Hey guys! I worked really hard (like 6 hours) on this oneshot for Shortaki Week and I'd really appreciate hearing what you think about it.

thanks and enjoy!

xox

Polkahotness

"Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong"

-Murphy's Law

"Cripes, I gotta be partners with you for THIS?" Helga scoffed once Mr. Elling wrote the two words on the board ahead.

"What's so wrong with 'Murphy's Law?'" I asked with an eyebrow raised while leaning in to whisper the question rather than disturb the entire class with my question. "And... what do I have to do about it?"

She smirked and shook her head while continuing to look ahead at Mr. Elling. "BeCAUSE, Arnoldo," she began a little louder than she'd spoken before. "Have you LOOKED in a mirror lately?"

I frowned and reached up to cross my arms in complete boredom at what Helga was getting at. "Helga. Just because you don't like the shape of my head doesn't mean I won't be any good at this-"

Helga twisted to look at me with an, 'Are You Serious?' sort of look and stared at me for a long moment.

"What?" I asked while feeling uncomfortable under her glare.

"You have NO clue what Murphy's Law is, do ya footballhead?" She stated rather than asked and I had to admit that there was a twitch of defensive feelings bubbling up to the top inside my mind.

"Of course I do, Helga," I said confidently. "Anything that can happen, will happen," I defined, but Helga was already shaking her head. "What now?"

"THIS is why you are the WORST partner in the world for whatever this is gonna be about," She said as confidently as when I had defined my apparently-wrong answer.

"But why? What exactly did I get wrong?"

"Because THAT-" she said while pointing up at the board but keeping her eyes on mine "-means 'Whatever can go WRONG, will go wrong.' A-K-A a positive pansy's worst nightmare."

Mr. Elling turned around from the board at last as the bell rang signaling for class to begin- although Helga and I weren't backing down from our conversation.

"Positive Pansy, huh? That's a new one," I commented with false humor in my voice.

"You got THAT right, bucko." Mr. Elling was watching us though Helga didn't seem to notice- or care for that matter -because she only kept talking to fuel the fire being lit between us. "And no positive pansy, footballheaded goody-two-shoes is going to be good to work with on the world's most negative law known to man."

"So I see some of us are FAMILIAR with Murphy's Law?" Mr. Elling asked with his eyes glued directly on Helga who still hadn't backed down from her intense stance on me in our seats.

"For those of you who might NOT be as familiarized as Miss Pataki seems to be," he continued as Helga finally turned to look back at the front of the class, giving me a chance to recover from whatever kind of Pataki-attack I had just undergone, "Murphy's Law can be explained as 'whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.'"

"See?" Helga commented quietly as she sat beside me; just loud enough for me to hear.

Ignoring her, I focused instead on Mr. Elling who only continued to explain our next instructions. "Today, you and your partners will pick one of five experiments to test this weekend either separately or together. You will then record your results and present them in front of the class when we come back on Monday."

Great... another project with Helga and another day wasted fighting with her about it the entire time, I couldn't help but think. Quickly, I pushed the thought aside in lieu of something... more positive. Maybe this time won't be so bad, though. Things can change- people can change.

I glanced over to Helga who was zoned out on her notebook below where she looked like she was doodling something just out of my view. After a second, she caught my look and glared my way.

Then again...

"I know, I know," Mr. Elling said, cutting me off from my own thoughts. "What does that have to do with Murphy's Law, right? Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong? Well, in ADDITION to recording results for your findings, you will FIRST come up with a list of POSSIBLE findings- all of which are worst-case-scenario."

Helga smirked beside me and began turning the page of her notebook to a clean one, then jotting down at the top of the page, "Possible Disasters."

Mr. Elling looked around the room at our blank faces before reaching for a stack of papers on his desk and beginning to pass them out to our rows of desks. "This is your worksheet with the list of experiments you can choose from."

As soon as the papers reached everyone, talking ensued and Mr. Elling shouted above the chatter to get his last words in. "Remember to pick a time and way to test your experiments this weekend! Either separately, or on your own!"

I turned to Helga ready to hear her demand we do the project by ourselves, only to be greeted by something entirely different.

