Chapter 2

I glared at Zim. "Give. Me. The. Freaking. Envelope."

Zim clutched the red envelope closer to his chest, giving me a glaring look back. He sat on the couch, pushing his back far into the cushions.

"No."

"I will hurt you!" I bluffed.

Zim didn't do anything.

"It has my name on it!" I cried.

"Yes, but it is from the DIB-STINK! WHO KNOWS what horrors of BIG-HEADEDNESS await in this!" He waved it around, explaining. I tried to grab it, and couldn't. Damn Irken reflexes...

"How do you know it's from Dib?"

"Zim knows."

"Have we not talked about the third-person speech?" I said, closing one eye.

Zim pouted.

"Gimme—"

"No."

I tried to grab it again. "Aha!" I shouted in my joy. I ripped it open quickly with my finger and pulled it out. Zim tried to grab it. It looked something like...

"An invitation?" I asked disbelievingly.

"What? What's that?"

I opened it up. "Dib's invited me...to a party." Zim and I both gave each other "wtf" looks.

"You're not going."

"What?"

"It's a trap!"

I rolled my eyes. "A trap for what? Like Dib wants to kill me or something? I haven't even met him yet."

"Actually, you have."

"...How?"

"When you were passed out. He picked up all the pieces of GIR, remember? Anyhow...the FILTHY Dib-worm has seen you before."

"Well...just because he's seen me, doesn't mean he wants to...whatever you think he wants to do to me. Plus, Dib is..." I searched for a word.

"If the Dib-stink isn't trying to kill you, he's trying to kill me! ME! That's why I have to come with you, see what his plan is..."

I raised an eyebrow. "You're not invited. Wouldn't that be what he wanted?"

"SILENCE! Don't interrupt me being amazing! And the Dib will see me there, whether he likes it or not," he said with an under current of threatening Dib in his voice.

"Fine, even though it's rude to bring someone to a party without permission." I sighed. "And apparently Dib got a new house..."

The party wasn't formal, so I decided to just go in my jeans and shirt. Dib? Hosting a formal party? ...Could he do that? I also had decided to do something different with my hair—for once. So I put it in a simple ponytail. I had stared at myself in the mirror too long trying to decide what to do with it, before Zim started yelling about being late.

We were walking to Dib's house, of course, by the lack of a car. Zim had decided to go in his normal attire (that would be his Invader outfit) and his disguise. As soon as we'd come here to his own world, he'd "forgotten" about the hologram.

Zim was mumbling and kicking things the whole way there, muttering about Dib. I had to admit, it WAS pretty suspicious...But still. Maybe Dib was just trying to get to know...me? Creepy.

I was carrying the wrapped house-warming gift. Zim had thought it simply hilarious to buy him a huge quart tube of hair gel.

"You know, I'm still concerned about school..."

"Yes, yes, I know." Zim didn't say anything after that, so I continued on.

"I need to go."

Zim gave me a side-glance. "Zim shall see what he can do. Maybe you can enroll in my horrible skool. Heh, with the Dib-creature...WAIT!" I didn't seem very fazed with all the screaming, you kinda got used to your eardrums being blasted out. Besides, I could hardly hear anything anymore. Once GIR had tried to fill the making-stuff room with the filling that's in Twinkies, and...well...Zim didn't really like Twinkie filling, I shall say.

"With you being by my side, we shall DESTROY him! Muahahaha!" That was an irregular short laugh, and I pondered if I was actually calming Zim down.

Haha...Whoa.

We turned a corner a few seconds after Zim's laugh, and I saw Dib's new house. It wasn't like anything I would've thought. It was four stories, and had an ordinary white paint, and a nice black roof. It had a little bit of a gothic aura around it, but that made it cooler. It wasn't the paint that was on the walls, or the roof, but how humongous it was. It was like a mansion! With Professor Membrane's money, I guessed, you could buy a house like this. It was funny, though, because all the other houses beside it had two stories. So it looked like somebody had lifted up this huge house with a crane or something and dropped it in the middle of a lot, randomly.

"I want that house!" I said.

"Zim's base should be enough for you." Zim growled. He had his squinty look on his face.

"Well, yeah...It's just...It's huge!" When we got closer, I could hear techno music blasting in the backyard. There was a tall white gate, and I peeked in one of the slots and saw the party guests. Nobody seemed to be dancing or anything, and a fire pit was near a pool. A huge stereo system sat near a sliding glass door, and I could see inside the house. Large black leather furniture was everywhere—and a big screen TV, too.

"Dib...is...loaded," I said disbelievingly. Why hadn't I noticed it before?

"Hm?" Zim asked.

"Er—nothing. Let's go to the door."

We walked to the door and I took one hand off the present and pressed the doorbell. The doorbell rang throughout the house, and I blinked. Zim and I both looked up and a light upstairs came on. A few seconds later, somebody pulled open the door.

"Thanks f—ZIM! What are you doing here?"

"I have decided to enlighten you with my presence, Dib-worm. Now step aside, and let me see this so-called 'mighty' house of yours!" Instead of waiting for Dib to step aside, he grabbed the present from my arms and shoved it into Dib's stomach, which caused him to double-up in pain. He stumbled back and opened the door wider, and Zim walked in, hands on his hips.

