Chapter 32

The Worst Day of School

-HELGA-

And, as inevitable as the tides and the phases of the moon, our summer freedom drew to a close. T'was the Monday after Labor Day, a day that had taken on a whole new meaning for my family in particular, as it marked the birth of one Christopher James Burke, AKA Olga's son, AKA my nephew. Leave it to my sister to choose a perfectly appropriate birth date.

Mom is now in full Grandma mode and has practically moved into Olga's house to help her ease into motherhood. Yes, I know, Miriam wasn't exactly a paragon of motherhood… at least not for me. I can only begin to guess, but I'm sure the story was a lot different when Olga was growing up. It is what it is, though. Whatever lingering resentment I had over my parents' favoritism had long since fadedto the occasional slight tinge. However, right now, I was on my own for the first day of incarceration (i. e., school).

Well, not entirely. Olga had read in some parenting book or other that pets could get difficult when a new baby was brought home, so at the moment, I had custody of Brynner. Thankfully, the cat was pretty low-maintenance. Keep him fed and watered and clean his litter box and he was pretty much set. Which was fine with me. The way the thing tended to just sit and stare at you sometimes really creeped me out. Or how he would hop up on counters and knock things over just to knock them over. The worst was his habit of waking me up at 6AM by climbing up on my face. He was lucky as hell that it takes me a while to come fully to my senses because surprised mutant could very well lead to incinerated cat if he wasn't careful.

Unfortunately, the one day I was counting on him to wake me up – today – he decides to shirk his duties. I slept through my alarm and woke up with about fifteen minutes to spare before I had to meet Phoebe and Gerald. I hurriedly shifted back to human, threw on my usual uniform of jeans, hoodie and sneakers, tied my hair back with my signature pink ribbon, and rushed to the kitchen to stuff handfuls of cereal directly out of the box into my face since that was pretty much all I had time for.

Brynner was perched on the counter, giving me a "why haven't you fed me yet" look.

"Don't you look at me like that. It's not my fault you picked this day to not jump on my face. You had one job, cat. One job."

"Meow," he replied, which I translated as "I don't care about your issues, weird human. Feed me. I know where your underwear is and I will shred it if you don't comply."

"I hate Mondays," I muttered, pouring him a bowl of the dry food Olga sent and a fresh bowl of water. Brynner stared at it distastefully as he always did, before grudgingly digging in, as if he was doing me a favor. "Hey, I didn't pick the stuff out. This s supposed to be specifically formulated for perfect kitty nutrition. That cat in the commercial was doing a whole cheerleader routine about how good the stuff is, and if it was good enough for a talking cartoon cat, it's good enough for you. Oh my god, I am a woman yelling at a cat. I've become a meme again, and it's not even a current one. This is what you've done to me."

Before the situation degenerated any further, I grabbed my backpack and sprinted for the bus stop. Phoebe and Gerald looked like they were just about to give up when I got there.

"Look who finally decided to show up," Gerald chided.

"Hey, it takes time to look this good." I replied.

"…so, like, two minutes," he joked.

"My furry alarm clock didn't work. Don't ask."

"So… you ready for the worst day of school?"

"No. Not biting, Gerald. You and Arnold did this whole stupid bit every year for the last eleven years and it's never once been funny."

"C'mon… it's tradition, and since he's not here…"

"Nope. Not happening."

"Don't you mean the first day of school?" Phoebe supplied helpfully.

"Oh, Phoebe, no, you're just enabling him…"

"That's what I said, the worst day of school!" Gerald responded, ignoring me.

"*sigh* I'm surrounded," I groaned. "You're better than this, Pheebs."

"He's my boyfriend, Helga, I can't leave him hanging like that."

"I can't help it if some people see the value of tradition," Gerald stated.

"Continuity can be rather… comforting," Phoebe added.

Yeah, yeah, I get it… Gerald misses him as much as I do, and as much as I see trying to keep up the routine as a hollow mockery that only emphasizes Arnold's absence, Gerald values it as something of a comfort. Don't need a Dr. Bliss session to see that. I guess I could cut him some slack… some. No a lot. If I get too nice, he'll hate it. "So, small hair boy, shall we compare schedules?"

Gerald unconsciously rubbed his hair – after losing out bet in sixth grade and having to shave his head, he never really had the heart to regrow his hair tower… not that it was a big loss; I don't have to be a style expert to know that the Kid n' Play look hadn't been in since the 90s – and replied "Uh-uh, you know the rule, we wait 'til everyone meets up at school."