"So when do you wanna do this thing? I've got all day. Heck, the more time I spend aWAY from that freakshow I live with, the better." Her tone was so matter-of-fact and with hardly any of her usual attitude that it threw me off.

So I stared at her.

"Uh... Arnold?" She said before raising a hand to wave it in front of my face. "You still with us or what? That head of yours off in a different world again?"

Blinking a few times, I laughed in half-shock before finally saying, "I guess I just thought you'd want to do it by yourself."

"Yeah right, and let you fail the whole thing? Sheesh, Hair Boy, I'm not THAT cruel."

"And what makes you think I'd fail it?" I asked even though I already knew what her answer would be.

"Do we HAVE to go through this again? Or can we just pick the experiment and figure out when to do this thing?"

So it begins...

Helga wanted to meet at 10am SHARP on Saturday morning.

For someone who claims to be open for anything, she'd sure had a lot of problems with every time I'd chosen, but this was Helga and I hadn't expected anything less from her.

I guess you could say she was, in her own properties, Murphy's Law in human form; a Murphy's Law that had been in my life for nearly all 17 years of it.

So what could be the harm of adding another day?

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK! The noise of rapping on my door made me shoot up in bed from (what I think was) a nightmare about the green bean applesauce Grandma had made the night before.

"Hey FOOTBALLface, it's eleven o'clock already! Could you get a MOVE on or are you gonna make me wait ALL DAY?" Helga's bullhorned voice hollered through the wood of the door.

"El-eleven?" I asked myself, though she must have heard me through the door.

"Yeah, no duh, Hair Boy. I WOULD just barge in there and PULL you out of bed, but I'm not so sure I want to embark on that journey this early in the morning, thankyouverymuch."

Oh boy, I thought as I scrambled to jump out of bed and run around my room in search of clothes, she is NOT in a good mood... Then again, Helga rarely was. What was it that always made her so crabby, anyway?

"Seriously, you have one minute to slap some clothes on and get out here. I don't have all DAY, ya know."

Grabbing some jeans out of my drawer and pulling them over my boxers, I called back to Helga while zipping them up, "Didn't you tell me yesterday that that's exactly what you did have? All day?"

She seemed to think about this as I pulled out drawer after drawer in search of a clean shirt only to spin around and look at the calendar.

Saturday, April 15th

15th

15th

"Laundry day..." I muttered to myself before Helga's loud knocking woke me up again from my thoughts.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK "Just because I don't have a LIFE doesn't mean YOU get to hold it UP, bucko." She shouted, her lecture quickly halted by Grandpa's voice, muffled by distance and my bedroom door.

"Hey- how did you get in here, little girl? You know, in my day, a kid like you could be-"

"CAN IT, old man, I got some business with your grandson in there!" Helga shot back, only making Grandpa laugh from wherever it was he was standing.

"Oh, ho, ho, hey, I know who you are. You're that little girl with the one eyebrow and that big pink bow, aren't you?"

I had to stop this- disaster was already striking and we hadn't even begun the project yet. At the rate the day was already going, maybe we could just present THAT to the class as our example of Murphy's Law.

Grabbing the flannel shirt I wore yesterday that was lying on the floor, I sighed and tossed it over my shoulder before walking to open the door to where Helga was standing.

"Where's your shirt?" She asked with a raised brow which immediately made my cheeks fill with bright red blush.

"I uh... it's laundry day." I answered although my answer wasn't much of an excuse to Helga.

"And I care because...?" She dragged out the end of the word as I struggled to find my own to respond with.

"Well that means," I said as I brought my hand up to awkwardly rub at the back of my neck, "I kind of... don't have a shirt to wear. RIGHT NOW." I added on dramatically only for Helga to roll her eyes and turn around to walk down the steps leading to my room.

"Sounds like you'd better go get yourself a shirt from the laundry room then, huh footballhead?" She turned her head to look at me with a teasing smile over her shoulder before making it to the landing of the stairs and then turning to walk in the direction of the kitchen.

"Helga," I called after her and she turned around to look at me from where she stood just outside the kitchen's entrance. "Wh-where are YOU going?"

