Chapter Text
Helga Geraldine Pataki was a brusque girl of sixteen with long blonde hair and heavy black eyebrows. She was prone to wearing pink tank tops under dark sweatshirts, and had, on occasion, been known to wear a silk ribbon in her hair and light pink eyeshadow. She had an affinity for fights at arcades and fluffy kittens, and her favorite pastime was watching bad reality TV (her current favorites were reruns of The Bachelorette and Hell's Kitchen ). Her fellow high schoolers from East Side High generally paid her little attention, so as she sat in the very back of school bus #12 on a stiff leather seat, few people paid her any heed. She stared out the window with her arms crossed, watching the shiny chrome buildings of East Hillwood turn into the old brick and graffiti covered buildings of the southwest side of town. Absently she listened to Teri and Lenny, her two friends who sat in the seat in front of her.
Lenny was currently saying, "I swear by the Jackie Robinson collectors edition card that I carry it's true.” He was a six-foot-five boy with knobby knees, shaggy brown hair that covered his eyes, and one foot that was two sizes bigger than the other. A worn red lanyard with a laminated baseball card hung around his neck.
"You're bullshittin' me, dude," replied Teri, and when he shook his head his baby cheeks jiggled. Teri was a hefty dark skinned boy with piercing eyes and a shaved head. He took up two-thirds of the bus seat, forcing Lenny against the window. That didn’t stop Lenny from crossing his ankle over his knee, his bigger foot bouncing in the air. They had shared a seat every since the seventh grade, as long as Helga had known them.
"There's no way they do that,” Teri continued.
"Y'see, that's what I said! Until Big Jimmy saw their soccer captain crawlin' around the sidelines, lookin' for 'em." Lenny wiggled his fingers like long, bony worms.
Teri narrowed his eyes at his friend before swiveling around to look at Helga. "Pataki, he's full of it. Tell me he's full of it."
Helga replied dryly, "You know it, Theresa."
Teri smacked Lenny upside the head with a wide hand. "Man, you have a problem. Why're you tryin' to convince me they eat maggots anyway? You're disgusting."
Lenny snickered. "You should'a seen your face, dude."
"Shaddup, stupid, before I make you eat bugs."
Lenny patted his stomach. "Gladly, my friend. A little bit of protein is just what a growing boy needs. Maybe on a sandwich with some avocado and fritos."
Teri made a face. "Nuh-uh, there's no way I'd let you ruin avocados like that."
"You vegetarian nut job."
Helga glanced at her two friends before shaking her head and sighing. At her sigh, the girl next to Helga asked, “Are you all right, Helga?”
Helga turned to the white haired, pink eyed girl beside her. Agatha was so thin she could practically slip between the cracks of the bus seat. She blinked her round eyes at Helga slowly.
"What, me? Yeah, I'm cool. Just...thinkin',” Helga said.
"Well, you've been a bit...twitchy lately. Are you worried about the new school?"
"Naaah, I'm not worried. Why should I be worried? We'll take their school by storm." Helga said with a haughty scoff. Agatha only stared back. "C'mon, Aggie, quit it. I'm cool, no worries."
"Alright." Then the wisp of a girl sat back and stared down the long isle in front of her, unblinking.
Helga leaned her head against the window. Outside, the buildings were becoming more familiar. In the back of her mind, old memories swirled in circles. She was fine. It was a long time ago. She was grown up now. Mature. Different. She was fine.
Arnold Shortman was a man of simplicity. In the mornings he ran a hand through his disheveled blond hair, pulled on the closest shirt that smelled relatively clean, threw his books under an arm, and was out the door with a banana by 7:15AM. He walked to the end of his childhood street and stood underneath the bus stop sign, watching passersby and being generally well-contented with life. On this particular day, he had an extra ounce of contentment and ate his banana with a jazzy hum.
The yellow bus rolled up at 7:20AM exactly. Arnold made his way through school bus #13 (which had previously been #18, but half the 8 was flaking off) just in time for his best friend, Gerald, to lunge from his seat and grab Arnold by the front of the shirt.
"Hey, man, I just realized something!" Gerald exclaimed.
Arnold looked back with wide eyes, trying not to fall over as the bus lurched forward. Gerald stood over him by a good four inches, his expression wild. Arnold had finally caught up to Gerald's height in the eighth grade, but his victory hadn’t lasted. Now in Sophomore year, it seemed Gerald had finally stopped growing at six-foot-one. His black coily hair had been cut off in a perfect flat-top with faded steps above his ears, and he obnoxiously knew his hair gave him an extra two inches of height over Arnold.
"Isn't East Side High that school that Helga went to?" Gerald demanded.
"Yeah," Arnold answered.
"D'ya think maybe she's comin'?"
Arnold pushed his friend onto the bus seat and sat beside him. "She is coming."
Gerald’s expression remained intense. "How do you know? Did she already call and pre-threaten you? You know, in a I'm baaaaaaaaaack! sort of a way?"
Arnold chuckled. "No, of course not. If you were paying any attention to what me and Phoebe were talking about yesterday, you'd know, too."
“What, of course I pay attention to Phoebe.”
“I mean pay attention to what she’s saying, not her mouth while she’s saying it.”
Gerald punched Arnold on the shoulder, who rubbed his arm with a smirk. Gerald tsked and slumped back, jamming his hands into his sweatshirt pockets. It was a black and red sweatshirt. Gerald always wore some kind of red, swearing it was his lucky color, and before basketball season started, he exclusively wore his Hillwood High Hedgehogs red and black sweatshirt.
