Happy Hanukkah

Up on ground level, Dib loomed on the sidewalk before Zim's house. Snow continued to fall, collecting heavily on the sleeves of his heavily-padded winter coat and on his fuzzy gray earmuffs. He pulled his mitten-encased hands out of his pockets and blew on them, mostly to redirect the warm air to his uncovered face, then continued to glare at Zim's house.

"If Zim's going to melt the polar ice caps," Dib informed no one in particular, his breath forming snow cones in the air, "he'll have to fly there in his spaceship. Since the ship is stored in the 'attic' of his house, I'll be able to see from right here if he leaves!" Looking down at his feet through his fogged-up glasses, Dib tried to tense his foot muscles inside his black boots. "Hmmm. I can't feel my toes. Oh well. No sacrifice is too big for saving all of mankind!!"

Dib suddenly paused. "Why am I saying all this out loud?" he wondered, then resumed glowering at the unconventional, narrow green-and-purple house.

At length, Dib heard footsteps and turned around to see his sister Gaz walking up behind him. She too was covered from head to foot in the heaviest winter gear imaginable, but she still managed to find a way to play her GameSlave 2 even though the gloves made her fingers at least twice as big as the tiny buttons.

"What're you doing?" Gaz grumbled disinterestedly past a thick yellow scarf, not even looking up as she continued to slay pixelized vampire pigs.

Dib struck an impressive pose—well, as impressive as can be expected when one is muffled by a coat as thick as a pair of mattresses—and declared, "PROTECTING THE EARTH!"

Gaz snorted. "By staring at Zim's house?" she clarified, her thumbs still maneuvering deftly across the GameSlave's keypad.

"Ee-yup," replied Dib, smiling so widely his ruddy cheeks dug into the lenses of his glasses. He punched one mitteny fist into the other for emphasis. "If Zim leaves in his spaceship, I'll know he's going to do something nasty to the polar ice caps and try to drown out all life as we know it. THEN I'll stop him, and bring him back to be examined in a science lab and PROVE to the world that he's an alien!"

"Uh-HUH." Gaz continued squinting down at the GameSlave's screen, and they both stood in silence broken only by the beeps and whirs of the video game. Then, after a few minutes, Gaz looked up at Dib for the first time in that entire conversation.

"If he leaves in his spaceship," she observed dryly, "how're you gonna follow him?"

Dib began to answer, then stopped and closed his mouth. Gaz chuckled mirthlessly. "If you're going to stare at Zim's house all afternoon," she informed her brother as she began walking away, "then I hope you already bought me a Christmas present—or suffer my undying wrath of a thousand cursed souls burning in the fiery pits of the abyss." Gaz continued walking, as if satisfied with the threat, then paused and turned back. "And just to tell you, I already found that vampire piggy doll you hid under your bed."

Gaz then departed calmly as if nothing had happened. For a moment Dib's heart skipped a beat, but then he remembered the Bloaty's Pizza Hog coupons he'd squirreled away for just such an emergency. Gaz would never intentionally look inside his "Evidence-that-Zim's-an-alien-and-wants-to-kill-us-all" suitcase. (Unfortunately neither would the government or the Swollen Eyeball, but that was another story.) So his soul was saved for Christmas Eve. But, more pressingly, how to follow Zim...

"YES!! THAT'S IT!!" Dib cried as a lightbulb turned on inside his head. (Not literally, that would be painful.) "IT'S SO OBVIOUS! RIGHT AT HOME, I'VE GOT—"

He suddenly stopped as he realized that he was talking out loud again, and instead turned back around and scurried home.

Back in Zim's living room, GIR's head snapped back inside the house from where it had been stuck out the open window. In the midst of introducing his rubber piggies to friendly-looking snowflakes, he had heard the entire conversation between the big-headed kid and his scary sister. GIR's eyes narrowed and blazed bright red. "There is a threat to the mission!" GIR ejaculated, his auxiliary voice circuits making him sound like he was constipated. Still in duty mode, GIR ran for the secret entrance trash can to inform his master—

—then the on-screen Muppets burst into song, and GIR's color returned to normal as he plopped himself in front of the TV again.

"GIR!" Zim snapped, tearing his eyes from the telescope ocular. "GIR, come down to the observatory!! We must wreak evil in the cause of...EVIL!!"

GIR's head emerged from an opening in the cavernous walls of the observatory room. "Aaaaaawwwww," he moaned, his robot antenna drooping. "But it's the Poopin' Monkey commercial!"

Zim shuddered very violently, accidentally twisting his squeedlyspooch into a knot and receiving an amount of discomfort that can only be called the Irken equivalent of a hernia. "Don't those humans have enough filthy waste products without making TOYS to create more?" he gasped, wobbling from the severe pain until his Pak manually reconfigured his organ. Returning to the matter at hand, the alien narrowed his eyes at GIR. "Get down here!"