"To get myself some grub, DOI. You DO have food in this joint, right?" She pointed her thumb behind herself at the kitchen and began walking backwards to it.

"Uh...yeah, but I thought you wanted-"

"I WANT for you to go get a shirt while I eat so that when you come BACK, we don't have to waste anymore TIME standing here talking when we COULD be doing, oh, I don't know, our PROJECT!" Her words were harsh, though I wasn't phased by them.

In the matter of a minute, she disappeared to the kitchen and opened the fridge leaving me to jog to the laundry room and find a clean shirt.

"Hey Grandma?" I asked as I walked into the laundry room where she was tossing wet clothes into the dryer.

"Oh hello, Arnold. What brings you to the Lost Arc of Ferdinand on this triumphant day? Shouldn't you be celebrating?"

I shook my head, completely immersed in my own problems to try and play along with whatever Grandma was talking about. "No I actually just need a shirt." I pointed to the flannel still draped over my shoulder and sighed. "This is all I have and it's... kind of dirty."

She reached over to yank the shirt from me and inspect it thoroughly. "Hmmm..." She hummed to herself. "I don't have any robes for you to wear right now, soldier, but I can get this stain out in a jiffy!"

Then, with a toss and a splash, she threw the only dry shirt I had left into the washer already filled with new water for the next load of laundry.

"Grandma!" I shouted instinctively, "I-I..."

"Try Colonel Phil up in the chambers- he juuuust might have the right set of threads to help you out, soldier." She brought her hand up to her forehead ready to salute and with a sigh, I followed suit.

Then, painfully, I drug myself back to the kitchen where Helga was eating cereal at the table as Grandpa watched her while holding a cup of orange juice in his hand.

"You know, Shortman, this girlfriend of yours isn't very curteous in other people's houses..." He said with narrowed eyes as Helga shoved a spoonful of sugary cereal into her mouth.

"Gooofwend?" She repeated while nearly choking on her mouthful and coughing loudly for nearly a solid minute. Once she recovered, she took a breath and prepared another spoonful. "I am NOT his girlfriend, are you KIDDING me, old man? I mean CRIMINY, who would- the kid isn't even wearing a SHIRT!" She said while gesturing to where I stood in the doorway of the kitchen.

"I thought that's where you WENT."

"No uh... Grandma already has my clothes in the wash."

"And the plaid nightmare you had on your shoulder? Where did THAT go?"

I looked down at my bare feet and wiggled my toes up at myself before replying, "It's in the washer." Looking up, my eyes drifted over to Grandpa who was watching me with a smile on his face. "Grandma said I should...I should ask...YOU for a-a shirt."

"You look ridiculous."

"Knock it off."

"No, seriously, you have the thing buttoned up to your NECK. It's like you're a football on a pedestal or something. The winning ball displayed for all to see..."

"Helga..."

"You look like you walked out of a movie from the eighteen-hundreds," She continued with a chuckle as we walked to my car which was sitting in the driveway of the boarding house. "Should I call you Sir Arnold? Mister Shortman? OH! I know! How about Lord High Admiral Footballhead-"

I pulled the keys out of my pocket and unlocked the doors to the car with a sigh. "You know, you can stop with the jokes. It's just a shirt." I ducked and slid into the driver's seat; Helga following me on the passenger side.

"Ahh, but where's the fun in THAT, huh?"

Sticking the key in the ignition, I twisted my wrist to start the car.

Tck, tck, tck, tck, tck, the car sputtered while trying to turn over.

This cannot be happening...

With a deep breath, I closed my eyes and tried once again.

Tck, tck, tck, tck, tck, it spit once again and I dropped my hands in defeat on my lap.

The car filled with silence, the wind blowing the worthless metal car to gently sway back and forth where we sat.

"Man, Arnold. You're having quite the day, aren't you?"

You can do this, Arnold. It's not so bad. There isn't rain and there isn't snow or even a cloud in sight- you two can walk to the park. No harm in walking...

I reached up and tore my keys from the ignition before opening the door and exiting the car- Helga once again following suit.

