Chapter 1 - A Week Without Ghosts
I will not get a cat!! Vlad Masters (Maternal Instinct)
With a clash of gears and the rattle of thrown pebbles, the tracked assault vehicle -- commonly referred to as the Fenton Family RV -- raced down the gravel drive and through the campground gates leaving Danny Fenton, Sam Manson and Tucker Foley standing beside a pile of camp gear.
"I know this is only for a week," Tucker suggested, "but they seemed awfully glad to get rid of us."
"That's just the way my dad drives," Danny said. He was a medium size kid of fourteen with an unruly shock of dark hair.
"Dude, your mom was at the wheel," Tucker corrected. He was a slightly shorter black youth of fourteen. He tended to wear a red beret, khaki cargo pants, yellow shirt and a Personal Digital Assistant. Most people did not consider a PDA part of their attire; Tucker did. His fingers were already twitching because he had had to leave most of his electronic gear at home.
"Tucker, Tucker, Tucker," Sam said, adjusting a broad brimmed safari hat, with a black band knotted around its brim. Sam -- Samantha on her birth certificate but no where else -- Manson favored black. Her cropped T-shirt was black, her leggings were black, her skirt, a plaid of black and green. Her lipstick -- black. "Let it never be said that parents dump their kids at summer camp," she continued. Like her two friends, she was fourteen.
Tucker tried a little forced laughter, then quit. The three started picking up their luggage. Danny had been looking forward to this week at Camp Sleepy Hollow. He had been here the last couple years but this was the first time he had been able to get Tucker's and Sam's parents let his friends come along with him. The camp was co-ed with a widely varied series of structured activities of an outdoors nature. It was far from the city and far from his parents, whom he loved, but they were sometimes a little stressful.
"So where do we stay? What's our cabin assignments?" Sam asked.
"We're both in Cabin Maple." Danny said. "And you?"
"Cabin Hemlock. It's not just a type of tree but it's a gruesome way to die." Seeing the puzzled look on Danny and Tucker's face Sam explained, "That's how Socrates committed suicide. He drank hemlock tea." The boys continued to look at her blankly. "Socrates, fellas! He was a famous philosopher. Father of the Socratic method? Taught Aristotle?" Sam shook her head. "You guys never heard of Socrates but I bet you know Paulina's favorite perfume..."
"Aqua Passion," they answered in unison.
With the grunt of anger, Sam stomped off down the path from the parking lot towards the cabins.
As it turned out Hemlock and Maple cabins were in the same cluster along with Oak and Sumac. The cabins were arranged in a semi-circle around a small clearing in the dense forest that covered much of Camp Sleepy Hollow. A fire-pit was in the center of the clearing with a stack of firewood under some canvas near-by. A gravel road lead up to the clearing with spaces for two vehicles to park. Except for the Head Ranger and the occasional maintenance vehicle, cars and trucks were banned from the camp grounds. Campers were expected to hike from place to place even if those places were as much as a mile away.
Danny, Sam and Tucker joined a large group of people clustered around some picnic tables waiting for the counselors to arrive. They found kids from various school around Amity Park but no one else from their school, Casper High. The campers ranged from the age of twelve to seventeen.
"They say this place is haunted," one of the older boys was saying. "Fifty years ago a camper was murdered by a crazed up counselor and his ghost has been roaming the camp ever since seeking revenge."
"He's just pulling our leg," one of the younger boys said.
"No, it's true," another kids replied. "They found his body in the lake but they never found his head."
"Ewww" one of the girls said.
"He hanged himself," another boy said. "Because no girl would go out with him. But that was a long time ago."
"But is there a ghost?" the young boy asked.
"Some say there is and some say not." The older boy said.
"What a bunch of bologna," a girl cried. "That's just a story the counselors are telling to scare us kids."
"That's not true. I heard it from my grandmother, who grow up around here." This was an older girl with long brown braids.
"I heard it from one of the guys working in the stables." said a boy with a high forehead and a very pronounced chin.
" There's no ghosts at this camp," the girl persisted. "If there were, my parents would know. They'd never send me to a camp that was dangerous."
"Right, your parents know all about ghosts,"
"Yes," the girl said defiantly.
"What are they, the Guys in White?"
The girl paused, her mouth open for an angry reply. Her face slowly turned white. "I can neither confirm or deny that," she finished, folded her arms and sat down on the picnic table. She wore white shorts with white knee-high socks and white tennis shoes. A white polo shirt finished the picture. She had long, dark red hair and a pale complexion heavily sprinkled with freckles.
"Guys in White" Danny and Sam sighed.
Apparently they has said this a little louder than intended because the girl heard them. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded.
"Isn't it obvious? Only someone who worked for the Guys in White would refuse to deny that they work there. So when you say you can neither confirm nor deny that your parents work for the GIW it obviously means that they work for the Guys in White." Tucker explained.
"They don't but if they did, what of it?"
