Disclaimer: I still don't own Invader Zim... or Dib, Gaz, or Professor Membrane. Can there still possibly be any lingering doubts that the owners are anybody but Jhonen Vasquez, Nickelodeon and Viacom?
I wasn't sure how to most appropriately classify this one-shot, but finally settled on Drama, Angst. Actually, it isn't all that dramatic, just everyday domestic stuff, and what angst it has comes right at the end. While it's leading up to a tragedy, it isn't actually one yet.
Has anyone read "And I Don't Want to Live This Life," the biography of Nancy Spungen (girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious? That's who Gaz reminds me of.
Thank you kindly for all reviews, folks, and all constructive criticism gratefully received. Again, no Zim yet. But if I ever do think up a fanfic with him in it, you'll be the first to know!
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And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon
Ms. Membrane was having one of those days... one of those days where she wished she'd never got married.
She swallowed the maximum allowable number of tablets and pressed against the throbbing in the right side of her head, waiting for the pain to subside. Lately the days were zipping by faster and faster, as if time itself had speeded up.
On top of that, her headaches were growing steadily more severe, more frequent, and longer lasting. They hadn't been this bad even last week, when she had promised to bake cookies for the skool bake sale, attend the PTA meeting, and take her turn at carpooling. Today she remembered the grocery shopping had already been put off too long, the kids were down to their last change of clothes, her library books were now overdue (all unread, except for the story book she'd taken out for Dib and Gaz), the cupboard was a disaster area, the bathroom was worse, and these were just the items she could remember off the top of her head!
As if all that wasn't enough, Dib and Gaz had been arguing about something since lunchtime. Each exchange drove the headache deeper into her brain. As raising her voice made her head hurt still more, Ms. Membrane had first asked them, then told them, to play more quietly and please not be so loud; Mommy's head hurt. Seconds later the children would be bickering again. "STOP IT THE BOTH OF YOU!" she finally exploded, driving a bolt of pain through her skull. This worked better; it took them a full minute to get back at it.
Just as she decided that the groceries and the overdue library books were the most urgent items, Ms. Membrane remembered that she was still awaiting an important phone call from the doctor's office. Fortunately she could always forward her calls to her cell phone and take that along.
None of their usual babysitters were available on such short notice, so she had no choice but to take Dib and Gaz along and hope for the best. While she'd expected some fuss when she put Dib in the front seat and Gaz in the back, she was hardly prepared for this much trouble. Gaz persistently and viciously kept kicking the back of Dib's seat, but oddly, with each kick it was Dib who said he was sorry.
Also being jolted, Ms. Membrane could feel her headache building once more. When repeatedly telling Gaz to stop did no good whatsoever, she pulled the car over. Pleading both children to behave for just five minutes, she tried putting Dib in the back seat with Gaz; at least that would stop the seat kicking. With the resulting melee she dared not put the car back in gear, let alone on the road. Determined to keep her temper, Ms. Membrane placed Gaz in the front seat and secured the seat belts before resuming the journey. Gaz turned around as far as she could to spew a torrent of unnervingly hate-filled threats at Dib, who finally screamed that he was STILL sorry he stepped on one of her stupid crayons, he had no more crayons left to pay up with, and for the zillionth time didn't she know what an accident even WAS? Then he kicked the seat himself.
Great. Just great. Ms. Membrane slammed on the brakes, pulled both kids out of the car, held them against the fender by the sleeves, and fastened them both with the stoniest stare she could muster.
"Honestly you two!" she stormed, exasperated beyond even trying to reason with them. She was ready to start tearing her hair out, headache and all. "I - I just don't know what I'm going to do with you! Dib, you do NOT kick girls, and - " She pulled Gaz back just in time for the swinging foot to do no more than narrowly graze Dib. "Gaz! YOU do not kick people who are not allowed to kick you back! That's not fair!"
Gaz began to smirk and gloat as if Dib was the only one being yelled at and this unpleasant scene couldn't possibly have a thing to do with her. Dib, on the other hand, seemed to shrink as he stared down at his offending foot. Once again Dib was taking on far more than his share of responsibility for the situation, while Gaz was refusing any at all. Ms. Membrane then realized to her dismay that she had blown up immediately after Dib's sole kick even though Gaz had been doing the same thing for quite some time, but it was too late to undo that now.