"How come we didn't think of it before?" Gerald asked, ignoring Arnold’s glib remark about Phoebe.
"Because we were too busy gloating about the East Side basketball team being split up," Arnold said.
"Oh, yeah, good thing, too, huh? I mean, I wanted to play them in the playoffs in November, 'cause seriously, you know we could have slaughtered them this time. Ah, well. I mean, they have held the title for ten years, but honestly, it's about time their reign ended. And what better way than for their school to end? Fine by me." Gerlad straightened suddenly. "But, hey, that's not the point! I can’t believe Helga Pataki's coming back!"
"What’d you say?" Sid cried from across the aisle. Arnold wondered if Sid’s mother harped on him about his hair at all—the boy’s gray brown hair was hanging past his chin these days, and he seemed not to mind it being too thin not to be oily, even when it was clean. Sid’s knees in their torn jeans bounced with a tightly-wound energy. Some kind of undiagnosed ADHD, Arnold suspected.
Arnold had known Sid since he was four years old—in fact, he had known nearly everyone on the #13 school bus as long as he could remember. Especially all the Sophomores, who had been in his classes for more than a decade. They were as familiar to him as the halls of his own home.
"What do you mean, Helga Pataki's coming back to the neighborhood?" Sid asked, his loud voice carrying.
Another long-time classmate, Stinky, was sitting in the seat behind Sid, sandwiched between two Freshmen girls. At six-foot-seven, Stinky had annoyingly outgrown all of them, and Arnold wasn’t sure he was finished. He leaned his long face forward and slapped his long leg at the news. "Well, how d'ya like that? Helga's comin' back?"
"Who's Helga?" one of the Freshman girls asked Stinky with a bat of the eyelashes.
"Well, if she isn't the old elementary school bully, I dunno what she is," Stinky replied in his thick southern drawl. His accent was thicker when he talked to girls, Arnold had noticed.
A few rows up, Harold hollered, "Oi, I resent that! I've mended my ways, thank you."
"We're not talkin' about you, Harold," Gerald said dryly.
"Yeah, we're talkin' about Helga Pataki," Sid said.
At that Harold put his elbow on the seat and turned around, his biceps as big as his head, a bulldogish, lopsided frown on his face. His girlfriend, Rhonda, popped her head over his arm. She said, "Helga Pataki, tyrannical queen of the playground? Wow, we haven't seen her in ages. Not since summer after fifth grade, I believe. What about Helga Pataki?"
"Apparently she's comin' back to the ol' homestead," Stinky informed. He draped his arms over the back of the seat, behind the two girls, his hands hanging over the sides.
"Well, well. She's moving back?" Rhonda raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. "I thought her family's business made the big times, that's why they moved to the other side of town."
"She's not moving back," Gerald corrected, "she's comin' with the kids from East Side High."
"Boy howdy, she's an East Sider!" Sid said. "How come I didn't know that?"
"Because you don't know anything, Sid." Rhonda put her nose in the air.
"I know some stuffs, prissy miss!" Sid snapped back.
Harold pointed a meaty finger at Sid. "Hey, watch out who's girlfriend you're talkin' to, or I'll slaughter ya!"
Sid snorted. "Mended your ways my ass..."
"What'd you say?" Harold barked.
"Nothing!"
Gerald looked at Arnold, who had been silently watching. "How do you feel about all this, Arnold?"
"Me?" Arnold said, startled when everyone turned to him. "Why me?"
"Let's think, Arnold," Rhonda said with an annoyed look and began counting on her red-nailed fingers. "She terrorized you, called you names, stole your stuff, hit you, made fun of you, sabotaged all your relationships, yelled at you on a daily basis, and publicly confessed her undying loathing for you regularly. Need I go on?"
"But that was all a long time ago," Arnold said. "And besides, we left as friends. Sort of. Don't you guys think she's probably changed?"
They looked around at each other before a chorus of, "Nope", "Uh-uh", "Doubt it", "That's a negative, my friend" bounced around.
Arnold continued, "Well, it's not like we have a choice, anyway. I mean, their school burned down. They don't have anywhere else to go."
Gerald shrugged. "For all we know, she's the one who burned it down." This was agreed to by some nods.
Arnold shrugged back and said noncommittally, "Yeah, maybe. Maybe she hates the East High Eagles basketball team as much as we do."
"I hear that." Gerald high-fived him. "If that's true, remind me to throw a party for her."
"We'll invite the rest of the team. They’d love to meet the girl who destroyed their biggest rivals."
"Them boys’ll be in over their heads—she’s ‘bout as friendly as a cactus," Stinky said.
"And just as cuddly,” Sid added with a shudder.
Arnold sat back as the rest of the ride to school was occupied by conversations about the tough little girl they had known years ago. They debated whether or not Helga could have taken over East Side as the queen bee, what kind of psycho killers must be friends with her now, and what poor souls' lives she must have ruined.
As they were pulling up to school, Rhonda finally said what had no-doubt been occupying her mind the entire time, "What I really want to know is whether or not she's finally plucked that hideous unibrow."
Phoebe Heyerdahl was a small spectacled girl of Japanese-American descent, who had recently taken to putting all her hair on top of her head in a messy bun and wearing long socks, plaid skirts, and vintage jewelry. She was a usual rider of bus #13, but today Arnold saw her waiting by the gate when the bus pulled up, a clipboard in her hand and a sticker on her sweater that said, "Hello, My Name is PHOEBE". When Gerald saw her, he jumped down the final steps of the bus and headed toward her. Arnold followed behind him.
