CH7
"I should have known you would know where we could find this 'krabby patty'," Zim sneered as they approached the Krusty Krab.
They walked into the under water eating establishment and quickly spotted those they had met on the outskirts of the town beside the 'Bikini Bottom' sign.
"Stay focused Gir," Zim sharply reminded his robot. "We are here only to obtain this krabby patty and not to socialize."
Gir's eyes turned bright red. "Affirmative Master."
But just as they were about to have Squidward take their order, Patrick started yelling, "Spider!" and began to pull the bolted down table from the floor.
"Get away from me you deranged pink pentacle!" Zim defensively jumped on top of a table top ready to fight.
"Patrick, stop!" Spongebob rushed out of the kitchen to calm the situation. "Leave this poor mackerel alone Patrick. Don't you think he's been through enough being disfigured by a fisherman's net and all?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot," Patrick dropped the table looking very sorry at Zim. He then came close to Zim and started to yell, "Hey mister, I'm really, really, really sorry that I thought you were a spider!"
Spongebob began to chastise his starfish friend, "Patrick, he's deformed, not deaf."
"I AM now," Zim quietly mentioned as he listened to the ringing in his ears.
Patrick turned an even brighter shade of pink and smiled sheepishly. He then leaned into Zim once again and yelled even louder than before, "Sorry I yelled at you lil' guy!"
"Desist from your high volumes of speech at once you dim witted invertebrate!" Zim demanded very irritably while Gir began to laugh hysterically at the situation.
"What he say?" Patrick looked at Spongebob hoping he could translate the stranger's unusual form of communication. Spongebob shrugged his shoulders.
"I dunno Patrick, but mackerels sure are uppity!" Spongebob distastefully noted.
Just then Mr. Krabs came out of the manager's office and looked around his restaurant. "What's all this commotion Spongebob? And why aren't these two new customers eating any delicious krabby patties?" he asked impatiently. "There's no loitering here boys, you either buy something or you have to leave!"
"Ah, yes then," Zim tried to regain his composure as he stepped down from the table top. "We'll take a double krabby patty with cheese to go and make sure it's in a very sturdy container; preferably a steel lock box. I don't want to touch it, or feel its disgusting oozing grease dripping from the wrapper; I don't even want to smell the detestable thing!"
"Detestable!" Spongebob gasped in dismay. "How can you say such cruel lies about the krabby patty? What did it ever do to you?"
"Nothing," Gir eagerly explained. "He's never even had one."
"Never had one?" Mister Krabs repeated. "Why laddy, you can't judge a patty until you tasted one."
"Yes, I can!" Zim flatly insisted. "I do it all the time."
"Well I can't have you ruining the good name of my krabby patties so tell you what I'm gonna do; I'll let you have one on the house, and I'll only charge you full price for it. Now doesn't that sound like a tempting deal?" Mister Krabs offered in his usual miserly fashion.
"Ooh-ooh-ooh! I want something too!" Gir began to jump up and down annoyingly.
"No Gir, we haven't time," his master reminded him in a huff.
"But I'm hungry!" the robot angrily insisted.
"I said no Gir," Zim kept a cool head and a firm hand.
"But I'm hun…I'm hun…hungry!" the robot began to bitterly sob. "Wah!"
"Oh there, there, lil' guy;" Mr. Krabs soothed in a grandfatherly way as he gently patted Gir on the head and took him over to get a good look at the menu. "We've got all kinds of yummy good stuff for you. What would you like?"
Instantly the robot stopped his crying; his cyan eyes turned a slight greener with greed as he began to name off several of the food items he saw on the menu. "I'll have a krabby patty with cheese, a large order of barnacles, a mini krabby patty with extra pickles…"
Gir ordered to his heart's desire while a frustrated Zim just leaned on the counter waiting for him to finish. When he was done, the order easily could have easily filled two bags full.
"And I made an extra special patty for you Zim," Spongebob kindly offered as he handed the burger to the alien.
"Here, doesn't that just make your mouth water?" Zim looked down at the circular mound of meat.
"No, my eyes!" he quickly corrected as he continued to stare at the patty in horror. "Yuck! Now I'm going to be sick all day."
Spongebob scratched his head in confusion. "I don't understand, no one can resist a krabby patty -not even Squidward; unless…" he then looked up at Zim accusingly. "…unless they're not from this world!"
Zim noticed that everyone in the restaurant stopped to stare at him, suspecting Spongebob may be right. "Nonsense, I don't know what you're talking about. I just um, well, I already ate and…"
"No you didn't." Gir quickly corrected him as he continued to shove fried barnacles in his mouth.
"Good going, Gir!" Zim said through clinched teeth.
"Oh c'mon laddy," Mister Krabs insisted. "It won't kill ya." Zim gulped realizing he was caught between a rock and a hard place.
"Are you absolutely sure?" he then took a deep breath and tried to grab the burger in his hand.
'C'mon Zim, you can do this,' he silently encouraged himself. 'Oh, but it's so icky. I think I'm going to hurl, and I haven't even tasted it yet.'
He then looked at the crowd of fishy people who had gathered around to watch him and he knew had had no choice but to eat the wretched thing.
'I'll just take a bite, and then I will leave here and never ever look back.' He slowly put it to his wide open mouth and just held it there as he tried to force himself to take a bite. 'Maybe I don't have to destroy the world after all; maybe I can just tell everyone that I am an alien. How bad can living out the rest of my life in a laboratory be? Surely not as bad as this…'
"Oh just get on with it," Squidward groaned impatiently. Zim finally took the bite and much to his surprise managed to even keep it in his mouth. He tried very hard to appear to chew it but without having to actually touch his tongue or even taste it.
"Hmmm," his sad attempt to sound enthused sounded more like a moan for help. "I can't recall the last time I ate something that tasted quite like this before."
"Pretty good huh? Huh?" Spongebob nudged Zim in the ribs with a bright smile.
"Pretty…something," Zim admitted as his green skin turn a pale shade of yellow. Now the moment that Zim was dreading the most had arrived. He so desperately wanted to just spit the chewed up food out of his mouth but knew there was no chance for that. No, he was going to have to swallow it, keep it down and even worse, pretend to like it. He held his breath, closed his eyes, and bravely forced the mangled meat down his throat. "Delicious!" he gagged. "I'll have to," …choke, "tell all my friends about," …gag, "this." A round of applause and cheers went up in the room as Spongebob danced about and Krabs did a little Irish jig. "He-he, it does me wallet good to see a happy customer."
Zim quickly seized the moment and grabbed Gir by the hand rushing him toward the door.
"Come Gir," he barked his commands. "This Plankton better have my anti-gravitation apparatus after what I just put myself through!" But the instant Mister Krabs heard him say "Plankton" he stopped his merry jig.
"What did you say?" The crab roared in anger. Zim didn't need to learn any of the history between Krabs and Plankton to understand it couldn't be good.
"Mush Gir!" he ordered as he jumped on his robot's back.
"Yes Master!" the red eyed robot quickly complied and turned himself into a rocket only to have his turn cyan as they zoomed away. "Can we come back here again? I want to bring Pig and Moose here sometime."
"No Gir," Zim insisted.
"But please," Gir childishly begged.
"I said no," Zim irritably reminded his robot.
"P-l-e-a-s-e," Gir started to whine.
"Alright, maybe after we destroy the world," Zim compromised. "But only if you're good."
"Oakey-dokey!" the little robot chirped as they made their way back to Plankton.
