No long author's note this time, since this was published with the Prologue.
Let's just get into it.
Part One: Getting Better
Chapter One: Rage
Six Months Ago, Mid-September 1996...
Life sucks.
That's what Helga thought as she poured what little Lucky Charms remained in the box into the bowl. Miriam was supposed to go shopping yesterday but had been 'indisposed.' The way her mom was already sprawled out drooling on the couch, it likely wasn't getting done today either.
Bob had already rushed out of the house and drove off into the pouring rain, not stopping to either wish them a good morning or tell them goodbye. Rather he had shouted that he had to get in to the Beeper Emporium early so he could start putting in orders to restock after his Cheese Festival special sale.
Helga groaned. Damn Cheese Festival. If I eat cheese anytime in the next month, it will be too soon.
She took her bowl and sat in the living room recliner. Grabbing the remote and giving no heed to potentially waking her snoozing mother, she flipped on the TV. Criminy, how can you be so drunk already? Not in the mood for cartoons or other entertainment, she flipped to the morning news.
As she heard all about the horrible things happening in the world today, she shoved the too few spoonsful of cereal in her mouth. She knew it wasn't enough to fill her up and was about to get up to look for something else when a news segment caught her attention.
"And on the brighter side, the most recent Cheese Festival was, by all accounts, a great success for the city, bringing in tens of thousands of visitors and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it was a great success for love as well."
"That's right, Andy. Every year many people, both singles and couples, flock to the Cheese Festival to either find or celebrate love, and this year was no different."
"The tunnel of love is particularly popular among the kids of Hillwood, isn't it, Samantha?"
"Very much so, Andy. In fact, my boyfriend and I once rode it when we were younger. And when we rode the festival's Ferris wheel this year, he gave me this." The female anchor held up her hand, showing off a sparkling diamond ring. "I hope other couples are as lucky as we are."
"Congratulations, Samantha."
"Thanks, An-"
Helga snarled as she turned off their mindless banter, having almost chucked her bowl at the television screen. Damn them. She was about to go rummage around for more food when she saw the time. Ugh, school. She'd have to wait and eat whatever slop the school cafeteria dared to call lunch. Probably better than whatever Miriam would fling together if she was awake.
Getting ready, she was about to go out when she turned around at the door. "Mom? ...Mom? ...MOM?"
A snore greeted her. No goodbye. No have a nice day. No 'I love you's. So why should she say anything kind in return. "Thanks for nothing!" She yelled out, briefly waking Miriam, who looked about in a haze before slipping back into unconsciousness.
She swore again as she opened the door and saw just how bad the rain was. It was pouring out there! Why couldn't it have rained during that blasted festival. Then I could have just enjoyed my weekend brooding at home.
After slamming the door, she stomped through the cold rain to the bus stop. Waiting in the dreary weather only made her mood sour more and more, and by the time the bus pulled up she was properly pissed off. Huffing as she got onto the bus, she searched for a seat.
As she moved down the aisle various kids blocked the empty seats next to them with their backpacks, not wanting to have the class bully sitting next to them. Like I want to sit next to these losers anyway. Finding a pair of empty seats, she sat down and peered out the window at the ugly, wet city.
Why do I have to spend another day among these idiots, my unattainable muse, and that redheaded twit!? I hate them all...
She pulled a CD player out of her backpack. At least being the daughter of Robert Pataki had one benefit: she had access to a good number of technological toys to mess with. She'd trade it for a dad that gave a damn, though. Flipping the music on she thought how fitting the band name was: Yeah, I feel like smashing things, alright.
In spite of the distraction provided by the music, her mind drifted back to this weekend. All her efforts, her attempts to ruin Arnold's not-a-date-but-totally-a-date with Lila had failed. While the ginger witch had insisted that she only platonically liked Helga's beloved, not 'liked him liked him', who knew how long that would last.