"They're government know-it-alls," Danny said. "They spend more time filing paperwork that fighting ghosts. They're... what's the word I'm looking for, Sam?"
"Hey, I'm not getting into this."
"They're morons." Tucker suggested.
"My dad is not a mor ... a Guy in White. Besides it's all rumor that such a government unit even exists. So there Mister... Who are you anyway, you jerk?"
"Danny Fenton."
"Fenton? I've heard that name somewhere? Is Jack Fenton is your father?"
"Yeah, what of it?"
"I am so-o-o sorry." the girl said, unable to look Danny in the eye.
"Hey, what does that mean?"
But before he could get an answer the door to one of the cabins swung open and the Camp Ranger and the eight counselors for this cluster filed out. The Head Ranger was talking softly to one of the counselors but in a strong insistent voice that carried around the clearing. "I don't want to hear anymore about this. You got me? This kind of behavior has got to stop or you'll get bounced out of here so fast your head will spin."
Whoever she was talking to answered back much quieter and at length. "Good," she ordered, "see that you do!" She turned then and seeing the campers staring at her, smiled, waved, and called out a hello. "I'll met you all again this evening at the all-Camp campfire, " and strode off down the trail towards her office in the administration building near the parking lot.
Before Danny had more than a chance to wonder what that was all about. One of the counselors started talking.
"Hi. We'll be your counselors for this week. Do what we say and everything will be fine.. Stick to the rules and everything be fine. Don't try to prank us because we'll prank you back twice as hard. Now there are four cabins in this group. We're team Green. Remember that. We're the best team in the camp and if you disappoint, you'll have to answer to me. Got it?"
"Why does that voice sound so familiar?" Danny whispered.
"We all use camp names here. Your counselors are Butterfly, Porcupine, Willow, Sunshine, T. Bear, Shortie, Booger and I'm Dash."
"No!" Danny screamed in a whisper. "This can't be happening to me."
"Yep. It looks like your worst nightmare has been realized." Tucker snorted. Danny looked through the crowd of campers and saw the tall, blond-haired, broad-shouldered football star and school bully, Dash Baxter. He was wearing a green Camp Sleepy Hollow Counselors T-shirt and holding a clip-board.
"Booger," Dash said, pointing to a tall lanky kid also in a green counselor's T-shirt, "and T. Bear", he waved towards a barrel-chested, very hairy boy, "are in charge of Oak Cabin. Butterfly and Willow here," Dash pointed to a short, heavy-set girl with a frizzy mess of brown hair, beside her was a dark-skinned girl with long black hair tied up in a pony-tail, "are in charge of Hemlock Cabin, and Porcupine," this was a slender black women with her hair done up in corn rows, "and Sunshine" This was a large, very buxom blonde, "has Sumac. And Shortie and me are in charge of Maple." Shortie was an extremely tall kid, maybe six foot five inches but incredibly slender.
"Now I'm going to read off your names. As you hear it I want you to group around your counselor. Maple Cabin - Anderson, Bleiler, Fenton? - Fen-tone, is that you. Hah. We'll have a fun time! Hah - Foley, Gribley, Smith..." he continued until all twelve bunkmates have been named, before moving on to the Oak, Hemlock and Sumac cabins. The counselors led the campers to their respective cabins. As Danny was passing Dash Baxter a leg stuck out causing Danny to trip. "Hey Fen-Tone, you got to watch where you're going around here. You don't want to trip and fall into a mud puddle. Hah!"
Danny sitting on his hands and knees gritted his teeth and tensed to attack.
Tucker caught Danny arm and pulled him along.
"Come on, he's not worth the effort."
"Yes he is." Danny gritted.
The cabins had a Spartan, World War Two army barracks quality to them. Beds were iron cots, with a trunk at the foot for personal effects. No paneling covered the insides of the walls or ceiling. Three windows lined the long sides of the cabins. The showers and toilets were in one corner, the counselor's room in the other by the front door.
Danny and Tucker claimed cots next to each other at the far end of the cabin - as far away from Dash as they could get. They were unrolling their sleeping bags when Dash came out of the counselor's private room with a handful of papers. "Listen up!" he called. "I've got copies of the camp rules for everyone. Reveille is at 6, Breakfast 7; lunch at noon and supper is at 6. Lights-out is 10 and anyone caught trying to sneak into the girl's cabin after hours will be expelled from Camp Sleepy Hollow. Any questions?
"What if we sneak into the girl's cabin before lights-out?" a tow-headed boy asked.
"Good One." Dash laughed.
"What if we don't get caught?" Another boy asked. The cabin dissolved into laughter.
"Hey! Hey Listen Up!" Dash called again. "Everybody at camp does one day of kitchen duty and one day of cabin duty. That's stuff like washing dishes and sweeping the floors. I've got the list of everyone's assignments here. Also. If there is any violation of camp regulations you will be punished with extra KP, Got that? So keep your nose clean Fen-Turn or you'll find yourself up to your elbows in dishes for the rest of the week. And if you have any problems, you come to me. Got that?"
