Hello everyone! I hope u enjoy my first ever Hey Arnold! fanfic! it's exciting to have it posted so everyone can read it! I wasn't exactly sure what to name the chapter, so im open to ideas! feel free to give me some of urs! enjoy the first chapter! YEAH!

Helga starts to throw spitballs at Arnold at the beginning of class, as usual. Arnold turns around to see Helga preparing another wad. Then she looks up from her fingers and whispers, "What!" as she notices him glaring at her angrily. Then he turns back to face front. Throughout class up to lunch she continuously throws spitballs at him in the back of the head. After awhile he ignores it to a certain extent, annoyed a great deal.

At lunch, Arnold and Gerald are chatting in the lunch line, as usual. Arnold doesn't pay attention and bumps into Helga, causing her tray to spill onto her pink dress. "Watch it, footballhead! Look at what you did!" "Sorry, Helga. Let me help you clean it up." Arnold set his tray on the rail and bent down with some napkins, scooping up the spilt pudding cup. "Hey, back off! I can clean this mess you made on my own!" Arnold looked at her with a look of not only aggrivation, but suspition as well as he and Gerald walked toward their usual lunch table.

"Man, she just loves picking on you, Arnold." Gerald exclaimed as they sat down at their table. "Yeah, I don't get it, Gerald. Why does she always pick on me?" Arnold replied. "Arnold, the real question is, why does she pick on anybody at all? Think about it. What did any of us do to her? Nothing! Absolutely nothing. And yet she still picks on us. It makes no sense." "Yeah, I guess you're right. It's just, why me specifically? I mean, She picks on me so much more than everyone else. How could you explain that?" "I don't know, Arnold. Maybe she really hates you." "Maybe." Arnold sighed and then sipped from his milk carton.

After they got back from lunch, Arnold takes his seat and Helga takes hers behind him, a row over or so. Mr. Simmons walks up to the front of the class, holding a stack of notebook papers with horrid handwriting on almost all of them, save a select few who actually bother to put some effort in making their words even remotely ledgible. "Okay, class. Settle down." he says as he gestures to the students seated in front of him. "Now, without further a dew, I will now read a piece selected from last weeks writing entries." He then looks down at the stack now held in both of his hands. He flips through them, scanning title after title, until his eyes come across the said selected entry. He carefully slides it out of the stack and sets the stack down on his desk, selected piece still in hand. "Lovely, yet another love poem by Anonymous."

Arnold heard a sudden rubbing and turned his head. Helga was sinking dramatically low in her seat. Then he noticed her face. A nervous expression was slapped across it. He didn't understand why. She shouldn't be nervous. What reason could she possibly have for being nervous? It made no sense. She was Helga G. Pataki for crying out loud! The meanest girl in the 4th grade! She was supposed to be the one to cause other people nervousness. Then he decided it be best if he put off the hard thinking til' later.

As Arnold was about to take his first step onto the bus, Helga burst through the school doors, scrambling for the bus. When she spotted it, she noticed Arnold about to board. She stomped up the bus steps, shoved Arnold, along with a few others, out of her way, and just before she took her seat next to Phoebe, she turned to Arnold, scowl planted in her face, and remarked, "What are you looking at, geekbait?" Then she sat down. Arnold hesitated, annoyed, then he stood up and proceded to his seat next to Gerald. "Man, oh, man! She really hates you doesn't she?" he said. "I know! It makes no sense." Arnold replied.

"What do you mean?" Gerald was confused. "Why would she hate me so much? I didn't do any thing to lead her on to hate me. Yet she's been taunting me and calling me footballhead since we were three. We hardly knew each other then. So tell me, Gerald, why does she hate me?" Arnold ranted to Gerald. He could tell Arnold was frustrated. Then somthing came to mind. Though he highly suspected this thought to be true, he didn't say anything. He wanted Arnold to figure it out on his own. But he really wanted to tell him his thoughts!

As Gerald's thoughts practically ate him alive inside, Arnold wasn't noticing his friend's mental conflict with himself as he, too, was arguing his own thoughts. He just couldn't understand why she was in this constant act of being so mean to him? No, not just him, but just about everyone she has ever known. Ever since preschool. He remembered though, that when he first met her in the rain, she was all alone, her eyes were ready to fill with tears, she was covered in mud. He felt bad, so he walked over and held his umbrella over her head as he said, "Nice bow." "Huh?" She replied in the fact that she didn't quite catch what he said. He continued with repitition of his comment. "I like your bow, because it's pink like your pants." He smiled at her. Then he walked into the building as he closed his umbrella passed her. He then took off his raincoat and hung it up, along with the umbrella, in a cubbie hole of his choosing, excited to start his day of preschool with his new best friend, Gerald.

