Chapter Text
The weeks following the excursion to San Lorenzo — also called by the sixth graders of PS 118 ‘The Summer Arnold Almost Got Us Killed But He Did Find His Parents So I Guess It’s Okay’ — were so mundane that it was almost funny.
With summer camps and visits to Aspen or even a visit to grandparents out of town, most of the exhausted, jungle-bug-bitten tweens were distracted between the time the plane landed in the United States again and the first week of school.
Sitting on the wooden bridge in the park, legs dangling over the creek and holding a little pink book in her lap, Helga sat under the summer sun and tapped a purple pen against her pursed lips.
“Eyes that are green like — jungle leaves? Ugh, no, that’s horrible,” said Helga, scratching the words with a little flick of her wrist.The page before her was full of scratches and ‘x’s where she started writing and then finding the words dull. Dots of ink bled through the paper from the press of her pen.
“Since when is this so hard?” she asked aloud, head coming to rest against the railing before her.
A voice in her head that sounded a lot like Phoebe, piped up, ‘You’ve been ignoring a lot of important happenings. You’re trying to work without inspiration.’
Helga scoffed, but the little voice of reason wasn’t wrong. After that interaction at the Green Eyes’ temple, and the bit of handholding they did before they met back up with the rest of their classmates, Helga had kept her distance from Arnold and his parents. No sneaking around, no jumping rope outside the boarding house, no brunch with Gertie — nothing to get in the way of Arnold bonding with his parents.
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered, pulling herself up and brushing the dirt off her dress. “I’m Helga G. Pataki, I am better than — than writer’s block . If I need inspiration, I know where to go.”
O
When she’d appropriated the secluded corner of the shed where her surveillance system now lived, she didn’t think it was going to be as useful as it was. Sure, it was no better than her old shrine which had been dismantled — for the most part — on her return from San Lorenzo, but she found that this had been the better investment.
Dr. Bliss had been a little hesitant when she’d heard about the screening room, especially after sharing her pride hearing that the gum-head and ritualistic materials had been tossed out in small pieces.
“It’s completely legal,” Helga had said. “Scout’s Honor.”
She didn’t mention that an actual spy — thank you, Bridget — had entrusted her with the materials as part of her early training.
Still, the stack of pink books and pictures, the scrapbook full of fragmented pieces of their time together all of it had been brought in and hid along the wall of screens.
Bridget’s gift had come in handy when it came to finding footage of Arnold being, well, himself and now it was going to be helpful in finding the lost thread of Helga’s inspiration.
But as she saw Gertie and Stella through the window, sitting at the dining room table with a mug of something in their hands, smiling and talking and watching Arnold and Miles where they were in the backyard, Helga felt a tug in her stomach, an uncomfortable knot twisting right behind her belly button.
Arnold was beautiful, she thought as she turned her attention towards him and his father. It’s not that the thought had never occurred to her before, but there was something resplendent in the way he smiled, lighter than he’d been before.
But Helga couldn’t find the words to describe it. Every word she’d ever used, of his green eyes or the shine of his golden hair or the raw brightness of his existence wasn’t enough . How could she capture the beauty of the situation for herself, take it away from them when she wasn’t even privy to see this in person herself.
She reached for the cell phone resting on the table, the gift that Olga had slipped into her hand while ignoring Bob’s loud complaints.
“We’re not letting something like what happened in San Lorenzo happen again,” she had said, pressing the pink phone hard into Helga’s palm. “You’re not getting lost again. Not on my watch.”
It had been nice to see Olga argue with Bob. It had been even nicer when she realized she could now contact Phoebe whenever she needed her — even when she was in Kentucky for a family reunion.
Call me when you can.
With the text sent, she leant back and waited.
O
It was almost suppertime when the phone rang and Helga lunged to pick it up.
“Pheebs?”
“Hey, Helga. What’s wrong?”
She was quiet for a moment, biting at her lip before blurting out her plight, “I think I’ve lost my gift. I don’t think I can write anymore.”
From Kentucky, Phoebe’s gasp was as loud as if she had been in the same room, “Tell me why you think that.”
So Helga told her best friend everything: not liking the words that she’d been picking, not finding the rhythm, the light, the magic , and at the end silence met her along with the staticky buzz of the phone.
“Have you thought,” Phoebe’s voice was measured, as if she too were looking for the right words, “that maybe you need to see him in a different way now and that’s why you can’t find the words?”
“What do you mean?”
Phoebe again took a pause, then said, “You always saw Arnold as unreachable and now he’s — not. Maybe he’s more real to you now and that’s why your old words don’t fit. Maybe — maybe now you need to see him as the boy behind your fantasies.”
It was Helga’s turn to be quiet as she processed Phoebe’s observation. In her mind’s eye, there was Arnold as the passionate Don Juan sweeping her off her feet or of the dashing knight saving her from her dark corners. But maybe there was room for him to be just Arnold: soft smiled, meddling, kind of bratty at times and willing to put himself between a poacher and his friends.
Still heroic, but not larger than life.
“Helga?” Phoebe’s voice now sounded worried, “Is everything — did I —”
“Thanks Pheebs,” Helga said, a smile twitching her lips. “I think that helped.”
“Really?”
“Really. I think I know what to write now.”
She could almost hear the responding smile on the other end of the call, “Will you let me read what you write?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think I will.”
“Oh, good. Goodnight, Helga.”
“Night, Phoebe. And thanks.”
The blank page of her latest pink book greeted her when she hung up the phone, the purple pen resting on the empty white pages and now, when she picked up her pen, the words flowed from her heart with the new beginning the jungle had brought.