There
could be no mistake about it, from the neon tinted siding, to the purple roof,
to the asymmetrical windows, though it looked unusual not nestled between the
tall buildings of the city Dib knew right away who’s house it was. But what was it doing here? “Oh well,” he shrugged, “nothing else makes
sense so why should this?”
He made his way up the front walk, passing an
assortment of lawn gnomes, plastic flamingos, and puffer fish. “Creepy De`ja`vu,” Dib shivered as he
reached up to knock on the door bearing a ‘Men’s Room’ sign, but before he
could he was nearly plowed over by Zim bursting out in a huge frenzy.
Dib’s eyes lit up at the
sight of his long hunted nemesis.
“Zim!” he called and the green one halted and spun around at the sound
of his voice. “It’s about time I
found-…”
“Mary Ann!” Zim stuck his
hands on his hips and glowered at Dib, “What do you think you’re doing out
here?”
“Huh!?” To say Dib was completely dumbstruck would
be an understatement.
“Well? Answer me Mary Ann!”
If looks could kill, Zim
would have croaked on the spot. “Are
you completely out of your mind Zim!?
What the heck are you talking about?” Dib exclaimed outraged.
Zim drew his rabbit ears
back and approached Dib menacingly. “Do
not question me Mary Ann! Now get in
that house and get me my gloves!” Zim pointed to the door and Dib now noticed
that he was missing his usual, black rubber mitts.
“You’ve finally snapped
Zim, you know who I am! I’m
Dib!” he scowled indignantly, “And Mary Ann is a girl’s name. If you’re going to insult me at least do it
right.”
Zim’s fiery red eyes
burned a shade darker. “I said get my
gloves! You WILL obey me, Mary Ann!”
“But-…”
“NOW!” Zim exploded, shoving Dib through the open door and slamming it behind him. The boy shakily composed himself and considered storming back out, but truth be known Dib was much more freaked out than usual by Zim’s insanity, and figured it would just be easier to find what Zim wanted rather than facing his psychotic rage again.
“Tch, Mary Ann,” he
mumbled rolling his eyes.
He began searching the living room, and in a
few minutes still had turned up nothing.
“This is ridiculous,” Dib grumbled, “running errands for my mortal
enemy. And why didn’t he just put on
his stupid gloves while he was in here, huh?
Huh?” He was looking near the
couch when he noticed a can of Poop Cola sitting on the coffee table. Dib picked up the can and popped the top; he
didn’t much like the stuff (it pretty much tasted like it sounds), but all the
running around he’d been doing had made him fairly parched, so he took a long
swig and resumed his search. He was so
preoccupied with rummaging through a side table drawer that he didn’t notice
his rapid increase in height until his head hit the ceiling.
“Wha-?
Oh come on, not this AGAIN!” he cried, ducking down quickly before he
could crash through the roof. Dib was
growing larger and larger with each passing second, and when he finally stopped
he was forcibly scrunched up inside the room, most of Zim’s furniture
completely crushed beneath his expanding body.
He frowned and shifted uncomfortably; his neck was bent at a painful
angle and his hair was getting tangled in the mass of wires and tubes adorning
Zim’s ceiling.
“I’m reeeeealy starting to hate this place,”
Dib narrowed his eyes in irritation and arched his back trying to adjust to a
more comfortable position, the house groaning and creaking against his
movement. “I just hope I don’t grow any more.”
Dib grumbled and hugged his knees to his
chest. “This is all your fault,”
he said glaring at the soda can contemptibly.
“And to think, yesterday everything was perfectly normal; I was saving
the world from alien invasion, I’d nearly gotten pictures of that vampire
gerbil, and I was this close to exposing the lunch ladies as man eating zombies
trying to poison us with their ketchup and rice… but now everything’s just weird!”
Dib would have moped a little longer, but his
thoughts were cut short by the sound of the doorknob turning. “Mary Ann!” Zim stepped inside. “What is taking you so- AARRGH!” the bunny
invader was violently slammed backwards as Dib instinctively shoved his foot up
against the door. The stubborn Irken,
though taken aback, wasted no time picking himself up and trying again. “Mary Ann!
What are you doing in there?
Open this door right now!” Zim’s voice dripped with venom and he pounded
on the door furiously, but Dib effortlessly held it shut. “All right Mary Ann, if that’s the way you
want it…” Zim’s voice trailed off and Dib heard the sound of retreating
footsteps.
He breathed a sigh of relief until he heard a
clatter at the front of the house. Zim
was at the window and had already managed to pull it open halfway. Dib quickly shuffled towards the front of
the room, squashing more furniture and knocking several pictures off the wall
in the process and shot an arm through the opening, sending the fur-clad
extraterrestrial sailing off the windowsill with a startled yelp. Zim shook his head as he sat up, his eyes
bugging out as he got a glimpse of what had hit him.
