Danny and the Clew Crew - Chapter I
"Well, gang, there it is, Amity Park!"
"And that must be the old, abandoned Aquarium where the ghost is supposed to be."
"It's kind of small."
An antique and gaily decorated VW Microbus rolled to a stop in an empty parking lot in front of a small, low brick building. Four teenagers and an enormous Rottweiler stepped out of it to survey the building. It was roughly cross-shaped with reflecting ponds in the corners between the front of the building and the wings. The garden area was overgrown with roses forming an impenetrable tangle. The front of the building had a large arch over the front doors, covered in glossy tile with a fish motief. Despite years of neglect the entrance to the old aquarium still had a pleasant and attractive appearance.
"They sure knew how to build them in the old days," said a short red-headed girl in a heavy sweater and short pleated skirt.
The tall brunette next to her sniffed and said, "looks pretty junky to me."
"You'd look junky, too, if you didn't have any make-up," replied the shorter girl. The brunette scowled and moved over to help one of the boys find something in the bak of the van. The boy was blond and immaculately dressed in dockers and a Polo shirt. The shoes on his feet could have fed an orphan child for a year. he came up with a handful of flashlights which he passed out to the others. "Let's look around and see if there's some way into the Aquarium."
They split into pairs and started around the building from opposite sides. The red-hair stuck her arm through the arm of the tall, lanky framed boy with her, and leaned in familiarity.
"Isn't this wonderful, Groovy," she said. "We're on our own, having an adventure in another city, just the four of us!" The dog had been walking next to them sniffing the ground. At her words it stopped and looked at her. After a moment it started walking again but seemed to regard the girl warily.
"Like, totally, Zelda," he agreed. "Just you, me - and Alphonse, of course. Can't forget my bestest friend. Come here, big fella, give me a hug," the boy, Groovy, dropped the girl's arm and grabbed the rottweiler and pulled him up on two feet and hugged him. The girl, Zelda, scowled for a moment, then flicking her flashlight over the side of the building moved on. "Come on, Groovy," she said, suddenly all business, "We've got work to do."
On the other side of the building the brunette was watching the skies more than she was the sides of the old, abandoned aquarium. "What a lovely night, isn't it Curtis?"
The boy nodded. "Sure thing, Phyl. The moonlight will give us enough visibility to move around without tripping over stuff but we'll still be able to hide in the shadows."
"But don't you find the moon, all big and yellow and warm, all romantic?" she asked.
"There's no time for that, we've got a mystery to solve!" the boy replied.
"What about the mystery of womanhood?" the girl suggested.
"What?" the boy looked at her blankly.
"Nevermind." After a moment. "Do you really think that stolen bank money is still in there?"
"It was never listed as being found."
"But it's such a small building. I've sure they looked. I'm sure lots of people looked. How could they not have found it if it was really there?"
"We'll know better, Phyl, once we find a way inside."
"A brick through a window usually works," she suggested.
The boy drew back in shock. "Phyliddia, how could you suggest such a thing. That would be 'breaking and entering.' We're here to solve mysteries not commit crimes!"
"Am I even here?" the girl mumbled and followed the blond around the building.
They found the other two at the back of the building in an area of rotting pallets, discarded drums, pails and machinery of unknown purpose. The lanky Groovy was fumbling with the door beside a small loading dock.
"Just about got it," he said when he noticed Curtis and Phyl joining them. Zelda held her flashlight so Groovy could see what he was doing. It seemed to involve a dentist pick.
"What are you doing?" Curtis demanded.
"Why nothing, man," Grovy said as he suddenly pulled the back door open. He quickly pocketed the steel tool he'd been using. "Like, the door was unlocked, man. I just had to jiggle it a little to open. It's cool."
Curtis looked doubtful for a moment, then brightened. "OK, now we have our way into the Aquarium. Let's block this door open in case we have to make a sudden exit."
"You think we'll meet the ghost that's haunting this place?" the brunette Phyllidia asked.
"It always pays to be cautious," Curtis answered.
