Here is the next chapter.
For the first week of skool, Zim has taken an interest in doing research about life on other planets. He was very excited about exploring the internet and learning new things. He recently bought a laptop for himself to keep himself occupied and to get his mind off of Dib's taunting. During one of Mrs. Bitters' boring lectures, Zim pulled out his laptop and googled in anything that came to mind. He googled any questions that he wanted to learn about like, 'what are humans like? How many live on this planet? What is the name of the planet that has humans living on?' Even though Zim had a desire to explore the internet, he felt a little bit ignorant about what his research was about. He worried that all of the humans knew the answers to the questions and he didn't. He obsessed about whether humans were dangerous or what kind of armory they had and whether they were after him.
The bell rang.
Zim headed home to his base to continue where he had left off. He signed out some books from the library about the planet Earth. Earlier (when skool ended), when he asked the librarian if she had anything on Earth, the librarian just shot him this look which gave him a guilty feeling overlapping the enthusiasm that he had for his research. Nonetheless, she scoffed and motioned him to follow her and as he did, he discovered to see a whole pile of books about the planet that he was looking for. Zim almost forgot about how upset he was feeling and he dived into the books to see exactly what he wanted. He decided that he had found three books that were perfect for his research and after he signed them out, he left the building.
He plopped himself on the couch with a book open and started to read. He skimmed through the pages, coming across a lot of interesting facts about the planet. Carrying a notepad and pencil, Zim jotted down everything that he thought that was important and that he would need to know about the humans. He soon heard loud footsteps and noticed Gir stomping into the living room.
"What do you think you are doing?" he asked, while folding his arms impatiently.
He glanced up from the book, to see what made his "dog" in such a bad mood. Was it him? Was it something he did? This brought him such curiosity that he set the book down completely to give Gir his undivided attention. "I'm just doing research about this planet. I would like to know more about this 'earth' that these 'humans' speak of in case a natural disaster strikes."
Gir cocked a non-existent eyebrow at the green boy. "Research?" the dog repeated angrily. "That is such nonsense; such, such filth. Why must you waste your time occupying yourself with such… madness?"
"Well, I want to do it all tonight so I could have some time left over to watch The Crazy Monkey Show."
Gir's ears perked up when he heard those last four words and he shuddered at the thought, "That horrible monkey."
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With numerous hours to spare, Dib plopped down on his chair and got straight to work on the homework that Mrs. Bitters assigned. Overwhelming as her class was, Mrs. Bitters was definitely not an easy teacher or an easy marker. Even though he always managed to finish and receive A's in her class; at time to time, even an A student such as himself had his moments where he just couldn't concentrate. Could you imagine that?
"Hey genius?" the boy jerked his head up to see his sister Gaz. "Guess who called and left three messages?"
Dib smacked his head with his palm and slid it down his face in frustration, "Not again."
"Yeah, again," Gaz said plainly. "You know, I think this Keef guy really likes you. I think that you two should go out on a date together," she mocked.
"Stop it Gaz!" he shouted abruptly. He stood up from his chair, "He's not my boyfriend. He's not even my friend. I just used him in the first grade because I got tired of the kids in my class making fun of me for having no friends."
"And he still stalks you?" his sister laughed, she was enjoying this.
Dib rolled his eyes, annoyed.
"You know," his sister continued, "If this guy is bothering you so much, then why don't you just disconnect the phone?"
Dib could see that his sister made a good point and she noticed how much it was killing him but, he didn't want to admit that. "Um… I'll just wait until he decides to stop calling."
"Your loss," she shrugged.
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Zim went down to his 'lab' that he invented (what with all the 'excited about research thing'), carrying his books and lap top under one arm. It was a nice way of getting peace and quiet without Gir's constant criticism and put downs. He whirled around in the chair happily, racking his brain on how he was going to spend his time. An idea came into his mind which triggered a bright expression to light up his face. He decided that with all the research and notes that he jotted down was that he was going to write his own story about the planet Earth, since he was living on it. Even though he still believed that he had no idea what the planet was really about, it didn't hurt him to get a little creative, too.
