Two days had passed since the agent had visited Zim. Every time the phone rang or there was a knock on the door made Zim jump. He couldn’t stand the wait. Zim sat on the couch watching TV with Gir. Tak was at the park with Mimi and Gaz had to go somewhere with her dad so Zim and Gir were stuck at home. The phone rang and Zim answered it after his heart skipped a beat.

“Hello?” Zim said.

“Hello. Is this Zim?” the voice on the other end asked.

“Yes. Who is this?” Zim asked.

“My name is Lara. I work for a child care service. I was informed that you were having troubles and I think I can help,” she said.

“You can!?” Zim said happily.

“Of course! When do you think you can come over my office? I’m not free today, but anytime tomorrow is good!” Lara said.

“I’ll come at ten o’ clock tomorrow!” Zim said.

“Good! Go to 103 Maple Road and enter that building. Ask for Lara. Ok?” she said.

“Ok! Thank you sooooo much mam! You don’t know what this means to me!” Zim said happily.

“It’s all in a day’s work,” Lara said before hanging up.

Zim hung up the phone. He thought he should call Tak and tell her, but then she would have to skip school along with him to get there. He thought of a way to skip school and have Tak not get suspicious on what was going on. He sat back down on the couch. Gir looked at him.

“Who was dat mastah?” Gir asked.

Zim looked at Gir. They had never told Gir and Mimi about what had happened. Zim sighed.

“It was no one Gir. Go back to watching TV,” Zim said patting Gir’s head.

“Ok mastah!” Gir said before turning back to the TV.

The next day~~~~~

“Dang this place is hard to find!” Zim said out loud as he looked for the address the lady had given him.

Zim looked around for the address Lara had given him. He was on Maple Road and couldn’t find any numbers to indicate the building he was supposed to go into. He had decided to leave for the office before Tak woke up to get ready for school. He had left a note saying that he had errands to run and had to miss school. He had packed her a lunch to lessen her anger when he had gotten home. It was now 9:50 and was hoping he didn’t run late.

Zim looked around some more to find the building. He looked around to see a homeless guy. “It’s worth a shot,” Zim thought heading towards him.

“Excuse me? Can you help me?” Zim asked the man.

“What is it girly? What can I do for ya?” the man asked looking at Zim with cross eyes.

Zim gave the man a confused look. Obviously the man needed glasses. He wore a brown hat that looked like it had been in a dumpster, a jacket that looked like it was a size too big for him and was never washed. He had no shoes or socks on and he had only two teeth that look like they were about to fall out of his mouth. He had a scraggily white beard and white hair that looked like it needed to be shaved off just to get all the knots out of it.

“Can you tell me where 103 Maple Road is?” Zim asked.

“Well sure I can girly! It’s this building right here!” The guy said pointing the building he was leaning against.

“Thank you,” Zim said walking off with a wave.

Once Zim’s back was towards the man Zim rolled his eyes. How could he not have seen that before!? He walked into the building and looked around. The room he was in seemed to be a waiting room. There were a bunch of chairs and some toys for the younger kids. There was a desk with a lady reading a magazine behind it. The room had blue and white walls. Zim walked to the desk to the lady. She looked up at him and blew a bubble with the gum she was chewing.

“Can I help you?” she asked sounding like she was annoyed that Zim had disturbed her reading.

“Uhh…I’m here to see Lara,” Zim said.

“Third door to the right,” the lady said looking back at her magazine.

“Thank you,” Zim said walking off.

Zim walked until he counted three doors to his right and walked into a room. It was a small office. There was a desk that was made out of shiny wood, there was a small window to the left that was opened to let some air in, the right wall was decorated with diplomas and pictures of kids that looked to be five or six. There were two chairs in front of the desk for the people who were there to see Lara. Zim didn’t care about the seats and continued to look at the diplomas and pictures of kids on the wall.

A lady came in to see Zim looking at the pictures and diplomas. Zim looked at her. She was at least his height and had long brown hair. She wore a black suite and looked like she was at least in her twenties.

“Oh. You must be Zim,” she said looking at her watch to see it was ten O’ clock.
Zim nodded.

“And you’re Lara?” Zim asked.

“That’s correct. You’re right on time. Please, have a seat,” she said motioning him towards a seat before sitting down in hers that was behind the desk.

Zim took a seat and looked around. For some unknown reason the room was interesting.

“So how about we talk about your situation,” she said.

“Huh?” Zim said looking at her.

Lara giggled.

“Sorry. Fascinated for some unknown reason,” Zim said with a “my bad” smile.

“It’s ok. I get that a lot,” Lara said with a smile, “So anyway. I wish to ask you a few questions and that’s it. Ok?” she said.

Zim nodded.

“Good. Let’s begin,” Lara said folding her hands on her desk.