She may never reciprocate, but what if that doesn't matter? What if his view of 'Ms. Perfect' blinds him to anyone else? Ms. Perfect... Bah! Helga would have to do some spying on both her beloved and her abhorred, find out if their feelings about each other were changing.
Her ruminations were interrupted by her feeling the seat next to her shift. It could only be one person, one brave soul: her best friend, her only friend Phoebe Heyerdahl, as who else would be brave enough to sit next to her?
Helga paid her no mind. Because in her view, despite being one of the very few she could lean on, rely on, even Phoebe had landed on her bad side. She hadn't expected Phoebe to waste her entire time at the Cheese Festival helping Helga's sabotage plot like she had on the equally disastrous Operation: Ruthless of last year, but she could have done... something. Stopped and checked in on her.
Ignoring her friend's meek greeting and subsequent attempts to get her attention, Helga's focus turned back to her music... until she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"What the hell do you want?!" Helga snapped as she swatted the other girl's hand away and removed her headphones.
Phoebe shrunk back at the harsh tone and angry countenance of her friend. Helga could be often bossy and rude with her, but she rarely got outright angry at her friend.
"I-I just wanted to see how your weekend went," Phoebe squeaked out. She knew exactly how Helga had planned to spend her day at the Cheese Festival. She also knew that it likely hadn't gone well.
"It was awful, thanks for asking!" Helga glowered. Despite her anger her tone was kept low so no one besides Phoebe could hear her over the din of the bus's other occupants. "You could have at least taken a few minutes away from your precious Geraldo to see how I was doing! But apparently I'm not important enough to you!"
Phoebe winced. She knew she should have checked in. But the Cheese Festival was one of the very few times that Phoebe's parents allowed her to have an official date with her not-yet-official boyfriend. "B-but Helga, what if Gerald got suspicious?"
"The boy's an idiot! You could have come up with any old excuse to get away from him! 'I'm going to the restroom!' Any crap would do."
Phoebe's guilt was replaced by irritation of her own. "He is not an idiot. He is actually quite astute," She hissed as the bus stopped to pick up someone else.
"Fine. He's just a jerk. I don't see what you see in him." Helga didn't understand this attitude. No matter how much crap Helga hurled at Phoebe she stayed meek and obedient. Start insulting her beau, though? Instant lip.
"You just don't like him because he repudiates you for mistreating Arnold. You would get along with him fine if you weren't such a jerk towards his best friend. No one wants to be around you when you act like you do!"
"I have to act like this! I thought you, of all people, understood!"
Phoebe's mood softened, a sad pitying look replacing her angry look. "I do, Helga. But this can't keep up. I know things are hard, but you have to change."
Helga hated being pitied. She got this spiel about needing to change from too many others. Wartz. Simmons. Arnold. She thought Phoebe knew better. Apparently not.
"Discussion over! Don't talk to me!" She snarled, and as she turned her head to look back out the window, she spotted the bus's most recent boarder: Arnold.
Normally the sight of him would help to melt away some of her anger. Normally... but today? She felt her fury burn hotter and hotter. She mentally directed all that hate at him, before returning to glaring at the buildings outside the window, trying to drown everything out with her music.
Phoebe had very rarely heard her friend unleash such bile, and almost never had she lashed out at her like that. Helga, why? I just want you to be better. Why? She had to hold back tears as she looked down at her hands, folded in her lap.
The weekend had been... just okay.
Arnold sighed as he waited in the rain for the bus. He and Lila had spent several hours together at the Cheese Festival. If he had been told that would happen a week ago, he would have jumped for joy. A date with his crush! Yes!
Except it wasn't really a date, because she still thought of him the same way she had before: as just a friend. And beyond that... things had gone disastrously wrong. Someone (he thinks it was Helga) repeatedly slammed into them in the bumper cars. He spectacularly failed to win her a prize. She got sick on one of the rides. And the nadir was their swan boat derailing, dumping them both in the water of the tunnel of love. Oh, and Lila couldn't swim.
