Current mood:	depressed
Current music:	Billie Holiday - No Good Man
Entry tags:	fanfic, gen, helga, olga, rated pg

Cold (Set 6, Prompt A - seashell)

Title: Cold
Author/Artist: lightbird
Characters: Olga, Helga
Rating: PG
Prompt: Set 6, Prompt A, seashell
Word Count: 533
Summary: Based on the episode Student Teacher. Olga doesn’t understand what went wrong.
Warnings: Not beta’d. This idea seemed better in my head; I don’t think it works quite as well on paper.
Disclaimer: Hey Arnold belongs to Craig Bartlett. I make no money from this fanwork.
Constructive Criticism? Yes, please.

Pulling her parka tighter around her shuddering body, she picked up the pen and began writing the letter to her little sister while her small class of students worked independently on their exercises. It had always been her desire to make a difference in the world, to help those who were less fortunate than herself. That was one of the reasons she considered the idea of coming here to teach poor and underprivileged Inuit children.

Her original plan was to volunteer at her sister’s school this time around and teach Inuit children later on, after she’d graduated. She and her little sister had never been close, and it made her sad. It was her hope that maybe if they spent a lot of time together they would bond and have a more sisterly relationship. But Helga hadn’t wanted her there, and what she thought would be a great bonding experience had only made her sister resent and hate her more.

So here she was, freezing her buns off in an igloo in Alaska. God, it was so cold in this place. What she wouldn’t give to be in a warm place at the beach right now.

The Pataki family had spent almost every summer at the beach when she was growing up. It wasn’t far from the city, about an hour’s drive away. They always rented the same cabin and she remembered playing in the ocean with her mother and father, building sand castles while they lounged on a blanket sunning themselves, collecting seashells.

It was even more fun when her little sister was there. Olga was eleven when she was born. When Helga was still small, not quite a toddler, their mother kept her on the blanket, afraid that the rambunctious and curious baby would crawl after her big sister and into the ocean. Olga returned to the blanket a lot to play with her. And when Helga began to walk and talk, they collected shells together, picking out the perfect-shaped, shiniest shells they could find.

“If you hold it to your ear like this, you can hear the ocean inside of it,” she told her four-year-old sister one day.

Olga held the large pink seashell against her ear in a demonstration, then lowered it and held it out to Helga.

“Pretty.”

“It is. And listen.”

She gently placed the opening of the shell against Helga’s ear.

“Hear the waves inside?”

A perplexed look crossed the little girl’s features for a moment, but then Helga smiled and nodded.

“Can I have it?”

“Of course. It’ll look pretty on your dresser in your room.”

Those times had been fun. Of course Helga was much younger than her, just a very little girl at the time who looked up to her big sister. They had very little in common though.

Tears welled up in Olga’s eyes as she continued writing her letter, telling Helga about how much she enjoyed teaching the Inuit children, conveying the upbeat and cheerful attitude that her family always expected from her. But this time she didn’t leave it at that.

I still don’t understand what happened between us, she wrote. But all I know is that I miss you terribly, Baby Sister. Write soon. Love, love, love, more love, Olga.