpedal.

But she was interrupted as three girls approached them suddenly. Rhonda felt a tremor of excitement in the pit of her stomach as she admired their miniskirts - contrasting shades of pink, kelly green, and robin's egg blue - and their perfectly pedicured feet.

"Rhonda!" Connie said. Kelly extracted a tube of lipstick and compact mirror from her Coach purse and began painting her lips on the spot.

"What a coincidence!" Emily exclaimed. "We're taking a walk too!" She cast an odd glance at Nadine. "Who's your friend?"

Rhonda cleared her throat. "Connie, Kelly, Emily, this is Nadine. Nadine - these are the girls."

"Yeah, I've seen you around school before," Nadine muttered. "Seniors, right?"

"Yep," Kelly replied, smacking her lips. "Oh my god, cute hair," she added to Nadine. "Vintage. So adorable."

"Thanks," Nadine told her, eyes darting back and forth a bit awkwardly.

"Anyway, guess we'll see you around, Rhonda," Kelly said. Rhonda's heart began to race in her chest.

"Wait, where are you ladies headed?" she asked hopefully.

"Just taking a walk," Connie told her, shrugging. "We just came back from the diner. Emily ordered pancakes," she added, casting the blonde-haired girl a serious glance.

"Ugh, I have to stop being so fat," Emily groaned.

"You girls wanna join us?" Kelly offered, closing her purse with a resounding snap.

"We'd love to," Rhonda said immediately. "I could stand to work off the calories from my breakfast, too. I had an omelette. With cheese in it. Ugh, I have to stop being so fat."

She leapt up from the bench, but Nadine remained sitting, staring up at them with her mouth slightly parted.

"You know, girls," Nadine said finally, rising from her seat slowly. "I think I should actually be getting home soon."

Waving at Rhonda with one hand, she turned and began walking in the opposite direction, braids bouncing down her back.

When she was no longer in earshot, Kelly raised her eyebrows at Rhonda. It was as though Rhonda, herself, had committed the fashion crime, and that, Rhonda thought, was completely unfair.

"She has the ugliest effing hair I've ever seen," Kelly said. Rhonda blinked as a breeze rustled through.