Wrestlemania. The event of a season. Helga G. Pataki had been saving her ticket for months. This was it, the day she would finally go with Arnold and nearly all of their mutual school friends to her favorite sporting event.

While Arnold collected baseball cards, Helga collected Wrestlemania trading cards, so as they waited in line for their hands to be stamped by a perky teenage assistant she filled him in on some of her knowledge. Her voice crackled with joyful cheer. Arnold listened but kept silent, the expression on his face woolen. It was only every once in awhile he cracked a grin to one of the helpful assistants seating them. Finally, they lowered themselves into folding chairs, side by side as friends, but with Harold on Helga's right and Gerald on Arnold's left. Phoebe had made excuses to avoid coming at all, so it was mostly the guys like Sid and Stinky who had joined them. The one lone exception was Rhonda, who plopped herself down between Harold and Stinky Peterson. She spoke exceptionally loudly to be heard over the waiting crowd, before even she fell silent amid the overwhelming sea of voices.

The auditorium kept and reflected a thousand murmurs. Brightly colored accent light overhead cast a chaotic neon rainbow across the crowd. The lights switched down, and Arnold and his group of friends abruptly became a rosy red from the lamplight resting on them. The voice of the crowd began to dwindle, as all the colored lamps pivoted again, this time to center themselves on the center stage. Deeply bass music began to play right before the event's announcer came onto the stadium loudspeaker. The wrestling match they had all come here to see was about to begin. Helga clenched her fists and grinned deliriously.

Ring bells chimed a good many minutes later, signaling a break between matches. The lights came on for a brief time, long enough for patrons to buy snacks at a steeply priced refreshment center. Arnold stood alongside the counter. He sipped soda out of a paper cup through a long plastic straw. Helga had bought a caramel popcorn ball and a whole small bag of souvenirs, the grin never disappearing from her face, but Arnold was almost down-hearted.

"What's the matter, Arnoldo?" Helga asked shrewdly. "The guy you were betting on lost his match?" But for once her analysis was wrong.

"No," Arnold spoke admiring the stadium's ceiling. A good deal of money had gone into making its architecture appealing. "I was just thinking how… you know. It's too bad Grandpa or Ernie couldn't come along. I don't follow wrestling much, but I know they are interested in this sort of thing."

"Really? Your Grandpa?" asked Helga. She lifted a skeptical eyebrow as she threw a candied popcorn wrapper away. "I had no idea they followed such a thing. Isn't your grandpa like… ninety yet?"

"Not yet!" Arnold countered. There was a tender bit of disgruntlement in his voice, but he followed after Helga and the rest of his friends just the same. Just then, there was the flash of a familiar green dress by the bathrooms. Helga pivoted on her heel. Her eyes widened as they fell on a familiar, retreating figure. Even from the backside, Helga could see two, long swaying brunette braids.

"No. It couldn't be!" The words dropped from Helga's mouth like change from a pocket. As they hit the ground, there was a prompt response from Arnold. He swiveled his head to look but it was too late. Lila had ducked down a side hallway to vanish. "I must be crazy, Arnoldo, but I think I just saw Lila. Or a reasonable facsimile."

"That's impossible," Arnold replied. Helga placed both hands on her hips, preparing herself for a dose of Arnold's reasoning in his flat, calm, skeptical voice. "Lila hates violence. Trust me. I doubt she'd want to go anywhere near a wrestling match." Helga scratched her chin in thought. Maybe Arnold was right and she had mistaken a stranger for Lila after all?

I'll... be right back," Helga blurted. It was the ultimate folly for her to leave Arnold's side during an outing together she had long coveted. But curiosity had her burning with a fire that rivaled love. Helga rounded the corner and there the green-gowned girl was again speaking to a security guard.

"Lila?!" Helga hollered out across the room. The girl in the green dress froze. She turned. The fragile-looking girl's eyes boring into Helga's face, there was no mistaking those freckles.

"Lila?!" Helga blurted out with real, raw astonishment. "What the heck are ya doing here? Wow, if I knew you were into this stuff, I'd have sold ya my extra Wrestlemania cards a long time ago."