"Hey, there you are!” Gerald said. “Miss Responsible had to be here early for our refugees, huh?”
"I had to finish the tour schedule so all us tour guides don’t run into each other," Phoebe replied, gesturing to several other students with name tags and clipboards waiting by the gate.
"Overachiever." Gerald glanced around. "But where are they? Get lost already?"
"I suppose they've been delayed.” Phoebe adjusted her glasses, then immediately did it again. A nervous tick she’d always had.
Arnold said helpfully, "There's construction on the freeway, so maybe they got stuck in traffic."
"I'm sure you're quite right." Phoebe smiled her quiet smile at him.
"Soooo..." Gerald scratched what he was trying to pass off as a five-o'clock shadow on his chin. "Helga's really coming, then?"
Phoebe’s whole expression brightened at the mention of her childhood friend. "Isn't it exciting? It'll be just like old times, won't it?"
"Yeah, I LOVE old times." Gerald elbowed Arnold with a knowing look. Then he said to Phoebe, "How come you only just told us yesterday, though?"
She adjusted her teal rimmed glasses at him. "Hmm? What do you mean? I told you as soon as I found out, three days ago.”
Gerald looked dumbfounded. "Wha, three days ago?"
"Don't you remember?"
Gerald shot Arnold a dark look. Arnold only pretended to look innocent. “Weren’t you listening, Gerald? Were you distracted by something?”
Gerald shot him a dark look before smiling down at Phoebe. "Yeah, of course I remember. I meant, I just can't believe she’s coming home at last!"
"Right? Aren't you excited to see Helga?" Phoebe asked.
"Pfft, of course! Been looking forward to it!"
Arnold rolled his eyes.
"I know!" Phoebe said excitedly. "Perhaps we could all meet up for lunch! Wouldn't that be nice?"
Gerald snapped his fingers. "Hey, yeah, that's a great idea! Don't you think that's a great idea, Arnold?"
“Oh, yeah,” Arnold said. “And, just 'cause I know you missed Helga so much, I'll let you sit by her. The whole time."
Phoebe sighed sweetly, "Aww! I didn’t know you missed her so much, Gerald!"
Gerald said through gritted teeth, "Thanks, man, what a...pal."
"Anything for you, bud," Arnold replied.
A bell (more of a buzzer that was on its last legs and was mostly static now) chimed from inside the school and the last stragglers wandered toward the building. Gerald and Arnold said goodbye to Phoebe and left her to await the transfer students. Arnold threw an arm around his friend's shoulder as they entered the school.
"Gerald," Arnold began. "I believe I'm correct in saying that you are completely smitten."
"I dunno know what you’re talking about," Gerald said.
"You know what I'm talking about." Arnold poked him in the chest. "Someone's officially caught the love bug for a certain be-speckled cutie. Again. It's been a while."
Gerald shrugged Arnold's arm off. "Man, shut up."
"Just sayin'. Ever since she broke up with R.J. White last spring, you've been alternating between awkwardly friendly and Mr. Suave."
"R.J. White," Gerald grumbled at the mention of Phoebe's ex-boyfriend. "Man, I hate that guy. Short little uptight know-it-all, and seriously, who does he think he is, wearing those little bow ties like he's some kind of genius? He knows he just looks stupid. Stupid."
"I seem to remember you liking him just fine before—"
Gerald cut him off, "Nut-uh, don't you go there, I never liked that jerk!"
"Sure, Gerald. Whatever you say. Smitten."
"Shut up."
The pair of them made their way through Hillwood High School, casually dodging flying paper airplanes and stepping over textbooks that had been scattered on the ground. They climbed the stairs to the second floor, ignoring a couple who was making out in the stairwell and three Freshmen who were sliding down the bannisters. They reached their first period class, where kids were sitting on desks, and the teacher had fallen asleep at her own desk, as she did most mornings. Arnold sat behind Gerald, right next to the row of windows that looked over the front of the school. He still saw no sign of any new school buses.
The bell rang again and most of the kids got into their seats as the teacher sat up and readjusted her glasses. She taught physics, a subject that really couldn't have been more boring until she made it so. She was deaf in one ear and rarely looked back from the whiteboard, so after roll was called most students who wanted to continue certain conversations or generally slack off were at perfect liberty to do so.
"So you're going to ask her out this time, right? Like officially, not like sixth grader dating like last time. How are you going to do it?" Arnold asked in a low voice.
Gerald glanced over his shoulder at him. "What do you mean? Is there more than one way?"
"Well, yeah. Are you gonna do something romantic or are you just gonna ask her?"
"Something romantic?" Gerald's voice cracked. "Is she expecting something romantic? What's wrong with just asking her? Is that not good enough? Oh, man, I don't need this extra pressure." He rubbed his forehead.
Arnold was chuckling at Gerald's torment when a movement out the window caught his eye. Three big yellow buses pulled up to the curb in front of the school gates. Shiny bright buses, newer than Hillwood High’s crappy old ones.
The girl behind Arnold gasped and said, "Look! The East Siders are here!"
