Some Christmas vacation this was. Gaz sat hunched in the backseat of a car that smelled overpoweringly like pine needles, doing her best to focus on nothing but her Game Slave. Not as easy as it sounds, with Zim sitting right next to her. The stupid alien pressed himself against the door on his side of the car with the obvious hope of staying as far away from Gaz as physically possible. The only plus was that he hadn't said anything yet. That was nice. He usually never shut up.
"I'm sure glad you guys' parents let me pick you up to bring you to the party!" Gaz's perpetually happy teacher, Mr. Elliot, enthused from the front seat. "Your Dad seemed excited about you getting to go, Gaz. And your parents are such nice people, Zig!"
"Zim," the honeydew-colored alien muttered. He stared out the window impassively, watching snowflakes drift past the car.
Mr. Elliot frowned for a moment and peered into the rearview mirror. "Hey Gaz, where's your older brother? Ms. Bitters' class is coming too, aren't they? I mean, your friend Zig is here and he's in her class."
Gaz shrugged. "Dad dropped him off early. I think he had something he needed to do or something."
"Oh, okay! Hey, it'll probably take us awhile to get to Skool with all the snow on the roads. You kids wanna play fun travel games? How about Twenty Questions?"
Gaz groaned. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to be at home downloading that new version of Vampire Piggies. Zim made some sort of noncommittal noise and Gaz guessed that he wasn't any more excited about this than she was.
Receiving no responses to his suggestion of playing Twenty Questions, Mr. Elliot changed the subject. "So! Do you both have your presents?"
Gaz nodded to the wrapped package in her lap but otherwise didn't reply. Of course everyone had been forced to play Secret Santa. She didn't even know the person who she was supposed to be giving the present to. She had just pulled his name out of a hat.
"What about you, Zig?" Mr. Elliot asked.
Zim turned away from the window. "Of course I have my filthy present!" he said. He was clutching a toy moose. Gaz supposed that that was the "present" he had brought. Apparently he hadn't even bothered to wrap it.
Silence lapsed for a moment. Then of course Mr. Elliot went and broke it. "Hey, I know! Let's listen to Christmas music!" He pressed a button to turn on the radio.
"Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful... and since we've no place to go... Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!"
"NO!" Zim suddenly screamed. "Don't let it snow! DON'T LET IT SNOW!"
"Zim, you're bugging me," Gaz said.
"...the lights are turned way down low, let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!"
Zim huddled in his seat, shivering. He imagined snow covering him and burning his skin off. NO! He had had too many close calls already this winter...
"When we finally kiss goodnight, how I'll hate going out in the storm..."
Gaz's hands shook. This was sickening. And Zim was still freaking out, ruining her concentration. What was his problem? "Mr. Elliot?" she said.
"Yeah, Gaz?"
"TURN OFF THE MUSIC."
The car ride lasted about forty-five minutes longer than it should have. With the music off, Mr. Elliot talked nonstop about everything he had done over break so far. Gaz cringed. Of all the days for her Dad to have to spend most of the day at his lab... She almost wished that she had come early with Dib. At least then she wouldn't be stuck listening to her teacher's inane chatter. She got enough of that in class. At last, however, Mr. Elliot announced that they had arrived and he pulled into a parking space in front of the Skool.
Gaz stowed her Game Slave in her pocket, then stepped out of the car and almost immediately had her hat swept off her head by a gust of wind. She snatched it back, holding it tightly to her head in one hand and clutching her present in the other. Zim got out as well and started heading off down the sidewalk by himself. He stepped lightly and gave large piles of snow a wide berth.
"So Gaz, is your Dad picking you up after the party?" Mr. Elliot climbed out of the car and locked it.
"He said he'd try. And he said not to walk home unless Dib was with me." How stupid was that. Gaz knew she was perfectly capable of walking home, even through the snow. She certainly had no intention of trying to do that if her brother was tagging along with her. He would just obsess over yetis or arctic werewolves the entire time.
She didn't wait for a reply from her teacher; instead, she turned and started toward the building. Stupid mandatory Skool Christmas party. She had been planning on skipping it anyway, but her dad had said that she wouldn't be allowed to play her Game Slave for a week if she didn't go. Professor Membrane was the only person she ever bothered paying attention to. With her purple scarf billowing in the wind and snow crunching under her boots with every footstep, she entered the Skool.
