Chapter 1 - Toothpaste

Zim looked at Gir and sighed. He had reiterated the same speech for the final time. If Gir wasn’t able to grasp it during the sixth retelling, Zim doubted he’d ever understand. He felt like taking out the coloring book again; perhaps Gir would make sense of all this then. He gave the unit a hard glare before pulling out a rolled up coloring book he had stowed nearby. At the sight of such a treasure, Gir giggled insanely and attempted to rip it out of Zim’s hands. Zim yanked it back and growled.

“You can’t have it, Gir!”

“But I want it! Must finish coloring the llama! LLAMA!”

Zim’s eye twitched at the word ‘llama’. He was suddenly seeing flashes of llamas stampeding toward him as he tried to outrun them. That day became known as “The Day of the Llamas”, and Zim vowed to never use those hideous creatures to destroy Dib again. It just wasn’t worth the pain.

“SILENCE!” Zim screamed. “You will not speak of that again, understand?”

Gir acknowledged him by gazing back blankly. Zim took that as a ‘maybe’ and flipped through the pages until he found the one he desired. The picture was of a large tube of toothpaste with a toothbrush next to it. Both of these objects had eyes. The toothbrush looked quite joyful while his companion looked like he was plotting revenge on the toothbrush for having such a cheery disposition. He was also holding a long piece of mint-flavored floss behind his back.

“Aw, they’re friends,” Gir exclaimed. “And they’re singing ‘bout love….and popcorn!”

Zim smacked himself on the face and shook his head. He thought about yelling again, but he knew it would be pointless. He decided to glare at Gir for a moment instead. Gir shrugged and waited for Zim to continue.

“Okay, now that you have a visual reference, you should be able to get what I’ve been trying to say for the past hour. This is toothpaste,” he said pointing at the toothpaste. “And this is a-”

“What flavor is it!??” Gir suddenly cried.

“Whatever flavor you want it to be!” Zim said, waggling the book in the air. “Now pay attention! It’s not that hard!”

“Hm, I’m gonna’ guess lemon ‘cause of the yellow!” Gir said, clearly ignoring the lack of color on the page.

“Heh, I guess it could be lemon…GIR! Stop distracting me!” Zim paused. “Where was I? Ah yes, this is toothpaste and this is a toothbrush. Do you know what humans do with these things?”

“I seen ‘em use it! I seen it! Their mouths eat it! Do I get the grand prize now??”

Zim rolled his eyes, but he felt like he had made a breakthrough at last.

“Well, that’s close. Humans use toothpaste to clean their disgusting teeth. If they don’t brush exactly three times a day, their teeth fall out. They eventually die if they can’t find teeth to replace their missing ones. Stupid humans. Anyway, this basically means that they have no choice but to use it. Are you getting all this?”

“That’s so sad,” Gir replied with tears in his eyes. “What’re you gonna’ do to the toothpaste? You gonna’ make it so their teeth don’t fall out no mores?”

“That would be helping them, Gir. No, I’m going to mass produce radioactive toothpaste that the humans will be required to buy and use since there won’t be any other kind available. The chemicals will-”

Zim’s antennas perked up when he heard noises coming from behind him. He turned around and instantly spotted Dib squatting under his desk area. Dib squealed upon being caught and clambered out, a smug grin on his face.

“You’re not doing anything to our toothpaste, Zim!” He stated.

“DIB! How’d you get in here!? And how come the alarm didn’t go off!?” Zim screeched.

“Oh, it was easy to bypass your poorly-made security system and follow you down here. You were so busy educating Gir that you just didn’t notice me,” He began. “And your computer’s in sleep mode, Zim. How stupid can you get?”

“Grr, you’ll pay for this! How dare you turn my computer off!”

Dib blinked.

“I didn’t. It was like that before I got here…”

“Oh,” Zim merely said. “By the way, what’s your favorite flavor of toothpaste? Tell me!”

“It’s mint,” Dib said without thinking. Then his eyes widened. “Wait! You’re not using that trick on me! I won’t let you poison my toothpaste!”

“It won’t matter,” Zim smirked. “I don’t have to do anything to yours. You’ll run out soon and have no choice but to purchase another tube. And it will be wrought with all kinds of horrible chemicals! Mwahahahahaha!!!!”

Dib shied away and gritted his teeth in fear. He didn’t like the idea of dying from toothpaste poisoning. Not only was it an incredibly stupid way to die, but it was something he used to keep his teeth intact! He dropped to his knees and let out a piercing scream.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!”

Zim looked at Dib blankly and coughed. When this didn’t get Dib’s attention, he kicked him in the stomach. Dib keeled over and moaned, his eyes rolling backward. He blacked out seconds later.

Dib woke to his sister yelling outside his door. He looked at the clock to see that school would start in twelve minutes. He had the worst headache and felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

“Hurry up Dib! Dad says we need to brush our teeth and get to school! You made us miss the bus! So come on!”

Dib heard footsteps going away from his door to the bathroom. He suddenly remembered his dream and shrieked. He threw off the covers and raced out the door.

“Gaz! Wait! Don’t use the toothpaste! It’s lemon-flavored!”

End?

Christina Price, Age 20, 3/12/10, Friday, 3:27 A.M.

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