At snack time, they were eating graham crackers and sipping juice. He was sipping his juice when he noticed the girl in pink overralls had tears brimming her eyes, readying themselves to fall. He then noticed a chubby boy chewing and laughing obnoxiously at the same time while cracker crumbs fell from his swollen lips. Arnold realized what had just happened. He ate her graham crackers. He felt bad again, so he put on a smile and walked over there, plate of crackers in hand. He stopped upon arrival at her table and lowered his crackers so she could see. "Want mine?" he said, smile still warm on his face. She simply nodded as she blinked her tears away and took the plate from his hand. He looked at her once more, then walked back to his table and continued talking to his friend. As he and gerald continued chatting, he suddenly heard the obnoxious laughter again, looked over, and noticed the same chubby boy mocking a wierd face. Then the boy pointed to the girl in pink as he continued to laugh. He then looked to the girl in confusion and noticed she saw him looking at her. As he continued to watch, the girl looked back to the others, laughing at her. Her eyes were filled with tears, and fear.

Then she looked down in her thoughts, her brow a straght line now. She then looked back at the chubby boy and pushed him over roughly, interrupting his rude act of laughter. As Arnold continued watching, the pink girl stood on the bench of the snack table, facing the fallen boy. She held her hands up, balled into fists, and said, "Quit laughing, geekbait, or you'll have to answer to Ol' Betsy and the, and the Five Avengers!" She gestured each fist individually to him. "Old who and the five what?" The boy replied in an upward tone in his voice. "My fists, stupid. That's their names!" "What! W-wait, you're fists have names? Oh, you're confusing me!" He held his head in utter confusion. She then jumped forward and landed pourposely on his stomach, causing him to go "Oof!" and his eyes to bug out. She stepped off of him and marched through a block building, knoking it down, as she announced, "I'm the boss around here." Then she turned her head to the other kids behind her and continued. "Got it?" In astonshment, they all stared at her in potential fear and simaltaniously nodded.

As he looked back, Arnold felt there was something about then that made him feel, unusual. Uneasy, even a bit queasy at first, but when he saw her push that chubby boy over, the feeling went away and was replaced with something else. Fear was part of it, but that's not all. It wasn't quite hatred, it was, oh, what's the word? he thought. Then his eyes went wide. Disapointment. He had felt disapointment after the uneasiness.

But, why? It still made no sense. And yet it did. How did it make so much sense to him? What caused him to feel such disapointment all those years ago? He was only three at the time. How could he have felt such a mature feeling at three? As he continued to think about it, he had realized the bus had just stopped at his stop and Gerald was getting up from his seat, breaking his train of thought, for now.

He has been thinking about it in his room for hours now. He just didn't get it. Why was she so mean? When he first met her, she seemed sad, lonely. Then at snacktime she turned mean. Wait a minute, whatever caused this must have happened at snacktime that day. But what? Let's see, he gave her his crackers, the chubby boy made a weird face and laughed... and then she pushed him down! The weird face, he must have been making fun of it! She wust have made that face when he wasn't looking! But why?

Maybe if he remembered the face of mockery that chubby boy made, that might tell him why. Now, what was the face again? Hmmmm. Then it started coming back to him. His hands were clasped together and held close to him, his head was tilted slightly, he was smiling softly, his brow was in an upside down v, and he was batting his eyelashes. That was so weird. She was scared when she looked back to him. He couldn't figure out how they were connected. Then his eyes went wide.

But there's no way that could be right he thought. Then again, she has looked at me like that a lot. And she has done a lot over the years to help me. I guess it could be possible. He then shuddered at another memory shared with her. It's so creepy to just think of the idea as a possbility. There's only one way to find out for sure. He let go of a breath he didn't know he was holding. Or maybe more. Then he let out a yawn and stretched his arms out. I'll talk to Gerald about it tomarrow. He thought out loud as he fell asleep, letting his dreams cloud his thoughts for the rest of the night.

The next day, Arnold and Gerald just got off the bus and were walking to class.

"Gerald, remember that weird dream I had a while ago?" Arnold asked.

"Which one?" Gerald replied.

"The one I had after I took that marriage predictor test, remember that one?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, I've been thinking, and,"

"Oh, no. Don't tell me you actually like her, like her, do you?"

"No, no! It just sort of, woke me up, you know?"

"I'm not following you."

"Well, I've been paying more attention since then, and, well, I've noticed some things."

"Like, what kind of things?"

"Well, for one thing, she keeps staring at me in class."

"So?"

"So, she doesn't scowl at me until I turn my head. Then she says 'What!' and I face front again. It gives me the chills. It's weird."

"That does sound kinda creepy."

"And when we found that little pink book, she tore the last page out and threw it at me as a spitball."

"Yeah,"

Arnold looks at the sidewalk in thought. "When I look back, I noticed something I didn't notice before."

"And, what was that?"

"When she ran up and tore that page out, she was rather quick about it. Almost like she was, trying to hide something."

Gerald was fed up with the confusion Arnold was giving him. "Arnold, what exactly are you getting at?" he said as he gestured toward Arnold and gave him a confused look.

He looked back up at his friend as he said, "Gerald, I think she likes me."