They thought class would never end. This guy made history into root canal sessions with Josef Mengele. I think everyone's been here, you know, sitting in a boring class with nothing to do but scribble, think of different ideas for songwriting (or your given art), count how many holes are in the ceiling, and wonder how many rats were passing through there at that moment. Probably hordes, but lets try to be optimistic here and say it's about half a dozen.
These were the thoughts of a one Dib Membrane at the time his history teacher at Casper High Skool. If this idiot stopped talking about the mundane and started reciting historical events of para-science or para-psychology, Dib's ears might have actually been stimulated enough to end his inattentiveness for at least one second.
But no such luck occurred.
This was completely clichéic, he realized, as many of the teacher-student relationships consisted of repeated droning monotony every day they would enter this accursed building. He knew very well he should have been paying attention, but he obviously was not. This fool was not engaging him. Being locked in one's apartment with the only way out being a portal that led to a foggy, haunted town was better than this.
Dib, it must be said, was also in a band. Some of his thoughts had indeed turned to songwriting, but the problem was that he and his fellow members only did cover songs at the moment. That is what made him disheartened about the situation; he liked rock music and took lessons on how to play it (his dad, the great Professor Membrane, thought it would take his mind off the paranormal; fat chance), but he could not write lyrics for his own life.
"When am I going to have my big break and make an actually good song?" Dib thought in his enormous head.
"And what does that have to do with Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Dib?" Mr. Lancer asked with a biting tone. Dib did not realize he was saying his thoughts out loud to himself again.
"Er, nothing." Dib said quickly back with the nervousness of a ferret trapped in a trashcan after it had rummaged through the garbage, only to find that it could not climb out.
"Well, you best sit back and pay attention," Lancer said, "This is going to be on that stupid end of course test that you all have to take." He paused for a moment as the entire class looked at him for a minute. "You heard me; I think the test is a stupid idea but you all still have to take it." He then continued his boring lecture about the world wars, while the rest of the students immediately took out their notebooks. There were only two now, in the back, who did not follow suit, and they were Dib's fellow band members, Tak, the irken girl on drums, and Gretchen, the nerdy industrialist bass player.
Both stared at their Guitarist, Dib, who was sitting in the front row, shaken up from being put on the spot. He always felt self conscious when a teacher called him out. The girls stared at him, a sense of longing filling both of their hearts. Their eyelids sagged in the attitude of relaxation as they gazed at this nerdy paranormalist boy, drool trickling unknown to them from the sides of their mouths down to their much needed notes, staining the page and making the blue paint of the lines run here and there, sinking through to the other pages.
For some reason, they got the sense that the other was watching him, encroaching on each other's eye space. They shot a look at each other, along with a smile; behind each of their eyes, however, burned a vicious fire ready to engulf the other.
It was not that they despised each other, actually by no means. They both liked Nine Inch Nails, the cheap entertainment of Grindhouse films, and agreed that their friend, Mandy, either lost her nose to the ghost of Nikolai Gogol (they had been reading "The Nose" in class the day they made that joke) or that it had been absorbed into her boyfriend, Billy's, as his was obviously double the size of the normal human nose. When it came down to it, they were both too much alike, namely in liking the same boy.
Tak had come back to Earth, to simply make Zim's life a living Hell, but also, well let's face it, because she wanted to see Dib again. She always enjoyed his talks, no matter how much he rambled. She promised to go legit and legal this time, without causing too much trouble, save for what she did to Zim (her last prank on Zim involved replacing all of his soap with dog conditioner and his soda with dishwashing liquid). Dib obviously had no qualm with that.
Gretchen, well, always liked Dib, ever since the day they met. But, for whatever reason, he spent more of his time talking to Tak than her. She liked him first, so why didn't he spend more time with her?
Little did Gretchen know that the new student at the back of the class, a kid with a red shirt and hair by the name of Skoodge, was actually looking at her the same way she was Dib. He was actually a disguised irken, just like Tak, who had crash landed on Earth without means to repair his cruiser. He thus decided to blend in with the locals. He did not think he would find himself falling for one of the humans. The problem was that she did not know it. How he longed to sit closer to her, her braces and pink hair shining in the autumn sun.
The bell finally rang. Finally, Dib, Tak, and Gretchen all thought simultaneously. The students all scrambled out of the classroom. The band of three walked down the hall to the left to their study hall; Skoodge was right behind them coming out of the door but had to turn right to get to his next class. All he could do was watch with a discordant longing as Gretchen walked with Tak and Dib before disappearing into the crowd.
"You two ready for practice tonight?" Tak asked.
"Absolutely," Dib said, "I've got to set up some more security cameras to make sure Zim doesn't try anything again."
"Don't worry," Tak retorted, "I've already taken care of that. See, he's going on another date with Gaz. I've tipped off the waitress to give him a free pie with a small explosive device in it. Think of it as a remote controlled fire-cracker. We used to use these to shock our enemies out of hiding spots."
"Oh," Dib said in amazed humor, giving Tak a warm smile, "That sounds perfect. Gaz should get a laugh out of that too. Hey, I figured out who we're playing against, Trixie's band."
"Didn't they just add that obnoxious girl?" Tak asked with a groan, "What's her name? Veronica? Tootie I could at least put up with for short periods, but why Veronica?"
"Well," Dib said, thinking, "She could play the drums. But we'll show her that you can do it better, right?"
"But of course, my dear," Tak said with a smirk.
"Gretchen," Dib said, noting that she had been silent the entire walk to the room, "Ready for practice tonight?" Gretchen gave a smile back, a slight squeak, and a thumbs up sign. Tak looked back at her, knowing something was up. Gretchen looked back at her, both of them giving each other a similar glare as in the classroom.
"Okay," Dib said, feeling himself estranged to what was going on, "I'll talk to you two at practice." He then walked into the room.
The girls looked at each other for a little while longer. Behind the smile, they knew what each other was thinking. Dib was not an item with either of them yet, which made him fair game for either of them. Gretchen broke the gaze and walked in. Tak followed close behind her. They knew they had to focus; they were playing with (or it should be said against) the band of the most popular girl in skool at the annual Triple F that weekend (this standing for Fall Festival Fare) and needed to be at their best not to be outshined.