"That's better," she said, smiling, once a minute or so had elapsed without further bickering. "And because you're both being so good now, I'll pick up a special treat for dessert tonight!"
Ms. Membrane drove to the library with no further disturbance. She reached down to gather up the library books... and quickly realized that with the distraction of the squabbling, she'd forgotten to bring them. She fell back into the seat, covered her eyes, and sighed.
Gaz's voice poked through the uneasy silence. "That's your fault, Dib."
"How is it - ?" Dib began to protest, but his mother cut him off.
"Please! It doesn't matter. It was mine, okay? Mine. Let's go." She started the car once again and headed for the supermarket.
"I - I'm sorry," Dib said once more. He sank back into a guilty silence, and Gaz apparently felt her victory to be so complete that the rest of the ride was quiet indeed. Mercifully, Ms. Membrane's headache began to ebb; once at the supermarket, she even found a good parking space right away.
She stepped out, locked her door and reminded Dib to lock his. "Bye bye, DIB!" Gaz sneered. "I won't have to look at your big head now!"
"My head's not - "Dib began, but caught a warning glance from his weary mother and said nothing further. Gaz smirked with triumph.
When Gaz realized that her mother would be taking her into the store as well, she didn't even take a breath before screaming, thrashing, and kicking as if some horrible monster had broken into the car. Ms. Membrane, her headache quickly returning, barely registered the stares of passers-by who looked at her as if she was some kind of child abuser. She had started getting used to those sort of looks the day they brought Gaz home from the hospital.
How different her two children were Ms. Membrane mused, hardly for the first time. This was not to say Dib had never fretted or fussed when he couldn't have something he wanted, but with Dib, all you had to do was to show him something he'd never seen before, preferably something mechanical. Nine times out of ten that had worked like a charm. He would immediately be so absorbed in figuring out how it worked and how it was built that he would completely forget whatever he'd been screaming about. He was a very bright child who learned at an astounding rate, and getting overdue for another eye examination to determine whether his glasses needed any further adjusting.
Dib seemed to regard the supermarket as a library that just happened to have food in it. Once his mother had managed to secure the shrieking, kicking Gaz in the child seat and was filling up the grocery cart, Dib skipped on ahead, reading aloud all the labels he could decipher, more to exercise his new reading skills than to really lobby for the purchases. It was a good thing too; his mother was slowly nearing the breaking point.
"Mommy! Can we get... 'wax, paper' Mommy? Can we get 'Gar... den, Va... valley, apples? Can we get 'in... stant, bar, barley soup mix'? Mommy! Can we get ' fro... zen pie crust'? Can we get this kinda 'cereal'?" He pronounced the last more like "surreal."
Trying to pacify her daughter, Ms. Membrane kept asking what she wanted for dessert. "Ice cream? Fresh strawberries? Peaches? Well, what do you want?"
Gaz's shrieks sounded vaguely like "I WANT TO WAIT IN THE CAAAR!! PUT ME BACK NOOOW!!" Her face looked like a punctured red beach ball tied in very tight knots and she sounded like she was being murdered. From one end of the building to the other, the very windows shuddered from her screams, and Ms. Membrane was careful to place any glass jars at the opposite end of the cart just in case Gaz decided to start throwing things.
Something was amiss here, no matter what the doctors kept saying. Pediatricians and psychologists had all blithely dismissed Gaz's berserk convulsions as merely being a part of the "terrible twos." Ms. Membrane had endured more patronizing lectures than she cared to recall about how all children went through a stage where they tested limits, challenged parental authority, blah blah blah... Gaz was just one of the pluckier ones, and this was actually a good thing, or so they claimed. Nobody would ever push this little girl around! She had a lovely strong will and certainly could so stand up for herself... right, Little Miss Angel? Ms. Membrane was getting increasingly leery of taking Gaz to these doctors any more; she wondered if Gaz was taking their well-meaning but horribly off the mark diagnoses as encouragement. When the last one had launched into a glib spiel about how this sort of thing was merely the price to be paid for living with a superior individual, Ms. Membrane simply stood up before Gaz could hear any more and walked straight out of that doctor's office; earlier that same day she had barely been fast enough to pull Gaz off Dib before the two year old would have stabbed into her brother's eyes with the shattered fragments of his own tumbler. Dib's offence? Ms. Membrane had poured his juice before pouring Gaz's.
