Based on Hey Arnold! characters created by Craig Bartlett. Author claims no copyright.
"I need to go potty!" Amber Shortman had woken up from a nap while in the back seat of the car, next to her brother Phil. Her wail got Arnold to pull over at the next rest stop. The Shortman family was on a summer vacation road trip, driving from Hillwood down to the resort town of Oregon Beach.
The rest stop was at the intersection of the interstate and coast route. Helga carried Amber out of her seat and walked her towards the bathroom. Then Amber started to wet her pants. "Get her a change of clothes, football head!," shrieked Helga as Arnold was already on it. Searching through their suitcase in the trunk he found her pint-size trousers and underwear they had packed then threw them to his wife.
As Helga took her daughter to the ladies' room to help get her changed Arnold and Phil did their business next door. "Take it easy on your sister," said Arnold. "you wouldn't like it if you wet your pants and got teased." "Ok dad," said Phil. Preaching sympathy was something Arnold was an expert at.
"Criminy! That bathroom stinks," Helga said as she and a cleaned-up Amber met the boys outside in front of the car.
With the trunk open Arnold had tossed Amber's urinated clothes to the side of their luggage.
"There's a washer and dryer at the pad," he reminded Helga. They had booked an AirBnB to share with Olga.
Arnold then strapped his daughter back into her seat. "I wanna go home, daddy," said Amber as she squirmed. "Just a little bit longer" he said. "You'll get to see the ocean again soon. Then you'll forget all about peeing. We're not driving for nothing." He kissed her on the cheek.
Prior to the nap and the pants-wetting incident Amber and Phil had engaged in a backseat pillow fight, which Helga had broken up by screeching, "cut it out, football heads!" From the front seat their mother got a game of I-spy going to diffuse tension.
When she was nine Helga had gone on an eventful road trip with her mother. Back then she had more fun than expected. Now on the first family road trip with her soulmate Arnold, their son, daughter and dog, her expectations were higher. But herding a greyhound, four-year-old and a seven-year-old was no easy task and she was feeling some emotional exhaustion.
With everyone back in the car with their seatbelts on, Arnold got back to driving. "it's all gonna be ok. Just relax for now," he told his wife. The kids returned to their backseat toys, coloring books and cartoons. Helga leaned her hand towards Arnold's shoulder to seek comfort.
Just as they approached the tunnel that spit out to the coast highway, Arnold turned the music from his phone on. "Holiday Road" by Lindsey Buckingham played as they rode down the coast.
After an hour or so with a few 'are we there yet?'s from the back seats, they arrived at Oregon Beach.
It was just after 7:00 PM. Arnold parked in the driveway of the house they had rented next to another car. Olga and had beat them there. But she had a shorter drive, coming from Oregon Coast University, where her son Donny was living for college.
As the Shortmans walked in, Olga was checking her phone and reading a book on the downstairs couch. "Hi guys!" she exclaimed and exchanged hugs. "Baby niece! I heard you had an accident on the way. But no worries, I should do some laundry anyways so I'll toss it in with my load."
"Thanks sis, how is Donny?" asked Helga. "Oh he's busy with a summer job at the campus library," Olga replied.
By the time Helga and Arnold set up camp with their luggage in one of the four rooms, and staked one of them out for the kids, pizzas that Olga had ordered came to the door.
A few minutes later the veggie, pepperoni and cheese varieties and Yahoo sodas were on the table up for grabs. Everyone took slices outside to the patio overlooking the beach. Olga's dog Sam had joined them. Mickey, the Shortmans' greyhound, had come along for the ride as well, but was sleeping on the couch.
"Donny is a good kid," said Arnold to Olga, while seated in one of four lounge chairs with Amber on his lap. "I'm sure you're glad he isn't too far away." "Definitely," Olga replied, "I went to Bennington partly because it was far away from mom and dad and all the pressure they put on me. I couldn't let that interfere with something as important as college. But with Donny and I that's irrelevant. I definitely don't see him as a wind-up doll like I was treated as."
"Did I ever tell you about the road trip mom and I went one once when you were in college? This trip has reminded of it," said Helga. "I don't think so," replied Olga. Helga recounted, "she went crazy at a karaoke bar and won a mechanical bull-riding contest. But of course you could do those things easily." "Maybe, but it would had to have been before I turned 40!," said Olga.
