Disclaimer: I do not own HA! Or any of the characters seen in the show.

(‘written words’)

Helga plopped down into the very last seat of the first row, pleased that it happened to be the one closest to the door. Phoebe chose the seat that was the front of the middle row. She understood that the statistics of her being chosen to state an answer in that seat were increased because she would be in the view of the teacher more often.

Reluctantly, students began to file in. Hillwood had the odd idea that the students in the city should remain in the same classes together at the same time from their first day in pre-kindergarten, to their senior year in college. Apparently, they believed this would promote friendships to last a lifetime. Although it may have been true, the city overlooked the fact that it could promote rivalries to last one as well. So the students that marched in were the same as the ones before. Stinky, Sid, Sheena, Rhonda, Lila, Nadine, Harold, Curly, Gerald, and finally, the only one that mattered.

Arnold, gorgeous, lovely, wonderful, darling Arnold, took his seat in front of Helga. He knew that this left him prone to numerous spitballs, rude whispers, and dealing with her kicking his chair every so often, but he dealt with it. He wasn’t sure why he put up with it, but he did.

Although Helga was almost completely focused on the back of Arnold’s head, she did notice when the door opened again. She figured it was the teacher walking in with some type of drink full of caffeine in hand. When she realized, however, that this person wasn’t going to the front of the class, but moving to the seat directly next to her, that it had to be a student. She looked to see who it was and realized it was someone she’d never met before in her life.

It was a boy. A new student. He had short brown hair, and Helga could tell he was quite tall. He was slightly scrawny, but looked as though he had played some sports in his life. The boy wore a dark brown shirt and blue jeans, but most importantly he wore a sad look on his face. Helga couldn’t see his eyes, but she could see he was frowning. She couldn’t particularly blame him. She’d be miserable too if she were new. She was staring so intensely, that when he turned and looked at her, she jumped. He looked at her, up and down, and then gave her a slow, wicked smile. He moved his eyebrows suggestively and watched with joy at the complete shock on Helga’s face. She immediately faced forward and focused all her attention to the back of Arnold’s amazing head.

When the teacher finally did walk in, she immediately quieted the class with a rude “Shut up!” Proceeding at a brisk pace down the aisle, she reached the front of the class began the usual start of the year speech.

“I am Mrs. Joffers. I will be your homeroom and English teacher for this year. Since you students will only be leaving this classroom for Gym and your elective, get comfortable in your seats. You’re gonna stay there for the rest of the year.” She smiled evilly at this, as if it would be torturous for the students to remain where they had chosen to sit. This slightly irritated Helga, because now she’d have to deal with the seemingly perverted new kid all year long.

Mrs. Joffers continued her speech. “Lucky for us, I happen to be your teacher after homeroom, so we can skip the normal procedures and go straight to English.”

Sid choose to speak up at this moment. “But Mrs. Joffers, we have to do our homeroom introductions, so we can all know each other. You know, this normally takes about half an hour a student, so we might not get to English.” Everyone rolled their eyes. Just like him to try something idiotic like that.

She smirked. “Everyone knows everyone in this class, so there’s absolutely no need for introductions.”

“But we don’t know him!” Sid pointed to the new student. “He has to do introductions!” The boy looked up at Sid while Sid mouthed ‘Make yours LONG’

“Mr. Uh . . .” With a pause, Joffers quickly grabbed the roll and looked for his name. “Oh yes. Mr. Blinds. Give a quick introduction of yourself so we can move on.”

The student looked at her, as if confused, but stood up and went with it anyway. “Um, my name is Danny Blinds. I just moved here from Virginia Beach. I like surfing, hate the cold, and I really don’t wanna be here right now. And I probably would’ve left already, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I met a gorgeous chick who’s keeping me here.” He looked down at Helga and winked.

Helga wasn’t having any of that. He was going to be the one she took down in order to release her anger over the fact that Olga was coming, and because she was absolutely disgusted that this pig was flirting with her. She immediately stood up and faced him. “Who do you think you are bucko?! You don’t know me and you dare to think I’m just some nice, sweet, perfect girl who’s gonna swoon over you? Criminey, how big is your ego? And how stupid are you? Did anyone tell you who I am? I am HELGA. G. PATAKI!”

He smirked. “I’m sorry that my calling you gorgeous offends you Helga. G. Pataki, but I just call ‘em as I see ‘em.”

She could hear Rhonda laughing at his remark, and the rest of the girls smirking. The guys, however, were all just waiting for Helga to punch him into an alternate reality.

Mrs. Joffers, who had either not paid a bit of attention to the going ons, or had been enjoying them, decided to step in before Helga could make a move. “Miss Pataki!”

Helga looked over at her and glared. “Since you enjoy talking with Mr. Blinds so much, I expect you’ll love to be the one who will show him around the school, introduce him to others, etcetera, etcetera.” Helga could’ve smacked her.

“Mrs. Joffers, don’t do this to me!” she shouted just as that kid . . . that Danny kid simultaneously said “She’d love to!”

Joffers smiled. “Good. I expect you to spend all your time with him, making sure he adjusts properly to the school and doesn’t become a delinquent.” She glanced at the clock. “And now that homeroom is over, let us proceed to the real fun.”