After having 'saved' her (not that the water was actually all that deep), she thanked him, and told him that, while his heroism hadn't changed anything yet, there was hope that it might in the future. He just had to wait and see.
But Arnold was starting to get tired of waiting.
Maybe Lila isn't the one. She just doesn't like you. Move on like you did from Ruth MacDougal. Arnold shook his head at the thoughts. Lila didn't dislike him, and she hadn't told him to leave her alone, she just didn't like him that way yet. And she was nothing like Ruth. Ruth was just a pretty face with no depth underneath the smile. Lila is different. She's smart, pretty, and kind...Who could be better?
"Someone who actually likes me..." He lamented.
Arnold's train of thought was derailed by the arrival of the bus. He swiftly bounded up the steps to get out of the cold rain showering upon his raincoat and umbrella.
As his gaze swept across the seats, he locked eyes with Helga Pataki, his tormentor for as long as he could remember. And she shot him the most venomous look he had ever seen.
Arnold shuddered. She was always saying how much she hated him, and she made every attempt to prove it with her actions. In spite of that, Arnold had believed that there was good in Helga. He thought she didn't really hate him or anyone else (besides maybe her parents and sister – Arnold had seen and heard enough to know Helga's homelife wasn't very good), and that she would eventually come around and grow into the good person he knew she was.
That look though. That look was making him doubt. He knew no other way to describe that look than that of a person full of hatred and anger. Anger at the world, and hatred of him.
Sitting down at an empty spot, Arnold looked out the window and groaned. I wonder how many spitballs I'm going to have to clean out of my hair by the end of the day.
The weekend had been okay... but this week was almost certainly going to be a long one.
Ugh, why do I have to eat this slop, thought Rhonda Wellington Lloyd as she sat down to eat lunch, grimacing at the gunk that the lunch lady had the gall to call food. I bet they serve real food at private schools.
She had never understood why her parents, who could easily pay for her to go to any number of prestigious private schools, including the best of the best, chose to send her to a literally nameless public school in the middle of noisy, ugly Hillwood.
That said, despite the likely stain on her academic history that was her attending P.S. 118, there were a few benefits to going to the school, two of which were currently taking their seats at the table with her: her best friend Nadine Robinson, and their somewhat new friend Lila Sawyer.
"So, girls, how was the Cheese Festival? I myself had a good time, although I definitely need to find a better date than Harold next year. He's so, so... unfashionable, not to mention uncultured. Nadine?"
Nadine rolled her eyes. Rhonda was for some reason concerned with using the annual Cheese Festival to practice going on dates, believing that when they got to middle school going on public dates with the right guys would help boost their popularity. Maybe she was right... but Nadine still didn't care.
She gave the truthful answer, one that Rhonda wasn't going to like. "My parents took me on Sunday, when things were quieting down. It was fine... I guess. I found some neat specimens."
Rhonda dramatically shook her head. "Oh Nadine, Nadine, no! Everyone who is anyone goes on Saturday, and they go with a date. Why don't you ask someone like Peapod Kid or Park?"
Nadine groaned. "Because I'm nine, Rhonda! I don't care about going on dates. I want to go to the park and find bugs. The very idea of public dates is stupid. I'm not even sure I want to go on dates once I am old enough to date! Plus, you know I don't feel comfortable trying to attract attention in public. I probably won't even want to be popular."
Rhonda was appalled. "Nadine, don't say that! No friend of mine is going to be unpopular! You can't allow yourself to be on the same level as Brainy or", she shuddered, "Curly! Some things are more important than disgusting creepy crawlies. What about all that sass you're always giving me? Where does all that confidence go when you're dealing with others, huh? If I have to put up with it, everyone else should have to as well!"
Lila giggled at the duo as they continued bickering. She still wasn't quite sure how the two became friends or what made their friendship work, but it could certainly be entertaining. Rhonda was always such a drama queen, making a big deal of everything and talking with her hands, while Nadine was in a near constant state of exasperation. She had no idea how their bond started, or how they kept it going, but keep going it did.