The little robot's eyes watered—it was actually a misdirected fuel line for his jets that had somehow ended up inside GIR's eyebulbs, but because of the blue caps filtering over the lights it looked like the SIR unit was crying. "You don' 'ppreciate me," he blubbered, his voice circuits sounding garbled and indistinct. "Wha' 'bout what I want? I work an' work an' work an' work and all you do for me is—"

Zim interrupted confusedly, raising a single clawlike finger as though he was about to conduct an imaginary orchestra but suddenly forgot the proper gesticulations. "But...you don't work."

There was a long silence, then GIR cocked his head. "Oh yeaaaaaaah," he realized, then with a squeal jumped out of the opening and smashed into the floor twenty feet below. Zim stared at him for a while, then as the SIR reassembled himself Zim went on with his villainous monologue.

"GIR," Zim began, pacing pointedly up and down in front of the observing chair, "GIR, I learned something QUITE useful in that horrid Skool today. Just after that hideous DIB threw that 'snow'-rot at my brilliant Invader mind!" He shook his fists almost involuntarily, throwing a properly villainous silent temper tantrum, but then he paused and thought about what what he'd just said. "Eh, I mean...HEAD!" Zim amended, scratching his antennae dizzily. "With...uh...with my mind INSIDE!" He turned to GIR, who had just finished putting himself back together, and gestured feebly. "You know, he was...aiming at my mind, and..."

At long last, Zim gave up that line of discussion and started on a new one. "FILTHY HUMAN!" he shouted for good measure, then resumed pacing. "Ehhhhhhh...GIR..." The little robot looked up from rubbing his face in the observing chair. "Are you familiar with the South Pole?"

GIR was quiet for a minute, then his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth. "YES," he decided with an odd squelching noise, then giggled slightly. "It smells like llamas."

Zim went on pacing, not seeming to acknowledge the remark until he emitted an oddly-pitched "HMMM" sound. "Yes, yes, llama indeed," he muttered, scratching his chin. Turning back to GIR, he stopped pacing but instead stood inhumanly erect on his spindly legs. "GIR, do you know what I'm going to do at the South Pole that will DESTROY all humankind as we know it, paving the pathway for a new and even LARGER Irken Empire?"

A snatch of the conversation he'd heard before remained undeleted in GIR's data canister, so he excitedly regurgitated it. "'Re we gonna melt the polar ice caps and drown out the human race?!" GIR bubbled enthusiastically, jumping up and down almost spasmodically.

Zim blinked. "Where'd you get that dumb idea?" he asked suspiciously, then shook his head and muttered something derogatory about alien bunnies. Marching impressively to a computer bank in the corner of the room, Zim glided his fingers across the holographic keys, pulling down a few menus and finally selecting an option. "GIR, look at this," he commanded, and the walls of the room suddenly became a huge projector display of—

"PENGUIIIIIIIIIINS!!" GIR screamed, rocketing himself at the holographic image of a two-story-tall penguin. The entire hologram was of a snowy landscape, peppered generously with the black aquatic fowl. There were penguins everywhere to be seen, short ones, tall ones, thin ones, fat ones, and a variety of other Seussical deviations, all cavorting merrily and totally oblivious of the unearthly attention they were receiving at that very moment.

"Yes, GIR," Zim cackled triumphantly, his hands on his hips as he threw back his head for the proper pose, "penguins! Earth creatures of slime and dirt!!"

"And PENGUIN!!" added GIR, trying desperately to hug the hologram. Doing this caused the electromagnetic pulse of the generator to fry him to a crisp, but that didn't stop him from attempting it repeatedly throughout the conversation.

"LIIIIIIIES!!" howled Zim, but then he calmed down slightly as he realized that this was not a fact to be suspicious of. "Ehhhh...ahem," he coughed, then smiled evilly to make up for any lost amazingness. "Yessss, GIR, penguins, Earth creatures of slime and dirt—" He paused as he noticed that the burned and blackened GIR was waiting expectantly. Zim heaved a sigh. "...AND penguin."

"EEEEYAHAHAA!!" GIR squealed, clapping his hands and dancing around in circles before landing on his head in the observatory chair.

Zim took in a mighty breath of his own superior Irken aura, then continued. "These Earth penguin-beasts, as you MIGHT already know," he resumed, gesturing to the hologram, "are much beloved by ALL the human slime-weenies. Everybody loves them."

GIR sniffled with a sad smile, still upside-down. "It's soooooo truuuuuuuuue..." he sighed before falling off the chair.

"OF COURSE IT IS!!" Zim shouted, accidentally touching the holographic generator panels and receiving a massive electrical shock. There was a few seconds' pause as his Pak rebooted his nervous system and Zim stood up, albeit woozily and with smoking antennae. "COMPUTER," he barked garbledly, one eye twitching open and shut, "the ne-n-next file!!"

"Next file loading," the computer promised, and the hologram from the South Pole was replaced by an image of a movie poster that also depicted penguins. Zim pointed an accusatory—and now healed—finger at the English title.