A murmur rose around the students as they gathered by the windows. The bus doors opened and a steady stream of high school students filed out. Arnold saw Phoebe and the other tour guides rally the newcomers up into little groups. The flow of students slowed and the first two buses ran out of kids to expel. The second one spat out its last two boys, one almost as tall as Stinky and the other hefty with a shiny black head. Then a pale girl with hair that glowed white in the sun hesitantly stepped onto the sidewalk, and just when Arnold was about to be very confused, a final student stepped out. A tall girl with a gray sweatshirt and long blonde hair hanging straight down her back stepped off the bus. Seven years. He hadn’t seen her in seven years. Yet even from this distance, she was unmistakable.
"Man, I don't see her anywhere," Gerald said.
"What? Dude, she's right there," Arnold said.
"Where?"
"There! She's the one hugging your girlfriend."
"Phoebe's not my—ah! That's her!"
The teacher, who had finally realized that the entire class had stood up in order to get a look at the East Side High schoolers, snapped, "Back in your seats, all of you! Pay attention!"
The room quieted to the gentle whispering of curious students as the teacher resumed her lecture.
Gerald shook his head in wonder and said, "Man, look at that hair. I don't think I ever saw it not in pigtails. Maybe you're right, Arnold. Maybe she has changed."
The groups of East Siders began entering the school. Phoebe led her group in last, Helga’s blonde head trailing along at the back until she passed from Arnold’s view.
Arnold turned back to the classroom with a half smile. "Yeah,” he said. “Maybe."
The East Side High schoolers were considerably underwhelmed by their new school. East Side High was in a more affluent part of the city, built between high rise apartments and a park. Hillwood High was part of the old part of town, and it showed. The lockers were covered in sharpie and stickers, the floors had spots that were suspiciously sticky, and the sturdiness of the ceiling was seriously questionable. The unwilling transfer students followed their tour guides, and by their faces the school was nothing but grubby and dingy. For Helga, it had a strange feeling of homeyness to it. It reminded her of her elementary school, good old P.S. 118.
Helga had been so lucky as to end up with her oldest friend, Phoebe, as a guide, but she had been separated from Agatha and Teri in the process. Lenny, thankfully, was in her group, loping along beside her with an off-tune whistle.
"This is the copy center," Phoebe was saying to the group as they paused outside it. Helga stopped paying attention after the first five seconds and moved on to thinking of more important things.
Currently, she was agitated. She was less careful about hiding it now that Agatha wasn't nearby to watch her all-seeing pink eyes, or soft hearted Teri. Luckily, Lenny rarely knew what was going on around him. With Phoebe also busy, Helga was thus free to reflect on her own
It felt like ages ago that Helga had been in this part of town, and somehow it also felt like only a short time ago. The last time had been in southwest Hillwood had been a year ago, when her family had picked up Phoebe on their way to a beach vacation. Helga had always been grateful that Phoebe had kept in touch with her, and had loved to hear stories from her about what was going on with all her old school mates. She never said so, but she always hoped Phoebe’s stories might include Arnold.
Arnold, Arnold, Arnold.
Helga sighed and rolled her eyes at herself.
It had been a long time since Helga had been...well, head-over-heels for the football head. The last time she had seen him in person she had been twelve—four years ago, when she was visiting Phoebe for a day during summer vacation. Per Phoebe's suggestion, they had walked down to the baseball field to say hello to the old gang. When they had arrived, Helga and Phoebe had stopped by the fence and watched Arnold slide into home plate before being hugged and slapped and cheered. Phoebe had asked Helga if she wanted to go say hi, but Helga had shaken her head. They had left.
That was it. She had seen them, seen him , but then...she wasn't a part of them anymore. She didn't belong there in their world; she was nothing but the memory of the old elementary school bully, someone they hadn't quite befriended before she had left. They were probably happy she was gone. He probably was. No one but Phoebe had called or sent letters to her new house, and eventually Phoebe had said they stopped asking about her. That he had stopped asking. He had moved on.
Helga had removed the locket with his picture from around her neck and put it in the shrine in the back of her closet. The shrine was smaller than it had been—she’d had to artfully dispose of most of it before her family moved so her parents wouldn't see it. The small picture frame and candles had sat dark and dusty for the last four years. Until last week, when Helga had learned that she would be going to the same school as him again. That day she had opened her closet, pushed aside her clothes, and looked at the relics. Then shut the door.
For years, she had waited for the day she would have to hear about him getting a girlfriend, someone perfect and pretty and sweet. She had wondered if Phoebe hadn't mentioned anything to spare her feelings, but, well, now Helga was here.
Guess I'll find out first hand, she thought as Phoebe led them past the dimly lit library.
The thought made Helga shutter, and then she mentally kicked herself.
Time and distance had helped ebb the obsession. Moving across town and switching schools had given Helga a fresh start, and she had discarded the old Helga Geraldine Pataki for a new skin. She could never forget Arnold or his sweetness, especially when her younger self had needed to look up to someone like that. But now she had friends and new tennis shoes and a mean penchant for writing victorian poetry and a pretty good left handed lay-up. She might be able to face him and his cute genius model girlfriend with a cool head except...well, it was nerve wracking. What would he think of her now? She wanted to show him, to show all of them, that she was better than they thought she was. She wasn’t the one-browed violent kid they avoided anymore— Ha, I've done just fine without you. In your faces.
Helga jumped when someone bumped her arm. She looked up at Carlos Moze, the tall, dark and handsome East Side High basketball captain.
"You all right, Helga?" he asked.
She snorted. "Sure thing, el Capitano."
Lenny had noticed Moze as well. "Yo, Captain. How's it goin'?"
