Chapter 55

Best-Laid Plans

Johanssen household

-GERALD-

"Are you crazy? There is no way on God's green Earth I am letting you go down to San Lorenzo!"

"Pop, it's really not a big deal. We can get a really good group rate. I can save up the money from my after-school job…"

"It's not about the money. It's about a bunch of teenagers running around a foreign country with no adult supervision. Especially that country. Remember what happened the last time?"

"Oh, come on… what are the odds of something like that happening again?"

"Not low enough that I feel like taking any chances. Sorry, son, but this is for your own good."

From the couch, Mom and Timberly eyed me, the former with sympathy, the latter with a smirk. "I dunno what you're smiling about, Tim. This is you in three years."

"But it's not me now," she replied smugly.

"Timberly, that's a foul," Mom scolded. "Ten minute penalty."

"Moooom," Timberly whined back, "I'm too old for time-outs!"

"Then act like it," she advised. She turned back toward me. "Honey, you have to understand that you're just not ready to travel on your own yet."

"I won't be on my own," I insisted. "I'll be with my friends.

"That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence," Pop replied cynically.

"What? They're pretty responsible… mostly. Like, a third of the group are superheroes."

"They're still kids, and I bet that right now, they're having the same conversation with their parents, and it's probably going just as well for them as it is for you. No sane parent would let them go. Especially nowadays. You heard about those three girls that went missing in LA? Same age as Timberly, even. It's crazy." He shook his head sadly. "What's this world coming to?"

I huffed. Pop was bluffing. I knew for a fact that none of their parents were as strict as mine. "You're wrong," I said. "I'm probably going to be the only one who isn't going."

"…wait…. Let me get this straight. None of you are going?"

"Perhaps I overestimated our parental figures' level of permissiveness," Phoebe admitted. "The truth is, none of them were very germane to our traveling abroad on our own.

"Serously? Rhonda, didn't your folks let you go to Paris the summer before last?"

"Yeah, and I wound up getting possessed by a demon butterfly and going on a rampage, so they're a tad skittish about me traveling on my own anytime soon," Rhonda replied, sighing. "And then there's those kids in LA…"

"Yeah… Pop mentioned that. But that kinda stuff's been going on forever."

"Do you blame them, though? Those girls were even younger than we were. Everyone's parents are gonna be full-blown overprotective, mine included. They'll probably drag me along to Hawaii this year."

"Oh no, how horrible for you," Helga sarcastically commiserated.

"Reckon it was a long shot to begin with" Stinky replied.

"Especially with what happened the last time," Sid added.

"Frankly I was a bit concerned over the carbon footprint an extended trip would involve," Sheena commented.

"And I'm not allowed to leave the country. Long story," added Curly.

"Well," I said. "That's it then. Unless anyone has a plan…"

All eyes turned to Helga. "What?" she asked. "Why is everyone looking at me?"

"You do tend to take the lead more often than not," Phoebe explained.

"Well, forget it, I have nothing. We need a chaperone, and our best bet has a newborn baby to deal with."

"What'd I tell you?" Helga stated. "There was no way this was going to work out. The beach is one thing, but another country, no way."

"You don't seem particularly upset," Gerald noted.

"Well, duh, that's because I always look upset, so you just can't tell. Of course I'm upset. You think I like being denied the opportunity to see my boyfriend?"

"Wait, Helga and Arnold are back together again?" Sid asked.

Rhonda rolled her eyes. "Yes, since New Years', get with the times, Sid."

Well, that was it, I guess. No big Spring Break trip this year. We were gonna be stuck here, in boring old Hillwood.

-HELGA-

How far I've come, huh? I just actually admitted my emotions out loud in front of a crowd freely. Has the world gone topsy-turvy?

It's true. I knew, in the back of my head, that there was no way the trip was actually going to happen, but I hoped it would, and hell, Phoebe's positivity about the whole thing almost had me convinced; after all, she was the kind of person who made stuff happen. Except… some things are pretty much screwed from the beginning no matter how much you hoped. I doubt our parents would've let us go even if three girls in LA hadn't mysteriously vanished without a single trace. That was the convenient excuse, but they would've found another reason.

Of course I still Skyped him practically every night, so it's not like I was going to forget his face anytime soon, but you really couldn't top IRL – oh god, did I just use IRL unironically? Shoot me now. Please.

Anyway. In the few weeks since Arnold went back to San Lorenzo, I really have been starting to feel like myself. With one exception; for the life of me, I can not write a decent love poem. And I think know why; all this time, I thought it was Arnold that was my muse. But that wasn't quite it. The truth is, it was never him. Well, not him specifically. It was the one thing that colored all of my time with him. It was my angst over him. The yearning, the uncertainty, the self-loathing, the obsession, all of it bled out onto the page when I thought of him. Even when we were together, all those jumbled emotions still warred in my hearts. And then, I forced myself to let him go, tried to let another in, and realized that I never could.

And in that realization, the angst just.. dissolved. Oh, my emotions are still a mess… I'm a teenager, after all… but I have never been more certain about my feelings.

And the certainty is nice and all, but it kind of makes for lackluster poetry. It's a good thig I've found more than enough other creative outlets then, isn't it? Like drama club. The group I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into has turned out to be great for me. My production of A Christmas Carol got rave reviews (in the Hillwood Shopper Online, but a newspaper's a newspaper), and I was already at work on a followup, a mystery titled "Cecile Hart and the Swiss Chalet Murders". This was my first original dramatic work since my fourth grade magus opus "The Four Food Groups" and I was going to dazzle my audience. I only hoped my ambition didn't outstrip the realities of putting on a production. Especially since I wanted to work in some kind of audience participation.