"What if my problem is you?" Danny challenged
"See that it isn't!"
Dash handed out the sheets. Danny saw that he was scheduled for KP the next evening. He wondered if Dash had something to so about that, then realized that he was becoming paranoid.
"It's 2:30 now." Dash said. "You have a half hour to unpack and make your beds. At Three we'll form up in the circle outside and go on a hike. This is to familiarize yourself with the camp. Anyone whose bed is not properly made by Three will be on KP tonight. Got that?"
Dash walked back to the counselor's room and closed the door.
Danny finished smoothing out his sleeping bag, pushed the rest of his stuff into the locker and padlocked it. "Looks good to me." Danny said. "I'll met you outside."
"I'm right behind you," Tucker replied.
They were talking to Sam and a couple of the girls from her cabin later when Dash finally came out of the cabin. He looked around until he found Danny. "Hey, Fen-tone" he hollered. "I thought I said to make your bed. It's a mess. You're looking at KP tonight."
"Hey. I made my bed." Danny hollered back. "It was fine when I left."
"Well take a look, because now it isn't"
Danny stormed into the cabin and found his bed lying on its side, mattress, sleeping bag and everything was lying on the floor.
"You got five minutes to fix this, Fen-tone" Dash sneered at him. "The group is heading out and I don't want you to get lost. Hah!" Dash left Danny grinding his teeth
"I am so going to get you for this," Danny grumbled as he set the bed upright and started piling the rest of his stuff on top it.
Camp Sleepy Hollow was several hundred acres of second growth forest. To the west rose a low mountain, Mt. Osceola, with ridges rising along the north and south of the camp, giving it, its hollow. In the center was a large lake of 80-100 acres extent. The lake was man-made by damming up the flow of the small Fox river which came tumbling down Mt. Osceola. On the east side of the lake was a small beach and dock area for canoeing and swimming. A large athletic field spread out in front of the lake, with the camp entrance and administration buildings, including the dining hall near by. To the north were the stables and horse riding trails leading up along the western ridge to a series of small plateaus where some of the weeks activities were held. Along the south side of the lake were four clusters of four cabins each. Each cluster was called a team and given a different color (red, blue, green, and orange). The different teams would compete in camp Olympics on Friday. The rest of the week would be spent on different, separate day long activities - canoeing, horse back riding, hiking and swimming.
The hike that Dash and the other counselors lead their team on wound around the camp from stables to nurses' cabin, dining hall and the athletic field. Along one edge of the field was a large firepit and a mound of earth lines with logs forming a small amphitheater. There would be singalongs and plays given there at night. Danny was rather thankful that acting in any of the plays was not required. The hike ended back at the cabins where everyone was told to wash up and assemble for dinner. From the way Tucker was moaning, dinner couldn't come soon enough.
The dinning hall was a large open building that could seat all 200 campers at the same time. Danny wondered why they would build such a large building when a smaller building with meals served in shifts would have been so much cheaper, then he noticed a curtained off area at the far end of the main room. The curtains weren't fully closed and through the gap Danny could see a raised platform, a dais or small stage. He realized that the dinning hall was an alternative gathering place in case the outdoor amphitheater was rained out.
A twenty foot window in one wall opened into the kitchen. Steam tables and a sneeze guard filled the space. Trays and silverware were stacked up just outside. Pitchers of water were scattered on all the tables. It was open seating so Danny, Tucker and Sam found a table by themselves and sat down. The meal that night was meatloaf with mash potatoes and gravy, with green beans on the side. Danny dutifully gave those to Sam who in turned picked out the sliced boiled egg from her vegetarian salad and handed them to Danny. As an Ultra-Recyclo Vegetarian
Sam refused to eat eggs because they were the product of enslaved chickens. Danny merely refused to eat anything healthy.
Tucker was scraping his plate clean and considering going back for seconds before Danny had finished eating his meatloaf. But just as he was making up his mind the cooks started pulling the pans off the steam tables and hauling them away. From the number of groans that went up through the room Tucker wasn't the only one not quite finished with supper.
He contented himself with the slice of apple pie for dessert. "You going to eat that?" he asked Danny when he was finished, pointing to the slice of pie on Danny's tray.
"You can have my crust." Sam offered as she carefully dissected her pie, separating the gooey filling from the thick, flaky crust. "I think it was made with lard."
Tucker stretched over with his pie plate for Sam to fill up.
"Lard?" Danny asked
"You know, pig fat?"
"They put pig fat in pies?"
"Yes!" Sam replied surprised by Danny's confusion. "You love it when it's on bacon."
"But that's bacon. Why would they put bacon in Apple pie?"
"They don't. -- Oh, never mind. Don't you do any cooking at home?"
