I'M NORMAL! I do not own ZI-II-IIIM!
A Perfectly Normal Prank
"... and for reason number five, he never eats! And for reason number six, he never drinks either! And for reason number seven, uh, did I already say he was green?" But nobody was listening, so Dib resumed his speech, louder than ever. "Well, in case I didn't... he's green! And for reason number eight, he... "
Ms. Bitters had left off the lesson, Just How Doomed the Earth is and Why it's That Way, and she was answering the door. It turned out to be something about Mr. Elliot wanting to borrow something or other. Dib decided to take advantage of the situation to sway even one of his classmates even a little more toward realizing the terrible danger they were all in.
Zim listened smugly as the Dib beast's rant continued to fall on deaf ears, but just the tiniest crack was beginning to show in the alien's confidence. It was the very reason he hated the Dib more than anyone or anything... the Dib was the only one who knew where that crack was. Not that he knew that he knew where it was, of course, but Zim must never allow the Dib to know this! He had to make sure the other human worm babies never found out that he, Zim, was only cleverly disguised as a normal human worm baby.
And now he had to immediately prove exactly how normal was his normal normality! Zim thought about all the normal things he had seen the other worm babies do. Eat the burning filthy cafeteria food... NO! Drink the burning water from the filthy water fountain... OH TALLESTS NO!
Sit in class and study just like all the other inferior pig stinks... he did that every day, and STILL these ugly rumors persisted! True, so far the Dib was the only one who said them, but the mighty Zim must not allow them to gain a footgrab!
Zim rummaged in his desk for ideas. Nothing. He looked at the floor, a lot of dirt, grime, and scuff marks, but nothing he could use. He looked at the wall... and there the mighty genius of ZIM realized he'd once again found his own salvation!
A thumbtack, an ordinary human thumbtack, used that had fastened a poster to the wall by some earlier, less spartan regime, one that didn't believe decorations were nothing but an unnecessary distraction.
Zim sneaked a sly glance at Dib to make sure the filthy human didn't see him pull the tack out of the wall.
" ... and for reason number fourteen, he ... "
Zim cleared his throat and said, "Ahem." Everybody turned to him; they'd tuned Dib out long ago.
Now the center of attention, even more than he usually was, Zim leaped up on his desk and announced to the class, "The Dib beast has been putting around these smelly rumors that I am anything at all other than a perfectly normal human worm baby. I assure you that these rumors are nothing but LI-II-IIIES! And to put the stop to such LIES, and just to prove it, I am going to do something perfectly normal, so normal in its normality that you will all be amazed! I am going to pull a perfectly normal prank on the teacher, just as any of you human worm babies would do. Observe... and fall down on the floor in your awe at my normalness!"
As Zim stood up, the room first gasped in horror and then fell deadly silent, not daring to move, not daring to breathe. Nobody had ever dared to even think of playing a prank of any sort on Ms. Bitters. Nobody would even dare confess with Ms. Bitters's threatening form looming over you, and if nobody confessed, the entire class would get detention... for the rest of the year... in the underground classroom... the one with the
molten lava running over the floor... and worst of all, doing algebra.
With every eye in the classroom following his every move, (as even Dib had noticed by now, everybody was looking over at that... that alien!) Zim placed the tack with great precision squarely in the middle of Ms. Bitters's vacant chair. As the class held its breath Zim strutted back to his desk, bowing and waving, awash in the class's awe at his amazing normality!
Dib was beside himself. He knew, oh, only too well did he know, what it was to have one of Zim's nano weapons inside him, controlling his every move! Who knew what evil space weapon was on that tack, an evil space weapon through which Zim would infiltrate and control the already evil Ms. Bitters? Zim alone was bad enough, Ms. Bitters alone was bad enough... but both forces together would combine to produce a force of monumental evil which Dib didn't want to even contemplate!
Well, whatever evil scheme Zim was up to, it wouldn't work! Taking both a deep breath and one final furtive glance toward the door, Dib stood up and darted behind Ms. Bitters' desk. He picked up the tack... carefully! No telling what Zim may have put on it...
But before Dib could turn around and jump back to his desk... already planning to store the tack somewhere safe so he could later that evening backwards engineer Zim's nano-weapon... a long dark shadow snaked across the front of the room to loom over Dib.
Dib turned around and looked up... and gulped. Standing next to Ms. Bitters's chair with a tack in your hand was NOT somewhere you would want to be...
After skool that afternoon Dib sat in the underground classroom... crosslegged on the biggest rock he could find as the molten lava slithered and gurgled all around him. To keep the tail of his trench coat from getting burned, he folded it up and sat on it like a cushion, which made the rock a great deal more comfortable. These days, as soon as the sun set the evenings lost no time getting chilly, but it was toasty warm in this room. And because Dib was smart he liked algebra. In fact, to Dib, algebra problems were like salted peanuts; once he got started on the problems he couldn't stop. In fact he couldn't understand why everybody else made such a fuss about doing a few algebra problems.
Zim lingered by the doorway, peering in through the window, keeping a close eye on Dib.
He wants the thumbtack back, Dib figured. He had placed it safely in an empty mint tin (similar to the ones on which you can find Invader Zim and Gir, actually) and placed it safely in his pocket. Well, he's not getting it!
Dib kept his eyes on the algebra problems, completely ignoring the alien peering in at him. This would keep Zim would keep hanging around in hopes of getting something... like the tack back... which he wouldn't! Dib loved winning more than anything else.
In turn, Zim thought Dib was miserable and ashamed, keeping his eyes lowered so as to avoid Zim's gloating stare. He wanted to stick around to watch and enjoy this.
Zim, too, loved winning more than anything else.
The End