So, yeah, things were pretty stable in Helga Land at the moment, even, dare I say it, positive? But yeah, losing out on the trip was a pretty big blow. Finding a chaperone was our only hope, and even then, who would do it? As I mentioned, Olga just had a baby a few months ago; Jamie O had a new job he was settling in at and didn't have the liberty to just take off down south, even if his relationship with Gerald wasn't frosty, which it generally was. One of the boarders? Most of the gang's parents barely knew them, and none of them really had the freedom to take off a week either, except maybe Oskar… and did you really want that guy in charge? Phil and Pookie were an option, but even they were slowing down a bit these days… and Pookie was technically a wanted woman in San Lorenzo. Apparently she got up to some stuff the last time she was down there.

So, yeah. It was best we put the thought of that behind us. It was very unlikely that some miracle would occur that would change everything.

Meanwhile… somewhere in upper South America…

In a dive bar like any other, the usual roughnecks were up to the usual roughnecking. Drinking, fighting, hitting on the pretty barmaid… pretty much business as usual.

Into this scene walked a man in his early 20's. He had the look of someone who had been forced to grow up far earlier than he should have. But that look wasn't particularly special around here, so nobody paid him any mind. Up until he walked up to the toughest-looking man in the place. The man stood about six-six and weighed close to 300, not one ounce of it fat, and had a shaved head (though the reast of his body more than made up for any hair missing on his scalp), a bushy beard, and at least three gold teeth, replacing those that had been knocked out in one fight or another. The locals knew him only as Pardo, the Grizzly.

"You are the one they call Pardo?*" the stranger asked.

"And who is asking?" the big man replied.

"You may call me La Sombra," the younger man responded.

Pardo laughed heartily, echoed by the other thugs in the establishment (the ones not in a drunken stupor). "La Sombra?" he sneered. "You? That's funny. You're a funny man. You should be on TV. Go to Hollywood. Get yourself a sitcom deal."

"You think I am a joke?" "La Sombra" asked.

"You're far too young to be La Sombra," another roughneck pointed out. "Besides, why would you even want anyone to think you were him? Everyone knows LaSombra died years ago, in San Lorenzo. After losing to a bunch of kids."

"Yes, I'm aware of that," the young man said. "I figure the name is up for grabs, so I'm taking it."

Pardo laughed again. "You are welcome to it, little man. So, what is it that you want from me?"

"Well… I've heard that you have something of a reputation. So I was wondering if you would like to work for me."

Pardo laughed even louder. "This guy! A regular comedian. I'm telling you, you are wasting good material here. At least try Acapulco!"

"I am not joking," the new La Sombra said. "I'm putting a new gang together, and I need muscle."

"You couldn't afford me, runt," the big man replied.

Before anyone could blink, the smaller man had the big brute in an inescapable headlock. The bars other patrons froze; no doubt together they could overwhelm the youngster, but they wanted to see how the situation would play out. Besides, it's not like Pardo was particularly popular around there.

Pardo himself was unsure what had just happened… one moment, he was reaching for the bottle of tequila, the next this tiny man had him restrained and no matter how much he tried, he found he could not move. "H-how is this possible?""

"Pressure points," La Sombra replied. "If you know what you're doing, you can immobilize a man twice your size. And I know what I'm doing. So… what is my name again?"

"L-la Sombra," Pardo replied nervously.

"Are you sure? I thought it was 'runt,'" remarked the smaller man sarcastically.

"I-I am sure." he affirmed. Satisfied, La Sombra released the burly bruiser.

"Good," La Sombra continued, satisfied. "The offer still stands."

"The offer for what?" Pardo asked. "You still haven't said anything about your plans."

"Oh, it's very simple. We raid a lost city for untold riches. And along the way, we take revenge on THEM."

He slammed down an old newspaper photo of what looked like three young children; a black boy with a ridiculously tall hairdo, a white girl with stiff blonde pigtails and a prominent unibrow, and a white boy with a head in the absurd shape of an American football. Pardo's English wasn't the best, but from what he could decipher, the caption read "Children foil plans of river pirates", or something of that nature.

"You want to get revenge on a bunch of children?" the big man asked.

"Those are no ordinary children," the younger one replied. "Those are the children that killed my father."

*Translated from Spanish

A.N.: DUN DUN DUN! Just a little preview for The Jungle Movie 2: La Sombra's Revenge! I won't be getting to it just yet, there's other things that need resolving, but the setup has to start somewhere.

…so, how about that season finale of Amphibia? It's turning into one of my favorite shows, and I couldn't help but throw in a reference or two in this chapter, and I've kind of got a plot bunny bouncing around my head for a one-shot crossover. So you might see that soon.

Jose: Yes, I think it would take something serious for Brandy to develop the self-awareness needed to change for the better.

Veganmama: True, I probably should have said "consciously racist," we all have our subconscious biases that shape us, and she's probably never reflected on that.

Next: probably back to my Big City Greens fic (check that out in the Misc. Cartoons section), and maybe the Hey Arnold/Amphibia crossover I mentioned; it won't be what you think! After that, hopefully I'll have some fresh inspiration for this story. See you next time!