"Checking the engine?"

"No," I said with a small smile, "We're walking."

"Walking. To the park. You know that's like... five miles from here, right?"

I spun to look at her from where she stood just across from me on the passenger side and said with a slight edge, "What? You have a better idea?"

Which, of course, she didn't.

If it was one thing I'd learned in all my years about Helga, she was really just a lot of talk. I'd never tell her that of course, but it was comforting to know that while she may disagree with my methods or choices or head shape, it wasn't really like she had any other ideas to help fix my decisions/natural genetics.

In knowing all of that, I was able to get away with a lot of things in the Helga department than most people ever could. It was just the kind of...relationship...the two of us had.

She spent her time trying to make me miserable and I spent mine trying to ignore it and stay positive.

Like I said, she was my Murphy's Law and I was her...not Murphy's Law. That being said, Helga was great at pushing my buttons but today, she didn't seem to have to try that hard to get on my nerves.

She spent the entire walk making jokes about my shirt.

Literally the entire five mile walk.

I didn't even know somebody knew that many Moby Dick jokes or that they even existed, but somewhere under that beanie and those blonde pigtails there was a literary comedian in there just waiting to unload her jokes on a poor, unsuspecting victim.

And today, that victim just so happened to be me- the lovable footballhead.

But I could handle that. I was used to that. There wasn't anything Helga could say to me that would genuinely make me mad- not about me at least.

In fact, in all our years of knowing each other, Helga had only made me genuinely made a handful of times... maybe five at the most.

Well, six, if you count today.

"So what experiment did you want to do?" She'd asked once we got to the park at around 3 in the afternoon.

Slightly out of breath and really agitated by the blister forming at the back of my right heel, I turned to look at her blankly. "I thought we decided yesterday?"

She shook her head and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "Nooooo," she dragged out and simplified her tone to me like I was a toddler asking for another snack. "Geez, for a head that big, you'd think you would be able to remember, wouldn't you?"

"We could do the egg thing again... seeing as it worked so well the LAST time," Helga suggested; the memory flooding back to me.

"We could use that experience alone as an example of Murphy's Law."

Helga smirked and flipped the worksheet over on the desk. "Yeah, that or the biosphere which was a wild success."

"More like a wild disaster. Murphy's Law seems to always find it's way to us, doesn't it?"

Helga swallowed loudly to herself and fidgeted slightly in her desk.

"Look," she said, quickly changing the subject, "YOU take the sheet home and figure out what YOU want to do- I could care less."

"You sure?" I asked as she tossed the paper in my direction.

"Yeah- what do I care? We'll fill out all the prediction mumbo-jumbo tomorrow. Since I got all day and all."

The memory flashed before my eyes and I found that my eyes shut on their own as if to shield me from Helga's soon-to-be-reaction at my next statement.

"I uh... I remember now," I said sheepishly, though her tone indicated she didn't know where I was headed.

"Okaaaay... so where is the sheet? We should probably fill that sucker out if we wanna start on this experiment."

My right hand slowly rose to my face and began rubbing at the bridge of my nose as I quietly said, "It's in my room..."

"...WHAT did you say?"

Oh God...

"It's..." I cleared my throat and dropped my arm to my side again before opening my eyes and looking Helga directly in the eyes. "It's in my room- at the boarding house."

She seemed to take it in- the bad news -and then nodded for a moment as if digesting the information. Then, without warning, she exploded.

"You forGOT the WORKSHEET?! After we walked ALL THIS WAY, you FORGOT the damn WORKSHEET?! CRIMINY, footballhead- what the hell is WRONG with you?!" She shoved her way passed me and stomped in the direction of the park's sidewalk leading to the open street.

"Helga- Helga stop!" I called out after her while jogging to catch up. "Where are you going? What are you-"

"I'm getting a TAXI, moron," she stated while ignoring me and waving at an oncoming car. "Which YOU can pay for since this is YOUR mistake."

Five miles forward, five miles back, I told myself before fighting back the urge to scream and instead focusing on the taxi pulling up to the curb where we were standing.