Moze shrugged. "Cool, I guess. At least the school's not on fire."
" Tch, yeah, no kidding," Helga said. "Although maybe someone should set fire to it, if you ask me. It's a biohazard in here."
Moze laughed. "Yeah, maybe."
"I dunno, guys," Lenny said. "Looks like good maggot breeding ground to me."
"Maggots?" Moze asked.
Helga raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, Len. You're back on that?"
"When in Rome, right?" Lenny replied.
"Romans don't eat maggots, Len."
"Why would anyone?" Moze asked, perplexed. He was distracted from an answer as Phoebe pointed out the gym as they passed. The group moved on, but Moze stopped in the open doorway and spread his arms. "Lady and gentleman, I present to you our new home!"
Helga poked her head inside the gym, Lenny leaning over her head.
"Woot!" Lenny said to hear it echo. "Can't wait to burn some rubber."
"Lacquered floors, hoops, no obvious rot...I guess it'll do," Helga said lightly.
"I'm sure the janitor is honored by such praise, madam." Moze tilted his head toward her. "But not nearly as honored as the mighty Hillwood High Hedgehogs basketball team will be to have us join."
"Oh, yeah," Helga snickered. "I bet they're wetting their pants they're so excited to get players from East Side. Some actually winning potential. This whole integration thing probably has 'em riled up like a bunch of little girls."
The three hung at the back of the group and talked about basketball and the rest of the team. Since East Side High had burned down three weeks ago, the students had been divided up and sent to schools that could accommodate them. The majority of the team had ended up going to Dixie High up north, joining the team of the Lions. Only the Varsity Team Captain, Moze, along with Lenny, Teri, and Helga, had ended up as Hedgehogs.
Phoebe's tour and orientation ended at ten minutes to noon, when she dismissed them for lunch. As the crowd dispersed, Phoebe turned a big smile to Helga and Lenny.
"Hey, Phebes, great guide you are," Helga said, tapping a fist lightly on Phoebe's shoulder.
"Oh, thanks. Listen, um, I was wondering if you'd like to join us for lunch?" Phoebe asked.
Helga paused. "Who is 'us?'"
"Me, Gerald, and Arnold. Oh, and your friends are welcome, too, of course!"
"Uhhh...you know, I'd love to, but I think we—we definitely have plans. You know, gotta wander the school, get used to it and all. Heh."
"Oh, would you like us to go with you? I'm sure we could—"
"NO!" Helga toned it down when she saw the shock on Phoebe's face. "No, uh, we'd just, you know, like some time to...get...adjusted. Yep. Really, Phebes, go on ahead. Next time, ok?"
"All right, Helga..." Phoebe hesitantly stepped away, and Helga smiled and waved every time she turned back to look at her.
As soon as Phoebe disappeared behind a corner, Helga rounded on the nearest locker and smacked her forehead into it. Several times. Damn, Pataki, just be cool! You're freaking out for no reason, no one else cares this much...
"Excuse me, that's my locker..." said a kid.
Helga looked down at the Freshman darkly. "Come back later, kid."
He left. Quickly.
She rammed her head into the locker again.
"Whenever you're done, Pataki," Lenny said, inspecting his fingernails, "I'm hungry for some spaghetti and maggot-balls."
The cafeteria did not serve spaghetti and maggot-balls, much to Lenny's disappointment. They did, however, serve some very interesting smelling tuna fish sandwiches and raisin "pudding.” Helga and her friends ate outside by the blacktop, where groups of people were sitting around on lunch tables or skateboarding back and forth, and various sports were being played.
Helga sat in between Agatha and Teri and picked at her tuna sandwich. She watched the students around them. Most of them she didn't recognize at all, but when she saw someone she used to go to school with, she would elbow Teri and Agatha (who would say, "Helga, you know I bruise easy,") and point them out. Nadine passed by, and Helga almost didn't recognize her since her kinky hair had been let down and straightened. Stinky she finally noticed playing basketball on the court with some other guys, and to Helga's amusement a gaggle of girls cheered and called out his name whenever he got the ball. Chocolate Boy (had she ever known his real name?) was sitting in the shade, eating a radish salad and reading a very heavy textbook.
A rather attractive guy wearing expensive clothes passed by, his black hair swooped back in a fifties style, hand in hand with a cute dark haired girl. When he saw Helga he stopped dead, and said, "Hey, Helga, long time no see." It took him another ten minutes to convince her he was Curly.
Helga gawked. " Curly ? The creepy little dipwad who used to stalk Rhonda? No way that's you! You're a babe!"
"Well, thanks, Helga," Curly said, and his girlfriend agreed. With her mind slightly blown, Helga left her friends to toss her tray in the trash and process the transformation of her old schoolmates.
"Helga Pataki, is that you ?"
Helga turned to find a girl with blonde-streaked black hair, thick make-up, and a red sundress walking up to her.
"It is you! Well, my goodness, aren't we just so grown up?" The girl eyed her up and down, and the deja vu of it made Helga realize who she was.
"Rhonda!" Helga exclaimed.
Rhonda winked at her. "One and the fabulous same. So, tell me, Helga, how are you?"
"Uh, can't complain, I guess." She fingered her old sweatshirt self-consciously as Rhonda, with her lip liner and cute platform shoes, smiled up at her.
"I'm so glad," Rhonda gushed before she turned and called to a boy nearby. "Harold! Harold, come here, come say hello to Helga!" He didn't turn around. "Harold!" Rhonda barked.
