On one of the last straggling warm sunny days of fall, after about an hour of Helga helping Arnold with his history essay—"No, the war of 1812 was not—give me that!"

"Helga! Give me back my pencil, I can write it myself!"

"Fine, don't say I ain't done you any favors—"

They continued this banter for some time before calling it quits and were eventually sitting together quietly with their eyes closed, knees almost touching, the breeze stirring up the bric-a-brac littering the boarding house roof and the sounds of faraway traffic fading into the ambiance.

"You're getting great at this, Helga!" Arnold beamed at her as they perched atop the picnic table next to the old beat up charcoal grill that they cranked up every Thanksgiving. "A few more days and I'd say you were ready to do this on your own."

Helga was quite sure that this was the case many moons ago, but Arnold most definitely was not to know this. If anyone had willpower and control, it was Helga Pataki, what with her years of diligent practice. She struggled quickly for this week's excuse.

Arnold was reminded of the expression on her face when he'd walked up to the stage after her dance performance with a bouquet of a dozen pink roses. She obviously hadn't expected him to show up. It had suddenly and sadly dawned on him then that she'd probably never had someone bring her flowers just for being her.

"But, but—wait," she stammered, "Are you sure? I mean, yeah I can do more of this yoga junk now but I thought we were going to graduate to that whole becoming-a-master-fighting-machine thing, you know, like you did." Helga held out her hand slowly in front of her face and clenched it with reverence, and Arnold's eyes saw the gleam in hers. It unnerved him a little.

"Well…" He shook his head slightly and composed himself. "No, the deal was that I help you find inner peace, not help you cause more turmoil in the lives of others…" He hastily continued, "I mean, look at what it did to me—I'd hate to be responsible for unleashing you on our poor defenseless—Hey!" He laughed and backed rapidly towards the end of the table as Helga took a (not quite) mock swing at his head.

"Criminy!"

Two things happened in an instant—Helga, underestimating the nimble reflexes that Arnold undoubtedly still had from his years of tutelage under Gertie's stern eye, made a mad reach to save him from falling to the pavement below, and Arnold, catching himself gracefully against the edge of the table, did not have time to catch Helga's momentum gracefully as she plowed into him almost face-first.

Time stopped. One gasped, the other held her breath. The breeze rustled their hair.

"Um, Helga…"

"Y-yes, Arnold?"

His face was fiery, alight with the setting sun. She blinked weakly.

"I'm kind of… balancing us here on the edge of this table, and you're kind of… heavy." He glanced down at their bodies, pressed together under the strain of him holding himself up against nothing and her half on top of him with an arm slung with a ferocity around his back.

Her hand gripped his ribcage where it was already tightly holding his shirt. She braced herself, "Oh, heh, yeah. Whoops…" Her leg slipped and they rolled off the edge.

"Oof!"

"Are you okay!?" Helga groaned beneath him on the hard ground—Arnold tried to struggle to his feet.

"Stop! Ow, my head!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Helga," Arnold was redder than ever, his hands were flailing.

Suddenly she had his wrist. "I'm fine, bucko, just shut up and stop squirming around like a dumb buffoon for a second so we can get—get…" she fell silent when her eyes reached his. "Oh… crap…"

Arnold froze. "What?"

Then he heard it, the dull clunk of the tray of food being set down near the attic door and an almost imperceptible laughter descending into the boarding house below.

"Was that—"

"He doesn't think—"

Somehow they had scrambled to sit up and were laughing nervously. Arnold rubbed his shoulder, "Are you okay?"

Helga stared pointedly into his face and rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, I'm okay, you klutz—what the heck did you have to go and scare me like that for?"

"You were going to hit me!"

"Psh, no I wasn't, not really. And anyway if I had, you'd have totally killed me with your fancy karate moves—"

Arnold sighed and rubbed his brow, "I'd never fight you Helga—"

"What do you mean? You don't think I could pound you?" Helga scowled and shook Old Betsy at him again but quickly winced and rubbed the back of her head. "I'm no Herald Berman; I can see through that 'crazy' bluff you'd try to pull…"

"No! No, I mean," Arnold glanced somewhere around his knees before sheepishly looking at her. "You know what I mean."