It's only a few bucks and it will calm Helga down- it's no big deal, I reminded myself as we sat in the air-conditioned car that drove us to the boarding house. And besides- you have until Monday. Helga will just have to come over again tomorrow and help you finish the project.

I frowned.

Another day...with Helga.

Well, I decided as the car pulled up to the Sunset Arms, what's another day added to almost 17 years?

"That'll be sixteen bucks, kid." The driver said in a gruff voice while reaching his hand back to where Helga and I were seated.

I reached back to dig in my jeans pocket only to widen my eyes at the lack of wallet I was finding.

No...no, no, no, no, no, NO, I fished in my pocket, around and around, BEGGING for the universe to just let me have this one thing.

This ONE victory on this horrible, horrible day.

But no matter how many prayers or wishes I silently made, my wallet just wasn't in that pocket. Or ANY of my pockets for that matter.

I could feel Helga's eyes hot on me while waiting to find my wallet. She must have felt some kind of pity for me because in a soft voice I heard her whisper, "Arnold... do you not have your wallet or something?"

"No its-its IN here... it ha-has to be..." Beads of sweat were forming at my hairline and I could tell the taxi driver was getting impatient waiting for me as I dug.

"C'mon, kid, I don't got all day..."

I don't got all day...

I don't got all day...

I bit my lip tightly; the pain shooting through to my jaw as I continued to search now more desperately than ever- both the taxi driver and Helga's words from earlier in the day ringing through my head.

I don't got all day...

I don't got all day...

"Do you have the money or not, kid?" He asked again, and that... that was when I broke.

"You know what- I don't think I DO and you wanna know WHY?" I asked loudly as the rest of the taxi's passengers sat quietly around me. "Because EVERYTHING is going wrong for me today. EVERYTHING!" I threw my hands in the air and continued; completely unable to stop my mouth from saying the words I'd been dying to say all day.

"I woke up late. YOU came BANGING on my door and when I TRIED to hurry I didn't have ANY clothes but I couldn't GET any clothes because it was LAUNDRY DAY and Grandma thought we were in England so I had to ask my GRANDPA for a shirt only to get made fun of for FIVE MILES about how STUPID I looked and then RIGHT when we get to the park- I don't even have our STUPID worksheet! So YOU hail a cab, deMAND me to pay for it and then when I go to pull out my wallet from my pocket- it's GONE. GONE!"

I was huffing and puffing from my rant- my lungs hardly able to keep up with my thoughts as I spit them out at impressive speed. "And then to top it all off, all ANYONE keeps telling me is 'I don't have all day.' Well. You know what? I don't have all day EITHER. It isn't like I WANTED to spend my day with you, Helga. And it isn't like I WANTED to forget my wallet so I couldn't pay you- It's just... it's just my..."

I stopped for a moment and glanced around at the taxi driver and Helga who were both staring at me incredulously.

Blush creeped up into my cheeks for the third time that day and, panicked, I whispered, "I'm sorry," before exiting the taxi as fast as I could to walk up to the boarding house only to sit down exhausted on the stoop.

After a minute, which I assume Helga used to pay the taxi driver, she too exited and slammed the door behind her allowing the car to drive off and leave the two of us alone at the stoop.

I cradled my head in my hands as I sat while Helga stood in front of me with her hands shoved in her pockets. "You okay, Arnold?" she asked calmly- a tone I didn't get very often from Helga.

Speaking into my hands, I muffled out, "I'm fine, Helga."

"Really?" She asked again before taking two steps toward me and then sitting beside me on the stoop. "Cause you don't really SEEM fine. I mean... you kinda went ape on a taxi driver for cripes sake."

I lifted my head to turn and look at her and shrugged before returning my gaze to the cement just ahead of me making up the sidewalk. "It's just been... a rough day."

"You're telling me. But I guess everyone needs a Murphy's Law kinda day to really understand the law in the first place." She was calm- half lost in thought.

"I assume you've had a few Murphy's Law days?" I pressed hoping for a glimpse into the exclusive life Helga usually hides from the world.

She nodded her head. "OH yeah. Try every day since I was two."

