"I can't believe you wrecked the motherboard."
"I'm not wrecked!"
"At least we won't have to put up with it long," Mom said hopefully.
"How long is it to Arkania?"
"Seven months."
"Oh my god," Dib moaned. "I'm not gonna make it."
"Shut your noise tube. We've got suspended animation, so it'll feel more like an hour."
"How soon can we start that suspended thing up?" I asked. GIR was in the back, singing a song that consisted of one word. It was dreadfully annoying. Between him and the computer joining in, I wanted to get off this ship so bad…
"Right now. COMPUTER! Engage suspended animation."
"Eeeeeeeeeeiiiii… no can do."
"Why not?" Dib asked, sounding hysterical.
"Don't wanna."
"YOU DON'T WANT TO?" Zim screeched.
"That plus it's not responding no more."
"Wow. Maybe we should have stayed on Earth…" I said, but no one could hear me because the singing was so loud.
"Arrrrgh…" Mom said loudly.
"So who brought the board games?" I asked loudly.
"DOOM DOMIE DOOOOOMIE DOOM DOOMA DOOMA DOOMA DOOM!" chorused the computer and GIR, loudly.
"This is all your fault, Dib!" Zim shouted suddenly.
"My fault! All I did was carry stuff! You put the stupid thing together!"
"I don" I started, but Mom shushed me.
"They fight all the time. You just have to get used to it."
"For seven months?" Mom bit her lip. She might have said something, but I didn't hear it. It was pretty loud in here now.
"Be quiet." Mom said quietly, and there was one of those auras that make you want to shut up and quickly.
"Dib, you know that annoying me thing? You're both doing it. For you to goons to be fighting all the time when we were kids on Earth was bad enough, but at least then I could lock you all out of the house for the night. Here, there's nowhere to get away, so we're going to have to try not to kill each other."
"Try getting GIR to be quiet with that speech," Zim said, scoffing. I swear the temperature went up three degrees.
"I don't need a speech," Mom said. Then she hit the red button to open the cargo bay doors. They slid open, and she went inside, closing the door behind her. The singing instantly stopped, and was replaced by a horrible screaming. After a minute of sitting, terrified, in the main part of the ship, glancing nervously at each other and wondering what was happening beyond those doors, we heard the screaming stop, and the doors opened. Mom came out, looking satisfied.
"He won't be doing THAT any more," she said. Sure enough there wasn't a peep from the robot that hadn't shut up once since he'd crashed.
"What did you do to him?" Zim asked fearfully. Mom looked at him with that one-eyed glare she does so well.
"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
We didn't ask again.
Two minutes later, we were trying to find anything flat that we could cut, and maybe do something with. A deck of cards would have been worth killing for, but since we didn't have that, we tried to play word games. This wasn't for any reason, but we really didn't want to have to think about doing it for seven months.
"Cat," said Dib.
"Rat," said Mom.
"Splat," said Zim.
"Slat," I said.
"What? asked Mom and Dib together.
"No, no, slat's a word," said Zim. "It's one of those planks that cover windows."
"No, that's not what he said," Mom insisted.
"What did I say?" I asked.
"See, that didn't make sense either," Dib said.
"Yes it did," said Zim, confused.
"No, it didn't. He said like, 'diud I whaht sia?'" Said Dib.
"Am I missing something?" I asked.
"You just did it again!" Dib shrieked.
"Oh, no…" Zim said.
"WHAT?" the three of us chorused together. Dib and Mom looked at me funny.
"You're speaking in tongues," he told me solemnly.
"What are you talking about? I don't know any other languages. I took Spanish for a year, but I flunked it, so…"
"No, you've got an automatic translater on your back. You have to be able to feel what language everyone else is speaking, and mimic it. I think you're speaking betelgeusian, but I can't tell. It's one freaky dialect, anyway."
"Neat-o"
"I told you no good would come of that thing, Zim," Dib said matter-of-factly. "Is it me or am I always right?"
I told him to shut up, but he couldn't understand me. Mom started laughing, and I had to quietly wonder what the words I was saying sounded like. Must be pretty freaky to get MOM laughing. I went on looking for anything at all to do, other than speaking a freaky language no one but Zim could understand. At least I could still understand people.
I wandered back into the cargo bay just to be away for a little while. It was dark, and GIR was in a corner sniffing.
"Hey, GIR," I said.
"Greetings," said GIR. "How do ye be?"
"Is it me or are you speaking a bit of sense."
"I assure you it is just you and your demented human imagination."
"Oh. Well that's all right, then. Do you have any cards?"
"No, but I have this pig. He is quite entertaining."
The little robot pulled a squeaking pig out of his head. He then squeaked it mercilessly.
"See? Can you handle my pleasure?"
"Um, yeah. That's really annoying. Could you stop it before I am forced to kill myself, please?"
"You're just jealous. Want a moose?" he pulled a squeak moose out of his head and offered it to me. I took it and squeaked it. Then, unable to stop myself, I began to squeak it more. Then more. GIR and I made a chorus of demented squeaking. Then abruptly, GIR stopped.
"Silence!" he whispered. "Or the scary lady will come back and bring her doom. Dooooom…"
"Oh, that's just my Mom."
"She's still scary."
"Hey… did she make you talk like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like a half-intelligent human being."
"No, I'm just doing this cuz I'm bored. And you're not a human being either, so don't be dissin me."
Oh, yeah. I'm not. Geez, this is hard to get used to. I wonder if I should go off on a touching emotional line of thought about my parents?
I looked around and found nothing else to do.
Guess I will then. Let's start with Zim, my father. I actually have a father. Weird. I was beginning to seriously wonder if I was the spawn of Satan or something. With my mom's personality, I have no doubt that she at least knows Satan. So I have half the genes of someone I never knew. Now I've found him, and seriously he's nothing like anyone I ever imagined I could be related to. Actually, he's like no one I've ever heard of. What a giant ego. But it's not even annoying, like it was to start.
Am I like that? I don't think so. Then again, he probably doesn't either. I wish I had a mirror to look in while I did this. It would probably make it a bit more meaningful. Oh, well.
I thought about what Zim had said about Irk. What a funny name for a planet. I knew what Irk meant in Irken, it's unexplainable in English, but it's just like a feeling of unity and peace. Though by the sound of it, it wasn't a peaceful planet. Lords of all, and conquerors. That would have appealed to me if they hadn't just destroyed my homeworld. I thought about the Tallest, as Zim had called them. Who bases a government on height, and what were they doing at the time?
On the other hand, the power must be awesome. They rule almost the whole universe. Tell me that's not cool. They have those other guys, the Vorts, to be smart for them. And Zim said almost the whole planet was military training. Invaders trained for ten whole years. I couldn't imagine doing anything for ten whole years. Unless it would help Irk to grow.
Where did that come from?
