Summary: I'm planning to make a series of all four years of Arnold and his friends' years in high school. At this point I'm halfway through with freshman year, but the feedback will determine whether or not I stop it there. So why ruin the fun with hints? Read! :D I'm new at this, so be kind.

Disclaimer: These are Craig Bartlett's toys--I am merely playing with them.

Freshman Year, Part 1.

Chapter One: Campfire Promise

"Man! Seven PM, August thirty-first, Two Thousand Two. In twelve hours, we'll officially be high schoolers."

Fourteen-year-old Gerald Johanssen clicked his tongue and plunged his twig into the campfire, determined to burn the marshmallows stuck to the end of it. Arnold, also fourteen, sat on his right side, gazing heavenward. He gave a long, drawn-out sigh and shifted his weight. He wasn't so sure about his readiness for the new chapter in his life. Looking about himself, none of his friends looked very ready for it, either. After Gerald voiced the obvious, the group exchanged nervous glances and fiddled with their food, all staring either into the darkening summer sky or the crackling fire.

"High schoolers," Harold Berman said, taking a rather large bite of his hot dog. The boy's consistent hunger hadn't ebbed since the elementary days, but his figure had certainly altered after a year or two of playing on the football team. Instead of simple fat, muscles began to ripple beneath his clothes.

"I feel so old," Rhonda Lloyd muttered, twisting her mouth in disgust and staring at a random spot on the ground. While the rest of the group sat near the fire on logs or on the ground, Rhonda lounged in an expensive beach chair and was careful not to allow her Jimmy Choo flip-flops to touch the dirt.

"We're only fourteen!" Sid reassured her, adjusting his green baseball cap. That hat and his leather jacket were the only two things that really remained the same about his style--the white beetle boots were disposed of in the seventh grade after a pretty new girl made a snide remark about them in the lunch line.

"Fourteen," started Sheena, whose sandy brown locks now tumbled past her shoulders, "is only two years away from sixteen, and sixteen is only two years away from eighteen, the age you technically turn into an adult--"

"So we're four years from being adults," Eugene finished, and added, "which means we've got a while before we have to worry about being 'old' Rhonda." He ended his sentence with a bit of an attitude, which wasn't anything new nowadays. The redhead's cheery nature had dimmed during middle school, but he was still getting into accidents. He had retained his optimism; he just wasn't as enthusiastic.

"It's only four years, though," Nadine started, undoing and re-doing her long, blond plaits of hair. "I mean, look how fast middle school went by. High school's gonna be the same, isn't it?"

"What are you talking about, middle school took forever!" Sid groaned, waving his bamboo stick high over his head. The marshmallow at the end of it was flaming.

"I regret to say this, guys, but nothing can be done to slow time," Phoebe stated in a small voice, looking helplessly about herself and ducking whenever Sid's bamboo stick came within two feet of her. "It's going to carry us forward whether or not we want it to."

A grunt came from the left side of Phoebe. Helga was sitting on the ground with her back propped against the log, glaring at the campfire as if it had said something vulgar to her. The blonde had not taken kindly to hearing about the movements of time as of late. In fact, whenever anyone mentioned anything about "moving forward," she became uncharacteristically quiet.

As if he read her mind, Arnold then said, "Going forward can be scary..."

"No kidding, Football Head," Helga groaned, not tearing her gaze away from the flames. It was the first sentence she'd spoken in an hour or two. Biting her lip, she began to fiddle absent-mindedly with the buttons on her striped blouse.

"But it's gonna be all right," he said, trying his best to sound cheerful. "Because no matter what, we've got each other, and however far forward we go, we go together, right?"

At this, Helga looked up, making eye contact with Arnold for the first time in hours. His words rang in her ears--"however far forward we go, we go together." She smiled, something she didn't do quite often, and it caused a chain reaction. With a giggle, Phoebe rested a hand on Helga's shoulder, and Arnold and Gerald wiggled their thumbs together in a handshake just as they had all their lives. This sudden reassurance infected the whole group, and soon the lot of them began laughing heartily and loudly. Gerald stood up on one of the logs and held up his half-full bottle of Yahoo! soda.

"A toast," he began, his bellowing voice quieting the noise. All eyes were on Gerald as he continued, "to our circle of friends. May we stick together throughout this new journey as we have in the past. Cheers!"

"Cheers!" the other young teens echoed, and after another roar of laughter, they chatted anxiously amongst themselves about the great adventure that was to behold in the morning.

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Author Rant: This is definitely the shortest chapter, but I liked the idea of one last campfire before a new life begins. It gets better, I promise.