Chapter one AN EARLY CHRISTMAS PRESENT
Christmas Eve – the worst day of the year.
Danny Fenton lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling with his ear buds cranked all the way up.
He was only 8 years old and already he was tired of it all. Tired of the fighting, tired of the accusing, and tired of the endless screaming. All of Danny's life his parents had been fighting over the most meaningless things. Is living food fit to eat? Should the ghost portal be left on all the time? Is Santa Clause real or not? Come on – Santa?!
Who cares? If Santa was real, there was no way he'd ever come to the Fenton house. He'd get creamed by a blaster if he was lucky. If he was unlucky, well, the iron maiden in the basement was large enough for any sized fat man as Jack Fenton could attest.
The clock was ticking towards 11:00 and nobody was getting any closer to sleep. His little sister who was 6 had run from the living room and had hidden herself under her bed. She felt safest there. She had always run to her bed since she was little, clinging to her little Einstein Bear named Bearbert. She was a smart, but weird kid. She was always talking to the open air and claimed she could see ghosts. Danny blamed his parents for this. They were always yelling about ghosts and specters, accusing unsuspecting neighbors of being ghosts, and just being general pests. Any child could develop peculiar traits with all of that.
Danny sighed and scrubbed his fingers across his eyes. He just wanted all the noise to go away. He couldn't care less about the promised presents that Santa was supposed to bring. If he could have one Christmas present, it would be for a little peace for him and his sister.
Danny sat up in bed and pulled out his ear buds. He listened. Nothing. There was no shouting coming from downstairs. Either they had come to an agreement about how to set up a proper Santa trap using ghost hunting gear, or they had passed out from all of their screaming.
Danny cautiously got up and crept to the door. He took a furtive look down the hall then crept to his sister's room. He opened the door as quietly as he could and tiptoed inside. Jazzy he called into the room. He heard a sniffle and made his way to the bed. He crouched down to peak under the pink bed ruffle and looked into the teal eyes of his little sister. They were red rimmed and there were tear tracks down her cheeks.
For a moment a flicker of heat burned in Danny's chest at the look of his innocent little sister. Her Christmas ruined just like all of his had been. He scoffed at the notion of 'the most wonderful time of the year'. But he schooled his face into a calm smile for his sister's sake.
"Hey Jazzy." He said craning his neck with his head parallel to the floor. "It's all quiet now. Why don't you come out?" Jazmine sniffed and shook her head. Danny frowned and sighed. "Tell you what – if you come to my room, I'll sneak downstairs and grab Santa's milk and cookies. Then we'll eat them together and let Mom and Dad figure out how Santa got past their traps without getting caught on tape." He grinned his lop sided grin at her. She seemed to consider this for a moment then slowly smiled herself. "Okay" she whispered.
Jazz slowly crawled out from under her bed clinging to Bearbert. When she was out her brother helped her up and walked with her down the hall to her brother's room, clutching his hand the whole way. When they got back to Danny's room Danny turned on a small nightlight and picked Jaz up placing her on his taller bed. He then sat down next to her and she placed her head on his shoulder allowing her red hair to fall down his back. If anyone had seen them they would have been surprised at the striking effect of her bright red hair next to his midnight black.
Jazmine and Danny were both slender and short for their ages making them prime targets for bullies. Jazmine had developed a shy and timid attitude that was not helped by the bully situation. Danny might have turned out the same way had he not taken the responsibility of protecting his little sister upon himself. He had become quite skilled at cutting words, and sharp wit. And thereby, through necessity, good at quick escapes and defensive skills.
Danny broke the silence. "Guess I should go get those cookies now?" He half joked. Jazz turned her head to look at her brother then shook her head before burying her face into the gap between his shoulder and neck. Danny wrapped his arm around his sister and leaned back against the headboard. It felt to Danny like there were more and more of these nights with the two of them together. He wasn't sure when it had happened, but Jazmine had started looking to her brother as more of a parent than her own mom and dad.
Danny could feel the heaviness of sleep start to drag at him. He looked over to the clock. It was now 11:40. Twenty minutes until Christmas. He shook his little sister a bit and smiled into her eyes when she looked up at him. "Come on Jazzy. I promised you cookies. We can eat them together and make it our first Christmas present." Jazmine looked unsure but Danny wasn't deterred. He slipped out of bed, bare feet cold on the hard floor, and pulled the covers close around her. Be right back he whispered to her and quick stepped silently towards the door and slipped out like a shadow.
Danny had gotten good at sneaking around. He snuck around bullies, around his angry parents, and around teachers who always seemed to be watching him. As though they suspected him of trouble making looking for its opportunity. He tiptoed down the stairs and paused to assess the situation. There was no one in sight and the cookies and milk were laying on the table next to a painfully obvious Santa trap. Danny rolled his eyes at the sight of the cameras and the trigger disguised as a cookie. He typed in a generic code that was used in most of the Fenton Works basic security and deactivated the trap. He picked up the plate minus the false cookie and the glass of milk. Then just to irritate his parents he left the decoy on top of the napkin and drew a heart around the cookie before turning the security system back on.
'I could be batman someday' the thought smugly to himself. He looked at the large grandfather clock with little green ghosts for the hands. They read 11:45 and the clock started to chime the third quarter. Danny heard a grunt from the direction of his parent's room and he quickly made his way up the stairs. He was out of breath when he slipped inside his room and swung the door closed with the heel of his foot.
Jazz looked up at him startled out of the beginnings of her exhausted doze. Her eyes locked with his and for a fraction of a second they shared a moment of tense waiting to see if they had gotten caught. But after half a minute of silence Danny broke into a victorious smirk and Jazz hid her own wide grin under the covers with her eyes peeking out.
Danny carefully placed the glass of milk on the nightstand next to the bed and the plate of three cookies in the center of the comforter. Then he carefully climbed under the covers with his back resting on the headboard. He tried to tug his sister up so she wouldn't spill crumbs in the bed but she refused instead preferring to snag a Christmas cookie and retreat to her safe spot with just the top of her red hair visible. Danny rolled his eyes and sunk his teeth into a ghost shaped cookie with a red and white hat. They enjoyed their cookies sharing the third cookie between them along with the glass of milk.
By the time they had finished their first Christmas gift of the year, wiped their milk mustaches off, and laid down on the pillow the clock read 11:58. Neither Fenton child noticed how it had started snowing.