The door lead into a small storeroom, maybe twelve deep and the width of the building. barrels and drums on pallets were piled up against the wall, some were stacked two high. Some of those pallets had collapsed, spilling their contents across the floor. In the center of inner wall was a large roll-up door, beside it was a regular-sized door. Zelda marched up to the door and twisted the handle. "Locked!" she grunted.
"Let me, like, look at it," Groovy offered. Something metallic glittered in his hand.
"Is that a lockpick?" Curtis demanded.
"No-o-o. maybe. I need it to open my locker at school."
"What's so hard about remembering a three number combination?" Phyllidia wondered.
"It is Groovy we talking about," Curtis whispered as if that explained everything.
A moment later the door opened and they filed through into a long, narrow hall with glass windows lining the sides all the way into the distance. The hall had a high arched ceiling, all covered in glossy tiles. Their footsteps echoed down the hall like the clatter of tap-dancers.
The glass windows were the fish tanks in the Aquarium. The place must have been abandoned in place as the tanks still had water in them, maybe a third full, thick with green scum in most cases. The fish had been removed, shipped to other Aquariums, the lights turned off and that was that.
They walked down the long corridor to where the two wings met, forming a small plaza in the middle of the building. In the center of the plaza was a statue. It was of a man sitting cross-legged on the ground. Two objects were in his upraised palms. A man and a woman were in one palm, a stylized 50's era atom in the other.
"What the-?" Zelda wondered.
"It says here that this is the Spirit of Amity Park. Whatever that is," Phyl read from a small plaque set in the floor before the statue.
"Weird," Groovy commented.
"Rugly," barked the dog.
"You got that, Alphonse, it is kind of ugly," the boy said, rubbing the dog's head.
"Dogs can't talk, Groovy," Zelda declared. This seemed to be an old and sensitive issue for her.
"Alphonse is special. He's smarter than most dogs. Isn't he. Whos' a good boy? You are. You're a good boy." this last was directed to the rottweiler.
"Let's keep looking," Curtis suggested, patently ignoring the lanky boy and his dog.
With a bitter look Zelda turned away and directed her flashlight into a corner of the intersection of halls. Two eyes glittered back at her. She had the impression of scales and a blue shirt before it leaped at her. "Guys!" was all she could scream before it was on her.
The monster knocked her sprawling and fell on top of her with a howl. It breathed fetid breath in her face while snapping what looked like a alligator's jaw in her face. 'Crocodile', some deep part of her mind corrected. Alligator's teeth goes this way, crocodile's go that way. The rest of her mind was busy screaming.
She tried jamming a knee into the monster's crotch like she'd learned in self-defense class, but either he didn't have a crotch or it was armored like the rest of his body. She tried pulling one of her hands free from its grasp. One slipped free and she jammed it under the monster's massive jaw and pushed up. Someone threw themselves on the monster's back and tried to wrestle for a hold on his head. Zelda wasn't sure but it sounded like Groovy's grunt when the monster knocked him off with a backhanded blow.
Suddenly something hissed blazing fire into Zelda's eyes. Pepper spray! The monster coughed as the bulk of the spray went down its throat. It stagged back, freeing Zelda. She scrambled to her feet and sprinted towards the door they had propped open. She bounced off the wall once from her tearing eyes, then someone caught her hand and lead there through the storage room and then the outer door into the cool, fresh air of the outdoors. The foursome ran a bit more until they were sure the monster wasn't following them, then collapsed on the ground, panting from exhaustion and shock.
"You OK, Zelda?" Curtis asked, handing her tissue that Phyllidia handed him.
"That's cold cream," the tall girl said. "Wipe down your skin but keep it out of your eyes." Then she handed Curtis a small plastic bottle. "Eye drops. They should wash most of the pepper spray out of your eyes."
"You got anything for a nervous breakdown in that bag of yours?" Zelda asked as Curtis carefully poured the drops into her eyes.
"I'm not that kind of a pharmacy. You'll have to ask your boyfriend about that."
"Boyfriend? Groovy? He's only got eyes for that dog!"
"I thought you were dating?"
"So did I. Someone forgot to tell Groovy."