"Ah, yes… rules and traditions are very important. You sure showed me what's what let me tell ya…"

"…mmm-hmm," Gerald responded skeptically, barely concealing an eye roll. I suppose I could have been a little less obvious…

South Hillwood High

"Everyone" was less than usual. Arnold, obviously, was gone, but so were Eugene and Harold, and Brainy, Park, Peapod Kid, and Lorenzo didn't even go here, so the crowd was reduced to me, Phoebe, Rhonda, Nadine, Gerald, Sid, Stinky, Rani, Sheena, Lila and Curly.

"All right," Gerald said, unsealing his schedule envelope, "let's see what the damage is…"

"Well, I already know I'm taking all AP courses," Phoebe interjected. "So, I'll probably be sharing English with Helga and Biology with Nadine and Rani."

One by one, we shared our schedules. Turns out in addition to English, I shared my History period (American Civ) with Gerald, Nadine and Stinky, my math period with Sid, Stinky, and Sheena, and Physics with Gerald, Rhonda, and Lila. PE was shared with pretty much everyone, so I'd at least see Phoebe there, and we did share first lunch. The rest of the schedules were more or less what everyone expected, except it turns out Princess had somehow qualified for AP math.

Since I hadn't bothered to specify an elective, they put me in… I shuddered… drama. I hadn't acted in anything since that episode of Babewatch forever ago, although Smmons bugged me to act every single year since apparently I was so good in his Romeo and Juliet back in fourth grade… oh well, maybe I'd be able to convince the teacher to let me transfer to something else.

"So, what elective are you taking…" Sheena asked, looking over my shoulder and not respecting my personal space. "Ooh, you're taking drama? I'M taking drama!"

"What a shock," I remarked with an eye roll.

"Oh, it's going to be so much fun! You'll just love the gang, and you already know so many of us!"

"Yes, this was something I totally chose and was in no way forced to take because all the electives bored me."

"Oh, c'mon, it'll be fine. You know, Mr, Simmons is going to be teaching this year…"

My eyebrow went up. "Granola boy? I thought he gave up teaching after San Lorenzo.. y'know, when he went all koo-koo."

"I guess the itch struck again. Maybe he got sick of being a desk jockey."

This was kind of a mixed bag… on the one hand, the guy thinks I'm the frickin' Meryl Streep of Hillwood; on the other, I at least know him, so maybe I can talk him into signing off on a transfer to… I dunno, shop? At least I'd get to handle a blowtorch. Sure, there was the chance of losing fingers, but mine at least grow back.

The gang split up to go to their first-period classes. Mine was history, but I had to make a stop at my locker first. Usually, Arnold would escort me, whether his locker was assigned nearby or not. I didn't miss it. Not at all. Not one bit. No sirree. Uh uh. Nope. Locker trips were supposed to be for drop-offs and pick-ups, not for romance. If I repeat this enough, I will convince myself.

I was in the process of dumping the books I didn't really need right at the moment when a pair of hands suddenly covered my eyes and a voice said "Guess who?" My hand immediately snapped back in the way that only that voice could make it, a reflex that was s ingrained that I had to actively force myself to stop mid-snap. Luckily, he managed to catch my wrist instinctively, although if I had put my full strength into it he'd be nursing a bloody nose right now.

"Criminy, Brainy," I scolded, swiveling around to face him, "you should know better than to sneak up on me like that by now!"

"It's okay, I took my glasses off just in case," he replied with a grin, putting them back on.

"So… it can learn," I joked. "So, uh… not that I'm not happy to see you, but what are you doing here? Last I checked, this isn't your school."

"That's what I was about to tell you… I decided to transfer here this year so we could see each other more. Isn't that great?"

"S-sure… it's great."

His face fell. "I knew it. I knew this was a step too far, but I went and did it anyway. I came on too strong, and I've pretty much derailed this before it even started."

"No!" I protested. "I… I just wasn't expecting this, is all. You know I don't do well with surprises. Your face certainly does, anyway. But… this is cool. We get to see each other on more than weekends." Okay, so I'm not entirely on board with this… like I said, I'm not big on surprises, and this was sprung on me with very little warning… but I owe it to both of us to make this thing work. To prove I can be with someone non-football-headed. "So, what's your schedule like? You missed the meet-up earlier. Do any of the others know you're going here?"

"Not yet. I couldn't risk anyone else spilling the beans. Anyway, I'm going to be taking advanced courses since I'm a year ahead… are you in any of those?"

"Just English," I replied. "But you'll be with Rhonda and Curly in math, Nadine and Rani in Bio, and Phoebe in… well, everything."

"That's kind of surprising… I always thought you were brilliant. You could've easily made it into any of the advanced classes."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing… you just got bonus boyfriend points for not bringing up how brilliant my sister was. But yeah… I guess I could have gone for advanced courses, but I never really saw the point of it. I already know what I want to do with my life, anything else is just overachieving. I figure I'll leave that to Olga."

