Danny was having "That Dream" again. He was at a beach when Paulina, the prettiest girl in Casper High School walked by and stopped. "Hi, Danny," she lisped in her intriguing, faint accent. "Could you rub some sun tan lotion on my back? I don't want to get ...burned." She handed a bottle to him and without asking lay down on his blanket beside him. He looked at her all lithe and supple, skin a delicious honey brown and shuddered. He spread some of the sunblock on his palms and was bending over her when:

"I am the Box Ghost: Beware! - - I mean, help!" a squeaky, high pitched voice screamed in his ear.

Danny shot up in bed. Looked around his room, he found, hovering in a corner, the faint, glowing form of The Box Ghost, a chubby entity in bib overalls. Danny's breath turned frosty - his ghost sense warning him of ectroplasmic trouble.

In what he hoped was a cool, James Bond-like motion Danny rolled from his bed onto the floor. And found himself tangled up in bedclothes unable to move. Going "Ghost" Danny slipped through the knot of sheets and confronted the Box Ghost who continued to hover nervously in the corner.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded

"I am the Box Ghost," he answered. "Beware - I mean - help me!"

"Help You?" Danny echoed, confused.

"Please?"

"You're not here to haunt me? Or make demanded about all things square and even-sided?"

"Maybe - I mean, No!" the Box ghost squeaked. "I need help and you're the only one I could think of."

"You're pulling my leg, right?"

"No. I am the Box Ghost, not the leg-pulling ghost. I need you're help. Beware!" The last seemed to slip out because he immediately said, "sorry."

"Why would you think I would help a ghost like you?"

"You're the only one who's ever been nice to me."

"I've never been nice to you. I chase you down and suck you into the Fenton Thermo any time you show your face around here."

"But you never beat me up doing that."

"That's you're idea of kindness?"

"It's not easy being The Box Ghost - Beware! Sorry."

"Look, Box Ghost..."

"Clarence."

"Clarence?"

"My name is Clarence. Box Ghost is what I do."

"You have a name?" Danny wondered.

"Yes. Beware!"

"With a name like Clarence I can see why you'd want people to call you The Box Ghost."

"Please, you've got to help me," The Box Ghost, or Clarence, whispered.

"With what?"

"Terrible things are happening in the Ghost Zone. Simple, honest Box Ghosts are no longer safe. We need a champion. Someone who will stand up to the evil.

"Terrible things are always happening in the Ghost Zone. Besides, even if I were to agree to help you, it's the middle of the night - (actually the sun was beginning to shine in Danny's window) - and I've got school in the morning. There's no way I can help you tonight. So just go away before I have to get rough!"

"Yes, sir," the Box Ghost answered, hanging its head before fading away.

Danny tried to extend his ghost senses to see if the Box Ghost had really gone away. As usual his ghost senses didn't work that way.

He changed back into his mortal form, untangled the sheets and crawled back into bed. With a mighty effort he willed himself to recapture The Dream where he had been interrupted but found himself returning to the oddity of a ghost appealing to its greatest nemesis for help. Or at least "a" nemesis Just as he was finally drifting off to sleep the alarm clock sounded and it was time to start another day.

At school he mentioned his strange visitation to Sam and Tucker during their lunch hour. Tucker laughed that the menace Clarence the Box Ghost mentioned was a new bully in the Ghost Zone administering Atomic Super-Wedgies. Sam took the matter more seriously and argued that Danny had a duty to help ghosts who came to him for help. Danny fought to keep from rolling his eyes. Sam had been listening to his sister later about the need to treat ghosts humanely and as equals. They wanted to form a society to help ghosts. Danny, who usually found himself fighting for his life against ghosts strongly disagreed. He dubbed their society "People for the Ethical Treatment of Ectoplasmic Manifestions", or Pet'em. Jazz, oblivious to the joke name, was already planning their first meeting.

"You could have at least listened to his problem," Sam said.

"He's the Box Ghost; he's afraid of his own shadow," Danny had retorted.

"What if you need help some day?"

Danny shook his head. "They'd all just gang up on me. No one would help."

"Because you've never helped them."

Danny just sighed and concentrated on the cooked spinach on his plate.

That night Danny had trouble getting to sleep. He kept expecting the Box Ghost to ooze back into his room and plead for help again. But sleep he did finally, until a soft, sensuous voice whispered his name into his ear. For a moment he thought he was Paulina and he was in The Dream again. Only dream voices in his ear don't send puffs of cold cigarette butts and stale beer with them. He rolled over to see the glowing green eyes of Ember McLain laying in bed next to him.

With a startled shout Danny leaped from his bed.

Only to find himself stark naked.

With another squark, he snatched a pillow from the bed to cover himself and backed towards the door.

"Is that anyway to greet an old friend."

"We were never friends!"

"I could hum a little song about friendship and you could be." the lady ghost suggested.

"Just give me back my pajamas."

With a laugh, Ember caused his clothes to materialize over his head.

With a angry mutter, Danny grabbed his clothes, turned around and started to put them on. He was interrupted by a wolf-whistle from the ghost in his bed.