Later they took their trays over to the return window where a short conveyer belt normally carried them inside to be cleaned and washed. However because of a lack of a KP staff tonight the dishes were stacking up. As they carefully piled their trays on top others they could hear a raspy voiced women in the next room complain. "Look at this garbage. I cook them a nice meal and they don't have the courtesy to eat it. I bet they don't throw away food like this at home!"
"Pleasant woman," Tucker said.
"I can see where KP is not going to be fun," Danny added.
"I was going to explain to the cook the difference between "vegetarian" and "ultra-recyclco-vegetarian" and I think I'll wait till later," Sam said.
Counselors at the doors to the dinning hall directed everyone to the athletic field where they grouped in their Teams, played a little frisbee or soccer or just talked. A couple of the counselors were stacking wood for a bonfire before lighting it. It smoldered for a while until a bored looking older man, obviously part of the small grounds crew, came out and threw a small can of liquid on it. The flames roared up in a whooshing blaze. The groundskeeper seemed indifferent to his near immolation and walked back to where ever he had come from. Danny wasn't sure but he thought he heard the man call out "Opa!" just as he threw the gasolene on the fire.
The fire soon settled down to a crackling blaze but since it was still early evening and mid-summer it wasn't very impressive as camp fires go. The sun was still shining with more warmth than the fire. Along about seven thirty the head ranger came out of her office in the Administration Building and walked down to the fire. The counselors got busy directing people to get seated.
After a moment waiting for everyone to quiet done, the ranger introduced herself. She was Helen Camp, which made her Ranger Camp, the camp ranger. She paused waiting for the kids to laugh. After an awkward silence she went on. She introduced the camp secretary, Mrs. Williams, who would take and give messages from home, and Mrs. James, the camp nurse, who would dispense the daily medications for anyone on daily medications, treat cuts, rashes or send kids to the hospital for serious injuries. "I trust there will be no serious injuries this year!" Ranger Camp added drily.
The head ranger was a short, thick woman, with a square, no-nonsense face. She talked in a voice used to speaking to large crowds and giving commands. She wore khaki shorts and a short-sleeved uniform shirt. A patch with the camp's logo was sewn on the shoulder, a cell-phone tucked in the shirt pocket and a whistle on a lanyard hung around her neck. A wide-brimmed, flat ranger's hat perched on her head. With her legs spread and hands folded behind her back she looked more like a drill sergeant than the head of a summer camp.
Ranger Camp went over the rules everyone was to obey while at camp. When she came to the part about no hazing or harassment of others she seemed to be looking at someone in the crowd but with the sun at her back it was hard to tell who she might have been looking at.
She went on to outlines the weeks activities and the "Olympics" they would have at the end of the week. "Our lawyers tell me I'm not allowed to call it an 'Olympics' any more because that's a trademark of the US Olympics Committee and can only be used by permission. Blah. blah. blah. So I'm required to call it a Field Competition, but you know what I really mean!"
After a few more comments Range Camp lead the kids in singing the camp song, which noone seemed to know, lead them in a couple cheers then sent them back to their cabins for the night.
Dusk had fallen and a small fire had been build in the clearing between the four cabins. The forty-some kids and their eight counselors were scattered around various picnic tables or logs laid down for benches. A few kids were running around the clearing chasing fireflies. The insects were swarming in the cooling air and their flickering lights a rare attraction for the mostly city-raised kids. Another group was gathered around the fire toasting marshmallows. Graham crackers and chocolate bars were laid out on one table for S'mores. Danny, Sam and Tucker were sitting on one of the more remote logs watching the others. Sam was debating whether to tell Danny about the glob of marshmallow stuck to his cheek or wait for him to notice himself. Tucker was antsy from not having his PDA in his hand.
"Hey, Danny," Tucker said, "Look over there. Isn't that the girl who said there were no ghosts at this camp?"
"The Girl in White" Sam quipped.
"Yeah, I guess so." Danny said.
"She looking right at you."
"So?"
"I bet if you went over and asked, she'd go out on a date with you."
"I didn't come out here to find a date." Danny protested.
"Are you mad?" Tucker exclaimed. "What other reason is there for camp?"
"Learning woodcraft." Danny suggested.
"Personal responsibility," Sam injected.
"Having fun," Danny continued.
"Learning go to go for a week without machines." Sam looked at Tucker to see if he's get her dig.
"No way. It's all about meeting new people. People who might want to go out on a date with you."
"Tuck, you are taking this dating thing w-a-y too seriously." Danny said. Tucker had, in fact, spent most of the previous school year asking one cheerleader or Pep Squad member after another out only to be rejected every time. It had become something of an issue with him.
"This from the guy whose tongue hangs out every time Paulina walks by," Sam snapped. "The only reason you haven't asked every girl in school out on a date is because you're fixated on Paulina, and the only reason you haven't been shot down by every girl in school is because you're too chicken to ask her out."
"No, I don't intend to be de-pants by the entire senior football squad, that's why I haven't asked her out," Danny retorted.
