Piece by Piece

The next day was Monday, so of course when my alarm clock went off, the first thing I did was to groan and then bang the top of it with my fist, causing it to shut up. I dragged myself out of bed and started looking through my closet for something to wear. I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep last night, because I had been up all night thinking about my pregnancy. It was sort of one of those things you don’t expect to ever happen to you, like your house getting caught in a tornado or something. And yet, I was also strangely excited about it. I wasn’t really sure why, but for some reason, I was looking forward to having my baby. I had already started thinking about Earth names, but none of them seemed like they’d fit a half-human half-Irken smeet.

Anyway, by the time Dib had arrived to walk me to school, I was awake (sort of ) and ready to go. Ria had left a few minutes earlier; she knew I always waited for Dib in the morning. “Hey Dib. Wassup?” He smiled. “Not much. You?” “Oh, the usual.” “Ah.” I could tell that Dib was trying to stay off the pregnancy subject, but it was still easy to see that he was just dying to talk about it. “You wanna talk about me being pregnant, don’t you?” I asked with a smile. He blushed slightly. “Uh, well...yeah.” he said sheepishly. “Oh Dib. You always were a bit easy to read.” He smiled.
“Look, how bout I come over tonight, and we can discuss it then.” “Okay. Oh, by the way, my dad bought some more whipped cream. Just thought I should tell you. In case you’re interested.” I grinned. “Oh yeah, he didn’t say anything about the empty container in the trash can, did he?” “Actually, he did.” “Oh. What’d he say?” I queried. “He asked me who ate all the whipped cream.” I smirked. “What’d you tell him?” “I told him you brought some strawberries and we ate them with the whipped cream” “Nice one.” I said. He just sort of laughed.

School was boring, as usual. We had a pop quiz in Math, and we watched a video on bones and muscles in Science. After school, I met up with Dib and we set off back to his house. I had already told Ria that I was going to his house after school, so she would know not to wait for me. When we got to his house, Dib went on upstairs to set the movie stuff up. He had told me today in Study Hall that he had bought a new movie called “Zoolander”, and from the way he had described it, it sounded really funny. I decided to grab a quick movie snack (whipped cream and Coke) before I headed up to his room. When he saw the whipped cream, he just looked at me and laughed. “What?” I asked. “Whipped cream is good.” He didn’t say anything, but just chuckled.

After the movie was over, Dib and I decided to discuss the pregnancy topic. At first I was a bit nervous, but soon I was talking about it as casually as if it were nothing but the weather. “So, how long is the Irken gestation period?” Dib asked. “Oh, about maybe half a year.” “Oh, so just a few months before humans.” “Mmmhmm.” I murmured. For some reason, I felt a sudden urge to ask Dib what he thought a good name for our baby might be. “Actually, I haven’t really thought about it yet.” “Actually,” I said, “I was thinking maybe Heather if it’s a girl.” Dib looked at me rather strangely. “Well, what if it’s a boy?” “I don’t know. I’m not very good at picking out good boy names. But if it’s a girl, do you think Heather would be a good name?” Dib thought for a moment, then said, “Yeah, I guess. Or maybe Erin.” “Yeah, Erin’s a good name too.” We were quiet for a moment. Finally, I said, “Hey, can we talk about something else now?” “Okay, sure.” I smiled. “Thanks.”