The interior was about as festively decorated as the exterior. Which is to say, not at all. Gaz relaxed a bit. At least the hallways weren't decked out in silver tinsel and those stupid paper snowflakes. Now... where was this party supposed to be...? Oh. She stopped beside a large sign labelled with the aptly-named "Christmas Party" and an arrow pointing to the cafeteria. Gaz gritted her teeth and went in that direction.
Any positive impressions of the party vanished as soon as she stepped into the cafeteria. It was like a candy-coated nightmare. And not even a good nightmare. Here there was tinsel hanging from the ceiling, and the aforementioned paper snowflakes littered the floor where kids had torn them down and left them. All of the tables were pushed against the walls to leave a large space in the middle and it was CROWDED. Had the cafeteria ever been this packed with students? It seemed unlikely.
"Gaz!" someone called. Dib sidled over to her from a table groaning under piles of refreshments. "You're here! I thought you weren't coming."
"I didn't want to. This is stupid." Gaz glanced at her brother and raised an eyebrow. "Dib... what are you wearing?
Dib looked down at the knitted sweater he was wearing instead of his usual trenchcoat. "Oh! Since I was helping out here all morning I left my coat in my locker and got first pick of the sweaters they're giving out to everyone over by the door. What do you think?"
The sweater was dark blue with a gray UFO on the front.
"You don't want to know what I think, Dib," Gaz replied. "So, you've been helping to set this party up all morning?"
Dib stared at her. "Yeah... what did you think I was doing?"
"I don't know. Some of your dumb spying or something." She started pushing her way through the crowd but Dib followed her.
"I couldn't. Ms. Bitters made me come early and help set up as punishment, because she thinks I stole that vampire gerbil from the biology room."
"Did you?"
"Of course not! It's a vampire, so it must've gotten out on its own. You can't keep them confined. So, uh, anyway, who's the present for?"
Gaz, giving up on trying to get rid of her brother, stopped walking and took Dib's question as an invitation to get the present off her hands. She thrust it into Dib's arms with the label facing up. "I don't know who that is," she said. "I just pulled his name out of a hat."
Dib read the label. "It's for Keef?"
"I guess."
Dib held the package up to his ear and shook it slightly. "What is it?"
"The stack of Mysterious Mysteries disks that you tried to put in my room because you ran out of space on your bookshelves. They were annoying to look at."
"My disks?" Dib cried. He started to try to wrench the wrapping paper off but a shadow fell over him and the box was ripped out of his hands.
"No opening presents until the right time!" Ms. Bitters rasped, holding the box that, if Gaz was to be believed, held disks that contained about thirty Mysterious Mysteries episodes. Ms. Bitters drifted away through the horde of students.
"No! WAIT!" Dib ran after her and almost crashed into Gretchen.
"Hey, careful!" she said.
"Sorry! Important paranormal business!" Dib said. Gretchen gave him a strange look that he couldn't quite identify, then moved away. Dib couldn't worry about that at the moment. Ms Bitters had disappeared and he assumed she had brought Gaz's present over to the Christmas tree. He'd have to go try to find it later. He turned back to his sister.
"Gaz, you didn't really give away those disks... did you?"
Gaz didn't answer his question. Instead, she said, "So who did you end up being Secret Santa for?"
Dib's face darkened. "Zim. Of all the people in the Skool, I got Zim. And Ms. Bitters wouldn't let me trade with anyone else, either! I mean, what're you supposed to get for a moronic green alien who's trying to destroy the Earth, when you'd much rather see him end up on an autopsy table?"
"What did you end up getting him?"
"Um... a brick, actually. Wrapped it up and put it under the tree over there. I figured he couldn't do too much damage with a brick, unless he threw it at someone or something like that." He looked back in the direction that Ms. Bitters had gone. "I'll, um, be right back, Gaz."
Across the sea of students, at the other end of the room, Zim appeared in the doorway after having finally found the location of the party. His gloved hands clutched the small stuffed moose. He shuffled into the room, glancing around. The disgusting food-room was brightly lit today. Much brighter than any room he'd ever seen in this dreaded Skool. There were shiny, frilly things hanging everywhere and in the corner stood a tree strung with harshly glowing red and green lights, a combination of two complementary colors that was so ugly he couldn't stand to look at it. And what was a tree doing inside the building? It hadn't been there yesterday. Where had it come from?