“YAH!
MONSTER! There’s a hideous
monster in my house! AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
Zim ran around the side of the house screaming hysterically.
Dib chuckled, quite satisfied with how that
went, also happy to find that the room was much less cramped minus his
arm. He leaned back contentedly, picked
up Zim’s TV and flipped through a few channels, deciding to make the most of
the situation.
“Keef!
KEEF!” Dib suddenly heard Zim shouting outside again, “Get over
here!”
Keef? Dib cocked an eyebrow and set down the TV.
“Oh, hi Sir!” a green-eyed boy with a puff of
orange hair trotted into the yard.
“What’s up? You want to go to
the circus or something? I LOVE the
circus! We can get some foot long
corndogs there. I like corndogs, don’t
you?” he chattered excitedly, then noticed Zim’s agitated state. “Hey, what’s wrong bestest best friend?”
“There’s a horrible, hideous doom-beast
inside my base!” Zim pointed a shaking finger at Dib’s gigantic limb protruding
from the window.
“…It just looks like an arm to me,” Keef said
after a thoughtful pause.
“Stupid worm baby!” Zim screamed in a rage,
“Have you ever seen an arm that size!?”
“No, but it’s still an arm,” Keef pointed out
timidly.
“Grrrr!
It’s what’s attached to the arm!” Zim snarled, “Now get in there
and dispose of it!”
Keef turned about four shades paler. “B-but-…”
“Please Keef?” Zim put on a big fake smile
and draped his arm over the boy’s shoulders, his voice saccharine sweet, “For
your bestest best friend?”
“Um… Okay, sure!” Keef chirped, eager to
please.
Zim snickered wickedly. “Very good, now go up on the roof. I have a secret entrance up there that leads
to a hollowed out tube in my living room.
Once you get inside, snag the monster with this,” he handed Keef a
butterfly net, “and make sure it doesn’t catch you first; I think it already
ate Mary Ann.”
Zim set a ladder against his fortress and
Keef climbed up, butterfly net clutched tightly in hand, and made his way
across the roof to where his bestest friend had instructed.
Inside, Dib listened carefully to the
redhead’s footfalls trying to judge where the hollow tube was located, not even
bothering to burn any brain cells wondering what Keef was doing there in the
first place (was there a point trying to figure out anything logically?
he thought). The footsteps ceased at
one corner of the room and Dib tapped lightly on the metal tubes beneath the
spot till he found one that dinged clear and ripped the end out of its socket. He drew in a deep breath, waited until he
heard Keef sliding down, and when he felt the timing was right he blew into it
as hard as he could.
“YAAAAHHHH!!!” Keef shot out the tube like a
spit-wad from a straw, arching high through the air and crash landing outside
the fence. Zim was not happy about
this.
“RRRR!” he growled tightening his hands into
fists, “Miserable incompetent! Can’t
you do anythi- YEARGGH!” the alien cried out as Dib snuck his hand up and
flicked him from behind, causing him to skid to the ground. “Blech!” he gagged spitting out a mouthful
of dirt and grass, trying to stand up, but Dib just knocked him on his face
again, laughing out loud. He was
finally beginning to enjoy his superior size.
“You know, this wouldn’t be so bad if only I
weren’t stuck in here,” he smiled.
Zim picked himself up, shaking with white-hot
rage. “That’s it filthy blood monster,
you leave me no choice. Keef!”
“Y-yes Sir?” answered the badly mangled boy
stumbling over obediently.
“There’s only one thing left to do. We have to blow up the house!”
Dib’s smile vanished instantly. “What!?”
“Oh, okay!” Keef peeped eagerly, “How should
we do it?”
Zim put a hand to his chin. “Hmm, I think we’ll go with the antimatter
explosives.”
“Okay!
Be right back!”
Keef came back a minute later with the goods
and he and Zim set them up against the side of the house in a place where Dib
couldn’t reach them.
“You can’t do this!” Dib shouted banging the
wall, “This is insane, it’s-!”
Keef could hear Dib’s muffled screams coming
from inside the house. “Sir?”
“Mmm?”
“The monster’s yelling something at us.”
“Pay no heed to that blood beast,” Zim
ordered fiddling with some switches.
“Now hand me that cable.”
“-never get away with this! Do you hear me!? You-…!” Dib slammed his fist against the wall a final time in
desperation, his glasses magnifying the fear in his eyes. There was no way they were going to listen
to him. He had to get out of there… and
quick. “There has to be something in
here that’ll make me small again,” Dib scanned the room for something… anything…
that might work and saw a bowl of fruit sitting on a shelf. He snatched it up and quickly popped it in
his mouth, then quickly spit it out with a disgusted blech, reminding himself
to check next time to see if the fruit was wax first.