Finally Ms. Membrane dropped the last item in the cart with a last "Okay, okay, we're going," to Gaz. It felt as if she had just arrived and already it was time to leave, one small consolation at least.
As they pulled up to cashier's station with the shortest line, Dib saw something that made him start yelling loudly enough for some of it to make it through Gaz's howls, which was all Ms. Membrane needed right then.
"Aliens, mommy, aliens!! It says 'aliens' right here! See?" Jumping in his excitement, Dib held up the latest issue of The Weekly Planet to show his mother. She was barely able to focus on the cover picture of a big eyed being before her cell phone rang. This could be it. She took a deep breath and -
"Aliens Mommy, aliens!! We gotta buy - "
Ms. Membrane lost it. "DIB SHUT UP!! WILL YOU JUST SHUT UP!! SHUT THE HELL UP NOW!!!"
She turned aside to answer her phone. "Hello?" No, it wasn't the call from the doctor's office she had been expecting. "No, they haven't called yet! Yes, I will. Right away. Oh... and thanks."
Total silence spread outwards from her... except for Gaz, of course. First the cash register she had selected, then the ones next to it, and after that the ones two stations away, slowed down and stopped ringing; one after the other, clerks and customers stopped talking. None of them could disguise the fact that they were closely watching Ms. Membrane lest her next move be to hit one of the children.
But Ms. Membrane was aware of none of it. As she pressed the button to end the call, all she saw was Dib, still staring at the cover of the trashy tabloid. As much as he obviously wanted it, he was in no particular hurry to ask for it again. His little face was crumpling with betrayal and hurt.
Ms. Membrane crouched to her son's eye level. "Dib? Dib, honey. I'm sorry I got so mad at you." His shoulders heaving, even now he didn't dare to quite look her in the eye, and this so nearly broke her heart that she had to pause to steady her voice. "Mommy is - is just having a really, really bad day. Of course we can get it." She took the magazine gently from his hands and placed it on the conveyor belt along with the rest of the groceries.
Even though she would be getting what she wanted in a couple of minutes, Gaz was now screaming louder than ever. "Dear God, please get me through this," Ms. Membrane muttered. In desperation she set the cell phone to Games and put it in Gaz's hands. "See, honey?" she said, demonstrating. "You push these buttons to make it go, and these buttons to make it go 'ZZZ!'. Won't that be fun?" Maybe, just maybe, that might distract Gaz long enough for her to make it through a cash transaction without another disaster. Gaz actually took the cell phone, and when she made no move to throw it away, Ms. Membrane stopped bracing to catch it and carefully counted out the total.
As they wheeled away from the register, Ms. Membrane debated with herself whether to take back her cell phone, but only briefly. It was still keeping Gaz quiet. In only a few minutes they would all be home and she could take the call on her home phone.
In fact, it was a blissfully peaceful ride all the way back, with Dib reading as much of his new magazine as he could on his own and Gaz completely immersed in figuring out which buttons caused what to happen on the screen. Gaz barely seemed to notice being lifted out of the car and carried back into the house. Ms. Membrane removed the call forwarding and decided to leave the cell phone with Gaz for the time being. Noting the time, she set to work preparing supper. The afternoon had sped by even faster than she had thought.
Dib placed his magazine on the kitchen table, stood on a chair, and continued reading the aliens article aloud, asking his mother to pronounce any words he couldn't. When he was finished he read it again, not needing any help at all this time, his mother noted with no small pride.
Gaz sat at the other chair, still working the buttons. "Good game, Gaz?" Ms. Membrane asked. No reply. It certainly does keep her quiet, she marvelled.
