04 Now

It wasn't until Arnold's senior year in high school that someone mentioned using computers to make all of their classwork easier. They were in a public school and there was absolutely no budget for a computer lab, so the students were told that they would have to wait until university to gain access to the best public used computers and their software.

Arnold wasn't interested in it at all anyway, until the day in biology class when one of the girls near him mentioned using computers to model the dissections to save everyone from having to touch the specimens. He caught his breath at the thought of using something that could save all of his work, especially since he was never allowed to keep the specimens he acquired on his own. His father wouldn't allow them in the house.

The teacher couldn't mock a student openly in class, so all he said was that it wouldn't be the same as actually having the specimen. Arnold raised a hand and the teacher was surprised, because he almost never volunteered to speak when he didn't have to.

“Yes, Arnold?”

“I think using computers to catalogue and model the specimens you either can't keep or can't acquire on your own would make it a useful tool, sir.” Arnold said while looking at the girl.

Arnold wasn't trying to argue either point and he hadn't invalidated either the girl's opinion or the teacher's. It was the perfect middle ground for both arguments. The teacher had to agree that in that respect it would be useful and went back to teaching the class. The girl on the other hand, was quite happy that she had finally gained the handsome buzz-cut blonde boy's attention.

“Do you have a computer that can do that?” Arnold whispered to her, unable to control his enthusiasm.

“I have one of the best.” The girl easily lied. “Maybe if you...”

“I'd like to see it.” Arnold said, his eyes almost shimmering with anticipation.

The girl's heart skipped a beat at his intense stare and it took her a moment to recover. “Do... do you want to come over to my place after school?”

“I do.” Arnold said and smiled. I can't wait to see what computers can do!

The girl caught her breath at the smile Arnold beamed at her, because it had transformed his stoic and statue-like face into one that looked like an angel. She was struck dumb for the rest of the class because he kept staring at her with that smile and she could only stare back. When the bell rang twenty minutes later and everyone stood up to leave, it shook her out of her stupor and she managed to stop staring at Arnold, then she left the room before she embarrassed herself further.

Arnold hadn't noticed that she was embarrassed, mainly because he was going over in his mind what specimens he would want to hunt down and look at first, now that he was given a chance to look for them on his own. He was sure that the girl had been exaggerating about being able to model everything; but, that was only because he hadn't had any experience at all with computers.

His interests had been solely on biological exploration and he had completely ignored everything else. Now that he knew computers could help him with that, he was all for it. The rest of the day passed quickly and when school was over, he found the girl at her locker.

“I can't believe he actually agreed to go to your house.” The friend said.

“I know!” The girl said. “He hasn't said a word to me in three years.” She chuckled. “I was starting to think that I didn't exist in his world.”

“You exist.” Arnold said from behind them and both girls were startled and let out little squeals as they dropped their things. He bent down and picked up the two dropped books and the girl's sweater.

“Arnold!” The girl said and took the sweater from him and her friend took the books from him.

“My mother has to keep reminding me that I can't ignore important things, just because I'm passionate about something.” Arnold said frankly, and the girl's face flushed red as she blushed.

“Would you mind if I came along, Heather?” Her friend asked.

Heather turned to her and gave her an angry face that she thought was out of Arnold's sight. “That would be fine.” She said without gnashing her teeth like she wanted to.

Her friend was startled for a moment at the anger, then she smiled. “Arnold won't mind.” She leaned around Heather and looked at him. “Would you?”

Heather sighed and turned to look at him and was surprised to see his face had lost the smile.

“Can you help me find specimens to look at or to model?” Arnold asked pointedly. “If you can't, then there's no reason for you to come.”

Both Heather and her friend were surprised to hear this, for different reasons. Heather was surprised because she thought she would be stuck with trying to take care of two guests at her house, and the friend was surprised because she was being so blatantly rejected.

“Ah... um...” The friend tried to come up with a convincing argument for her to come along. Like as company or something. She thought.