The guy turned, hiked his pants up, and sauntered over to them. "What is it?" he said in a deep voice.
Helga stared at his 5 o'clock shadow (and it was only 12:25PM) and well toned biceps as he slung an arm around Rhonda.
Rhonda said, "Harold, look, it's Helga Pataki."
"Helga?" Harold raised his eyebrows. "Whoa, didn't even recognize you. What happened to your caterpillar brow, caterpillar brow?" Rhonda smacked his arm playfully.
Helga's eye twitched, but upon realizing he was completely sincere, she reminded herself that Harold was an idiot, who had always been an idiot, and would probably always be an idiot.
“I heard you play ball with the guys, Pataki,” Harold said. He looked her up and down the same way Rhonda had. “You any good?”
“Guess you’ll find out, won’t you?” Helga replied.
Helga jumped when Rhonda suddenly gasped and grabbed her arm. "Oh, Helga you must, you simply must, let us show you around! I am certain that I can introduce you to all the most important people in school."
"No thanks, Rhonda, I've already had a tour." Meeting any of Rhonda's preppy friends sounded like the extra tooth-extraction Helga didn’t need today.
"No, no, no! This will be a completely different tour…are they with you?" Rhonda’s nose crinkled as Teri, Lenny, and Agatha walked over. Helga prepared to give the rich girl a good shake up if she sneered at any of her friends, but all she said was, "Hello! My name is Rhonda Wellington Lloyd, Hillwood High’s lady extraordinaire. And this is my boyfriend, Harold Berman. How do you do?" She offered Teri her hand.
Teri took her hand reluctantly, giving it an awkward shake. “How’s it going? "Name's Teri. This is Lenny and Agatha. You old friends of Helga's?"
"We most certainly are! Very old friends! And we were just about to show her the real Hillwood High. Of course you must all come as well."
Teri looked at Agatha, who stared at Rhonda; Lenny, who was admiring the limited edition, signed Jackie Robinson card that he kept in a laminated pouch hanging around his neck; and Helga, who shook her head emphatically. Teri shrugged and said, "Sure, we'll come."
Helga pinched Teri in the arm and was satisfied to hear an, "Ow! What?"
"Wonderful!" Rhonda said. Horrifically, she looped her arm through Helga’s and dragged her back into the school.
Rhonda made good on her promise of a completely different tour. They went down all the same hallways, but as they went, Rhonda stopped and introduced Helga to every well dressed, rich looking snob and pointed out the “proper” hang out areas. It all made Helga very uncomfortable. But then, she’d been uncomfortable all day already.
Her interested piqued somewhat when they ran into a familiar curly haired, red headed kid who was being followed by some thespian girls in berets and tights.
"Eugene!" Rhonda called and the cute, tall boy approached.
"Oh, hey, Rhonda," he said.
"Eugene, you remember Helga Pataki. Helga, Eugene Horrowitz is now one of the most popular boys in school and he's only a Sophomore. He's the lead in all the school plays and sings like an angel. Do you remember the, 'Don't sweat it, you'll regret it, try natural musk scent' commercials?" Rhonda gestured to Eugene proudly, as if all his fame were due to her.
Eugene blinked, taking Helga in. "Do my eyes deceive me? Helga Pataki, in the flesh. Long time no see!"
"Same." Helga smiled at him, hands in her pockets. "I saw your commercial—it's pretty good. Well, for an odor advertisement. Way to be."
Eugene smiled. "Well, thanks, Helga."
"Sure." She didn't say more, because just then one of his thespian lackeys glared at her.
The girl touched Eugene's arm and said in a deep, dramatic voice, "Eugene, dahling, you promised to perform Hamlet's soliloquy for the underclassmen before lunch was over."
"Indeed, I did, Roxanne. Well, Helga, good seeing you again. Drop by the drama department anytime, I’ll give you a good show for old time’s sake." And then Eugene whisked away, singing "Goodnight, goodnight!" the beatnik girls on his trail.
"Criminy. Everyone's so different or grown up or somethin'," Helga said as they stopped a little ways from a drinking fountain for Agatha. Agatha could drink like a fish, so currently Harold, Teri, and Lenny were leaning against a wall, saying, "S'up, dude," to anyone Harold knew. Rhonda and Helga stood a little further away.
"Oh, I don't think we've changed that much," Rhonda said, inspecting her manicure. Helga thought she was just pretending to not notice the people checking out her legs as they passed in the hall. The same people gave Helga an odd look. Helga looked back coolly until they broke eye contact.
Rhonda continued, "You've changed a lot, though. I thought it was wonderful what you said to Eugene, about his commercial."
Helga shrugged. "I was just being nice."
"Exactly."
Well. Rhonda thought she was nice. Helga felt her chest puff up. Ha, that's right, Helga Pataki is a damn good person. Who's the queen? That's right, it's me. Bet you didn't see that one coming, suckers.
I wonder if Arnold will think—
No you don't, shut the hell up.
Right.
Agatha finished her drink and returned to hovering behind Helga like a white shadow. Rhonda, taking real notice of the little albino, flashed her teeth at her. "So, Agatha, how long have you and Helga been friends?"
In her breathy voice Agatha replied, "About three years."
"Really? How'd you guys meet? Did Helga steal your lunch money?"
"Hey!" Helga said indignantly.
Agatha blinked. "What? No, Helga would never do something like that. She's the kindest person I know."