Her fun came to an end as Rhonda suddenly looked at her, a playful smile on her face. "Well, Lila, you haven't told us how you spent your day at the Cheese Festival. I seem to recall seeing you and a certain good Samaritan together. Guess you rightly decided he was a real catch after all?"
Lila smiled, even as she prepared herself to deny that she liked Arnold multiple times by the end of the day. Scratch that, by the end of the lunch period. "He and I spent a good chunk of the day there, yes, bu-"
"See, Nadine! Lila gets it!" Rhonda had interrupted by pointing at Lila while turning to her best friend. "She knew to get a popular boy to take her to the Festival! You should ask her for advice!"
Lila waved for her to stop. "No, no, Arnold asked me. In fact, I still don't like him that way. Although he was such a dear even when things started going wrong."
"Started going wrong? Why, what happened?" Rhonda asked.
Lila started to recount the events of her day out with Arnold, and as she did so Nadine noticed a certain pigtailed classmate of theirs sitting at the table closest to theirs, digging at her food but eating none of it. That's odd. Normally Helga and Phoebe sit at a table in the corner of the cafeteria.
Indeed, there was an unhappy-looking Phoebe sitting alone at her and Helga's usual table. Nadine had noticed that her bookish classmate had seemed distressed today. And that Phoebe's friend had been very grumpy. Well, more so than usual, anyway.
"...And then when we went on the swan rides, he ended up saving my life."
Nadine took Lila's dramatic pause to tap on Rhonda's shoulder. "What, Nadine?! Lila's story was just getting good!" Rhonda snapped, then mumbled under her breath "...If a bit far-fetched."
The insect collector informed her rich friend of the eavesdropper in their midst.
Rhonda scoffed. "Oh, let her listen in if she wants to." As she spoke again her voice rose a little in volume, making sure the girl listening in could hear her loud and clear. "Who cares if she listens? She's basically an animal! Did you see how many spit wads she shot into Arnold's hair during class earlier? If I was him, I would have done my best to get her detention years ago. Heck, I would have tried to get her suspended if not expelled. And I would say 'good riddance to bad rubbish!'"
She turned to look at the unibrowed girl, who had turned around and was glowering at her. "In fact, I wasn't surprised that I didn't see her at the Festival. After all, who would want to go on a date with a girl as mean, nasty, and poorly dressed as her? I bet she'll be alone forever."
Helga mouthed the words 'I hate you' before turning back around to continue stabbing her food with her fork. Rhonda smiled at getting a reaction from the girl, although she had hoped for something more explosive, something that would preferably land Pataki in Principal Wartz's office.
"So, what's this nonsense about Arnold 'saving your life'?" Rhonda prompted the country girl to continue her unlikely story. Arnold's a great guy, but a lifesaver? Please.
Lila recounted the terror of the swan boat derailing, and Arnold daring rescue of her from the water. "...I'll admit I wasn't actually in all that much danger, but it was still ever so heroic."
While Nadine was feeling justified in her choice not to take a date to the Cheese Festival (and thus avoiding the apparently treacherous Tunnel of Love ride), Rhonda was gaping at Lila. "And you still don't like him more than a friend?! He's brave, kind, gentlemanly, smart, and everyone likes him. If you were dating him it would probably make you one of the most popular girls in our grade!"
As Lila shrugged, Rhonda's eyes widened, and a smirk came to her face. "Well, if you're not interested in him, maybe I should ask him out. Sure, he's lower middle-class (and that's stretching it), and his fashion sense is only okay, but he would treat a girl right, help me with whatever problems I have (not that he doesn't already), and he would send my already high popularity skyrocketing. Heck, if I needed to, I could just buy him a new set of outfits."
Nadine groaned. Great, just what I needed. My best friend is going to obsess over a boy who doesn't even like her romantically, and I just know she is going to drag me into helping her.