"Oh, I don't like wrestling," Lila explained. Nervous laughter punctuated her words. The girl's discomfort was obvious as she tucked her hands together behind her back and let her eyes scuttle towards a corner of the floor. "Um, Helga.. I tell you something, will you promise not to tell? I mean, really, really, really promise… as friends?" Helga scratched her chin again, her eyes wide again as she considered.

"Well, alright," Helga decided at a last. "What's the big secret? Come on. Spill."

"Well," said Lila as the security guard looked on. "I'm here to see my aunt. She works here sometimes. But don't tell anyone. Promise! Okay?"

"Okay! Okay! I promise I won't tell anyone," said Helga waving Lila's sudden paranoia off. "It's not like that's a big deal anyway. Sheesh."

"Okay. Great," Lila said, her voice thick with relief. With that, she ducked through the set of double doors the security guard was watching. Neither willing or able to pursue Lila through those doors, Helga strutted back toward her friends to catch up with them. She sat down next to Arnold just as the lights grew dim again.

"Where the heck were ya?" Stinky Peterson complained for all of them. "We thought y'all would miss the next match."

"Yeah. Did you get stuck in the toilet or something?" Sid scoffed with poor humor.

"I made it back in time, buffoons," Helga snapped in ill temper before flinging a few morsels of food into her mouth from the bag of the things she had bought earlier. Soon the Lady Beast Master was busy flinging her opponent in circles again.

Helga might not have thought much of the strange coincidence of seeing Lila at the Wrestlemania stadium. But she and Phoebe and Harold and Rhonda and Eugene were taking a shortcut through the park, over gently rolling knolls coveted by picnicking adult couples and painters, when she spotted something ahead. It was Lila again, with a hulking huge woman whose only resemblance to Lila was her hair. On gut instinct, Helga dove behind a tree to peer out from behind.

"You, what are you doing?" Phoebe inquired, for she had been strolling beside her best friend at the time. Helga's erratic behavior was something she was used to, but it did not mean she intended to dive behind a tree herself. Helga lifted up a finger to her mouth to shush her. But Lila looked up just then to see Phoebe and Harold and Eugene and Rhonda staring back at her. Her face fell immediately.

"I've got to go," Lila told the hulking woman. With reluctant trepidation, Lila walked up to her fellow classmates.

"Hello," she said, her nervous laughter a bit more high-pitched than usual. "Funny seeing you all here. I'm ever so glad to see all of you!" was the girl's fib. But Helga's tongue, as usual, cut through fibs like a hot knife through butter. She was a blunt instrument of tactless destruction.

"Who's the grown-up? Your aunt?" Helga raised her eyebrow with shrewd cross-examination. The look on Lila's face was an abrupt mixture of frustration and rage abnormal for the ever-so-polite girl.

"Helga! You promised!" Lila lashed out in protest. But Helga's apology did not sound so very remorseful.

"Oops, sorry. My bad."

"You don't have'ta be so embarrassed about it," Harold said with unexpected kindness for a boy with bullish tendencies. Helga folded an eyebrow up at her suddenly helpful friend. "I think she's really nice. I've met her at the stadium where my cousin works lots of times."

"Oh," Lila uttered. Remaining downcast, her eyes lingered on the ground as if the grass was an exceptionally interesting shade of violet. The thought that other kids might know her secret had never occurred to her.

"Gosh," Stinky Peterson, said pointing rudely at the woman in the near distance. "I figure it's the Tin-Can Crimson Bay!" Rhonda covered her mouth and gasped.

"Oh...my... gosh! Lila? Your aunt is a pro-wrestler? That's just… incredible! So unbelievable! You've got to get me autographs! They might be worth money someday."

"Well… okay," Lila offered although she looked like she really wanted to sink into the ground and disappear. At her greenlight, the group of friends mobbed around Lila's aunt with scraps of paper barbarized from Phoebe's notebook.

"Cute kids!" her bulky aunt remarked in a masculine voice.

"Um. Yeah!" Lila agreed for the sake of making others happy.

Lila's group of school friends began to walk away, chortling and laughing. Lila continued to look down at the ground, heavy hearted. It was then that she heard a most unexpected voice. That of Phoebe Heyerdahl.