“I was in the library and the woman there showed me her computer. There's not a lot of room in front of it.” Arnold said. “If Heather and I are there, where will you fit in?”

The friend couldn't offer to find specimens, because she didn't know where to look, and she also couldn't say that she would sit on the bed or a nearby chair without offering some explanation of why she would need to be close by. She couldn't realistically do both, so her arguments died before she made them.

“You and I can visit together tomorrow.” Heather said happily to her friend. “We can even study!”

Her friend couldn't argue that she wanted to come along to protect Heather from him, not while right in front of the boy in question, so she sighed and leaned back against the lockers. She would have to settle for following them and watching them from afar.

Heather gathered her homework things and put them into her backpack, then handed it to Arnold. “Hold this for me, please.”

Arnold took the backpack and slung it over his shoulder.

Heather pulled on the sweater after making sure it hadn't gotten dirty from being on the floor, then she shut her locker. “See you tomorrow.” She said to her friend and took Arnold's arm and walked away down the hall.

Arnold followed the forceful girl out of the school and over to the parking lot. He wasn't sure what was going on, until a car pulled up and its horn honked at them. Heather waved at the driver and opened the back door and climbed in. Arnold climbed in and sat down as well, then the car was off and out of the parking lot.

“Who's your friend?” The middle-aged woman asked as she peered into the rear view mirror.

“This is Arnold.” Heather said and blushed as the woman's eyes widened in surprise.

“The famous Arnold I've been hearing so much about?” The woman asked, teasingly.

Arnold turned his head from looking out the window to look at the woman's reflection in the rear view mirror and not at the back of her head like most people do. His stoic expression caught her attention for a second, then she put her attention back onto the road.

“She's my mother.” Heather whispered to him.

“It's nice to finally meet you.” The woman said.

Arnold nodded, because he wasn't sure what to say in response. No one had said that to him before.

“From what my daughter said, I expected you to be ten feet tall and have glowing white wings.” The woman joked.

“Is it possible for people to be that tall?” Arnold asked. “I know humans having wings isn't possible, mainly because we don't have the bone structure or the musculature to support wings large enough to pick up our weight. If compared to birds, human wings would have to be about eight to ten feet long each, giving us a wingspan of twenty to twenty-two feet.”

Heather and her mother fell quiet at his words. Heather because she had never heard him say more than a sentence before and her mother because he was very articulate and explained things well.

“Our feathers would have to be huge, probably about the size of an ostrich feather, and multilayered like an eagle. Without enough feathers, we wouldn't be able to maintain flight or even take off.” Arnold said. “That's just speculation on my part, though.”

Neither of them responded, so Arnold turned his head and looked out the window again to try and see where they were going.

Maybe she didn't pick a blockhead this time like she usually does. The woman driving the car thought.

They arrived at the two storey house and the woman parked in the driveway. She was out of the car and at the front door to unlock it in only moments, then she came back to the car to meet Arnold as he stepped out.

“Would you be a dear and give me a hand carrying in the groceries?” The woman asked Arnold.

“Mom, he's already carrying both of our backpacks.” Heather said.

“So he is.” The woman smiled and opened the trunk. “It should only take a couple of trips.”

Heather sighed and was about to take the backpacks from Arnold when he reached into the trunk and weaved his hands through the handles of six of the bags, with three on each arm from his elbow to the wrist, then lifted. He walked over to the house and opened the door with his still free hands and went inside.

Arnold looked at the basic layout of the house and took a guess on where the kitchen was, based on his own house. He walked down the hallway and was rewarded with a large open-concept kitchen and living room. He put the bags on the counter in the same fashion he had picked them up and went back outside.

Heather and her mother stood there beside the car and watched as Arnold repeated the motion and picked up the last four bags from the trunk and carried them into the house. They didn't move at all as they took in the scene that had just happened. The woman had expected him to take a token bag or two, just to claim that he had helped like she asked and she would have to take in the majority of the rest with several trips back and forth.

Heather on the other hand, had seen that Arnold hadn't struggled at all, even with the large bags of canned goods that her mother always managed to buy when she went shopping.