Danny started to turn around and yell at her, then remembered he'd already dropped his pillow. He rushed pulling his pants on before turning around, only to find Ember no longer in his bed, or anywhere in his room. He pulled his pajama top on before going ghost and setting off to find the spectral musician.

She was downstairs in the living room, sitting on the lounge with the big screen TV on, set to MTV. "Don't they ever show music videos anymore?" she asked as Danny came into the room.

Danny grabbed the remote out of her hand and turned the TV off. "Keep it down," he whispered. "You don't want to wake my mom and dad."

"The intrepid ghost fighters," Ember said sarcastically.

"Don't think they can't kick your butt!" Danny warned. "And what are you doing here, anyway?"

"I just came for a chat."

"You never come to chat. What's this really all about."

Ember leaned back on the lounge, swung her guitar around and strummed a soft chord.

Danny snatched the guitar out of her hand. "No singing!" he ordered. Ember McLain was a sort of modern-day Siren. She could enchant anyone with her singing, and suck energy from mortals by getting them to say her name.

"Keep it down," Ember chided, "You'll wake your parents!"

Danny could hear a grinding noise then realized it was his teeth. He so wanted to sock her in the face but he'd been brought up to never strike a lady, and couldn't.

"I came to ask for your help?" the ghost said with a sigh. "You know it's really hard for me to talk without my guitar."

"You have a strange way of asking for help, showing up in my bed, stealing my pajamas." Danny growled.

"Hey, that's just my nature. I'm not very good about asking people for stuff." she said petulantly.

"This is about the Box Ghost."

"Look, kiddo, stuff's happening in the Ghost Zone. Bad Stuff. I try to keep clear of stuff like this but they're not letting me. Clarence suggested we turn to you. He figured a goody-two shoes like you would feel compelled to help. As if..."

"So why are you here if you don't think I'll help?"

"You have a cute butt. I figure if you have to ask someone for help if may as well be someone with a cute butt."

"My butt isn't cute."

"You haven't seen it the way I have," Ember leered.

Danny colored, then shouted, "Get Out!"

"Tut tut, mind the parents."

His fist suddenly began glowing with concentrated ectoplasm. "Get! Out! or so help me..."

"Ooo, I love a man who's domineering," Ember cooed, then sitting up and wiping the leer off her face, said "Look, meat-puppet, Someone is trying to organize the Ghost Zone into one giant army. As much as I'd like to take over the mortal realm, I'm not interested in doing it as someone's cannon fodder. The bigger ghosts like Technus and Skulker, have already fallen in with this plan. Others, like Clarence, Klemper, Johnny 13 and me - we're not interested. But we're not being given a choice."

"So who's doing this organizing? Fright Knight? Pariah Dark?"

"Fright Knight's disappeared and Pariah Dark's still I his coffin, as as any of us know. Who ever's behind this is someone none of us know. "

"And you want me to come in and kick some butt? Without knowing whose butt or where it's planted?"

"Yeah, basically. I mean, we'll help as much as we can."

"When it's within your nature..."

"OK, I'm sorry I stole your pajamas," Ember said. "I'm weak that way. I can't resist a good prank and, man, did I have you going."

"Go away. Tell Clarence, no deal. I'm tired of having ghosts invade my house, scaring me in the middle of the night. If you've got a problem, deal with it." Danny turned and phased through the ceiling into his bedroom. He expected Ember to follow him and continue pleading but she didn't. After several minutes Danny changed back to Danny Fenton and after making sure his pajamas were on securely, crawled back into bed and went to sleep.

A very material hand shaking his shoulder woke him in the morning. His sister, Jazz was bending over. She was wearing a bath robe, her hair was tangled and mussed and a zit was on her left cheek, glowing red like a laser pointer.

"Wake up, Danny! Mom's on the warpath. you're late for school!" Jazz had home room for her first class so she didn't have to get up as early.

Danny sat up on the edge of his bed, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. "Say, Jazz," he asked as she started to leave, "does your society ever get ghosts looking for help?"

"Society?"

"You know, 'People for the Ethical Treatment of Ectoplasmic Manifestations'?"

"Well, no, but any time now I think ghosts will start coming around. I'm starting a group encounter session. You should come. We can work out some of your deep-seated feeling about ghosts."

"I am a ghost! How can I have deep-seated feeling about me?"

"Just come."

"So, no late night visitors asking for help?"

"No. Why?"

"Never mind," Danny answered. He tried not to involve his sister in his ghost fighting activities since her help was often counter-productive. "Oh, by the way," he added as Jazz once more turned towards his door. "You've got something right about here." He touched his left cheek.

Jazz screwed up her eyes, trying to see on her cheek where he pointed, then put up her hand and felt. "Oh, Good Lord!" she cried, "it's a crater! I'll have to spackle. Don't even think about using the bathroom this morning." She rushed away.

I'm trying an experiment with this story, using shorter chapters. 2500 to 3500 words instead of my usual 6000-8000 words. Let me know if you find this easier to read. - beb