Author's note: Hey again! Thank you to those who read and reviewed the first chapter. I actually have a neat illustration for this one, and I'll put in a way for you to get to it at the end of the chapter! Yay! I hope you all like it!
Disclaimer stuff: I don't own Invader Zim and they belong to other people, and I have no money for you to take if you sue me!
Chapter 2: An Annoying Bus Ride
The Sun rose in its normal, magical way the next morning, and the purple men's room door that adorned the front of Zim's house opened in it's usual way, as it did every time it was ever opened. The birds were chirping happily and one could swear they were singing the happiest song ever, until it was suddenly cut off when something small and green launched itself at the tree. A crazy squeal was heard, and then a explosion of feathers started swirling down toward the sidewalk below.
"GIR! Get back in the house!" Zim roared from the doorway. "I'm going to be late for skool!" The Irken flailed his arms around, as if this would emphasize how incredibly important this statement was. The robot, currently wearing his disguise, giggled insanely and rushed back into the house, then let out a loud burp as he rushed over to his master. Zim shook his head and pushed the little robot inside. GIR coughed up some feathers as the Invader shut the door and left the house. Zim sighed to himself and set out for skool, imagining what future horrors could possibly await him.
The walk to school wasn't too long, but it was pretty boring. Usually Zim had Dib to contend with on the way, unless the dirt-child decided to take the skoolbus... which he usually didn't. Dib didn't dare miss a moment to follow the Irken around and spy on him, but he was missing this morning. The alien wondered for a moment where he was, but then decided he didn't really care, and that he should be grateful for such a peaceful time without GIR's insane screaming and without Dib's incessant spying and bothering and questioning. He smiled to himself and continued his peaceful stroll to the place of his horrible Earthly education.
Meanwhile, in the skool library, Dib was hard at work still. The gears in his incredible child brain were clicking and turning with ideas as he flipped and scanned through every book he could find about farm animals. The librarian and several of the other somewhat literate children and even some teachers gave him odd looks as they passed by, muttering things like "Is that the crazy kid?" and "Why would he want so much information about farm animals?" and even "Hey, look at that! At least one of them can read! I guess the skool system isn't a total failure after all!" No matter how hard he tried, though, he wasn't any closer to finding out what Zim was planning. He looked at his watch and gasped. It was time for him to be in class. Dib gathered up all of the books and put them on the desk designated for the books that need to be reshelved, and then rushed to Ms.Bitters' classroom.
As he ran through the door, he skidded on the linoleum, trying to prevent himself from slamming into someone that was standing in the way. Unfortunately, it had very recently been waxed, so poor Dib barreled into one of his classmates and sent them both flying across the room into the wall near his desk. "Ahhh!" yelled the other person in pain and surprise.
"Sorry!" Dib apologized quickly, trying to untangle himself and his trenchcoat from the other child's body.
"You better be, horrible stink-boy!" Zim shouted, pushing the Dib-human off of him with a force fueled by anger. "Now get off of the mighty body that is Zim's!" His small Irken feet kicked at Dib's back and anywhere else he could reach, pushing his enemy off of him. He straightened his wig, since it had been knocked out of place a little, and then picked himself off of the floor. The Irken gave his enemy a malicious glare, dusted himself off, then marched to his desk and sat down, trying to burn holes into Dib with his eyes from across the room. Dib stood up and rubbed his back indignantly where Zim had kicked him, then sat down at his desk, ignoring Zim's glare. Zim didn't normally actually hit or kick at him, but he could understand the Irken's reaction. If someone had just slammed him into a wall, he probably would have wanted to kick them too.
"Class," Ms. Bitters said suddenly, getting everyone's attention. "I am going to call role, so that I can tell who I need to send to the boiler room for next class, and then we are going to form an orderly line and go out to the skoolbus." She was dressed head to toe in a long, black, hooded robe, which sent Dib's brain into a paranormal frenzy. Their teacher proceeded to call each child's name, marking every one of them present, including Spoo, who showed up because he was more afraid of the boiler room than an allergic reaction. She glared, raising an eyebrow because she had really wanted to send at least a few of them to the boiler room, but then again.. her marks were in pencil, so she could always change a few later. "Heh," she said, smirking slightly. "Children, get in a horrible, orderly line, now!"
They all rose from their desks, and after much scuffling around they formed a relatively neat line, and Ms. Bitters led them out to the waiting bus. Zim tried to find a seat away from everyone, and ended up with one right in the front, which was alright with him because all of the annoying children apparently liked sitting at the back of the bus. He concluded that it must be something wrong with their defective human brains. He frowned slightly because nobody wanted to sit next to him, not that he really cared anyway, but he felt that humans should have been lining up for the privilege to share a seat with his magnificence.
Dib was being pushed this way and that outside of the bus as all of the children rushed around him to get on it before he did. Nobody wanted to sit next to Dib, or near him at all, but with a growl from Ms. Bitters, they were too scared to crowd only one half of the bus like they had on the last field trip. Dib eventually got on, and Ms. Bitters counted him and the rest of the children again, just to make sure nobody had tried to find a way out of going. Dib looked around for a seat, and had the horrible realization that the only seat not taken was the one next to his enemy. He looked at Zim, who was glaring up at him, and then walked over to the seat.
"Don't even think about sitting here, Dib-beast!" The alien shouted, but Dib completely ignored him and sat down anyway. "Hey!" Zim protested, moving as close to the window as he could, and as far from Dib as possible. He didn't like this... Dib basically had him cornered. Would he try to reveal Zim for the alien that he was, right here in front of all of the other children? Zim eyed the boy defensively, ready for anything. The bus' engine rumbled to life, and they started to pull away from the skool.
"Look," Dib said seriously. "I like this about as much as you do, so how about we both just leave each other alone for the rest of the ride?" Zim looked at him in disbelief. The human didn't want to question him, didn't want to pull his disguise off and expose him for what he really was? Dib didn't say anything else, he just waited for Zim's answer.
"Fine," Zim said in an uncaring tone. He waved his hand dismissively at the boy, then crossed his arms in front of him and just kept staring at Dib. Dib sighed and leaned back against the seat. This was going to be a long, annoying ride. He could swear he felt people just staring at him. He knew Zim was, but he looked around and saw all of their classmates staring and whispering. Why did they have to be so irritating? Why did they mock and chastise him constantly? He wondered why he even bothered trying to keep them out of Zim's alien evil at all. While he mused to himself about this, a paper ball hit him in the back of his head. The other children laughed and pointed. Dib turned and glared at them, and then he saw a paper ball hit Torque right in between the eyes. Everyone gasped, Torque's eyes watered slightly.
"HA!" Zim laughed loudly, standing up on the seat. "You dare throw paper in the direction of ZIM! Learn to aim, pitiful worm-child!" He was pointing at Torque now with his glove-covered hand.
"But he wasn't throwing it at you," one of the girls near Torque said. "He was aiming at Dib."
"Yeah!" Another girl remarked in Torque's defense.
"Oh," Zim said, lowering his pointing finger and thinking for a moment. "Still! The paper bounced off of Dib's enormous head--"
"My head is not big!" Dib protested.
"--and hit me, so cut it out!" Everyone stared at him as he sat back down, crossing his arms once more, including Dib. Zim looked over at him, and Dib had a look of disbelief on his face. Had his enemy just--
"Before you even think it, human, I was not defending you," Zim muttered quietly. Dib just smiled slightly, and neither of them spoke for the rest of the bus ride.
A/N: The illustration for this chapter is at (www(dot)deviantart(dot)com/deviation/30577578/ ) Sorry for the lack of dots, I couldn't get the link to work otherwise.