Sixth Grade Beginnings

Chapter 17

Gym class ended with Helga gaining a sense of accomplishment. Still feeling the heat on her cheeks and her heart still in a flutter, she jogged over to her best friend with a little pant still in her lungs.

"Ready to go, Pheebs?" She asked after breathing heavy a little bit.

Phoebe had known that they would be participating in physical activity today and had done well to bring something to occupy herself, as she had a note from her mother excusing her from such sports. Finishing the last few sentences of her chapter book, she closed it with a smile. "Ready!" She replied happily. She analyzed the air surrounding her best friend and tilted her head in curiosity "Did something happen?"

"Happen?" Helga repeated in sudden shock, unsure of what to say. "Whatever could you mean Phoebe? Nothing happened, okay? I ran, we ran, everyone ran and I'm just out of breath, that's all."

Phoebe could feel a chuckle come along and she gathered her things and stood up to meet her best friends gaze. "Okay, if you say so Helga..." She spoke with a little arrogance, "but I'm fully aware of your physical boundaries and know that the little jogging you did wasn't enough to make you this winded."

The blonde, pigtailed girl growled under her breath and waited for her classmates to lead the way so she and Phoebe could tail behind. "It's a blistering hot day, Phoebe! Of course I'm winded! Not everyone gets to sit on the grass and read..." Before finishing her sentence, Helga glanced down at the small book in the young girl's hand, "The Handmaid's Tale?"

"And a shame that is Helga, as this is a very intriguing book. It paints the bleak lives of women who are treated like their only use is to procreate and follow instructions of men." Phoebe explained as she looked up to her companion to make sure she was paying attention. "They aren't even given real names as to show they're just objects; truly tragic but also insightful."

"Insightful?" Helga asked with a raised eyebrow, "It sounds just plain depressing to me. What's got you reading that crap anyway? Thinking of joining an all women's cult to overthrow men and lead a nation of your own?"

Phoebe gave a small pout and clutched her book close to her. "It's not crap, Helga and of course not. Although this is a rather peculiar choice, given my regular novels, I would have to argue that sometimes change is good." She could see that Helga's skepticism was on the rise and let out a small sigh of defeat. "And I suppose my estrogen levels have been peaked as of late, causing me to become a little unpredictable and emotional."

"Ah..." Helga smiled as she noticed they were closer to the school and could only fantasize about the small amount of air conditioning they could budget, "Don't you love being a girl? Thankfully I don't have to deal with all that just yet but I'm sure when I do..." Helga stopped to develop her thought, "I'll probably blow the school up or something." She finished with a shrug.

"Helga!" Phoebe gasped in offence.

"Don't worry; I'll make sure no one I like is here when that happens." Helga replied with a wholesome chuckle and a wink.

After retrieving their normal clothes from their own locker rooms and a quick shower, all of the students from P.S.118 emerged happily from their obligatory confides and ran towards freedom, however save for two of them.

The foursome stood in front of the doors as both Arnold and Helga gulped. The boarding house very rarely had a working air conditioner on account of his grandpa believing "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" when in fact, although the air conditioner wasn't exactly broken, it also had to be bashed on with a hammer a few times to even start up and even then didn't blow very cold air. Helga, on the other hand, no longer had the beautiful gift of central cooling inside the Beeper Emporium, as her father no longer had the expenditures to spend on such luxuries.