"Hey, where's your present?" someone demanded. Zim looked over to see some little human kid scowling at him. "Everyone's got to bring a present. You're not my Secret Santa, are you? Because you'd be the worst one ever!"
Why was everyone asking about his present? "It's right here!" he said, holding up the stuffed moose. "I assure you I am a great Secret Santa. Perhaps the best Secretive Santa EVER!"
"It's not wrapped!" the kid said, still looking upset about something. "How can that thing be a present if it's not wrapped?"
"...Wrapped?" Zim looked around the cafeteria again, more closely this time. Many of the human children milling around held packages covered in brightly-colored paper. That's what those things were? Presents? When Zim had seen Gaz holding one in the car, he had assumed it was just another hideous human decoration. But suddenly he looked at the presents with a new interest. There could be anything under that garish wrapping paper. Anything.
"So are you gona wrap it?" the kid said, tugging on Zim's arm and still frowning at him. Irk, this child was quickly getting tiresome. "Who's that for, anyway? It better not be for me! I don't want some dumb ol' stuffed moose!"
"Filthy human!" Zim snarled, pulling away. "I would NEVER play Secret Santa for such an UNGRATEFUL, SIMPERING, snot-filled headed little..."
"Stop yelling at me!" the kid shouted, and slammed his foot into Zim's knee. "I'm glad you're not my Secret Santa! You're really stupid!" The annoying little Hogulus spawn stalked away, still scowling. Zim clutched his knee and limped over to the table littered with human refreshments. Disgusting little cakes and other foodstuffs. Irken snacks were much better than this pitiful slop. And what had that little kid wanted, anyway? Zim wasn't even his "Secret Santa," thank Irk. But apparently he couldn't give the moose away unless it was wrapped, like the other presents that humans were putting under the bizarre tree. Where had they gotten that wrapping paper? Ah, no matter. Zim couldn't care less whether his present was wrapped colorfully or not.
He turned and ran back into the hallway, going into the boys' bathroom and grabbing a wad of paper towels. The moose present was for Melvin, that idiotic child who had once filled the Skool with tiny little bugs that caused the humans to go completely insane (moreso than they already were). He hadn't been sure what to bring as a gift at first. A laser gun may have worked-the humans could have used it to cause destruction to their own planet, bringing much amusement and perhaps making Zim's job a bit easier-but he was trying to destroy the humans, so it would be unwise to arm them. Finally before being picked up by Gaz's teacher he had just snatched GIR's abandoned moose from under the couch. Yes, this would be a good thing to give to the louse-ridden Melvin. But first it had to be wrapped. He wound the paper towels around the moose until it was completely covered. Satisfied, he went back into the cafeteria, holding the moose aloft in pride.
He stopped in front of Ms. Bitters, who stood in the darkest corner of the cafeteria. "I am here, and I have brought my WRAPPED present!"
Ms. Bitters looked at if briefly. "Zim! That's pitiful. Congratulations, you get an A. Now go put it under the tree with the others."
"Yes! SIR!" Zim saluted and marched off to the tree. Yes, this present was pitiful. So pitiful and NORMAL. Fitting for humans. He placed his hastily-wrapped package under the tree next to a gift decorated with leering, cartoony snowmen. GIR would never miss his moose. And even if he did, Zim would just hand over whatever thing some human tried to present him with.
Zim couldn't tear his eyes away from the rest of the presents under the tree. Secrets! The sickeningly cheerful wrapping paper was hiding all manner of objects from him. He had to know what they were. Maybe he could rip them open a bit, just to check and see what was inside each one. If he was careful, the humans would never know! He knelt down and picked up the one with the snowmen. The horrible things were staring at him.
"Hello, Zim."
Zim dropped the present as if it had burned him and jerked upright, his head crashing into the bottom of the tree and sending a cascade of ornaments to the ground. Ignoring the mess and the stares of the other children, he whipped around to see Dib standing there with narrowed eyes.
"What do you want, Dib-worm?" Zim snapped. Dib was wearing a ridiculous sweater emblazoned with a picture of something that looked vaguely like an outdated Vort mail ship.