Dib now pulled his chair to the window and as he stared up intently at the darkening sky, his mother asked, "Are any stars out yet, Dib?"
"I'm looking for aliens," he replied, in a strangely serious voice for a three year old. "They're coming."
"Let me know if you see any," said Ms. Membrane, before tasting the mixture and adding another pinch of seasoning. Just as she was about to say, "It's ready. Now where's Daddy?" the Professor came in the front door. Supper was served up in record time.
"Gaz, it's supper time," said Ms. Membrane gently. "Put away the game for now and eat at the table. You can play again after supper if you want."
"Don't want to," came the reply, the most Gaz had uttered for hours.
"Eat, honey, or you'll get hungry."
Gaz didn't even look up from her game. "Want pizza."
"Today is Dib's turn to pick, honey. Tomorrow is yours and we'll eat what you choose. Then next day is Daddy's turn."
"I do believe I'll put in my order early," said the Professor. "And something tells me I'll be in the mood for pizza!"
"Yes, pizza it is, dear. Gaz... put down the game," said Ms. Membrane, just a little more firmly this time.
"Want pizza," Gaz stubbornly repeated.
"Yes, we'll all have pizza tomorrow, Gaz," said Ms. Membrane. "Now eat your - "
"I said pizza. Don't want this!" Gaz curled her lip at her plate of spaghetti and meatballs with barbecue sauce.
It would have been easy enough for Ms. Membrane to microwave a frozen pizza for Gaz, if she were the kind of mother who settled for instant food substitutes. "Well, there's still some of my whole wheat bread left; I'll make you a peanut butter sand - "
"Pizza!"
"That takes too long, and we're all eating supper already. Just eat a little spaghetti okay? Please," said Ms. Membrane, exhausted enough to beg a two year old to eat.
"It's his fault we gotta eat this yuck!" Gaz protested. She grabbed a meatball and flung it straight at Dib, nearly hitting his glasses but splattering them messily enough.
"GAZ!"
The Professor chuckled. "That's not a big deal, it's just a meatball!"
"But if I threw food at HER you'd - !" Dib started to protest.
"You know better, son, and you've got to set a good example for your baby sister," the Professor lectured. Dib rolled his eyes. He'd heard this one so many times he knew it word for word.
Ms. Membrane lowered her fork slowly. "Gaz. We do not throw things in this house. We do not throw food in this house. And we most certainly do not throw anything at each other in this house."
"Pretend it's pizza, sweetie, not a ball," said the Professor. To his wife, less cheerfully, "Now you're mollycoddling him... !"
"We're teaching him not to hit girls, aren't we? Well, that won't be easy as long as his sister treats him like - "
"My son has to be a man!"
"'Man'? He's three years old for heaven's sake!"
While this exchange was taking place, Gaz deliberately picked another meatball from her plate and prepared to throw again, a motion Ms. Membrane caught in the corner of her eye.
"That's IT young lady!" Ms. Membrane declared, all patience exhausted. Staring her mother straight in the eye, Gaz crumpled the meatball before her mother could take it from her hand, but upon having the cell phone pried away, resumed her tantrum right where she'd left it off in the supermarket. So much for a peaceful evening. Ms. Membrane sighed as she carried the kicking, screaming two year old to her crib. Just as she closed the door to Gaz's bedroom, which muffled the racket only slightly, the phone rang.
"Can you come in... soon?" the doctor himself asked, not the receptionist as she'd expected. "Frankly Ms. Membrane, the sooner we get started on this, the better."
"I see," said Ms. Membrane slowly. "Well, I'll be free all next week. When would - "
"I was thinking more like tomorrow morning. My office opens at eight, so let's say 7:30."
Ms. Membrane barely heard any of what the doctor said next. Her headache slunk back from its hiding place to once again crouch low over her ear.
In a daze Ms. Membrane returned to the kitchen, where the Professor was just winding up what seemed to have been a long talk with a weary looking Dib, and was preparing to head to the cellar for another evening of experiments. After helping Dib remove all traces of grease from his glasses and wiping the barbecue sauce off the wall, Ms. Membrane started washing the dishes, still in a state of numb shock.