Meanwhile, Rhonda was already plotting. "Now, Lila, we have to give him some time to get over you, so stop leading him on."
The normally pleasant girl sent her rich friend a frown. "I-I'm not trying to lead him on! I've told him as much." She wasn't. She really wasn't. Why would I lead on a boy I didn't like... A boy who had rejected me and then did a damn one-eighty the next day... Her smile returned. "I will start being firmer in my rejections, though, for all our sakes."
"Good. Then I'll have to start working my, uh, 'feminine whylies'-"
Nadine snorted at the butchering of the word. "Wiles, Rhonda, wiles."
"Hush, Nadine. Anyway, I'll work my feminine wiles on Arnold and slowly make him realize that I'm the most beautiful and attractive girl around, and... blah blah, blah blah blah, blah."
Nadine started to tune Rhonda out, an ability she had developed around the end of second grade. A very essential ability to the survival of her friendship with Rhonda Wellington Lloyd. Then, a little thought struck her. Her eyes drifted over to the table where Helga had sat, only to find it was now empty. Ugh, poor Arnold. To be caught in the middle of all this.
She sighed. At least it had stopped raining (for now). Maybe she would be able to find some interesting specimens out there on the wet blacktop.
Outside, back up against the cafeteria dumpster, Helga sat, scrunched up in a ball. Knees up to her chest, arms crossed over her knees, head resting against her arms. Trying to keep her anger contained. Trying to burn it out.
Curse them. Curse them all. Curse Arnold... Curse Lila... Curse Rhonda!
It wasn't her first time coming out here. Hiding out here. She tended to hide for various reasons. Sometimes it was because she had neither a lunch from home nor the money for school food, so it helped to get away from all the sights and scents that made her stomach growl. Other times she came out here so she could mope where no one could see her. She couldn't risk her reputation to appear weak.
Right now, she had the opposite problem of appearing weak. Right now, she just needed to get away before she did something stupid. Get away from all the stupid people who were just asking for a tongue lashing, or maybe even a 'conversation' with Ol' Betsy and the Five Avengers. Since that would land her in a meeting with Wartz and then either a week or more of detention or suspension, that led to her out hiding out here. She couldn't risk being shackled to one of the two places she hated most for more than she had to be.
It was a good spot. Not good feeling: the rough, wet blacktop hurt her ass, and the dumpster smelled something fierce due to all the rotting scraps of food. But it worked keeping her away from others. It was on the very side of the playground away from where most of the kids congregated. And the whole 'smells like death' thing. Plus who would want to come looking for her?
Not her classmates. They saw her as a mean bully. As they should. Not Arnold. He's probably too busy with Gerald or Lila or Rhonda. And, at least this time, not Phoebe. Not after the bus ride. At least she better not. Traitor. Backstabber. Brutus.
How dare she? How dare she!? Her loyal buddy, who was supposed to be on her side, had proved that. Phoebe knew the topics she wasn't supposed to touch. Telling her friend she needed to change her behavior was one of them. And the pity! Phoebe knew she couldn't stand being pitied. Was that all she was to her friend? Someone to pity and make her feel better about herself?
I truly have no one. And, as she thought about it, she really didn't. Her family were too busy being a drunk, a blowhard, and a neurotic mess. Her classmates were either scared of her or dumb creeps like Brainy or Curly. Her beloved was preoccupied with every girl but her.
She thought she had found someone she could trust, someone she could talk to in the psychologist assigned to her by the school. Every one of the several visits she had with Dr. Bliss had involved her spilling her guts to the shrink and the woman listening intently and offering guidance and comfort.
But... well, Dr. Bliss did seem to be someone who genuinely cared, especially during the sessions, but every time Helga got home she started thinking: what if she actually didn't? She was just doing her job, after all, trying to prevent a trouble child from becoming an even bigger problem.
All that genuineness? Her being the perfect confidant who seemed to understand Helga without judgment? Well, that was her job, wasn't it? That was what she had trained to do with her life.