Meanwhile outside, Zim finished hooking up
the last wire to the detonation device and grinned evilly at his
handiwork. “And now Keef, the time has
come to explode this intruding pest!”
“Oh boy!
After we’re done exploding, I’ll make us some waffles!” Keef bounced up
and down.
Zim sighed.
“You know, Keef, you already made some waffles this morning,” he
reminded the hyper child impatiently, “They’re festering in the refrigerator as
we speak.”
Dib had had his head buried in his hands
despondently up until this point, prepared to face the Reaper, but when he
heard those words he gasped. “Of
course!” DA WAFFLES! (Waffles are the
answer to all life’s problems, aren’t they? ^_^)
He leaned on his side and scooted over to the
kitchen entrance, reaching inside and feeling around for the fridge. “Hmm, let’s see… kitchen table…
chair…n’other chair … uh, something moving… garbage can… hey, is this it?…
OUCH!… No, that would be the stove… um, don’t know what the heck that
is… oh, and that definitely doesn’t feel right… uhhhhhh… Ah ha! Refrigerator!” he exclaimed triumphantly and
yanked open the fridge door, accidentally ripping it off its hinges in his
haste. He fished around for a second
and pulled out a plate of sticky waffles, and downed them without hesitation,
waiting uncertainly to see what would happen.
Back outside, Zim laughed maniacally as he
clutched the detonation device. “And
now… the countdown! Goodbye filth
monster!” He pulled out his pocket
watch to time the blast and his eyes suddenly bugged out in panic. “OH NO! Look at the time! I’m late again!” Zim dropped the detonator and bolted out of the yard in one of
his screaming fits as he disappeared from sight.
“No!
Wait!” came a tiny voice.
Dib grunted as he squeezed under the front
door, having once again shrunk down too small.
“Zim! Waaaaiiiit!!” he hopped
off the front step and sprinted past Keef who just watched him go with an
amused giggle; at his size, Dib looked like one of those big-headed
nodder-bobbers you stick on your dashboard.
After the trench coat clad boy was gone, Keef spotted the detonator on
the ground and picked it up, eyeing it with awed curiosity. There was a big, pretty red button on
it. Keef liked the color red.
* * *
As he was running, Dib thought he heard an
explosion and felt the ground shake slightly, but he shrugged it off and
focused on his mission, not bothering to look back (had he done so he would
have noticed the large billow of smoke rising over the trees).
He
could see Zim up ahead through the tall jungle of grass, but he didn’t stay in
sight for long, and though Dib tried to keep running he soon faltered and
collapsed on his knees. Dib knew there
was no way he’d ever catch his enemy while he was so small. And honestly, what would he do even if he
did? Considering his unimpressive
height, not a whole heck of a lot. He
could maybe bite Zim’s ankles, but that was about it.
Just as he was thinking he couldn’t get any
lower, Dib sensed a presence behind him.
He whipped around and found a small puppy standing there, but of course
to Dib the puppy was the size of an elephant, and he screamed like a little
girl and tried to make a run for it.
Before he took two steps the puppy leaped over his head and blocked his
path, its tail wagging playfully, and Dib held his hands over his aching ears
as it let out a tremendous bark. Dib
backed away slowly and groped for a stick he spotted on the ground. “N-nice doggy. Good doggy…” he coaxed, waving the stick in front of it. “C’mon, go get the stick! Go get it!” he said and threw it as hard as
he could. The second the dog was
distracted, Dib broke into a run, but the next thing he knew he was being
followed by pounding footfalls that sounded like a cattle stampede, and a
shadow with two floppy ears blocked out the light overhead. “Noooo!!!!” Dib let out a mournful wail as a
pair of teeth closed around his torso.
“Ack! No! Bad dog!
BAD!” he shouted as the puppy trotted off with its prize, and Dib could
only imagine in terror what it would do with him.
…
A few minutes later, a pale hand emerged from
the ground, followed by Dib as he struggled his way out of the hole he’d just
been buried in, covered in dirt and doggy drool.
“Ugh,” he grimaced and brushed himself off,
“I really do hate this place now. And I
hate being three inches tall!” he shouted to the sky, hoping for at least a
peal of thunder. “I’ve got to grow back
to my normal size again, but how?” Dib
looked around, knowing he should probably eat or drink something, but the only
things in the immediate vicinity were the flowers, dirt and grass, and those
didn’t look too appetizing.
Sighing in defeat and wiping away a smear of dog drool from his glasses, Dib plopped down next to a large mushroom where he was suddenly startled by a sand-papery voice coming from on top of it.