Arco III
Rain fell softly upon the blacktop of the skool's playground and children from all ages flowed inside the aging building preparing for the first day of academic activities. Of all the groups, crowds, and cliques, one collection of beings stood out as very odd to the swarm of students gathered there. Two of them with long black coats, one gothic girl holding a hand-held game, another with a bright orange shirt and loud blond hair, the other with a green complexion.
"Hopefully you don't get Miss Bitters," Dib said, directing his comment to Gaz, who didn't care either way. Zim shuttered a little remembering the horrible, lecturing old bat.
"Isn't she the one that sent three kids to their horrible, screaming doom on that field trip to that Chrysler plant," Red asked, turning to Dib and Zim. Both nodded solemnly.
"The one and only," Dib stated.
"I don't care right now, I'm on the twenty-first level," Gaz said.
"I just hope I get a good teacher this year," Chris voiced.
"Don't we all," Red expressed dramatically.
"I really don't understand the point. We come here to learn, but learn none, so why come here to begin with," Zim exclaimed.
"That's one for the record books, Zim," Chris said as the group made it to the entrance of the skool. They collected their schedules there being that the skool had forgotten to mail them out not to mention orientation.
"Who did you get?" Chris asked after reading over his.
"Mr. Dover," Zim said aloud answering Chris' question.
"Me too," Chris blurted.
"What do you have, eh Gaz?" Dib asked.
"Don't know, don't care," Gaz said walking off in her own direction.
"Who do you have, Dib?" Red asked, standing beside him.
"Um, Mrs. Anderson."
"Yes, I have her too," she cheered happily.
"Ah man, I was hoping we could all be in the same class," Chris moaned as the group began walking.
"Don't worry, we'll see you at lunch and recess," Red pointed out.
"I guess you're right," Chris accepted. The four friends made it to their assigned class just as the bell rang. Zim and Chris choose seats next to one another toward the back of the class.
"You two, nah-ah, we sit towards the front. Move up a few seats," a middle-aged man said from his position at the front of the class.
"Who? Me?" Zim asked, noticing that he and Chris were the only students in the back row. The man nodded and pointed to a couple seats side by side, but in the front row. Chris groaned, being that he hated to sit in the front, due to the fact the teacher could watch your every move. Zim, on the other hand, didn't mind, being quite used to sitting up at the head of the class.
"And what are your names," the man asked as the two boys reached their seats.
"I'm Chris, Chris McDuncal."
"And I am Zim!" the little irken shouted not yet breaking the habit of shouting his name for all to hear.
"Hi, Chris, um, hi, Zim. I'm Mr. Doyer," the man greeted before talking to a few late coming children. Meanwhile, in the classroom across the hall from them, Dib and Red stood waiting to receive their assigned desk Dib recognized some students from his class before, and they obviously remembered him, for they gave harsh glares and ugly looks in his direction. The other kids he had never seen before or were apart of a different class, which he would see in the lunchroom occasionally.
"Okay, guys settle down, I'm Mrs. Anderson," a young woman boldly said, "now in the first seat we have Dib um . . . Dib."
Hearing his name, Dib walked over and received his front row seat. He prayed that Red would be seated next to him as students took their desks behind him.
"Next row," Mrs. Anderson. Dib perked up in his seat knowing J's were following in their alphabetic establishing chart. Red too prayed she could sit by Dib and waited for the teacher's action.
"Ned Jacks."
Dib and Red's heart sank at this response.
"Mrs. Anderson, Ned's not in this class. He transferred to a different school," one child said.
"Oh, well then, Rosa Jackson."
Dib and Red slapped on happy grins as the trenchcoated girl took her seat next to the pale boy. Some kids from Dib's old class looked on with disgust.
"Do you see that?" Tae said, directing his comment to Dib and Red.
"Yeah, this is like a punishment. Another year with Dib," Sarah stated bitterly.
"And what does she think she's doing?" Zita asked looking at Red.
"She's probably crazy, too," the letter M said.
"Yeah, crazy," the group decided, not realizing half the class was giving them odd stares. Then a girl suddenly burst into the classroom with a glare. She had on a purple dress with red blended into it along with black boots. Her steely blue eyes almost clashed with her light blonde hair.
"Your late young lady, what's your name," Mrs. Anderson asked.
"My names Avery," the girl said coolly.
"Last name, too, please," Mrs. Anderson stated turning toward her.