"I do love a girl who knows what she wants out of life," Brainy opined, smiling. "Well, can I walk you to your first class?"

"Sure… I mean, if it's not too out of your way or anything. We're kinda on a tight schedule as is."

"Oh, it's no trouble. I have my French class just a few doors down from here. Allons-y?"

"Um… yeah. Allens Ee!" French was not my language. I'd made some attempts to learn it in an effort to impress Arnold, but I always wound up butchering the pronunciation horribly. And the last "Learn French the Easy Way" CD I bought was no help.

"Les pélicans ont rempli mon slip de crème anglaise." the voice on the CD calmly recited. "Pelicans have filled my underpants with custard! Oh ho ho ho ho!"

"What the…"

"J'aime danser nue sur le parking. I like to dance naked in the parking lot! Oh ho ho-" I quickly tapped "eject" on my CD player and chucked the disc in the trash.

"Last time I buy a French CD at the dollar store…"

The classroom was almost full by the time I made it. The last seat left was way closer to the front than I ever intended to sit, but beggars can't exactly be choosers. The teacher hadn't arrived yet, at least, so being late wouldn't be a problem.

About three minutes after the bell rang, the teacher finally arrived. Inwardly, I shuddered. Was EVERY teacher from PS118 teaching here now?

The dull-faced, balding, bespectacled man listlessly made his way to the front of the room and scrawled "AMERICAN HISTORY 301 – MR. FRANK" on the board. "Good morning," he said in a tone that expressed that he cared nothing about what time of day it was or its quality. "I'm Mr. Frank, and I will be your teacher this semester. Now, please turn to page 3 of your textbooks and read the first chapter. There'll be a quiz at the end of the period." With that, he plopped down in his chair and began checking his phone. So… this was the quality of instruction we could look forward to this semester. Not that it was much of a surprise… I'd had Mr. Frank for sixth grade and, if anything, he seemed even more enthusiastic than he'd been back then. For one thing, he was still in the room. And he'd said "please." Truly a red-letter day for the Frankman.

Well, best get to it. I opened up my book. Chapter 1 was the arrival of Columbus? Really? There was no other place to start the history of the Americas? I was hoping we'd at least go in a bit deeper than that. We're high school juniors, for cripes sake, not fifth graders. *sigh* Suck it up, Pataki, no need to make waves on your first day…

…damn it…

Slowly my hand went up. I half-expected Frank to just ignore it, but instead, he groaned, looked up grudgingly, and said "Yes? Can I help you?"

"I was just wondering… the books start in the fifteenth century. Does this mean we won't be covering the Native civilizations that were already in existence before the arrival of European explorers?"

He glared. "What's your name." he asked with the implication that he really didn't care much what the answer was.

"Helga Pataki," I replied. "Actually, you were my teacher back in sixth grade in PS118, so I thought you would remember me…"

"I've never taught sixth grade in my entire life," he replied. "You must be talking about my brother, Barry Frank. I'm Harry Frank."

"You're identical twins?"

"Don't be silly. We're two out of three triplets." There was another one of these guys?

"So your other brother's name is…"

"That's right. Sylvester. But we're getting sidetracked. You were telling me that you think the class needs to do a ten-page report on indigenous civilizations."

"Um, I don't think that's what I said at-"

"Because quite frankly, I really don't want to put in all that effort, and I doubt that the class does either, but if you think it's necessary… after all, you are the teacher here, aren't you? Oh, wait, no, that's me. Right?"

"Yes, sir," I replied. His game here was clear. Make an example of the first troublemaker so that he won't have any others. Pound down the nail that's sticking out. I know how his type works. Normally, I would take this sort of thing as a challenge, but it was the first day, and I really didn't want to get into it right now. But rest assured… this wasn't over. I don't back off… I retreat strategically.

A.N.: Well, we're back to school! Lots of stuff going on, and we'll be getting to the other characters' POVs, but Helga's basically the star of the series so I figured we'd start with her.

Jose: Actually, The Moths is the name of Luna and Sam's band in this series. I've never seen PJ Masks.

Veganmama: Lila learned from her late mom. While she's never had access to an instrument of her own, she's been able to get a chance to practice with instruments belonging to the school or her church or friends.

JayDogg: Glad to see you've caught up! To answer your comments: I wish I'd thought of that at the time; it was a Bob's Burgers reference more than anything; thanks, I know that anything not Shortaki is a hard sell, so I'm glad I could sell it; ah, I see you are a person of culture as well; maybe she can be Rhonda's partner, the PUN-isher; hell, Rhonda didn't even get to mention that her own dad is part-Asian, so Clayton's hopes were already dashed; you know what? I'm rolling with it!

Next: Rivalry