"I want to know why you're here." Dib nodded to the present Zim had dropped. "And what you were doing. Putting something in the presents? Is that your newest plan?"
"I'm here because it's a perfectly normal human thing to do!" Zim retorted.
"Oh please. What kind of alien monster turns up at a Skool Christmas party? What are you really up to, ZIM?"
"Like I'd tell you!" Zim pointedly turned and marched away. Humans! He had had just about enough of this. If attending this party thing wasn't for a pass/fail grade, he wouldn't have bothered even showing up. But he couldn't afford to be counted missing from this. Not when all the humans in his class were here. It would draw too much attention.
The idea of the presents still nagged at him, making him clench his fists and twitch his antennae under his black toupee. He glanced back at the tree but Dib was still standing over there. Probably watching him. Zim pushed through the crowd of humans until he lost sight of Dib. This human gathering was pointless and was wearing on his nerves! He hoped it would end soon.
Dib had no idea what Zim had been doing over here. At the moment he didn't really care. Desperately he sifted through the presents, trying to find the one that Gaz had brought. How could she give away his Mysterious Mysteries disks? Sure, he had put them in her room, but he had been planning to move them! Eventually. This was even worse than when she had almost eaten his Haunted Gummy Bear collection. He couldn't find the present anywhere.
"Dib!" Ms. Bitters swooped in like a giant black bird and stood between him and the presents. "What did I say about present-opening? Despite how much I HATE Christmas, the tradition must be honored! Stay away from here until it's time to open the presents. Do you want more punishment?"
"No, Ms. Bitters." Dib turned away with his head bent. The festivity in the air must have been making Ms. Bitters angry. Dib highly doubted that she had ever wanted anything to do with this party. He walked toward the back of the cafeteria, unable to think of anything but the episodes that he had lost now. If he wanted to get them back he would have to be clever about it. Or maybe Keef wouldn't like the present and would give Dib the disks back! Yeah.
He picked up a cup of hot chocolate from the refreshments table and took a few gulps. Suddenly a loud, cheery voice nearby made him look up.
Mr. Elliot was bending down to smile at Zim, standing a few feet away from the table. "Hey, Zig! Are you enjoying the party?"
"Heh? Enough with the 'Zig.' I am ZIM!"
"Okay, Zim, then. I forgot to ask you earlier. Where's your sweater? Every kid has to have a Christmas sweater! It's festive!"
"Oh... erm..." Zim took a step backward. "I had one but my, eh, mother had to wash it because my BABY BROTHER threw up allll over it!"
"That's awful!" Mr. Elliot gasped. "You obviously need a new one! We have some free ones over by the door. Go pick one out!" Mr. Elliot walked away to go talk to someone else, with Zim protesting after him.
"But I don't want-"
"Hey, Zim!" Dib stepped over to him. "Y'know, normal people wear sweaters at Christmas."
Zim gave him a dark look. "Then why are you wearing one?"
Dib stopped, taken aback, and Zim allowed himself a small smirk. Confusing Dib was fun.
Before Dib recovered he went on, "But I can see you're right, Human. And no one is more normal than ZIM! I shall go acquire a sweater." He left to go find the table that was giving out sweaters. He'd show everyone. He'd convince them that he was no different than anyone else.
Through the windows, Zim could see that the snow was falling even harder than it had all day. He shuddered. Frozen water. Just waiting for the chance to settle on his skin and set his squeedily-spooch on fire. Had he bathed in paste today? Suddenly he wasn't sure... Maybe getting a sweater wasn't such a bad idea after all; it might provide some protection from the snow.
He found the table and stopped. "I need five sweaters!" he said. Yes, five was better than one. If one sweater made him normal, he would quintuple that!
The guy at the table scratched his head. "Uh... I'm only allowed to give one per customer," he said. "At least, I think... No one ever asks for more than one!"
Idiotic human. "Fine then! I'll just have one!" Zim chose the first sweater he saw and pulled it over his head. It was some sort of off-white color with green and red splotches-and it was the most repulsive thing he had ever seen. There. Okay. He had shown up at the party, brought a wrapped present, and now owned an ugly sweater. No one would dare say he wasn't normal now! Maybe he could finally stop worrying and go try to figure out the mysteries of the presents.