"That can't be true," I mused although I had the feeling Helga wasn't exaggerating this time.

"Oh yeah? Well it IS, believe it or not. Some days are better than others I guess. Like last Thursday."

Intrigued, I turned to look at her again, quizzically. "What happened on Thursday?"

She shrugged and leaned back to rest on the step behind her while looking up at the sky where dark clouds had begun to fill the open space above. "Miriam didn't wake up AGAIN so I missed my dentist appointment- which really blows cause I've had the most ANNOYING cavity for weeks. Took me months to make that appointment." She shrugged again. "Tried walking but you can only go so fast- ya know?"

I nodded my head and waited for her to continue. After a beat, she took a deep breath and finally went on. "So I just went to school, I guess. I mean- where ELSE was I going to go, right? Miriam was passed out when I left and Bob was off at the office today so school seemed like the least crappy option."

"How did you get to school then? If you didn't have a ride to the dentist and you don't have a car..."

She smirked, "Well, I TRIED to get a bus, but I kinda messed up the times. So I uh..." she reached up to scratch her head. "I called Olga."

"And Olga took you to school?" I pressed, though she only laughed.

"You kidding? No. She spent the whole conversation crying and asking why I never talk to her anymore and asking when I could see her and gushing about her new husband so-so I hung up on her."

"You hung up on your sister? Who you called?" I asked with a smirk.

"Got THAT right," she said immediately as if it was a no-brainer. "I don't need my perfect sister rubbing her perfect life in my face any more than you need another thing going wrong in your day."

I shrugged as I watched sprinkles of rain mist the world around us. "I think I'm over it now. Maybe the bad day is over."

"Sure, Arnold. Keep telling yourself that. Maybe it'll work for YOU better than it does ME." She grumbled while pointing her toe out to a small rock ahead of her and kicking it out onto the street. "What DOES work is having a-a fallback."

"A fallback?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah- a FALLBACK. You know- something to focus on that is so good it makes all the bad sort of... melt away for just a split second and you can be yourself in that moment without all the junk life throws at you."

Her head was tilted up towards the sky; her eyes softly shut as rain softly dripped onto her as she sat on my stoop. She looked content- something Helga didn't usually look when wearing her familiar snarl.

I watched her- content to be -the rain washing away the Helga G. Pataki I'd seen all day and most of my life.

It was a Helga I didn't often get the chance to meet, but many times wished I could... get to know.

"Everybody has crummy days, Arnold," she said after a moment; her eyes blinking open to look up at the sky before turning to look at me. "Anything that can go wrong, really WILL go wrong. I guess... I guess it's just how you deal with it or whatever. I'm a jerk and you... you're just-"

I chuckled softly to myself before finishing for her, "a positive pansy."

Helga offered a nod and then returned her attention back to the sky. "Yeah... a positive pansy."

I sat for a moment while watching Helga be that person she'd surely just talked about. Whatever it was that was her fallback, it was clearly melting away her bad day as we sat quietly beside each other.

I let a few minutes pass before breaking the ice once more. "So that Thursday," I asked, "that...that was it then, right?"

She seemed to think about this for a moment before shaking her head. "Nah. I got home after walking TO school and then hitching a ride with Pheebs to get back... only to discover the door was locked and I didn't have the key."

"Your mom wasn't home?" How could somebody lock their own daughter out?

"Are you kidding? Miriam is always either passed out in a drunken stupor or God knows where drinking God knows what." She halted as if she'd said too much, but I knew what her family was like.

I'd always known.

And it had always made me a little sick and completely baffled.

What was it about Helga that her parents could not care for that much?
Helga was smart- fiercely smart. She never tried in school and always managed A's and at the lowest B's in every class. And Helga was talented in a way parents wish their kids could be. She'd won publications for her poems and short stories in magazines plenty of times, but I only knew this because of Phoebe... Helga didn't talk about it that much.

Helga didn't talk about a lot of things.

So why was she talking with me about them now?

What had I done to get my chance at talking with the real Helga G. Pataki?

"So you were locked out," I continued in an effort to learn as much as I could before Helga shut me out again. "Don't you have your own key?"