A girl nibbling on her S'more suddenly spoke up. "I saw a ghost once."
"No way," someone said. "What was it like? Did it try to kill you?"
"Most ghosts aren't like that," the Girl in White said. "They're just the spirits of dead people trying to figure out why they're still on Earth. Uh, I mean, that's what I read somewhere. It's not like I have any personal knowledge of ghosts or anything."
"I bet," Sam scoffed quietly to her friends. "Could she be any more obvious?" Tucker added. "Or a worse liar?" Danny finished.
"I've heard some of your lies, Danny," Sam said. "I wouldn't be too confident."
"What I want to know is: if most ghost are harmless, why do we run into all the ones that want to kill us?" Tucker asked.
Danny got up, "Who wants more S'mores?"
"I don't know. They don't taste as good was the ones you made last month." Sam said.
"That's because Danny used Dark Dan's flaming hair for the fire." Tucker reminded her.
"Ewww!" Sam exclaimed. "I was eating food cooked over pure evil?"
"I wouldn't call it 'pure evil'," Tucker reflected. "Oh wait. Yes it was. Who knew evil could taste so good."
"Danny, I think I've lost my appetite," Sam instructed, "but if you get a S'More for Tucker here, make sure it's extra burnt since he likes evil so much."
"Hey!" Tucker protested.
Danny walked over to the supplies and grabbed up a couple of sticks, loaded them with marshmallows and squatted next to the glowing bed of embers. As he slowly rotated the sticks he listened as the girl who had seen a ghost continued her story.
She had been babysitting the past winter when someone had knocked on the front door. When she opened the door, "...there was this older women standing there, looking kind of all anxious and excited. She was wearing a light rain coat even though it was snowing and one long, black opera glove."
"What's that?" someone interrupted.
"A glove you wear to an opera, you moron."
"What's an opera?" a wit questioned.
"Shut up! Let her tell her story," he was told.
"An opera glove is one of those gloves made or silk or really fine leather that runs all the way up to the elbow. They're very classy, I got some once at a resale shop, but no one wears them any more. That's why I noticed it. That and because she was wearing only the one glove."
"Maybe she thought she was Michael Jackson." This time Danny recognized the voice as Dash's. The tall, broad-shoulder athlete was smirking at his own wit but others were glaring at him.
The girl continued as if Dash wasn't there at all. "The lady said she was raising money for a charity; that she had to help the little children. Well, I didn't want to give her any money because I thought she was crazy but I feared if I didn't give her something she would never go away. So I dug through my purse until I found a dollar's worth of change and gave it to her. She thanked me and left. And that was the last I thought about it until the Glaves – that's the people were I was sitting for – came home.
"They asked if I had a quiet night and I thought about the strange women who had come begging for money. When I mentioned that she wore only the one opera glove, Mr Glaves got a weird look in his eyes. 'That sounds like Mrs. Peterson, she went around wearing one glove for years, but she died a few years ago.'
" 'She was a little crazy, too,' Mrs. Glaves said. Apparently she went a little nuts after her husband had died or maybe she was a little nuts before, because she had been a real tightwad when he was alive but afterwards she was always collecting for charities, and wearing that one glove. Mrs Glave said that she said she had awoke one night and felt her husband's hand on her hand and knew he wanted her to change her ways. She always wore a glove on the hand he touched.
"The Glaves were just wrong about her being dead," Dash sneered.
"No, that's the weird thing. That's why I know I met a ghost. Mr. Glave was getting ready to drive me home. We went out the front door and some snow had falling earlier in the evening and there weren't any footprints in the snow. I know I saw her, I gave her some money and yet," she dropped her voice to a whisper, " no one had come to the door."
"Cool," some of the kids murmured. Danny recalled that the only ghost that ever came to his door had been Ember McLain, who had come to kidnap his parents.
"I have a ghost story," a boy said.
"Does it involve some dumb dweeb in black pajamas" Dash teased.
The boy looked at the counselor with confusion. He shook his head. He was stocky, rather over-weight and wearing a T-shirts a couple sizes too small. It showed a penguin sitting on top of a computer. Danny wondered what that meant. Perhaps Tucker would know? Dash's crack about a dweeb in black pajamas he recognized as himself, Danny Phantom.
"It was two years ago. My family was visiting my grandfather who has a dairy farm. My grandparents had moved into a small double-wide trailer because the old farm house that had been there for over a hundred years needed too many repairs to make it liveable. But it was summer and all we kids needed was a roof over our head so they let us camp-out inside there. I had a cot by myself in a room on the second floor. There was nothing in the room, just a door leading up to the attic which was all dust and cobwebby. I took one look up there and decided there was nothing up there could be worth looking at. There was also a door leading into a small back room. It was weird. To get to this one small bedroom you had to walk through two other bedrooms. Who would want to live like that?"
"Get on with the ghost," Dash called.
