Chapter 2: A Turn for the Weirder

Ms. Bitters looked up from where she was writing on the chalk-board as Dib slunk into the classroom, the chalk making a teeth-grinding screech and leaving an ugly white streak across the green surface as she whipped around to face the doomed latecomer. "I don't know why you even bother coming to skool if you insist on arriving late every day," she snapped in that raspy tone that made many a skoolchild tremble. "So what's your excuse this time?"

"I uh... overslept," Dib said. This response earned him a lowered eyebrow from his teacher.

"That's it?" she spat, sounding almost disappointed. "No werewolf crossing guards? No zombie cab drivers? You just overslept?" Ms. Bitters glared at him through oval-shaped lenses. "Well, congratulations Dib, that's the lamest excuse from you so far this year."

Dib looked down at the floor awkwardly; even he had to admit how lame it was. "Oh, did I say 'overslept?' I meant to say I was in the locker room trying to get skin samples from that yeti that lives in the towel bin."

"Hmph, that's more like it." The vulture-like crone pointed towards the window. "Now sit down!"

Dib walked to his desk, but as he did he took a glance over at the opposite side of the room. After all, no morning would have been complete if it didn't start off with him exchanging a hostile glare with his archenemy. It was Dib's metaphorical cup of coffee, so to speak. Zim sat there with his hands folded neatly on his desk in, Dib thought, a ridiculous attempt to pass himself off as a model student. As their eyes met, the disguised Irken sneered and stuck out his tongue.

Ms. Bitters slithered to her desk and took out an electronic solitaire game. "Now..." she addressed the students in a voice oozing with doom. "Since I don't feel like teaching today, you're all going to sit there and memorize the material in your text books until every last bit of standardized information has pushed any creativity and free thought from your heads."

A girl in the back of the room raised her hand. "But yesterday you said we were gonna draw pretty pictures for our mommies and daddies."

"Clearly you misheard me," Ms. Bitters growled. "Now, start soaking up the data in those text books like the little societal leeches that you are."

The class sat in silence for the next half-hour, the unbearable quiet broken only by the little beeps and blips coming from the game Ms. Bitters was currently absorbed in. Of course Dib, being the genius that he was, had already finished reading long ago. Now he leaned on his elbow and made another mark with his pencil, putting the finishing touches on a drawing of himself standing next to a tank containing the Loch Ness Monster. All the people of Scotland stood around 'Oo-ing' and 'Ah-ing' at his triumphant capture. This is what I hurried to get here for? he thought, tapping his pencil impatiently, though he supposed it was better than another one of Ms. Bitters's morbid lectures on the downward spiral of humanity. Sighing, he added another guy in a kilt to the crowd.

As the minutes ticked away, Dib's eyelids drooped with boredom. He began twirling his pencil around and around, lacing the yellow piece of wood through his fingers like a baton as if it were the most fascinating thing on Earth, and at that moment it pretty much was. Suddenly, he sensed someone staring at him.

Dib's amber-colored eyes immediately narrowed and darted over his right shoulder, searching for the source of his sudden paranoia.

A couple kids had their heads down on their desks, a few back at the art table were eating paste, one kid was building himself a fleet of paper airplanes, and another one was picking something out of his ear, but as far as he could tell no one was paying any attention to him. The young paranormalist had learned to trust his instincts, however, and his gaze slowly wandered over to the so-called "green kid." Zim was sitting there exactly as he'd been before: hands clasped, staring off into space, and humming a little tune. To anyone else he'd have been the picture of innocence, but Dib knew better. Dib knew way better. And someday I'll prove it to the rest of the world, he vowed silently.

Though their battles always ended in a draw, Dib was confident that it was only a matter of time before he obtained the upper hand and vanquished his enemy's ill threat once and for all. It was tireless and thankless work, but nonetheless the job of protecting the Earth had fallen to him, and he took pride in the fact that he alone could keep it out of Zim's diabolical clutches.

