Green Eggs and Ham; Observed by the Ghost Writer
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Danny stumbled down the stairs too tired to care that not only was it morning, but it was Monday morning. Jazz was, as usual, reading a thick psychology tome while her breakfast sat ignored on the table.
Jack and Maddie Fenton, however, were not in the kitchen. As Danny grabbed a bowl and box of cereal mechanically, they made their previous absence known.
"Morning kids!" Jack bellowed as he entered the kitchen just ahead of his wife.
Danny started and dropped the bowl and box. Before he could properly register what had happened, Maddie said, "Jack, put that down. You don't want to drop it."
"Drop what?" asked Jazz, taking a bite of her once forgotten breakfast.
"We're making green eggs and ham!" Jack proclaimed.
Jazz dropped her book on the table and Danny dropped the bowl and cereal once again as he froze in his crouched position from picking up the once again dropped items. "What!" they said simultaneously.
"Today is Dr. Seuss appreciation day," Maddie explained.
"I-I don't have time for it to cook," Danny stuttered, frantically looking for an excuse. "I'm supposed to meet Sam in front of Tucker's in a few minutes."
"And to make sure he isn't late, I'm driving him," Jazz said, grabbing onto Danny's excuse.
"That's fine," Jack said.
Both siblings froze.
"Why?" Danny asked fearfully. Acceptance like that was never a good sign.
"We're making green eggs and ham for the high school today," Jack exclaimed happily, ignoring the looks of horror on his children's faces.
Danny and Jazz stood frozen as the full meaning of the sentence made its way through their brains. Danny opened and closed his mouth, trying to protest, but not finding the words.
"Hurry up, Danny," his mom said, "You don't want to be late."
Danny finally closed his mouth and sighed dejectedly before dragging himself upstairs to grab his back pack and stuff whatever homework he managed to complete the night before in it.
Jazz grabbed a new book and hurried back downstairs and outside to wait for Danny in her car.
"Whoa, dude," Tucker said when Jazz pulled up outside his house a few minutes later.
Danny sat slumped in the passenger seat looking, for all intents and purposes, as if Pariah Dark had teamed up with Dark Dan and Vlad had revealed his secret to the world.
"Are you okay?" Sam asked as she jumped into the seat behind her friend.
Danny continued to stare dejectedly ahead, not really seeing what was in front of him.
"Today is Dr. Seuss appreciation day," Jazz explained as she pulled away.
"Really?" Tucker asked. "That's awesome!" he said when Jazz nodded.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Sam asked, confused.
"Green eggs and ham," Danny whispered and shuddered violently.
"Exactly!" Tucker went on, ignoring Danny's reaction. "The school serves green eggs and ham to celebrate."
Danny and Jazz both shuddered.
Understanding dawned on Sam's face. "Your parents," she started.
"Are making the school green eggs and ham," Jazz finished tonelessly.
Tucker tuned back into reality when he heard that. "Your parents are making the green eggs and ham this year?" he asked.
"They were getting ready to load the ecto-cooker thing into the RV when we left."
"No," he said. "Surely it's not that bad?"
"Every year," Danny answered dully.
"Seriously?" Sam asked.
"It's green."
Sam nodded.
"It's supposed to be," Tucker answered.
Danny finally turned around to face his friend. "I don't think the ham is supposed to be green," he said.
His friends blinked. "It's not," Tucker said.
"Neon green," Danny went on, almost as if he hadn't heard him. "That glows. And floats. And-"
"Danny!" Jazz cried. "It's bad enough they're making them. You don't have to go over the horror now. Save it for lunch. I'll drive you guys to the Nasty Burger. Just don't relapse on me, alright?" she all but begged.
Sam and Tucker shared a look while Danny nodded. What was really so bad about today that had both siblings so shaken?
When they arrived at the school, Danny had recovered from the shock of it being Dr. Seuss appreciation day.
"All I have to do is hope nobody eats any of it," he said as he followed his friends into the school. "Maybe the Lunch Lady will show up during lunch and ruin it."