"Enough chitchat," Curtis said, getting to his feet. "Clearly the Amity Park monster is real and we were getting close to its lair. We'll have it captured in no time."
"And the treasure?" Groovy and the dog, Alphonse, had wandered over from where they had been laying.
"And, yes, the treasure."
"Look, I'm not going back in there tonight," Zelda said firmly. "I think I've been beat up enough for one night. let's find that hotel you were talking about Curtis and check in. I need a hot bath!"
The moon has only risen a bit more when a small dark spot flew across its broad, ivory colored face. The spot circled, neared and finally dropped to the ground, the form of a boy of medium height with snow white hair and dark form-fitting clothes. A fanciful letter "D" graced his chest, a grim scowl formed his face. He walked briskly around the abandoned Aquarium looking, as the foursome before him, for any sign of recent activity. His eyes narrowed when he saw the loading platform door still open from when the Clew Crew had fled through it. With a final look around to be sure no one was sneaking up behind him, the boy walked through the door.
It was too dark inside to see, even with the full moon shining brightly outside. The boy raised his hand and suddenly it was surrounded by a soft green glow. It didn't provide a lot of light but it helped dispel the gloom.
A quickly glance around the storeroom showed that nothing had been disturbed there. A door into the interior of the building beckoned and Danny Phantom stuck his head in there. For a moment he forgot what he was doing there and gawked at the series of aquariums built into the side of the walls. Holding his glowing hand near some of the bronze plaques he read about the fish that once inhabited these tanks. This place was a lot different from the Aquarium in Baltimore his parents had taken him to some years before. Like pictures of old zoos where animals were held in small iron-barred cages he wasn't sure whether this was aa good idea or not. Still he felt the lose that his town had decided this Aquarium was too expensive and had closed it.
It was with a jolt when he came to the intersection of the Aquariums two wings that he remembered where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. A ghost was loose in Amity Park and by all accounts was terrorizing people in and around Thoroughgood Park. Danny had made it his duty to capture all loose ghosts in his town and throw them back into the Ghost Zone where they belonged. This was probably a bigger than average responsibility for a fourteen year old boy but then, as the old cowboy in the movies always said, "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."
He was looking down the wings, trying to decide which to tackle first when he noticed that his breath had turned to frost. Danger, his ghost sense was saying.
Danny looked up and found the pair of eyes staring at him from the corner of the intersection. The soft light from the glowing ectoplasm surrounding his hand revealed a man-sized creature with a crocodile's face and tail.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Danny said. He reached behind him and pulled out a Fenton Thermos. "It's time for you to go back to the Ghost Zone. Party's over. So what's it going to be?"
He waited for the ghost's answer.
It was a long count. Then the monster tore out a length of railing and swung it at Danny. Apparently it was going with plan B.
Curtis at the wheel, the foursome drove back to the street. A couple of quick right hand turns brought them around the edge of the park to a row of hotels on what was obviously the city's main drag. The Comfort King Inn looked like an ancient motorlodge stuck between a high-rise Sheraton and a sprawling Ritz. It looked like the kind of place that survived on the overflow from its two better of neighbors. Curtis pulled into an open parking spot and they got out. "Show time, Groovy," he called as the lanky kid started wandering off towards a vending machine.
"I was just getting a snack," he protested.
"Snack later. We've got to check in first." Curtis was rummaging in the back of the van. He pulled out a wrinkled linen sports jacket in a soft pastel hue. He tossed it to Groovy. "Get dressed - and comb your hair!"
Groovy, by dint of poor parenting, was in the same class as the others but a couple years older. Old enough to have a credit card and be able to sign things like hotel registers. As an adult he could be, theoretically, responsible for the others. The challenge was to make him look responsible. After much thought it was decided that a Miami Vice style jacket would best pull this off. Groovy in a shirt and tie would only look like a kid pretending to be an adult.
Inside, Groovy approached the manager and handed him his credit card. "Like, Edsel Ford Williams and, like, party. We have a reservation."
