Ms. Bitters silently conspired a way to break her student's spirits, eyeing the weapons of torture with a detached fondness. She particularly hated her students that day, and as punishment for wasting her time with their existence, she had to make them feel especially miserable. Almost as miserable as her, even—as much as one could possibly be made miserable in one school day. "It's time to make a call," she murmured, and turned in her rolling chair abruptly. The wheels screeched horribly as she scooted up to the desk phone, and she dialed each number decisively. "Send me the substitute."

The skool classroom sweltered, and brains popped out of student's skulls like fresh popcorn. In the front was an obese man with blood red skin and horns protruding from his skull. He carried himself like an authoritative figure with his hands almost reaching behind his back and his eyebrows thick and straight, and his body was contained by a suit that was slowly ripping from his size. He cleared the phlegm from the back of his throat and straightened his back. And then he opened his mouth, and his voice was nasally and high-pitched: "My name is Mr. Burns, and I will not Ms. Bitters will not be here today, so she left you worksheets to finish by the end of class."

A boy in the front twitched from the pain of his brain frying on his desk. Mr. Burns glared at him intently and slammed his fist on the desk. "IF YOU CAN'T TAKE YOUR CAREER AS A STUDENT SERIOUSLY, YOU'RE GOING TO BE A FAILURE AND DESCEND TO A LIFE OF CRIME!" The old man at the back of the classroom nodded knowingly. "CLASS, TAKE OUT YOUR PENCILS AND BEGIN WORKING." Zim shifted uneasily as Mr. Burns focused on him. He got up in his face, his horns almost skewering his head. "And if you don't have a pencil with you, just go ahead and end your life now, because you can't fill out an application for your inevitable careers in fast food or something equally miserable without a pencil. So either get out your pencils or just go ahead to the state prison, because that's where you're gonna end up."

Dib removed two pencils from his bag, and he noticed Zim's eyes suddenly on him. He looked back at him and dropped the spare back in his bag deliberately. A small mechanical arm started inching toward him as he began working on his worksheet. With one shot of his laser gun it disintegrated. Zim growled, which made not smiling impossible for Dib. He removed the pencil from his bag and waved it at him. Their eyes met. Not removing eye contact, Dib gripped the pencil in both hands and snapped it. Zim gasped contemptuously.

But the sound had also attracted the attention of the substitute. "THAT NOISE HAD BETTER NOT BE A PENCIL SNAPPING!" Despite being extremely large and heavy, he was looming over Dib in an instant. He pointed at him, his sweaty finger shaking. "GET. OUT. OF. THIS. CLASSROOOOOOM." Dib, cowering, took up his bag and skittered over to the door. He took one glance back, and noticed Zim was triumphantly smirking back at him. In his hand was Dib's unbroken pencil. He was about to say something, but then the door slammed shut on its own, and Dib was trapped in the hallway, where he was then tasered by the hall monitor. Before he lost all motor control of his limbs, he gasped, "I'll get you, Zim..."

The day continued to be hot, and flies would occasionally spontaneously combust. Dib used the neighbor's hose to return moisture to his shriveled eyes before running back to his usual hiding spot. He knew without a doubt that Zim still had his pencil, but getting it back was going to prove challenging. He had to think up a plan, but Zim was not in his line of sight so he lacked that advantage. "Maybe he's still at the skool…"

After about an hour more of waiting he got tired of sitting outside in the heat, so he went to the front door and knocked. GIR opened the door and hugged him, which of course was very uncomfortable considering he was all metal. "Master not home right now," he said cheerfully, "Want to sit on the couch with me?" At first Dib was going to say no, he was on a mission… but then he noticed Mysterious Mysteries was on, and his feeble mind could not resist its charms. "Eh… I guess for a little while. 'Till Zim gets home."

But hours passed and Dib was starting to feel his brain attempting to escape his head. GIR had fallen asleep—or, well, maybe not sleep, but he wasn't moving and his eyes were closed, so he was doing the robot equivalent of sleeping. A maggoty hamburger fell on Dib's head, and he boredly picked the maggots out of his hair while a reenactment of some presumably supernatural event was going on onscreen. A moment later he felt himself starting to get a little drowsy, so he reclined a bit on the couch. His elbow hit the TV remote, and the sudden change startled him awake. It was a news station, and his skool was being shown onscreen.

Dib sat straight up and turned up the volume. "…and he is expected to receive a life sentence." The feed cut to his teacher in an orange prison jumpsuit, and he was talking gruffly, "He deserved what he got. His worksheet was unfinished, and his pencil looked stupid." The sound cut off to a somber anchor woman. "The suspect reportedly stabbed the victim multiple times in the head, stomach and chest with a pencil." Shots showed a pixilated image of a pencil, where a subtitle disclaimed that it was only a similar model to the weapon the suspect implemented.

"Though the victim survived the attack, young Jim now requires intensive care. John?" A man cleared his throat and picked up the conversation. "Thank you, Wonda. Due to this attack, the skool board has decided to ban pencils from the school premises to prevent further events like this from happening. In other news, farmer reveals that cancer is caused by breathing."

Dib took a deep breath and chewed his lip. None of his classmates were named Jim, as far as he knew. He wondered if maybe they meant Zim, but that also meant that Mr. Burns thought Dib's pencil looked stupid, which it wasn't. However, if Zim got stabbed, it wasn't like it would be fatal to his alien intestines. And if surgeons were looking at his insides, they were bound to find out what he really was. Then Zim would be carted away in the name of science, and no one would think Dib was crazy anymore. And his dad would be proud of him, no doubt.

Eventually it was bedtime and Zim was still not home, so Dib said goodbye to GIR and walked back to his house. He wondered what would happen to Zim's house, and if GIR would be taken apart. That sounded just fine… that robot was annoying. Gaz looked at him suspiciously when he entered the house, and said, "Wow, you smell like rotten hamburger." "Yeah," Dib replied with a sigh, though he didn't actually know what he said "yeah" to. He brushed his teeth and put on his PJ's, and at the AM's he found himself staring at the ceiling. "Gah, why can't I sleep? Zim's going to be locked up for good, and I won't have to worry about him killing me in my sleep." He turned over. "Maybe my dad will let me be the head scientist. I could see what Zim's insides looked like and maybe get my pencil back." He turned to the other side. "And then I can focus on cooler stuff like ghosts and vampires. That'll be a nice contrast to stupid green-" "Will you SHUT UP already?" Gaz irritably yelled from the other room. "Sorry, Gaz!" Dib replied, sounding more fearful than he meant to.

But yeah, he could be rid of that stupid green alien for good.