"Well, I was sleeping in this room when around 1 or 2 in the morning I woke up. I don't know why. I tried to sit up in bed but I couldn't move. I couldn't sit up. I couldn't roll to the left or the right. I couldn't lift a hand. I was totally petrified. Suddenly I realized that someone was on the stairs coming down from the attic. I don't know why but I was sure as I'm standing here that someone -- or some thing was on the stairs. I wanted to jump out of bed and start running but I couldn't move.
"I lay in bed for I don't know how long. It seemed like hours but I'm guessing it was really only seconds. My heart was pounding like I was going to have a stroke..."
"I'm sure that's a familiar experience for you."
"Dash, shut up!" It looked like one of the other counselors had said that.
The boy faltered in his story, seemingly unsure whether to continue or not.
"Then what happened?" one of the kids asked.
"Well, when it seemed like I couldn't bear another moment of this, the door to the attic opened and an old man in bib overalls walked out, crossed the room and entered the little backroom and closed the door. The moment the door closed my paralysis ended. I sat up in bed gasping for breath and dripping with sweat. After I'd recovered my breath I called out 'Who's there?' but no one answered. I got out of bed and tiptoed over to the back room. I listened at the door but couldn't hear any noise. So I knocked on the door quietly, and when no one answered knocked again much louder. When no one answered I tried opening the door. There was no one inside. There was no way for the man to have gotten out because there was no doors or windows inside that room. And I had been watching the door all that time. So he had to have been in there, but he wasn't. He had to have been a ghost."
"Sounds more like just a nightmare to me," Dash sneered. "People often dream that they're paralyzed. And you just thought you saw a man walk through your bedroom."
"Geez, Dash, don't be such a wet blanket," the other boy's counselor said. "We're here to have fun and get acquainted. Let the kids tell their stories."
"But they're all lame."
"Oh, who died and made you Simon Crowell?" That was one of the girl's counselors. "If you don't have a ghost story to share, just be quiet."
"Aww," Dash sulked. "All right. I've got a ghost story. And it's real because it actually happened to me. It all started one day when his father shrunk me to the size of a flea!" Danny realized that Dash was pointing at him.
"What?"
"Yeah. Your old man zapped me with some stupid invention of his and shrunk me down to the size of a pygmy."
"I knew that Jack Fenton was irresponsible, but I didn't know that he was that irresponsible," said the red-haired girl in the white clothes.
"My dad is not irresponsible!" Danny shouted.
"Like your dad's not the laughingstock of all of Amity Park," Dash sneered.
"He is not a laughingstock!"
"Dash," the other boys counselor interrupted, "Does this story have a ghost or is it just about you running off at the mouth?"
"Oh there was a ghost all right. The weirdest ghost I ever heard tell of, not counting that Danny Phantom moron who nearly got me killed while I was shrunk."
"So what happened?"
"It was earlier this spring. Coach had assigned me to tutor Fenton here in track and field for the President's Fitness Test later that month. I was going over to his place -- it's a weird apartment building that looks like a Flying Saucer crashed into it -- to get start his training when I see this goofball in black PJs fighting with this other weirdo, who's like all Rambo'ed up with guns and grenades and rockets. And he had a jetpack to fly through the air. I could tell he was a ghost because his face was all white and stuff. I'm just hoping they'll move on before some innocent bystander named Dash Baxter gets hurts when this goof -- his father sticks his head out of an upper story window shouts something like "Hot Dang! I get to try out my new toy!" and shoots the three of us with this weird contraption he'd invented.
"For a moment everything sort of whirled around and kind of got blurry. When that stopped I saw that I has shrunk to the size of a midget. The grass in Fenton's backyard towered over me like a forest..."
"A midget is a person three or four feet tall. Just how small were you: as small as a flea, a midget, a pygmy?" Make up your mind."
"One inch," Danny muttered reflectively. "He was only one inch tall."
"How would you know, Fentoni? I don't remember seeing you there," Dash snarled.
Danny gulped and realized he had let on too much. He had been there, but as Danny Phantom, something Dash nor any one else must ever be allowed to know. He thought quickly. "You've told this story so many times at school that I feel like I was there." He said. "In any case it's obvious that your height in relation to the grass would have to be about one inch. You know," Danny added. "This isn't much of a ghost story. "It's just a couple of dudes fighting."
"But they were ghosts!"
"Still doesn't make them, you know, scary."
"What do you know, Fenton?" Dash sneered. "Like I was saying, the three of us had been shrunk down to the size of bugs. I knew I had to get into the Fenton's lab to reverse the shrink ray so I grabbed the little twerp and started doing a sprint through the grass..."
Danny tried not to laugh. Actually he had been the one who grabbed Dash and tried to fly across the lawn and into the house only to find that the "Fenton Crammer" had effected his powers somehow, causing them to short out. The more he had tried to use them the less effective they were -- and the more he had reverted to his human form -- and had to hide that fact from Dash.