After a minute or so of observation Dib began feeling bored again; his nemesis wasn't doing anything of particular interest, so he picked up his pencil and turned his attention back to his gallery of paranormal themed art.

As soon as Zim saw Dib distracted out of the corner of his eye, he resumed his vengeful fix on the trench-coated boy, and his green lips curled up into a smirk brimming with evil intent. His gloved hands relaxed their grip on one other and a tiny remote-like device was revealed sitting in his palm. Zim's wolfish smile widened as he ran a finger over a large green button. Then, with a quiet chuckle, he forced it down into its socket.

"YEEEEAAAAHHHHH!" At the same time across the room, Dib suddenly let out a piercing screech of alarm. His eyes widened in surprise and his pencil flew out of his hand. He jumped out of his seat, only to clumsily trip and end up on his belly. As he picked himself up with a groan, a looming shadow fell over him.

"Is there a problem, Dib?" Ms. Bitters asked in an uncaring tone.

Dib struggled to explain. "Well, I… I mean… I uh… there was…" He stared up into his teacher's cold, unaffectionate eyes and sighed. What was the point? His explanations never got him anything except more ridicule from his classmates. "No, ma'am. It's nothing."

Ms. Bitters only hissed at him like a rattlesnake and returned to the front of the room where she reclaimed her handheld, reminding Dib of his game-obsessed sister. He calmly put his head down on his desk, but a million confused thoughts were racing through his brain.

What was that?! It feels like I just licked a taser! Well okay, so it hadn't hurt that much, and Dib had screamed more out of surprise than any real pain. But still, he had no idea what could have caused what felt like a mild electric shock to surge through his body just a moment ago.

He glanced around his desk, searching for any exposed wires or electric cords. The skool wasn't exactly up to code, after all, but there didn't seem to be any nearby. After racking his brain for several minutes, Dib finally came to a brilliant, well-crafted assessment: he must have simply had a bad case of static build-up. It was a pretty pathetic guess, but since there was no other explanation he settled on that as the culprit and put it out of his mind. That little mystery solved, he picked his pencil up off the floor and opened his notebook to a clean page to begin another doodle.

The second he put his pencil to the paper it struck Dib that it felt... wrong in his hand, somehow. Arching an eyebrow he adjusted it in his fingers, holding it first one way and then another, but no matter what he did it still felt strange, though he couldn't put his finger on exactly why. He picked up his notebook and noticed something about it also seemed a little off, like someone had tampered with it in a nearly imperceptible way. Outwardly there was nothing wrong with it, but it felt different, Dib was sure of it. He shifted in his seat, noting that even the chair he sat in felt wrong all the sudden, and so did his desktop. Forcing away a sinking feeling that had quickly come over him, Dib reached into his book bag and pulled out his Paranormal Occurrence Log, planning to record a few things he needed to catch up on. And on top of that, writing always made him feel better.

Right away Dib started having trouble. Though he'd written in his journal a thousand times before, today it seemed either his handwriting was way off, or the preprinted lines were spaced a lot closer together, but he felt he had to make his letters a lot tinier than usual to fit them all on the page. And the fact that his favorite pen, the one he used exclusively for his journaling, also felt weird in his grip didn't help things.

What's wrong with me today? Dib wondered. First I oversleep after falling asleep in my clothes and I can't remember a thing from the night before, then I come to skool and get this mystery shock, and now my notebook, my desk, my pencil, and even my journal all feel like they're…

Smaller.

The word flashed through Dib's head before he even realized it, but once it did he discovered it was surprisingly true. His pencil, his books, and even his desktop all appeared to have diminished in size by several square millimeters. Such a subtle, minuscule change would've been undetectable to most people, but to a highly trained, highly alert paranormal investigator like Dib it was as plain as the Face on Mars.

But how could that be possible?

Across the room a pair of violet eyes shimmered with an evil excitement, their owner fully aware of the answer.