Dib resumed his watch on the sky. "Mom! Mom!!" he suddenly shouted. "I saw an alien space ship!"
"What did it look like?" Ms. Membrane asked automatically.
"It was blinking! Just like the one in the TV show! It went on flying, and it had a red light and it was blinking! And it was an alien space ship! They're coming! They're really coming!"
"Good for you!" The words just came from somewhere. "Keep watching, honey. Tell me if it gets any closer." Dib nodded and returned to his vigil while Gaz's shrieks continued undiminished.
Still staring into space, Ms. Membrane began to dry the dishes. Once the initial shock began to ease, she almost laughed out loud at the absurd banality of what she was doing. She left the dishes to air dry and started the laundry in the washer before taking Gaz from her crib and offering her back the cell phone, set once more to the game. Gaz grabbed it; even though Ms. Membrane had been teaching her to say thank you, she figured this wasn't important enough to make an issue over now.
This is how I'll do it from now on, Gaz thought with satisfaction. Sometimes it takes longer, but if I just scream enough I will always get what I want.
Ms. Membrane then called to Dib, but when he was reluctant to leave the window, she suggested they go into the living room where they could all sit together on the sofa next to the big picture window. "It faces the same direction," she reminded him.
Ms. Membrane chose several books from the bookcase on her way to the sofa, where she settled with one arm around Dib and the other around Gaz to once more begin their familiar old bedtime rite. She vowed to make the most of the rest of this evening before tucking the kids in their beds. At breakfast tomorrow would be time enough to tell her husband; Ms. Membrane wanted just this one more evening to be the way it used to be.
The first book she opened was the book of nursery rhymes, one they had long outgrown. If they complained that it was too babyish, she would move on to the next older book and thus work her way through all their favorites in succession.
"Hey Diddle Diddle" was a good place to start. Dib and Gaz didn't have a lot in common, but for whatever reason, they had both loved this piece; Gaz sometimes still asked to hear it and when she did, Dib never complained. It had been quite a while since she had read it to them every night; indeed that time seemed very long ago now.
"Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle." As she read, a lump rose in Ms. Membrane's throat. "The cow jumped over the moon..." the lump grew bigger, making it harder and harder to read. "... the little dog... laughed... to see s - such sport..." Suddenly Ms. Membrane couldn't read any more. She set the book aside and just simply held her children like a frightened little girl holding her dolls.
Dib turned to glance at his mother. Mommy's reading us baby books? Why's Mommy so weird today? He continued peering up into the sky. It's the aliens. Mommy got the most mad at me when I asked for the paper about them. And now she's sad because the space ship's out there. Those bad old aliens. Don't be afraid Mommy. I'll keep watching.
Gaz kept playing, pushing the buttons with grim, silent fury, oblivious to whether or not her mother was even reading. It's all HIS fault. I hate him. Nobody steps on my crayon, nobody keeps my pizza away, and NOBODY makes me lose my game. Because I lost three things, I give myself three wishes. I hope Dib dies forever. And I hope Mommy dies too. And I hope it hurts them. A lot.
Eventually Dib fell asleep, his breathing steady and rhythmic. Gaz hit the buttons slower and slower until she missed the last target and the game ended; her outraged screams jarred Dib awake. Hushing her gently, Ms. Membrane restarted the game and peace reigned once more.
To Ms. Membrane, it felt like she'd just sat down, but a glance at the clock told her hours had passed. It wasn't fair. The little time she had left was slipping by too fast. She closed her eyes and bit her shaking lip. How could she possibly leave now, right when she realized exactly how much work she really had to do? Gaz could get away with throwing tantrums a little longer, but what would happen when she got older, when she started skool, unless she learned some other way of dealing with people? And Dib! What would Gaz do to him if no one was around to stop her? The events of that day were telling her all too clearly what life would be like for Dib from now on. As the tears began to push their way out from beneath her lids, Ms. Membrane held her children closer for just this one more little while and wished with all her heart for more days, even one more day, exactly like this one.
The End.