"If only for one brief, mad moment it were true... Call me mad, but I dare. I dare!" Helga produced a piece of chalk in her hand, holding it up dramatically as she continued with her I love Arnold monologue soliloquy that she never failed to recite every day. "With this chalk and no witnesses in sight, I will write the words upon this wall which bear my soul, expressing all, I hope, I dream, I pine and I pray, with true, forever and a day."

She grinned brightly, and turned to the wall fully, beginning to write the name of the eternal holder of her heart, the name to which she dare not speak, in beautiful cursive with the chalk...

Arnold

"Arnold..." She narrated upon writing the most beautiful name ever to be heard upon her ears.

She lowered the chalk on the wall slightly, and began writing the next word, a very powerful word that she knew all too well, in her daring quest...

Loves

"Loves..."

She lowered it one last time, and wrote out her own name, still in the beautiful cursive hand writing, to complete the sentence that she had always dreamed would come true...

Helga

"Helga..."

She felt the message to be incomplete, so she drew a large heart around it, like wrapping it up in her own big pink bow to ensure it's safe delivery to the gods, who would hopefully have mercy on her and make her wish come true...

Helga let out a dreamy, lovesick sigh as she gazed upon the message with true happiness, feeling as if the words were true. For one fleeting moment, they were. And she could feel it, even if she knew she had written it herself, in her own little fantasy.

Reality then struck her like lightning as she heard the horrendous sound of footsteps, and voices approaching. And not just any voices.

"-She puts navy blue, and black. What was she thinking?" Came the all-too familiar, haughty voice of the infernal fashion and gossip Queen, Rhonda Wellington Lloyd.

Helga gasped, realizing her mistake. What had she been thinking? She had just written her biggest wish, relating to her deepest secret, right in plain sight for anyone who passes to see, and if they saw her standing there, they would know that she had written it. And Rhonda would of course never let her, or anyone at school, forget it.

She had to think fast, but what could she do? Any second now, Rhonda and whoever she was with would catch her and it would be over.

"So I said, 'Excuse me Miss Thing, this is the fashion police and I'm going to have to write you a ticket."

Helga hurriedly ran off out of sight, since that was pretty much her only option. Okay, so Rhonda and her cronies would see her message, but at least they wouldn't know that she wrote it, right? Not unless they knew her handwriting. Then again, she rarely wrote in cursive unless it was one of her love poems, so maybe, just maybe, she would be safe. At least a little.

Or heck, if she was REALLY lucky, they would brush it off as nonsense, considering her reputation around school, and who Arnold really was. Maybe they would think someone was just playing a silly prank, and then move on pretending like nothing had happened.

Better yet, maybe they wouldn't even see it! Maybe they would walk right past it and not even glance at it.

Yeah, maybe, just maybe.

"Hold up, girls." Rhonda suddenly said, stopping Lila and Nadine.

Helga tensed where she was hiding. Yep. They saw it.

"Will you look at that? 'Arnold loves Helga'." Rhonda read the message loud and clear off the wall.

"Wow, do you think it's true?" Nadine asked.

"Well it must be! It's written right there on the wall!" Rhonda declared. "Oh, this is rich. Can you believe that Arnold of all people actually loves Helga? The class bully? The least fashionable girl? Wow, I never would have thought."

"Gosh, I never expected Arnold to like her...and yet, it's just ever so sweet." Lila admitted and smiled. "I always figured he ignored her a lot of the time."

"Well obviously, he must have been keeping it secret because of the fact that Helga pretty much hates his guts!" Rhonda declared. "The poor, misguided kid. He just had to fall for someone who hates him."

"I don't know, Arnold is a nice boy, maybe there's something about Helga that he just can't help but love." Nadine suggested.

"Oh, maybe he sees her in a way that no one else does. Come to think of it, he does always seem to be just ever so nice to her. I remember yesterday he gave her the last tapioca pudding because she wanted it." Lila recalled. "But gosh, if she really does hate him that much...poor Arnold...he must be oh so heartbroken."

"Well girls, it's official, Arnold is definitely nuts." Rhonda said. "I wonder whatever happened to those other girls he's liked... There has to be something about Helga, because no way is she pretty, and niceness is definitely not in her attitude vocabulary. The only plausible way this could be true is if they were in a secret relationship."

"A secret relationship?" Lila questioned. "You think so?"

"Trust me Lila, I know these things. They must obviously keep their love a secret, because of the taboo, all the forbidden aspects of it! The bully and the victim in love? No one would ever accept it." Rhonda told her.

"Well...gosh... I never thought of it that way before." Lila murmured.

"Come on then ladies, we have much to talk about." Rhonda said haughtily, and led the girls away.

Once they were gone and out of earshot, Helga emerged from her hiding place, enraged and scared.

"I can't believe it! What have I done?! I was so STUPID in writing this dumb message on the wall! How could I have let Rhondaloid of all people see it?!" She cried, clutching her pigtails. "What am I gonna do now?! My poor beloved will be in trouble, and he'll have to face up to the humiliating gossip! And worse, my reputation will go down the drain! Or worse, my secret will be exposed! Oh...no! This I can't allow! I have to do something! But criminy, what can I do?! The cat is already out of the bag!"

Helga paced in front of the cursed wall, thinking of what she could do. She had to do something about this, without exposing the fact that she had written this message on the wall.

"Well, I guess all I can do is pretend I don't know about it." She murmured to herself. "At least it'll ward suspicion off me. Okay Helga, you can do this. You go to school, and you did NOT just write a forbidden message on the wall! Yeah, I can do that. And I will."

She emerged onto the street, took a few steps, a deep breath, and walked off with confidence.

This was going to be just fine.