This really was the worst social gathering he had ever attended. There was no point. Nothing was going on. The human children just stood around talking or smearing cake in each other's faces. Sickening. Music played from an unknown source, with a screechy female voice singing, "Rockin' around the Christmas tree, at the Christmas party hop... mistletoe hung where you can see, every couple tries to stop..." Zim neither knew nor cared what on Irk those lyrics meant. He only had one thing on his mind, and that was to-
"Hey! Boys and girls!" Mr. Elliot stood on a chair and waved his arms for attention. "It's time to open presents! Head on over to the tree and find which one belongs to you, then call your parents to pick you up because the party's over! It makes me so happy that each one of you could come, and that each of you're Secret Santas must've worked so hard to-" He was drowned out as kids rushed to the tree, tearing through the pile to find the one present addressed to them.
Finally! The mystery would not be a mystery any longer. Zim ran over to the tree.
"Hey! Move it! Where's my present? OUTTA MY WAY! Gimme that!" He yanked a present out of some kid's hand, read the label, and tossed it back. "Where is the gift addressed to me? I AM ZIM!"
"I saw yours over there." Gaz appeared seemingly out of nowhere and pointed to another stack of presents. "You'd better hurry. I told Mr. Elliot that my dad is going to come pick us up, so he's probably going to leave. You'll have to go catch up with him if you want him to drive you home."
"I am not riding in a car with your filthy father!" Zim shouted.
"Good. Because I wasn't planning on inviting you." Gaz disappeared into the throng of students unwrapping their presents. Zim went over to where she had said his was and burrowed through the stack until, at last, he came across a present with "Zim" carelessly scrawled on the side. Zim immediately picked it up. Irk! This thing was disproportionately heavy! It had to be something good. He ripped through the sloppily-applied wrapping paper. A reddish object tumbled out and slammed into his foot, causing him to yelp and stumble backwards. A brick? Someone had given him a brick? FOOLS! What use was this? Still irritated, he opened a compartment in his PAK and dropped the brick in. Maybe he could still give it to GIR.
In the meantime he had to find Gaz's teacher and get the stupid human to drive him back home. He had no desire to try to walk through the snowstorm.
It was no good. Dib had lost track of Gaz's present. He couldn't even find Keef anywhere. He had to hope that Gaz had just been making stuff up. Otherwise he was going to have to record all those episodes over again. He sat down against the wall and rested his chin on his knees. At least he got to keep the sweater.
"What did you get?" Gaz came over and sat beside him, clutching the pair of black-and-purple gloves that she had gotten as her present. Dib remembered that she had been wanting some gloves. He wondered who her Secret Santa had been.
"I didn't go look for mine," he said with a shrug. "I doubt anyone actually got anything for me..."
"Really? I saw one over there with your name on it." Gaz pulled on her gloves and stood up, then left without a backward glance.
Dib's heart beat a little faster. Had someone really gotten him a present? The crowd had dispersed now, with only a few people left in the cafeteria. Dib numbly got to his feet and made his way over to the tree. The floor was strewn with wrapping paper and bows but he could tell that there was still one present left unclaimed. He knelt beside it and saw that it did indeed have his name on it. What...?
"Hey Dib, your dad's here!" Mr. Elliot came over, smiling as usual. "He came to pick you and Gaz up."
"Oh, okay!" Dib grabbed his present and stood.
"Bye!" Mr. Elliot called as he left. "I'll see you both after break! And tell Gaz that she doesn't have to worry about her little friend, Zig. I'm driving him home!"
Dib hurried outside to see Professor Membrane's new amazingly high-tech car parked in front of the Skool. Gaz was already sitting inside playing her Game Slave. Dib got into the car on the other side. Professor Membrane sighed in frustration when he saw the design on Dib's sweater, but said nothing. He simply pulled out and began driving toward home.
Dib stared at his present for several minutes before peeling off the paper. Underneath was a small cardboard box... and a note that read "To Dib, from Gretchen."
Gretchen was his Secret Santa? Gretchen? Dib knew that he never really noticed her. And yet she had gotten him a gift? Even if she had pulled his name, he hadn't expected anyone to get him something. Maybe it wasn't even something good. Maybe she had given him something that was meant as a cruel joke. A little wary of what he might find, he opened the box.
Nestled inside was the one Haunted Gummy Bear he didn't own. The rarest one of them all.