As the teacher began her lesson, Helga tuned out everything. All that mattered was that she was fuming, and that this day was sucking. First Olga, now this. Was anything going to turn out the way she had hoped it would? She kept asking herself questions, murmuring under her breath an answer every now and then. Although some part of her knew that the new kid was still staring at her, that he was trying to catch every word she emitted, she didn’t feel it. She didn’t care. It didn’t matter now, did it?

“I’m screwed,” she whispered slowly as she lowered her head into her hand. “Screwed, screwed, screwed, screwed.”

Then the voice came. “C’mon Helga, it won’t be that bad.”

She looked up to see Arnold, his head turn enough to make it look as if he were paying attention, and enough for him to see and hear Helga perfectly.

“I wasn’t asking for your advice Football Head.”

“Yeah, well you seem upset about this whole guide thing. It won’t be awful so long as you try to be nice.”

“Well doi I seem upset, Arnoldo. Ever think that’s cause I am upset?” She gave him a slight glare.

He sighed. “If you want, we can talk about it at lunch. I’d like to get to know him. It must be hard being a new kid when all of us have known each other for years. It’ll be tough to break into the fold.”

Be nice, Helga ol’ girl! He can be your chance to make this entire year worth while! “Whatever you say. Just don’t try to probe me for my inner kindness cause I’m tellin’ it ain’t there.” Way to go! You completely succeeded in looking like a bitch.

Helga had lost track of time. She had been so consumed in her thoughts that when the bell rang, she jumped out of her daze and began to take out her science textbook. It would be about four minutes or so until the teacher came in, so she took out some paper and began writing random words.

‘Love, Love, Love, Olga, Hate, Despise, Anger, Frustration, New, Die, Love, Love, Arn-’

“Whatcha writing?” The guy was standing over her, watching her write. She instantly covered it up with her textbook and looked up to glare at him.

“Do you have any boundary morals? This is my personal bubble and you’re invading it and if you wanna make sure I don’t personally pop your bubble than back off, bucko!”

He smirked at her. “What if I want you to pop my bubble, blondie? Would that not defeat the purpose of getting even with me?”

Not bad. “You don’t want me in your bubble. I’d rip your eyes out to make sure a skeez like you never looked at me again.”

“Fiesty, aren’t we?” That smirk remained there, even as Arnold turned around to see what was going on.

“Just get the hell away from me.”

“Can’t. We’re stuck together like glue now. Might as well go out with me so that way you’ll enjoy it.”

“In your dreams. Now go away.”

“No.”

Arnold glared at him slightly. “Hey. I think Helga just told you to leave her alone. Now go.”

The new kid flashed a grin at him. He could hear Rhonda give out a dreamy sigh, along with Lila, Nadine, Sheena. What was so attractive about that smile? “Maybe we should start out on better terms. My name’s Danny. And you are?”

The glare continued. Helga rarely ever saw him glare and it fit him. He looked scary, but in a seductive way. It’s probably just me, she thought. “My name is Arnold. And again, I don’t think Helga wants to deal with you right now, so why don’t you go meet everyone else.” Tough and macho sounding, Helga thought. She experienced a slight déjà vu as she remembered that April Fool’s Day so many years ago. How rough he’d been yet how smooth. How manly, yet boyish. How -

“Fine,” Danny shrugged. “I might as well get to know everyone else. I’ll be spending enough time with Helga as it is. Don’t wanna get on this beautiful girl’s nerves too much.” He looked down at her and flashed a nice smile. But it made her feel uneasy as she looked at it. It was the kind of smile that insinuated it knew something that you didn’t want it to know. He winked real quick and walked off to quickly get the names of the other students in the classroom before the teacher came in.

“Thanks Arnold,” she muttered. She lowered her eyes down to her desk, almost embarrassed to be thanking him. This’ll look good on the nice record though . . . If I really want that.

He smiled at her sweetly and said, “Not a problem. He seems like a jerk.”

Helga laughed a little. “That’s an understatement. And since when did you start calling people jerks?” Ack. I’m acting friendly. Is this good?

“Well,” he shrugged, “I’m not sure. There’s just something I don’t like about him, which is terrible to say because I haven’t exactly given him a chance. But he doesn’t seem to be treating you the way you deserved to be treated. He’s treating you like everyone else thinks you should be treated.”

She felt it again. The mushy, gushy, gooey, warm feeling of getting a wonderful compliment for him. Granted, he hadn’t exactly phrased it was a compliment, but she felt like it had been. “So, how should I be treated, Football Head?”

“The way everyone should be treated. With kindness and respect,” he replied in a cheery voice.

“Criminey,” Helga said exasperatedly. “Can’t you ever just have specifics for one person? Could it really hurt to say that someone deserves to be treated a certain way because of their specific personality? Arnoldo, you are the biggest sap I’ve ever had to deal with!!” With that last remark, she grabbed her math book with her mini Arnold shrine, and held it straight in front of her face.

All Arnold could think as he turned around to face forward was that Helga Pataki was the most confusing person he could ever know.

A/N: Yeah, this chapter didn’t end so well for me. It just wasn’t coming to a head and it’s been a while since I’ve posted one, so I figured something is better than nothing, right?