What you are calling "old values" are IMHO the "current values". Your first line came blank because, well, you put a blank line as the first line of __DATA__. delete the line between __DATA__ and Hello there. and all will work as you want :-)
You are describing a "fix" to a deterministic behavior which you inferred to be the issue the OP is talking about. However the OP clearly states that his problem is non-deterministic - your fix is for the wrong issue.