She glared up at the sky that was now rumbling with the threat of thunder as sprinkles still fell from the clouds. "Bob took it."

"Why?" I asked, dumbfounded. "I'd think you should be able to have one if you live there."

"Try telling HIM that," she retorted with an acidic tone I imagine was meant more for her father than me.

"Why did he take it?"

As if a switch had been flipped, Helga turned to glare at me while spitting her words at me. "You know, what's with the 411, huh?" She snapped suddenly, making me sit up rigid as she yelled. "Like YOU and your stupid weird-shaped head need to know ANYTHING about my life- you don't KNOW me and- and..." Her eyes softened for a moment and she turned away from me; small rain drops peppering our skin and clothes where we sat.

"You don't have to tell me anything, Helga." I said before sighing and turning to look out at the street as the rain began to pick up.

"But...I-I DO."

"Why do you think that?" I asked and she thought about this before finally turning back to me; her eyes averting from mine.

"Because...because you were having this really bad day and-and I didn't make it any better for you." She was wringing her hands in one another in a nervous gesture I'd never seen her make before. "I, I know I come off a little... ROUGH, but..." She furrowed her brow in deep concentration as she forced the words out of her mouth.

"The truth is, Arnold, I uh... I really don't TRY to be a grade-A bully I just," she sighed in defeat and shook her head- a sign of her giving up on the words she'd been trying to say.

Helga was so strong and so... intimidating most of the time that to see her uneasy was a rare thing to witness and as she continued wringing her hands together, I knew what I needed to do to help- even if it would end up with her yelling at me to buzz off like she had so many times before.

I boldly reached out and set my hand softly on her knee. "It's okay, Helga. I shouldn't have blown up like I did- it isn't like any of today was your fault."

She stared at my hand on her knee as the rain continued down on us softly; Helga's eyes soon flickering up to meet mine.

There was something in her eyes that I wasn't all that familiar with. It was a sort of gentleness that seemed to wash away the discomfort I had previously felt. All of the frustration of the day melted away at her look- a look that told me it was okay, that she'd had worse days- worse than I could even imagine -and they were nothing in comparison to a silly assignment.

Because that's all it really was- a silly assignment. I might not ace it and Helga might not ace it but at the end of the day- it was just a worksheet for a class we'd soon forget about in a few months. But what we wouldn't forget was all the crazy things that had happened today- the mishaps that made the day memorable. It was those mishaps, like so many others before in our lives, that had somehow brought us closer in a way I couldn't even explain let alone understand. As frustrated as Helga made me and as insensitive as she appeared to be, Helga had always been the one to come after me and try to make the mishaps... not so miserable.

It was in that look in her eyes that I knew today wouldn't be just some horrible day full of predictions and things going utterly wrong.

Today, I decided as I made my final Murphy's Law prediction silently in my head, would be memorable.

Memorable like the biosphere had been back in fourth grade.

Memorable like the egg we were supposed to care for and only lost in the process- the both of us learning more about each other than two kids could have ever guessed.

Today, I decided, would be memorable for Murphy's Law or not as I leaned in and kissed Helga in the rain where we sat on my stoop all these years later after the worst day I'd ever had.

I pulled back from her only to see her blue eyes wider than saucers as she looked at me.

"Y-you...you...WHY?" She demanded, though it wasn't the answer I had been expecting.

Again.

It seemed Helga was losing that predictability I had always thought she had, because I hadn't been right about a single prediction when it came to any of her reactions these days.

She was my own Murphy's Law.

And somehow, that only encouraged the feelings coming out of the woodwork as I looked back at her with a smile.

I shrugged my shoulders and smirked. "Anything that can happen, will happen."

She pursed her lips for a moment before huffing and crossing her arms. "Anything that can go WRONG, ya maroon."

But that look in her eyes told me she didn't think my kiss was all that wrong and, I had to admit, it didn't feel all that wrong to me either.

The drizzle of rain let up to a soft sprinkle- our clothes only slightly damp from the almost-rainstorm.

"Whatever you say, Helga," I said as a light blush began to fill in her pale cheeks. "Whatever you say."