"It's not really that bad is it?" Tucker asked. Both of his friends looked at him, shocked that he would practically wish for a ghost attack.
"No," Danny replied. His friends started to relax. "It's worse."
"Danny," Sam stopped her friend at his locker, "Stop being so vague. We've seen your parents cooking experiments gone wrong. We've heard the horror stories from others. If you don't tell us, I will kick your but so hard you'll feel my boot print for the next month."
The halfa paled, knowing that she would keep that promise even if she had to keep kicking him all through the month. Actually, she would anyway, just to make absolutely sure that he remembered. And at the memories of past experience concerning this day.
"Tucker," he finally managed. "You remember the Christmas turkey when I was seven?"
The techno geek nodded.
"That was tame in comparison with the Dr. Seuss day ham when I was six."
"How bad was it?" he asked.
Sam moved away from Danny's locker so the halfa could get his books. Danny barely noticed as he mechanically went through the daily ritual of rummaging through his locker for the necessary books for the day. Instead he shivered and continued to explain the horrors of green eggs and ham.
"Jazz fought off the turkey with the broom. The ham," Danny shuddered violently, "the ham was...when it attacked..." Danny almost dropped his books as he shivered again. "Mom threw some knives at it. Pinned it to the wall."
"So?" Tucker prompted. "That means it's over right?"
Danny stared blankly ahead and Sam placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"No," he finally managed.
His friends raised their eyebrows at that.
"It oozed down the wall." Another shudder. "The puddles...formed a chunk of ham...teeth and eyes...hovered," he broke off with another violent shudder and dropped his books.
Unfortunately, his books fell into the path of a certain star quarter back.
"Fenton," Dash growled.
Danny's eyes finally focused on the world around him. What he saw, he really didn't like. He was standing in front of the school bully with his books on the ground between the two.
"Crud," he managed. Then the bully stepped over the mess and picked up the halfa.
"You're lucky, Fen-turd," he growled, shoving the smaller boy against the wall. "I need to get to first period early for a football meeting. But don't worry, I'll get you for this later." With that, he dropped the scrawny boy and left for his meeting.
"Wow," Tucker said, watching him go. "That was lucky."
Danny stared blankly at him. "I'm dead after lunch."
"Come on," Sam grabbed him and shoved his books at him. "You can keep telling us about it on the way to class."
"But," he started.
"My boot, your butt," she reiterated.
"But..."
"For a month."
Danny opened his mouth, but Tucker interrupted.
"Just give it up, dude," he said. "It's better for your health that way."
Danny looked beyond his friends. "Class!" he exclaimed and rushed forward into the room.
Tucker and Sam shared a look.
"You're going to corner him during passing aren't you?" the techno geek stated.
"Yep," the Goth confirmed. "He's not getting away with not telling us.
With much goading, threatening and begging, the two friends managed to get the full story from their halfa friend.
The year Danny was six, his parents had enthusiastically decided to marinate the ham in a solution that had been stirred with their ectoplasm-run blender. What they didn't know was that some ectoplasm had gotten into the marinade.
After it had sat in the solution for several hours, the ham was then placed in the ecto-cooker to cook for several minutes.
At the same time, eggs were cooking in a separate section. They had been colored green with... ectoplasm.
The food was pulled out and the table set. Before Jack could carve the ham, it leapt from the plate and growled menacingly, green ectoplasmic drool dripping from its fangs. Then it charged the large man, totally ignoring the other witnesses to its attack.
Maddie grabbed a chopping block and threw all of the knives at the possessed ham, pinning it to the wall.
While both of the adults were occupied with the ham, the children were fighting off the eggs. The yolks were eyes or mouths, the edges seemed to be a bit sharp for food.
They lifted themselves from their plates, some hovering above the table, others dragging themselves across the table towards the seemingly defenseless children. Jazz jumped up and grabbed a frying pan from the nearby cupboard and shoved the broom at her brother. She struck the flying eggs across the room. Each time it connected, there was a very noticeable 'clang'. Danny shoved the creeping ones away fearfully.