"Are you okay?" Phoebe said clutching the remains of her spiral notebook. Lila looked up into Phoebe's eyes with shock. She was an unexpected source of compassion.

"I think so," said Lila, tucking her hands behind herself and over-straightening her back so that her braids bent into gentle arcs.

"I really should be going," Lila said laughing nervously once again. "See you around!" With that last merry chirp and a wave of her delicate hand, Lila strode off, leaving both Phoebe and her aunt behind.

The days turned as a factor of time and the revolving planet in respect to the sun. Lila found herself eating lunch in the school classroom of P.S. 118 again with her usual school friends. But in a gloomy mood, she took a exceptionally long time to finish her sandwich. Her best friends stood up and went off to the playground. Then Phoebe Heyerdahl surprised Lila by dropping herself down into a nearby chair to look pensively at her.

"Are you alright?" Phoebe asked, bent forward on folded arms. "I don't think Helga meant to hurt you!" the girl in the blue dress and oval glasses declared with brave certainty. "I think she just forgot. Helga gets that way when's she's excited."

"Oh, no!" Lila said forcing a grin onto her face. It was touching that Phoebe was trying to make peace in the stead of her best friend. "I'm not bothered by that so much! It's...well.. To be perfectly honest… it's me, Phoebe. I suppose...heh...heh! That I shouldn't have made such a big deal about it in the first place. I'm not angry at Helga at all! But thank you ever so much for thinking of me!" said Lila forcing herself to take a bite of her sandwich. Phoebe blinked.

"Well…" Lila explained to the girl with sudden compulsion. "It's like this. My aunt and I have ever so little in common! And we like different things, ever so much! So I'm ashamed to say it, but it's a little embarrassing for me to be around her. I can hardly feel like she's my aunt at all, she's so… unlike myself! I suppose I just don't know what to do about it!" Lila said, her voice spiked with tension at the end of her speech. Phoebe absorbed her words calmly. It was one of those dilemmas that Arnold would have imposed himself into. But for today, it was she, the quiet friend of Helga, who would help her fellow classmate instead.

"Have you ever considered spending time with your aunt to build things in common?" Phoebe asked clutching her own sandwich. She waited for Lila's answer with an unexpected assertiveness that rarely appeared in Helga's presence.

"Well.. to be perfectly honest... No," was Lila's softly spoken answer. Phoebe frowned but she remained compassionate.

"Well... if I were you I would try to spend time with you aunt to get to one another!" Phoebe advised. A sudden bolt of inspiration hit Lila.

"Say.. I don't mean to impose on you, but would you like to come with me and my aunt on an outing around town? I'd like to try out your advice just ever so much!"

"Me?!" said Phoebe with the nervous panic much more customary for her. Her glasses tipped sideways as her mouth took a rumpled line. But Lila had dug into the thought with enthusiasm.

"Oh come on! It would be fun ever so much!" Lila blurted with sudden joy. "We can make it girl's day out! We can invite Sheena and Gloria and Grace and Rhonda!" Lila said listing girls on her fingers. "Oh and Katrinka!"

"What about Helga?" Phoebe said biting her lip.

"Oh. Well, we can invite Helga, too!" Lila said with full forgiveness. "It will be fun. You're right, Phoebe. Maybe I just need to try to get used to my aunt. Even if she is a little… well, strange."

"Wrestlemania isn't all that strange," Phoebe said setting her crooked glasses back in their proper place. "It is long-established event to this region going back eighty years for men, although a mere twenty years for women. We have more wrestlers per capita than any other city in the state and the only televised broadcast," Phoebe rattled on in techno speech.

"Right," Lila mumbled out not so convinced it was normal for her aunt to be a pro-wrestler. "Just think about, okay? I'd be ever so grateful for the company!" Lila smiled a hopeful smile as she threw her lunch tray away.

"Right," said Phoebe a little leery of what her mouth had gotten herself into.

So in the next chapter, I plan for Lila to try to find something in common with her aunt… but not have a lot of success in that! Sometimes relatives just have to be accepted as such. "There can be beauty in contrast." Laters. -Inudaughter.