"Kuthur, K-U-T-H-E-R," she spelled out her odd last name and took a seat behind Red. As the rest of the students were given their desk, Avery scanned the room quickly.
"Hey, Dib, here's that book I found," Red said handing a purple book with pink binding to her paranormal-obsessed friend. Dib took the reading material and looked it over with curious eyes.
"You say you found it where the thing was," he asked turning to Red.
"Yeah, in fact, I think whatever it was dropped it, at least it appeared to be that way," she answered.
"Mmmm, well it's definitely not from the library or any bookstore around here. I wonder who or what would have dropped it," Dib said aloud.
"Maybe . . . huh?" Red was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. It was Avery.
"Sorry if I startled you. What's that?" she asked pointing to the book. Dib quickly pocketed the book before turning to face the girl.
"Nothing, just a book, that's all," he said calmly. Avery stared at them for a moment before smiling and saying "Oh"
"Students," Mrs. Anderson shouted over the classroom noise, " We begin now." The day went along in a boring manner as teachers led over rules, consequences, paperwork, and policies end on end right up until the bell rang for lunch. Doors in the hall swung open as kids gushed out and raced down to the lunchroom to meet friends, chat, rest the mind, and try to hold down 'skool food'. In the mad dash of children Dib, Red, Zim, and Chris walked somewhat to the back.
"Augh, disgusting, sniveling earth children and they're horrible . . . oh eh . . . nasty . . . ," Zim started before he noticed that the group was giving him odd stares. "I mean wow can't wait for lunch."
"Sometimes I wonder, Zim," Dib said as he opened the door to the cafeteria.
"What, I was only joking," Zim said before adding that indeed skool food was disgusting, to which everyone agreed.
"Where we gonna sit at," Chris said as they stood in line. Red looked back at the tables and saw every one of them was taken up.
"All man," she groaned.
"This is no problem," Zim announced before marching over to a table, humming a menacing version of pop goes the weasel. He quickly jumped on the table and let out a high-pitched Indian war cry, which sent the kids of that table running and screaming away. He gently hopped off the table with cat-like grace and dramatically posed.
"Another win! There, our seating unit," he proclaimed.
"Riiiiight," Red stated taking her tray over to the now empty table. The others followed after they had grabbed their trays. When all four were seated, they were surprised when Gaz just suddenly appeared at the table, with a tray.
"Whoa! How'd you . . . get here," Chris shouted, startled by the young girl's quick appearance. Gaz just shrugged and sipped on her juice while playing her game console.
"Yuch! They serve better food at a garbage can scrounge," Red complained, looking down at her mess of whatever it was. Dib too, looked at his foo for a moment before looking back up to see Zim take out a brown bag.
"What's that?" he asked.
"I brought my lunch today. I remember this horrible places feeble attempt at making meals," Zim answered bringing out a bag of chips and a soda, irken, of course.
"I wish I would have brought my lunch," Chris groaned. They all didn't notice that half the lunch room was staring at them.
"Isn't that Dib?" one child questioned.
"Yep," another replied.
"But he's sitting with, Zim."
"Yeah, didn't he always complain that he was an alien or something."
"I have an idea. Tae, go and ask if they're still, like, enemies or whatever," Sarah said, pushing him off the bench.
"What?! Why?" Tae asked not really wanting to go over to the odd group.
"Because, it will make good gossip and I don't want to go over there," she said.
"Well, I don't either," Tae stated.
"Fine," Sarah growled, standing up and walking over to where Dib and Zim sat.
"Hello, guys," Sarah said with as much sweetness as she could muster.
"Watch out spoiled brat at three o' clock," Chris whispered.
"I heard that. Anyway, I was just wondering, Dib, for the longest time you said Zim was an alien and he was going to take over the world and blah blah blah. Now, you're sitting with him at lunch like it never happened."
"Yeah, so," Dib stated becoming quite annoyed.
"Well, so why?"
"Because," Dib said, turning away, pretending to do something important, so he didn't have to make eye contact.
"Oh, could it be that the freak was wrong all along and Zim was just a normal kid with a skin condition. Ha, we knew you were crazy, but this doesn't even make sense," Sarah broke out laughing, causing Dib to slump a little in his seat. He wanted to yell at the annoying brat, but he wouldn't have anything to say. Exposing Zim was no longer a priority if anything keeping his cover was.