The manager looked at him suspicious then asked for some identification. Groovy found his driver's license and handed it over. The manager looked at it like he'd never seen one before, then went back into a corner where a computer sat on a small desk. He typed on it for a couple minutes before coming back, all smiles on his face. "Welcome to the Comfort King Inn, Mr. Williams. Sorry for the delay. You asked for two adjoining rooms with a connecting door, right."
"Totally, man."
Edsel Ford "Groovy" Williams was the son of globe-trotting competitive surfers. They had taken him everywhere with them. They claimed to be home-schooling him but, as with anything not having to do with surfing, they forgot to follow through with it. When Groovy's father turned 35 and finally received his trust fund money he decided it was time to retire from the circuit and only surf recreationally. They moved into one of Groovy's grandfather lesser mansions and, of course, had to sent Groovy to school. And only then was it discovered how ill-prepared he was. Instead of going into the 5th grade with kids his age, he was placed in third, where he met Curtis, Phyllidia and Zelda while trying to check out some Encyclopedia Brown mysteries from the school library. They quickly formed a club to talk about their favorite mysteries, share books, and of course, hang out with like-minded people. They named their club "The Clew Crew" because Curtis like alteration
His name? That was his grandfather's favorite car, and what his grandfather wanted, he got. He had all the money, after all.
The rooms were small but clean. The kids dropped their suitcases on the floor and gathered for a brief pow-wow. Curtis was all for going out to eat. Phyllidia, naturally, agreed to go with him. Zelda insisted on taking a bath while Groovy was already absorbed with the hotel's cable offerings and had forgotten about his earlier hunger. He was all for ordering in a large pizza. Zelda was fine with that, "as long as you save some for me," she instructed. When it came to pizza Groovy had a bottomless pit of a stomach.
Having agreed on a plan, the girls went back to their room and closed the connecting door while Phyl changed outfits. Phyliddia didn't believe in wearing the same clothes twice - or for more than a couple hours at a time. Zelda was filling the bathtub with hot water when she left. Zelda closed the door and carefully pressed the lock. She planned on having a long soak and didn't want any interruptions.
As the tub filled, Zelda pulled off her bulky sweater and folded it neatly on the counter. The pleated skirt followed. She stood looking at herself in the mirror. Zelda didn't much care for what she saw. She was short and stocky but not actually fat as people tended to assume. Her abdomen was as flat as Phyl's, but where Phyliddia had a definite waist and hips Zelda was one straight line. Thick thighs, study ankles. Just once she would like to be tall and willowy, like a model.
And her hair!
It wasn't exactly red. It was almost carrot-orange. And kinky. She wore it short just so there would be less she'd have to deal with.
Zelda turned to look at her right side where she had fallen when the monster had jumped her. Already she could see the faint discoloring that in the morning would be a horrendous bruise. The bruise was growing under a scattering of scabs from when she had tripped down a ravine the week before. She scratched at one to see if it was ready to come off. It wasn't but she kept picking at it for another minute until it stated bleeding again. That reminded her of her leg. Sure enough there were abrasions all along its length from when she fell to the floor. They didn't look serious. For a moment Zelda wondered why she was the one who always got hurt on this mysteries. Phyl never seemed to as much as break a nail while Curtis never broke a sweat. As for Groovy and alphonse...It was said that God looks out for fools and the innocent...
Thinking of the dog, reminded Zelda that when she'd fallen down that ravine she had tripped over the rottweiler who had unexpectedly gotten underfoot. It was her fault for not looking where she was going, but it hadn't been for that meddling dog...!
With a sigh she unhooked her bra and tossed it on top her sweater and skirt. Panties followed. She stepped into the hot water and slowly eased down until only her face was above water. She saw a bottle of bubble bath on the side of the tub and on impulse dumped it into the water. She swooshed the water around some and played with the bubbles before laying back and closing her eyes. Baths were the only time she didn't mind being short. It made the tub seem all the larger and she could stretch out in it in ways that someone taller couldn't.
Zelda was on the verge of falling asleep when she heard a rattle on the bathroom door latch. "I'm in here." she called, thinking that Phyl had returned already from dinner.