You couldn't trust any adults, her family had taught her that much, so Helga had realized that the woman probably thought of her as a little monster just as everyone else did. Hell, despite all claims of confidentially, the woman was probably going to write one whopper of a book based on Helga's confessions. It's what she would do.
No one really understood. No one really cared. Only Arnold did, but he is too distracted by red-haired harlots and the petty problems of various idiots like Rhondaloid and Harold.
Helga felt a raindrop fall on her head. And then another. ...And then a few more. And then the downpour started. Sure enough, it was starting to rain again. Fan-freaking-tastic, even the weather is against me.
As she started to get soaked... again... she stood up and started to trudge towards the school. Sure enough, she could hear a teacher calling them inside to spend the rest of recess in the classroom. Great. Just great. I want to be alone and I have to be stuck in a- her brooding was interrupted when her foot slipped on a good size pebble.
As her foot flew back she flailed her arms to regain balance only to fall forward, her hands ceasing flapping to shoot forward to try to minimize damage.
She yelped as her palms and one knee hit the hard, rough pavement. The immediate pain of the impact was soon replaced by the sore stinging of scrapped palms and a knee. Dammit.
She looked up, and saw no concern, no one coming to help her up, no one that cared at all. Where's my knight in shining armor? Where's the one to help me up? Where are you, Arnold? Huh!? Am I not good enough!?
Helga limped up to the door, taking her time even with the rain soaking her. Everyone else had already gone in, leaving her behind like she didn't matter at all. It's not fair! Some country bimbo falls into waist deep water and Arnold dives in to save her like she's in serious trouble. Meanwhile I nearly crack my head open and there's no one who cares. Absolutely no one. Like Lila was even in any real danger.
Starting up the stairs, her face twisted into a snarl. And what if she was? If something happened to her, it would be just one less problem to deal-
At that thought Helga's eyes shot open wide, her hand freezing on the door handle. H-how could I think that?! I didn't mean it! No, no, nononono...
But she knew she had meant it. No matter how much she tried to deny it, one thing was clear.
"Oh my god... I am a monster."
Alright, I hope you enjoyed that chapter. Before we wrap things up for the night, I have one last thing to introduce: Editorials. I'll use these to briefly comment on Hey Arnold!, often in connection to my story.
Editorial: The Hey Arnold! timeline.
Hey Arnold!isn't like the The Simpsons, in that you can actually sort of make a coherent timeline that makes sense.The Simpsons has way too many episodes and way too much incoherence to make any sort of timeline work. Meanwhile, with Hey Arnold! the only problem is that the series would have to be set across two years instead of one. We get two separate Cheese Festival episodes, "Operation: Ruthless" and "Love and Cheese", which would have to take place a year apart, and we have a Valentine's Day special with Miss Slovak and a Thanksgiving special with Mr. Simmons.
So in my story, the first two seasons happened the year before this fic. Sure, that would make them eight-years-old and in third grade when even the earliest episodes have them explicitly as nine-year-olds in fourth grade, but it is what it is. I am trying to avoid bringing too much attention to it, in contrast to the original version where I think I brought up them being in third grade during the events of some episodes.
Second, I'm taking advantage of the show being episodic to slot the episodes in whatever order fits the story best. That's how Helga has already started seeing Dr. Bliss before the Cheese Festival happens, when in production order "Love and Cheese" came before "Helga on the Couch."
There is precedent with the show. Despite being paired together, "Heat" and "Snow" can not happen one after the other, considering they take place in polar opposite seasons. The only episodes I am keeping in place are The Movie, "April Fool's Day", and "The Journal" being at the end of Fourth Grade, and The Jungle Movie will still be the Summer after Fifth Grade.
Before I go, I just want to ask that if you enjoyed this story and have the time, please leave a review. Tell me what you think of the story. Tell me what you think of my handling of the characters. Let me know if there is anything I'm doing well or that I can improve on (just don't be a dick about it).
Next: Guilt