"Why don't you zip it," Red bluntly spat.
"Mmm, and who do you think you are. You dress just as freaky as he does."
"Shut up, Sarah!" Dib barked. Zim and Chris glared at the dark purple headed girl who was so rudely insulting their friends.
"Wait, I see. I can't believe I was so blind. You like one another," the sly girl smiled.
"What?" Red and Dib both yelped in a tone that was as if the worst, but the best-kept secret was revealed. By this time the table had become a center of all eyes.
"Oh, this is sweet. Everyone Dib and Red are boyfriend, girlfriend!" Sarah shouted. The room began bubbling with gasp, whispers and laughing.
"Dib and Re-e-e-d sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love then, comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage!" Now the entire cafeteria was laughing and singing, pointing and whistling. Dib and Red both felt sick and wished they could just disappear or sink out of sight. Sarah smiled at their embarrassment, taking it as a job well done. Gaz, on the other hand, growled with contempt. She was on the last level of a game she had been working on for days and now her concentration was broken by some idiot who dared.
The gothic girl put her past time on pause and rose from her seat. Everyone in the room slowly hushed when Gaz calmly but forcefully walked up to Sarah.
"You," she said, slowly narrowing her tightly closed eyes. Sarah backed down a little, fearing what the angry, scary one would do. Gaz pointed to the table forth which Sarah came, still with her intimidating glare held on the scared girl.
"Go, or you will taste my wrath for your game disturbing practice, along with the rest of you," she hissed turning her attention to the now uneasy crowd. Sarah went running back to her table, tripping over her own fear.
"Wow! She sure has a way with people," Chris said, receiving strange stares from the others. Later that day, in the final hour of class, Mrs. Anderson allowed the students to have a free period. Oddly enough Mr. Doyer had made the same plan, allowing his students to talk as he finished up some work.
"This has been one dull day," Chris stated turning to Zim, who had now built a tower of balanced pencils.
"Tell me about it, we still have 179 of your Earth . . . I mean 179 days left," Zim corrected himself, not sure if Chris heard the slip-up.
"Yeah, but at least there's holidays and breaks in between," Chris said not catching the mistake.
"Mmm, that's true."
"Hey, what are you doing this afternoon? Cause if you'd like, you can come with me to the baseball game," Chris explained, "My brother's in there, and it's kind of a family event, but I don't think my mom and dad would care if I brought a friend." Zim nearly choked at the mention of the word friend. He only knew this kid for six hours and was being considered a friend by him. True humans made fast friends, proven to him by Keef, but this was interesting. Irkens would be with one another for years and still never be friends. He sighed to himself and thought about how much he needed to learn about Earth costumes.
"Um, sure I guess. I'll have to check with Juel... I mean my mom first," Zim answered.
"Okay, great. Just call and we'll pick ya's up," Chris replied giving Zim a torn piece of paper with his phone number.
"Why didn't you ask your other friends?" Zim asked receiving the slip.
"Oh, Dib and Red already planned to do something after skool, and Rex is out of town this week."
"This Rex is missing the first week of skool?" Zim questioned. Chris just shrugged. Meanwhile Dib and Red weren't having much luck in with their free-time. They had started out by talking about one of Red's favorite subjects now, weather. Before she'd been terrified by storms of any kind due to the fact, her father died during one. Even though he wasn't a weather genius, Dib knew enough to explain how interesting it can be; especially if its activities are unexplainable. She, in turn, wanted to learn more about her new favorite topic. However, in the midst of their conversation, they could hear snickering throughout the class. The two turned around to see what was so funny. To their embarrassment, it was them. Avery, on the other hand, wasn't giggling. She gazed at the two ahead of her and read their recent pink stricken faces. Then she smiled wickedly. As Red and Dib slowly turned back around to slump in their seat, Avery pulled out a black book with silver lettering that read Journal.
"Hey everyone," Avery shouted as she pretended to reach into Dib's backpack, " Its Dib's diary." With those words, the whole class including Mrs. Anderson looked up. Dib gazed up in shock. He hadn't brought that today, but sure enough there it was.
"Give that back that's mine, and it's not a diary, it's a journal of all my paranormal studies," Dib yelled back reaching for his dear book. What really frightened him the most was the fact the lock, that held the pages tightly together, was gone.
~*Sorry it took me forever to get this chapter up. Hope you enjoy it!