"Now that's more like it," Zim murmured.

I muttered a quick "sorry" to Dib before he nodded and shut the door, walking away limping. He took the present with him.

"Nobody ever said it was 'mighty'," I mumbled out of the corner of my mouth to Zim.

"Mhmm, mhmm," Zim said, not acting like he was listening. "Interesting."

I narrowed my eyes and scanned the...crowd. Okay, so it was pathetically small. Not much of a party with two people, but oh well. Not much of a crowd, either, but hey, Dib tried. What's funny, though, is that the two guests were both girls, and they were wearing party dresses. They were maybe two years younger than me. I glanced down at my jeans and shuffled my feet nervously. How Zim could stand out and not care was amazing to me. He was crossing his arms and glaring at everything. I thought this was going to be just a nice, casual party, but I thought wrong. The outfits on the girls reminded me of elegant things, and I nervously tried to push hair behind my ear, and discovered most of my hair was in my ponytail holder. So I brushed my bangs back instead.

I think Zim was starting to notice my nervousness, because he grabbed my hand and held it above both our heads. He then shouted "WE ARE A NORMAL EARTH COUPLE!" He grinned broadly and nodded, and the two girls nodded and clinked their plastic cups of punch together before drinking for us. I blushed really badly. This party wasn't going too well so far...

Luckily Dib came out a few seconds later from his sliding glass door, arms free of the present we got him. Right before Zim could go further in his antics. Oh...Thank god.

Dib walked over to the two girls, and I noted he was still wearing his trench coat and smiley face outfit. Well, okay...

Dib started. "Oh, I need to introduce you! Okay, Avi, this is my friend, Lily..er..." The girl in the black dress rolled her eyes.

"Lila Summers, Dib. And nice to meet you, Avi." Lila had blonde-styled hair and looked pretty nice. She had brown eyes and was wearing heels, and I saw she was taller than me. But I wondered if Dib had hired these girls to act like his friends.

"Right!" he said nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "She's from Canada!"

"Nice to meet you too, Lila," I replied.

"And this would be Helena," he said, pointing to a black-haired girl. She raised her cup in salute, and I decided I liked her. Dib stalked off somewhere, mumbling something like "don'taskmewhereshelives".

"And this is Zim," I said, giving him a look in the corner of my eye to make sure he hadn't gone after Dib or something.

"I am ZIM!" he reassured us.

"Hi Zim," they both said in unison.

"HE'S AN ALIEN, YOU KNOW!" Dib's voice came from inside the house. The girls stared at Zim.

"He's normal," I said. "Let's go get punch now." I said and grabbed Zim, shuffling him off. I loved how I could do that, because it was a cartoon. Sure, I'd probably never see my parents again, or go back to school, or...Well, at least I had Zim.

I shut the sliding glass door and breathed a sigh of relief. I went to the punch bowl, which was on the (marble) kitchen counter. Dipping the ladle, I got some punch and grabbed a paper cup. Pouring it in, I watched Zim. Zim seemed not to want to touch anything, and sorta just stood in the middle of the kitchen.

I poked his shoulder.

"Can you loosen up a bit? It's a party." I tried to smile convincingly.

"No!" Zim threw his hands up. "Zim will not loosen up! In fact, Zim will get tighter. Ohh, so tight I will get, there will be no more...eh...loosage!" Zim stomped his foot. "Zim would like to leave now,"

I pouted. "Few more minutes, kay?"

"Fine, fine. But I'm going out; this house reeks of the Dib-stink."

After he was gone, I sniffed a bit. Shaking my head, I took a sip of my punch, leaning back on the counter.

It was weird to hear a house so silent, and I wondered where Gaz was. I was reminding myself to tell Gak about how I'd met Dib when I heard screaming outside.

I put my punch down and ran over to the sliding glass door, putting my hand above my eyes and squinting outside. I could vaguely see Dib holding something, while he and Zim screamed back each other. I yanked open the door and went out, closing it behind me.

"It NATURALLY goes that way, okay, Zim? NATURALLY!!!!!" That was Dib. He was brandishing something about wildly when I realized Dib had taken all the presents out, including ours. Uh oh. Looked like he had unwrapped Zim's nice little gift.

Dib was brandishing the tube of hair gel.

"You lie! I have CAMERA FOOTAGE, Dib! Of you! You and your SMELLY HAIR, and you putting "hair gel" on it! I HAVE SEEN IT WITH MY VERY SUPERIOR EYES!"

"I. Don't. Lie!" Dib shouted back, and his voice got shrilly and high pitched. I turned and saw his friends watching, interested.

Then I saw Dib put his arm back, and him throw the tube of hair gel at Zim.

Smack!

It hit Zim pretty hard in the forehead, and I saw him stumble back.

Oh. Freaking. No.

There was something behind Zim—the pool.

I watched him go all the way down, limbs windmilling, until he splashed into the pool. The splash as big as if some fat kid had done a cannonball.

I took a sharp intake of breath, and started running.

I knew he probably wouldn't make it.