The next day they all strolled the boardwalk. The sun was out and the ocean glistening. There was an ice cream stand near the pier they stopped at.
After her signature shout of 'criminy', Helga vigorously wiped her daughter's mouth when sprinkles and soft serve dripped down Amber's lips.
"When your mom and I were kids," said Arnold while holding a chocolate and vanilla swirl cone, "there was this mean ice cream truck guy in the neighborhood. He cursed at customers, drove away from them, and when there was a heat wave he jacked up prices. Was the Jolly Olly Man around when you were young, Olga?"
"No I don't think so. Not that I can remember," Olga replied.
"Oh yeah. Rum raisin for 10 bucks. Give me a break. And that was before inflation was a really a thing. What happened to that jerk?," asked Helga.
"Gerald told me he got arrested for assaulting a customer and his business license got revoked," said Arnold. "I thought I got through to him when I got stuck with him for career day. But that guy has anger issues."
"Young Dr. Arnold!," exclaimed Olga.
"Oh you have no idea! But you know, that's why I fell for him," said Helga while blushing.
They walked down the pier to get in line for the ferris wheel. It took about 5-10 minutes before they got to a car and were seated.
As they were strapped in the ride carried them up to the top and back again gradually twice. At one point Olga pointed out a group of dolphins they could see in the water from above.
On the third trip up, the ferris wheel all of a sudden stopped. Their car was suspended in mid air.
"Why did it stop?," asked Phil. "I don't know but hopefully the ride isn't broken," said Arnold.
A few minutes past by and they had stayed put. The kids started to get scared. Phil didn't make much noise but held an uneasy gaze. Sitting on her mother's lap, Amber let out a shriek.
Helga felt a familiar sense of panic she got in perilous situations such as these. In their youth she, Arnold and a few of their friends were stuck underground in a busted subway train. It was a situation to the opposite effect of this ferris wheel malfunction, which was obviously above ground. That brought out dread in her. She was a little calmer this time, wanting to be strong for her kids, but nevertheless held on to her husband, son and daughter tight.
After nearly an hour they were rescued by firemen on a cherry picker from the fire truck that had parked on the pier.
"Great idea football head!" Helga said in a snarky manner. Arnold knew his wife would get over it and any time she talked to him like that was out of anxiety. But as it was his idea he accepted the blame on this one. "But how would he have known it would break down?," Olga pointed out. "I know, I know," Helga sighed. They all walked back to the house.
Attempting to put the horrific ferris wheel experience behind them, and to spend more time with the dogs, the next day they spent at the beach. Mickey and Sam were kept on a leash just to be safe. "Don't worry, Summer isn't here," Arnold said as he was seated in a lounge chair opposite Helga, pulling down his sunglasses and winking. When they had been at the same beach as kids, Arnold was seduced by a voluptuous blonde named Summer, who was using him to win a sand castle contest so that she could get on Babewatch. A jealous Helga proved to him what she had been up to all along.
"So you excited for another year of Ms. Pataki?", Arnold asked Olga, who was seated under an umbrella to the other side of Helga from him. A new school year would be underway for Olga in her job as a teacher at PS 118, shortly after this vacation. "Yeah I can't complain too much. Not sure if I'll last a quarter century like Mr. Simmons did but we'll see," said Olga as she was reading a magazine.
Arnold helped the kids build a sand castle, for which Helga snapped a photo of and sent it to Phoebe, Gerald and her in-laws. Then they took the dogs for a walk before calling it a day.
On the drive home, a wildfire had broken out near the highway. It was as if the Shortmans were escaping the apocalypse. Luckily it wasn't headed in their direction. But Helga still blurted out, "this isn't like that train that went to the steel mill that your grandpa pranked us by saying was haunted. This is real, climate change is doing this! More fires every summer!" Arnold was scared too but he kept on driving without a choice.
After expressing her fear, Helga saw a familiar face in the driver's seat of the car in the rear view mirror, behind them. It was Brainy. It was as if he was looking directly at her. She felt like punching the rear view mirror, but stopped herself.