Skulker, to give the ghost-hunting ghost its name, had followed them all the way across the lawn, lobbing bullets and grenades at them all the while. His ghost technology had not been affected by the "cramming" like Danny's ghost powers had. Danny had tried to phased through the backdoor but that power had also shorted out so they ducked into a mouse hole. There they had surprised the hole's inhabitant. Dash was calling it a rat but Danny remembered it was more like a very fat mouse. And while Dash was claiming to have thought of using a bag of potato chips, the size of an RV in their diminutive size, to dump on Skulker as the ghost was flying up to the open upstairs window, that had been Danny's idea. Mostly he recalled the panic he's felt as he tried to hide from the school bully his gradual reversion to his human form, and prevent Dash's realization that Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom.
While Skulker had been digging himself out from under a mountain of kettle-fried, extra-spicy potato chips Danny and Dash had climbed a string of cheese from a forgot wedge of pizza from the floor to the table top where the "Fenton Cramer" had been left and finally reverse the miniaturization effect. He'd also passed the President's Fitness Challenge later that month -- barely, but a pass was a pass -- not from Dash's tutelage but from the realization that he should not always count on the super-charged vitality of his ghostly form.
Dash had wrapped up his story and was waiting for his usual accolades. At Casper High School people always liked his stories. Here, after a brief silence another camper began his ghost story.
"A friend of mine was driving from Travis City down to Benton Harbor -- that's in Michigan along the coast of Lake Michigan. He was driving through a scraggly forest when he sees this guy walking along the road. It was late at night and there wasn't another car in sight so he stops and asked if the guy needs a lift. He doesn't say anything but gets into the car. They're driving along for a while when my friend asks where's he going and the guy kind of mumbles 'just to the next town.' Didn't want to talk about anything. My friend was getting kinda weirded out by that.
"Suddenly they're coming up to a railroad track. It has crossing lights with the crossing arms and everything but they were up, the lights weren't flashing or anything so my friend wasn't slowing down. But the hitchhiker got all excited and demanded that my friend stop, said that the lights weren't working and a train was coming. My friend was going 'What train?' but the hitchhiker kept insisting that the crossing gates were broken, a train was coming and they had to stop.
"So he stops, pulls up to the tracks to look both ways before crossing and just as he gets there an Amtrak train roars past going a hundred miles and hour. If they hadn't stop they would have been crushed like a tin can! My friend was freaking and he turns to this hitchhiker to ask 'How did you know?' only the guy isn't there. He had never been there. My friend had had to move a couple cans of pop off the seat for the guy to get in. The cans were back on the seat, exactly where they had been before he had stopped to pick up the hitchhiker.
"He's so freaked out that when he sees a motel a little ways down the road he pulled in, figured he was hallucinating and needed sleep. As he's signing in he tells the motel owner about non-working railroad crossing gates. The owner gives him a weird look and tells him there hasn't been an Amtrak train on that track in over ten years. And he says, 'But I saw it!' and he tells the owner the whole story about the hitchhiker, the warning and everything. And the owner faints. Keels right over without a word.
"My friend goes around the counter and helps him into a chair and knocks on the apartment door -- because the owner lived at the motel -- and his wife comes out and he tells her what happened. And she gets all pale. 'Our son,' she says, 'was hitchhiking home when he was killed at that train crossing. The gates were broken and he never saw the train coming. We waited up all night for him to get home and he never came!'
"My friend got back in his car and drove away and kept driving 'til the sun came up. To this day he will not drive on that road again."
Dash was about to say something snide when a girl siting on a table on the edge of the darkness suddenly said on a quavering voice, "I think I just saw a ghost?"
"What? Where?" Dash asked.
"It was over there?" she spoke softly with a rising inflection that made every statement sound like a question.
"There's no one there. What makes you think it was a ghost?" Dash demanded.
"Because it didn't have a head?" the girl replied. "It was just standing there? But it didn't have a head? I guess it's left?"
"I don't see no ghost," Dash said. "Anybody else see this 'Ghost'?"
"Danny?"
With a start Danny realized that Sam and Tucker were standing beside him. "Oh, the S'mores." All he saw were crumbs in his hands. Vaguely he remembered nibbling on them while Dash told his story. "I'm sorry, I'll make some more."
"No, about the ghost. Was it really here?"
"I'm not a ghost detector. How would I know?"
"Usually you have that blue breath thing as a clue," Sam whispered.
"Well, nothing happened. But I don't think that means a ghost wasn't here. I kind of think that only happens when I'm in danger."
Some of the boys had fished out flashlights from their pockets and were spreading out looking for intruders in case one of the other teams at the camp had decided to prank them. The counselors were pushing the rest of the kids back to their cabins. Danny, Sam and Tucker helped pack up the rest of the graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate bars while Booger poured water over the fire-pit and stirred the ashes. By the time Dash came back with the search party the area outside the cabins was deserted.