"THEY WROTE AN ENTIRE EARTH STINK-MOVIE ABOUT THE CREATURES MARCHING!!" he proclaimed. His hands were curled into fists again now that his wind was back. "These penguin-units the humans find...eh...what was the word?"

"SQUISHY!!" GIR squealed. Zim raised an eyebrow ridge, thinking it over.

"No, I don't think it was...AH, YES! THEY FIND THEM CUTE!!" The Irken was intensely excited, as proven by the fact that he didn't seem to notice when GIR attached himself to Zim's head again. "And I'm sure that even you, GIR, can remember how easily they were overcome by the cuteness of that hamster P—GET OFF MY HEAD!!"

GIR obligingly slid off, and Zim quickly rubbed his Irken skin free of any stupidity-germs the little robot might have given him. Glaring irritably at the SIR, who stared back in all innocence, Zim let out yet another annoyed breath. "GIR," he hissed in a soft it's-all-I-can-do-not-to-kill-you voice, "GIR, are you going to sit QUIETLYYYYYY until I'm finished?" His voice reverberated almost ridiculously on the word "quietly", something an Irken behavioral analyst would have brought up in a few years had Zim not been beyond therapy.

The SIR unit rolled this new order around in his data canister, testing out its prospects, then shook his head emphatically. "NOPE!" he chirped, his tongue lolling out again.

Grinding his tombstone-like teeth, Zim snapped his fingers authoritatively. A robotic arm slid out of a nearby computer bank holding a roll of something gray and shiny. Working expertly, it ripped off a sticky strand, reached over to the enraptured GIR and duct-taped his mouth shut before retracting back into the bank.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaah," Zim sighed, revelling in the silence. Then he snapped back to attention and went on with the narration of his evil plan. "Now, GIR, these penguin stink-things are how we shall at last DE-STROY THE HUMAAAAAANS!! If we turn these frightfully 'cute' creatures against them, they shall be POWERLESSSS!! Powerless before the awesomeness of ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!!"

Past the duct tape, GIR mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like a question regarding a pasture of cows and a rubber chicken. However, Zim pretended that it was a relevant query and expounded on it.

"No, no, it shall be nothing like that FILTHY hamster disaster!" he reassured the robot, who was scratching his head confusedly. "This time, ZIM has learned. Angry creatures with firepower will destroy secret alien bases." He rubbed his hands together, emitting a low cackle. "No, GIR, I will send these penguins to strike in a way that I will be quite safe, but that the humans will CRUMBLE pathetically." Zim inhaled deeply, then made his dramatic proclamation: "I'M GOING TO TURN EARTH PENGUIN-BEASTS INTO LAWYERS!"

"MMMMMPHHAAAAYHHH!!" GIR applauded, dancing to make up for his temporary muteness. Zim waited a moment to revel in the glory of being himself, then refocused.

"TO THE VOOT CRUISER!" he cried, running to the elevator. GIR hopscotched after him, tripping over his own feet twice. "Computer, READY THE VOOT CARRIER! I'VE GOT EARTH MUCK TO CATCH!"

"Voot Carrier Ready," the computer announced, sending a bubblelike apparatus up a tube to the Cruiser's hangar. After doing this, it paused for reflection, then sent a quick search through its internal data system. What it found was slightly alarming, even being (as it was) a computer, and it immediately sent a message up to its master.

Zim was sitting in the Cruiser and warming up the engines when an intercom tube suddenly descended from the ceiling just above his head level. "Er, master..." the computer's resonant voice rumbled through the tube, sounding troubled. "Master, it is the human holiday known as 'Christmas Eve'. Are you certain that it would be wise to—"

"HUMANS STINK!" Zim shouted over the roar of the engines. He glared at the intercom tube, and somewhere in its deep circuitry the computer winced. "And if you try to stop me over something like THAT, I'll...uh...do something nasty that you won't like!"

There was a sigh as the intercom tube retracted. "Yes, master," the computer replied, then set itself on temporary "Sleep" mode. Zim muttered something about inferior models, then his antennae jumped in sudden realization. GIR wasn't there.

"GIR!" he barked, standing up and poking his head out of the bubblelike windshield of the Cruiser. "GIR, where are you? Come to ZIIIIIIIIIM!"

GIR, however, had no intention of doing so. On his way upstairs, he had stopped by the TV and was now eagerly filling his data can with another movie and his titanium stomach with Cheez-its. (He had just eaten through the duct tape.) In the hangar, Zim let out a cross between a huffy snort and an exasperated whine.

"VERY WELL!" he snapped, sitting back down and closing the cockpit bubble behind him. "DISOBEY YOUR MASTER, USELESS ROBOT! ZIM CAN DESTROY ALL HUMANKIND WITHOUT YOOOOOU!!"

At that proclamation, the purple roof of the house split open. With a sputtering roar the compact purple Voot Cruiser zoomed out, followed magnetically by the circular Voot Carrier. But in a whoosh and a puff of smoke, they were gone.