Zim pulled out his lap top and uncovered it. When he found a writing program, he beamed to himself and decided to get to work. He was having a little trouble getting started though. He didn't think that writing would be this hard but it seemed that he was suffering from a mild writer's block and couldn't concentrate. He grabbed the book that he was reading earlier and glanced at it once more to get some more facts and familiarize himself more with the topic. He jotted more notes down and he read them to himself, trying to understand what was written so he could get begin his story.
He squirmed in his chair, feeling aggravated, "Ugh, why does this have to be so frustrating? How are these people able to write stories? What do they have that I don't?" He shouted a loud, getting on himself again.
Honestly, though, Zim was prone to give up on things quickly. No matter how excited he seemed to changes and to being adventurous, a phase like that didn't even last long and the green kid would just go back to feeling agitated and upset with himself with not having the right stuff. Perhaps it could be because that he rushed too quickly into things and didn't allow himself to get more practice and experience in a specific field. He however, was not aware of that. He felt that the way to determine on what one is best at was to try it once and that exactly was the problem.
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The next day at skool, Mrs. Bitters was taking attendance.
"Sara?" she growled harshly.
"Here," she raised her hand happily. The teacher poked her head from the attendance to see what Sara looked like.
"Billy," she continued.
"Present," Billy piped. Mrs. Bitters did the same thing with Billy.
"Jennifer," she called hoarsely.
"Here," Jennifer replied.
"Zim?" There was so response; a complete silence emerged.
"Zim?" she tried again, a bit more annoyed.
Still no response. "Where is that doomed child?!" the teacher slammed her attendance list on the table.
"Don't bother, Mrs. Bitters. Zim's not coming today," she heard a boy's voice from the front of the room. "I exposed him about his secret as an alien so he decided to hide out at his secret base instead of come to skool."
"Thank you, Dib. You get another A," Mrs. Bitters smiled at his prized student.
Dib briefly beamed with pride and provided his teacher with his undivided attention.
"Okay, children, today you will be-"
"Sorry, I'm late, Mrs. Bitters," Zim panted as he made his entrance into the classroom.
"Apology not accepted, Zim. Just for that, you've just earned yourself another detention."
"But-" he was about to protest.
"Silence! I don't want to hear another sound from you! Take your seat," she barked.
Zim obeyed and glumly walked back to his seat while Mrs. Bitters' eyes were still fixed on him as she hissed furiously.
"Now, for today's English lesson; open your textbook to 4226. We are going to review some poetry today."
The students looked at her dully as they opened their textbooks and flipped to the page that was expected. Zim frowned as he looked at the page in his book. He couldn't imagine that poetry was that much work but still, learning about poetry could help him with his writing and get over his writer's block.
"Now, children," Mrs. Bitters cleared her throat. "Today's lesson will be about the different types of poetry. Ahem… many of you might be familiar with the basics of poetry and others aren't. For those who aren't, all I could say for you is that you're lost causes and there's no hope for your futures. Anyway, moving along; who could name me the first type of poem?"
The students refused to pay attention.
"If you don't answer me then I will be forced to do experiments on you while you're sleeping!" Mrs. Bitters hissed loudly.
The students perked up from their desks and the teacher could see that they all immediately raised their hands in unison.
Zim however, didn't bother to pay any attention to the lesson. He thought that poetry was just a waste of time and it was meaningless to the human race. Being poetic had nothing to do with anything and it was just revolting, like the cafeteria food. He had no tendency in learning it, believing that it wouldn't even be in his field of expertise if he wanted to study something. He fiddled around with the dust on the desk, careless about the class. When would he ever need to write poetry in his life?
"Okay, students. For your assignment, I would like you to write a poem and it is due tomorrow."