Danny brushed his teeth and changed into his pajamas. He found Tucker already in his sleeping bag playing with his PDA. Since electronic devices were banned from camp grounds he had to do this under the covers.
"Geez, Tuck you look like a pervert doing that," Danny said. "Wait till lights out."
"If I don't delete spam every day my email account gets blocked up."
"Find a service with better spam-blocking. Any real messages on that thing? Are your parents missing you yet?"
"You know darn well it was my parents' idea to send me to camp with you. If I didn't trust your parents to come up us up on Saturday I'd be worried about being left here all summer.
"Couldn't be the worst thing in the world. No older sister telling you to straighten up and fly right, no mom bugging you about cleaning up your room, or handing off a list a mile long of chores to do. A summer here wouldn't be so bad."
"It would be a summer with Dash..."
"Yeah."
"I could email your parents to pick us up tomorrow. I could claim we have whooping cough or tree fungus or something."
Danny wiggled into his sleeping bag and lay back staring at the cobwebs growing amid the rafter of the cabin. "Nah. If I can survive nine months of Dash in school I can survive one week of him at camp. I don't want to give up my one ghost-free week this year."
"What if that girl was right?"
"Which girl? The one that said there were no ghosts here? I'm counting on it."
"The other one. The one who thought she saw a ghost here tonight."
"I don't care. If it leaves me alone I intent to leave it alone. This is Danny Fenton's week, not you-who-know."
"But still..."
"No ghosts, Tuck. There will be no ghosts this week! Good night, OK." Danny rolled over. Moments later Dash came into the room and turned off the cabin lights.
Night settled over Camp Sleep Hollow. The half-Moon had already begun its descent for the night. The cicada chirping in the distant mingled with the "rickets" of bull frogs. A cool breeze occasionally blew through the cabins of the sleeping campers. Quietly a ghostly wail became to sound. Not the sort of ghostly wail that knocked down buildings, but a rising and falling OO-oo-OO-oo-OO-oo-OO-oo. People rustled on their beds, not quite waking to the sound. Suddenly there was a thump! Followed by a loud bang, and several more thumps. A heavy iron cot could be heard slowing dragging itself across the floor. A light flashed on in Dash's room, visible under the door. "Who's there?" he called. The door to his room jerked open and he poked his head out, swinging the flash around the cabin. Satisfied that everyone was asleep in their beds, he closed the door and shoved his bed back to where it should be.
There was quiet for maybe five minutes when the wailing started again. OO-oo-OO-oo-OO-oo-OO-oo. By now people were starting to wake up .Tucker looked over to Danny's bed and saw a reassuring lump there. Danny, he knew could be a heavy sleeper.
Soon the thumps started again. Followed by the rustle of papers being tossed in the air. Quiet reigned for a moment then Dash could be distinctly heard saying, "Gimme back my blanket!" Following by the sound of tearing cloth. More quiet. The boys in the cabin were by now riveted by the unseen war going on in Dash's cabin. Suddenly there was a crash followed by the thud of a body falling to the ground. "All right, that's it!" Dash shouted. He yanked the door to his room open and walked into a falling bucket of water. He sputtered for a moment, then threw the lights to the cabin on and yelled, "Fenton!"
A groggy Danny Fenton stirred on his cot, sat up blinking bleary eyes at the sudden light. "What's going on?" he asked.
"You know darn well what's going on."
"Why are you wet? Is it raining?"
"Hey, man, why are you ragging on him," one of the other boys asked. He's been in his bed this whole time. We all have been. I don't know what's been going on in your room but none of us were doing it."
"Yeah," some of the others chimed in.
By this time Shortie has wandered out of the counselor's room. He was wearing a pair of sweat pants and a pair of glasses he hadn't been wearing during the day. "Come on, Dash. Your cot just collapsed, that all. There's no reason to make a three-ring circus out of it. We'll get it fixed in the morning. Let the kids sleep."
"I'm wet. Someone threw a bucket of water on me.
"You knocked over a glass of water," Shortie said exasperatedly.
"Hey, Tuck, what has been going on," Danny whispered.
"Like you don't know."
"I don't. Honestly."
"Oh, I get'cha. You've been here a-l-l along sleeping. I've got your back, and your alibi."
"Tuck, I'm serious. I wasn't doing anything. What happened to Dash?"
"Ri-i-i-ght. Sleeping."
"Tuck--"
While they had been whispering Dash had pulled on his boots and, flashlight in hand, had prowled around outright the cabin. Shortie flipped the lights off, told everyone to go back to slow and ambled back into the counselor's room. Dash came back after a couple minutes, slammed into their room and came out a few minutes later in dry clothes, dragging his cot with him. He pushed it into a small space in the corner. There was quiet rustling for a few minutes as the nervous boys tried to figure out what had happened. Then slowly quiet took over the cabin until dawn, and the morning songbirds, woke them all up.