Oh, Aggie, bless your little heart! Helga thought fondly.
"I used to get picked on a lot by the boys at our school. When Helga came, she gave one of them a bloody nose and told them to leave me alone or she'd bury them alive."
"Erk! Eh heh..." Spoke too soon.
" They didn't bother me anymore after that." Agatha gave Helga a wide smile.
Rhonda patted Agatha on the head, like she was a small animal. An instinct many people had with Agatha, Helga had found. "Well, aren’t you cute?" Rhonda said.
Helga smiled at her tiny friend. Helga had befriended her by accident—she'd only gotten mad when those guys were picking on her—but Agatha had followed her around ever since, and Helga hadn't minded.
The buzzer went off to signal the end of lunch, and Rhonda said, "You East Siders are supposed to attend classes the second half of the day, right? I'm sure no one would be more fit to help you find your classrooms than moi ."
"Yeah, ok. Wait...ahhhhh...shoot," Helga said.
"What's wrong?" Rhonda asked.
Agatha turned her wide eyes to Helga. "You forgot your schedule, didn't you? I saw you didn't pick it up at the front office. I’ll go get it.”
She started walking off, but Helga caught her by the back of the shirt like a kitten.
"Don’t be ridiculous, Aggs, the boys and I will go with you," Helga said.
"Don’t be silly, you can’t all be late to your first class! Helga, leave it to Miss Lloyd, I’ll get your friends to class." Rhonda put an arm around Agatha, taking her right out of Helga’s grasp, and steered her in the other direction.
“Uh, wait, Aggie, don’t leave—” Helga said, but Rhonda took the small girl away before she could stop her
Rhonda passed Harold, who was making Teri and Lenny laugh. "Hey, you lugs, the bell rang," Rhonda called to them. “Come along, I’ll get you to class.”
"Gracias, Ms. Lloyd," Lenny said.
Harold turned back to salute Helga and say, " Caio , Pataki."
Helga scoffed. He had clearly been dating Rhonda for too long.
"See ya after school, Helgs,” Teri said over his shoulder. He and Lenny followed after Agatha, who looked panicked in Rhonda’s arms. Helga gaped as her friends left her standing in the hall alone.
Students began swarming back inside from lunch, and Helga flinched, suddenly on the alert. She didn’t have two towering boys or a loyal shadow to support her any more.
She huffed and set off confidently in the direction she remembered Phoebe pointing out the front offices. The halls slowly emptied of students as she walked. It had been a decent day, so far. She had successfully avoided Arnold, although she wasn't entirely sure why she was trying to. Well, soon she'd see him and then she could stop worrying and get on with life. It was no big deal.
No big deal.
She rounded a corner to where the office was, and stopped halfway down the hall. There was no office, only more lockers. "Ah, crap. Now I'm lost."
Arnold made his way downstairs from the library, where he had disappeared to at the beginning of lunch. Phoebe had met up with him and Gerald outside the cafeteria, apologizing that Helga was otherwise engaged. Arnold had, rather slyly he thought, then told Phoebe that he had some homework to catch up on, and insisted she eat with Gerald without him. Gerald owed him.
And Arnold told him so, as soon as he saw him again.
"Yeah, yeah," Gerald said as he met him in the hall. "Thanks."
"So, how was it?" Arnold asked.
Gerald grinned and rubbed his nose and shrugged. "It was, ya know. Lunch. Just talked about...stuff."
"Yeah, stuff, stuff. You ask her out?"
"What? Dude, no! I wasn't gonna ask her out over a tray of tuna fish surprise. I swear, any second it was gonna crawl off my plate and eat me instead."
“You’re lucky you escaped with your life.”
“I’m a brave, brave kid.”
Outside Arnold’s next class, a circle of their friends had formed. They joined Rhonda, Harold, Sid, and Curly who were deep in conversation.
"Hey, guys, what're you talkin' about?" Arnold asked.
"Helga Pataki," Sid said excitedly.
"The devil herself, eh?" Gerald said. "You guys seen her?"
Sid’s face quickly fell. "I haven't."
" I have," Rhonda answered. "We spent practically all of lunch together."
"Reeaaally…" Gerald looked interested. "And? How'd that go?"
"Quite delightful, I thought. She was very well behaved, and it was certainly a blast from the past. Didn't you think so, Harold?"
"Yeah, great," Harold said. "Did you know that East Side took state in three different divisions last year? And their football team won the Golden Arrow."
Gerald made a face. "They won the Golden Arrow? I thought you had to be a Level 5 school to enter for the Golden Arrow."
"Guess not. It's probably because of Ziggy J. Fox.”
"The Ziggy J. Fox?" Gerald and Arnold said in unison. Rhonda looked at Curly and he shrugged.
"The football star?" Sid whistled. "Whoa-ho, those East Siders got some mula. How come we didn't hear about them getting Ziggy J. Fox?"
Harold said, "New this year, apparently. Then, ya know, the school went ka-boom, and he went to California. That's what Teri said, anyway."
"Who's Teri?" Arnold asked.
"One of Helga's buddies from East Side. I think he's on the basketball team, so you bozos won’t be able to avoid meeting him.”
"Basketball player?" Sid said, "Man, do you think he knows Ziggy J.—"
"Anyway!" Rhonda interrupted loudly. The boys turned to her and she rolled her eyes. "Yes, thank you Harold. Anyway, we thought Helga was quite nice and her friends from East Side were really quite civil. Didn't you think they were, Curly?"