Helga looked towards the door. How was she going to get out of this…? Arnold's gaze followed hers.

"This never happened."

"What?"

"This… this moment."

"What moment?"

It was her turn to be vague. "You know what I'm talking about." She squinted at him, daring him to understand the context.

Arnold looked blankly at her.

"Doi! Phil? You heard him!"

Comprehension slowly dawned on Arnold's face. Helga didn't seem to like it when a tiny smile started blossoming at one corner of his mouth. Stop staring at his mouth! This is a trap! Focus…

"Oh, you mean when I was lying on top of you on the ground? You mean that?" He crossed his arms smugly.

Helga growled and in a half-strangled voice whined, "Sh-Shut up!"

"Or do you mean, you think Grandpa saw you trying to catch me? Do you think he could have thought that you were—oh, I don't know, trying to—" he leaned slightly towards her.

"Don't you even—I'm warning—" Helga was losing her composure, while Arnold seemed to only be gaining his.

"What, are you embarrassed, Helga? He's not going to tell anybody. Well, maybe my Grandma, but," Arnold raised an eyebrow, "He's been bugging me for years about what he calls our courtship."

Helga was mouthing wordlessly, pointing an accusing finger at nothing in particular. This boy was too bold for his own good.

Arnold was halfway through a quiet laugh when he suddenly became very shy, "But don't get me wrong, I—I—" he seemed to shrink a little.

Helga had leapt to her feet, pacing erratically around the picnic table. "Well—what?! Say it!"

"Huh?"

"I mean, really, can you be that thick? Why don't you just rub it in, laugh some more. See if I care!" She crossed her arms tightly across her chest.

"But, Helga—"

"It's not enough to torture me with your kindness and sympathy and help to make me feel—feel—relaxed and—and at peace, for once, away from the insanity of my—but t-to mock my—my—" she blustered, gesturing wildly at him. "I mean, look at you!"

Arnold had pulled himself up off the ground and was standing intensely still, "So… you really are embarrassed…"

"Yes, you—what?" Helga stopped in mid-stride.

"To be here with me. You don't want people to know that we're… friends? Is that it?"

"Wait a minute, Yutz. You know as well as I do that you don't want people to know—"

"Me? I thought you didn't want the guys to see you at my house! I mean, why else would you be climbing down my fire escape all this time, afraid somebody'd see you with me? I mean, Gerald and Phoebe know… it's not like—"

Helga sputtered out a string of curses and grabbed him by the shirt collar, almost at her wits' end. "What are we going to do? Your grandparents are down there telling everybody that we're, that we're—"

"Dating? Kissing? Is that really such an awful idea to you, Helga?" Arnold looked up into Helga's eyes and shrugged. "Gerald thinks that… we… well, you know…" He pointed to himself and then to her, then looked away self-consciously. A deep flush was creeping down his neck.

Comprehension dawned on Helga like a bag of bricks. "Whoa, whoa," she released him and took a step back, shaking her head and putting her fingers to her temples. "You, you mean, you think that I—Helga G. Pataki—think it's beneath me to date you?"

She seemed to freeze, dazed. Arnold blinked. "Well, yeah…" He sighed dejectedly and dropped his head to stare down at the roof.

"Don't you ever say that again, Arnold Shortman!"

He looked up, stunned, and then her lips were on his and they were kissing each other impulsively on top of the roof he'd known his whole life and everything was spinning crazily and Helga was not quite hurting his scalp as she twisted his hair in her fingers, but he didn't care, because he was probably gripping hers just as tightly…

After a few blinding moments, she released him and gasped, "Evil Twin Seven tomorrow night. You can tell Gerald to bring Pheebs. You're buying."

And with that, she was already halfway down the fire escape.

Arnold had to sit down. No wonder she had a hard time quieting herself with all that passion bursting out of her. "It's a date…" he whispered.