The ham, which had been pinned to the wall, slowly oozed its way down the wall, each piercing knife leaving a large cut along its path, separating the ham into many pieces. By the time it made it to the ground, it was in at least ten chunks. Each chunk had its own eyes and mouth.
The family spent the next hour fighting what was supposed to be their dinner. At that point, Jack fell down the stairs to the basement under a number of ham chunks and eggs. High pitched squeals followed the sounds of rummaging around.
Jack came up the stairs and threw an ecto-gun at his wife. The pair soon had their dinner-turned-attackers subdued and they set about tending injuries.
Jazz suggested take-out while Danny held onto his sister for dear life with one hand and the broom in the other.
"Wow," Sam said.
Danny nodded numbly.
"Wow," Tucker said.
Danny shuddered yet again.
"And they're making the green eggs and ham for the school?"
Danny slumped resignedly between his friends.
"FENTON!"
Danny turned at the sound of the bully coming through the crowd after him.
Then he opened his locker, handed his books to his friends, and waited resignedly.
The bully stopped in front of the trio, eyes on the loser in front of him.
"Alright, Dash," the scrawny boy sighed. "Shove me in my locker."
Dash stared. "What?" he said.
"Shove me in my locker," the smaller boy gestured to the open locker behind him. "Go ahead."
"What is wrong with you?"
Danny just stared at the larger teen blankly.
Dash back off, confused.
"Dash," the halfa said, "I have a quota to fill. If you don't shove me into my locker at least twice a day, who will? Just do it."
The confused quarterback looked around for support. Finding no help, he grabbed his favorite punching bag and shoved him into his locker. Then he grabbed the halfa's books from his friends and shoved them in after him before slamming the locker door.
He walked away to his next class, still thoroughly confused by the whole confrontation.
Sam and Tucker waited until class started before letting their friend out of his locker. He fell to the floor.
"Ouch," he mumbled, his face against the ground.
"Come on Danny," Sam said, pulling her friend up. "One more class, then Jazz will take us to the Nasty Burger for lunch."
Danny groaned, but let him friends pick him up and drag him to class.
Then bell rang for lunch and the trio hurried out the school's front doors to Jazz's car. She was already there, waiting for them.
"Get in and let's go," she said.
The four of them enjoyed a quiet lunch at the Nasty Burger, each hoping nobody ate what the elder Fentons made.
When they got back to school, they were surprised by the number of people talking about green eggs and ham and the distinct lack of glowing green once-food in the trash.
"What happened?" Danny asked. "They can't have eaten it!"
"Hold on," Sam said before leaving the other three standing confused next to Jazz's car.
She walked right up to a random goth kid and said bluntly, "What happened with the green eggs and ham?"
The kid stared at her blankly for a moment before he replied. "We're having that tomorrow."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Isn't today Dr. Seuss Appreciation Day?"
"No. That's tomorrow."
"Oh." Sam returned to her friends and repeated what she'd learned. Jazz collapsed and Danny ignored his ghost sense as he slowly sat on the ground and a missile narrowly missed taking off his head. He placed his head in his hands as Tucker hacked into Skulker's suit and sent him off to research purple back gorillas. Sam looked back and forth between the siblings before getting Tucker to carry Danny while she grabbed Jazz and took them to the nurse.
The Ghost Writer finished typing what he'd seen and leaned back. He'd taught the halfa to appreciate Christmas, an old holiday and day of Truce that had been around long before the Ghost Zone had become so separated from the Real World.
His dislike of this holiday had absolutely nothing to do with previous transgressions. The halfa simply feared his parents' cooking on this day.
Ghost Writer nodded and pressed a button on his keyboard, making a bound book appear in front of him. He'd help the ghost boy to appreciate other holidays when he brought down others. For now, he would put this book next to his new Christmas poem.
Then, he might look for Clockwork. He was curious if there were other holidays Danny didn't appreciate. After all, a complete set means more than one by itself.
fin