“We need to get inside.” The woman said as she closed the trunk. Heather nodded and they went inside. They were shocked to find Arnold as he sat at the kitchen counter with all of the items sorted into two groups, one to be stored at room temperature and one to refrigerate. Even the bags were nicely folded at the end of the counter.

“Arnold.” The woman said and he turned to look at her. “What are you doing?”

“I knew I should have put them away, too.” Arnold said. Mom would smack me for just sitting there and not helping her.

Arnold stood up and went to the refrigerator and quickly took all of the things from one pile and put them into the refrigerator in the appropriate spots. When something had multiple options to fit, he took the closest one and adjusted the contents of the shelves to make everything fit. He closed the refrigerator door and looked at the dry goods. He took a few moments to look inside the closest cabinets and only saw pots, pans, and baking dishes.

“Where do these go?” Arnold asked and motioned to the dry goods.

The woman was too surprised to speak and pointed to the door beside the refrigerator. Arnold opened it and found an entire room made to hold dry goods. He knew his mother would like to have a whole room for the things she had to squeeze into the small shelves inside the kitchen cabinets. With a cursory glance, he had a basic layout in his head and then moved like a machine as he took everything from the counter and put it into the pantry.

Arnold made sure that everything was within easy reach and in the order he thought they would be used. He had done this for his mother countless times, so he did it again almost automatically and was finished barely five minutes later. He shut the door and walked over to the kitchen counter and sat down to wait. His mother always had him move out of the way to inspect his work. Sure enough, both Heather and her mother went to the refrigerator and looked inside, then they went to the pantry to look at the work he did.

To say they were stunned at the transformation to both the fridge and the pantry was an understatement. Heather always had trouble finding anything and her mother had tried several times, quite fruitlessly, to organize her pantry properly. Now it had been done in only a few minutes and they stared at the shelves of easily reachable items.

“You need to invite him over more often.” The woman whispered and Heather nodded.

They came out of the pantry and Arnold still sat there with a passive look on his face, as if he didn't know what he had just done for them. The woman put a hand on her daughter's shoulder and led her around the counter to stand her next to the strong and handsome boy.

“Why don't you two go on upstairs while I make you a snack?”

Heather's mouth opened slightly at her mother's offer, since she had never offered it before. She always insisted on keeping an eye on her and any boy she brought home. Always.

“It's getting close to supper time, though.” The woman said and looked at Arnold. “Perhaps you would like to stay for supper instead?”

Heather's mouth dropped open all the way and her mother let out a soft laugh at her daughter's shock.

“Go on, now.” The woman said and made a shooing motion with her hands. “I need room to work.”

Arnold completely understood that reasoning and nodded, which she took for acceptance to stay for dinner, then he walked out of the kitchen and went back down the hallway to stand at the bottom of the stairs. He didn't know what room was Heather's, so he had to wait for her directions.

“He's even attentive and is waiting for you.” The woman whispered to her daughter. “Don't mess this up.”

“M-m-mom?” Heather couldn't understand the complete one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn that her mother's attitude had taken.

“You've been talking about him all this time, so don't try to back out now.” Her mother smiled. “Get a hold of him and don't let go.”

“B-but...”

“He's going to be something important. I can feel it.” The woman said, which echoed Heather's thoughts when she had met Arnold for the first time. “You're graduating this year and you're already eighteen. You need to start thinking about your future.”

“I... I'm going to college.” Heather said.

“Yes, and I'm sure he is, too.” Her mother said with a smile. “Wouldn't it be nice to get to him before he is exposed to all those other sluts in college?”

Heather completely missed the insult and nodded.

“Then get to work.” Her mother said and turned her daughter around and eased her out of the kitchen. She smiled as Heather walked with confidence and met Arnold at the bottom of the stairs, then her daughter took his hand and led the boy up the stairs. That's it, Heather. Lead him where you want him to go. She thought in satisfaction and went back to the counter to start making supper.