Gerald put up a hand. "Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you say Helga was nice?"
"Why, yes, in fact, I did." Rhonda widened her eyes at Gerald. "What a good listener you are! Yes, I said she was nice , you dork. She was very polite to me, and Eugene, and Sarah Xanthe, and Timothy Goodwin, and you know how important he is, and her little friend seemed quite attached to her."
"True," Curly said. "I ran into Helga outside, and she was shockingly affable. Said I looked like a babe." He winked at Rhonda, who smiled. Harold stepped in between them.
Gerald’s jaw had dropped. "Helga Pataki, nice? Affable, even? Can’t believe it. Is it possibly she really has changed?" He turned to Arnold. "And why do you look so smug? It's not like you had anything to do with it."
Arnold wasn’t aware he was looking smug, but he merely shrugged and gave him a "that's what you think" look. Then he headed into his classroom.
Behind him he heard Gerald ask the others, "He didn't have anything to do with it…right?"
He did not, in fact, have anything to do with it. However, Arnold liked to think to himself that he did. He had always believed there was more beneath the angry little girl persona than she showed.
Arnold made his way to the back of the classroom and took his seat as the bell rang, and there was only one word for how he was feeling when class started—triumphant. Hearing that he had been right made him feel like he had just won a bet where everyone was against him. He couldn't wait to see Helga now, and he would find it very difficult not to rub her niceness in everyone's faces. In her own face, even. She used to insist so avidly that she was a horrible person who enjoyed being horrible. He wondered if she even remembered any of that; it had been so many years ago.
His relationship with Helga had always been, at best, rocky. But towards the end, during the few weeks before her family up and moved to the furthest reaches of Hillwood, they had been friends. Well, friendlier. Well, she had stopped yelling at him. It was a more peaceful cohabitation, at the very least. Over the years following, Arnold had asked Phoebe now and again how Helga was doing, and after a while, he didn't even have to ask anymore. Whenever there was a spare chance, Phoebe would tell him about how Helga said this, or Helga did that. He had an inkling of how she had grown over the years and when he found she would be coming to his school now, he had been very interested, to say the least. He hadn't tried to convince anyone else of his theory, and had much preferred to let it pan out. Now that most everyone had seen her, though, he wanted to see her for himself.
Just as he was wondering when exactly he would get the chance, the door opened, interrupting the teacher in the middle of his sentence about civil wars in Russia. Arnold sat up straighter when the tall blonde he had been manifesting stepped into the room.
"Uh, hi," Helga said. "Sorry I'm late, I got lost." She crossed over to the teacher and gave him a slip of paper.
"Oh, yes, of course," the teacher looked at the paper, "Ms. Helga Pataki. Everyone, this is Helga, say hello." There were a few reluctant hellos from the front row as the teacher, overly enthusiastic as he always was, went to his desk to scribble on some papers. "You're from East Side High, then, Helga? I’m so sorry about your school,” he said.
"Yep." Helga shuffled her weight, avoiding the eyes of the thirty-plus students who were staring at her.
Such as Arnold. He liked her hair like that. He sort of missed the pigtails and big pink bow, but he liked it this way. It was long and shiny. She was wearing a pink shirt and a gray sweatshirt that she had her hands in the pockets of. She had grown into a proper girl, now, with curves and everything, and he couldn't tell from the back of the class, but she might have been wearing make-up. She looked a bit uncomfortable, but she still had a strong presence that said, "Do I look like I care?" She pushed her hair behind her ear and Arnold thought he saw a glimpse of red-heart earrings.
She looked good.
"So, Helga…" the teacher leaned against his desk and squinted at Helga, like she was a new species. "Tell us about yourself."
"What?" Now she looked a little panicked.
"What makes Helga Pataki...Helga Pataki?"
"Uhhh...DNA and operant conditioning?" she said.
A couple people chuckled and Arnold smiled.
The teacher nodded seriously. "Indeed. Indeed. And tell me, Helga, why did you choose Eastern European Pre-colonial Civilization and Culture?"
"...Excuse me?" she asked.
"This class."
Helga looked at the blackboard and a few maps on the walls. "Is that what this class is?"
A few more chuckles from the front row. Arnold grinned. As if he had anything to do with it.
"Ah, fantastic!" The teacher clapped his hands. "You don't know anything about it! That means you are a perfect mind for molding, a white canvas. Shall we begin to paint you?"
She took a step back and eyed him with distrust. "You come near me with any paint, bub, I swear I'm leaving."
This time the teacher laughed. "Oh, my dear! Now, where shall we seat you?" He scanned the room. "How about the seat behind Arnold. Arnold, raise your hand."
Arnold did so. Helga’s eyes snapped in his direction and their eyes locked. Then the teacher nudged her forward. "Go, little caterpillar. There is your cocoon," the teacher said.
Arnold put his hand down and watched Helga walk down the aisle toward him. She had dropped her eyes to the floor but he said to her when she reached him, "Hey, Helga."
She didn't look at him, only walked by and took her seat. He turned around but she was rustling around in her book bag. He turned back to the front as the teacher started animatedly describing the gore of the Russian battle technique.
Maybe she hadn't recognized him. Did he look that different? Did she forget him? There was no way she was just shy . No matter how much she had changed, Helga Pataki could not be shy .
Right as he was about to turn around to reintroduce himself, her voice reached him quietly but clearly:
"Hey, Arnold."