There was no answer. A moment later the latch rattled again. "Who's out there?" Zelda called, disturbed by the silence of whoever it was. If it was one of her friends they would have said something.
There was silence again.
Then this time the door slowly swung open.
"Hey! Occupado! Occupado! Stay out" she shouted, then stopped, feeling a little foolish because poking his nose through the door was Alphonse. Just the dog, she thought with relief.
Odd, though, that the dog had been able to get in when she clearly recalled locking the door. Well, it was an old hotel, maybe the lock didn't work...
Zelda slid back down in the tub and tried to relax. But the dog sitting quietly in the doorway looking at her spoiled the mood. In fact there was something weird about the way the dog just sat there looking at her. Looking and grinning. Not that dogs could grin, of course, but there was a sparkle in his eyes that suggested a grin. In fact for a dog he seemed to be enjoying himself all too much.
"Groovy!" she screamed.
"Zelda?" came his answer, "Like, what's the matter?"
"Get over here!"
A moment later she could see his shadow in the doorway. ""Like, what's the 4-1-1, man?" he was asking.
"Don't come in!" she shrieked.
"What?" Groovy asked from outside the door. "Make up your mind. Do you want me or not?"
"I'm in the tub. Get your dog out of here."
"Why, ol' Alphonse isn't doing anything."
"He's staring at me!"
When Groovy didn't say anything she added: "When he stares at me I see the eyes of a ninety eye old pervert!"
"He's just a dog."
"Just get him out of here!" Zelda demanded.
"I thought we were, like, you know, dating.. I thought it was, like: 'love me, love my dog'?"
"I thought we were dating, too," Zelda said, stressing 'thought' as if to say maybe I made a mistake. "Just get that dog out of here. - and close the door."
"OK! Come on Alphonse, we know when we're not wanted..."
Before leaving the dog did a strange thing. It lifted one paw to its head, almost touching its eyes, then stretched it out to point at the girl in the tub, almost as if pantomiming "I'm watching you." Then it slowly got up and walked out of the room. Groovy pulled the door shut and Zelda was alone with her thoughts.
Phyl and Curtis had been going steady for the past year so it only seemed natural that the other couple in the Clue Crew start going out. And it felt nice to be able to say of someone, 'he's my boyfriend.'
There had been a dearth of boys interested in taking a short, dumpy girl out on a date. So when Groovy had expressed an interesting going to movies and dances with her she had been ecstatic. She didn't realize that she would be sharing her boyfriend with a two hundred pound pure-bred rottweiler. That would make an interesting episode of Dr. Phil. "It's me or the dog."
Zelda sat up in the tub shivering. What had once been pleasantly hot water had somehow become cold and no matter how much fresh hot water she added the tub remained at best tepid. "So much for a relaxing bath," she groused as she got out of the tub and dressed.
The moon was high in the sky now, shining a silvery whiteness when two mopeds glided into the parking lot outside the old Aquarium. The mopeds circled the parking lot once before coming to a stop in front of the Aquarium's entrance. A girl got off one and removed her helmet, revealing long dark hair tied up in a pony-tail. "He ought to have been here by now." she said.
A boy got off the other bike. He was black and replaced his helmet with a red beret. He had a number of small boxy items clipped to his belt. He pulled one out now and pushed a slide switch, turning on a bright, LED light. He swung it around them. The light penetrated a good distance into the gloom.
"What, you think Danny was laying in wait for us so he could jump out and scare us?" the girl asked.
"Knowing Danny like I do, I wouldn't put it past him."
"We're on a mission, Tuck. This is hardly the time for games, and Danny knows that!"
"You don't know Danny like I do," the black boy answered smugly.
"Let's look around. Maybe he's in back." the girl suggested and started across the lawn to the side of the building. Like Danny, they were surprised to see the open door on the loading dock at the back of the building, largely because Danny came flying out of the building just as they got there.
He was flying butt-first. Since that wasn't his normal way of flying they scattered to shelter behind some near-by trees. If Danny, who has the power and strength of a ghost was getting his butt kicked, they didn't want to get in it's way.
"Do you think Danny's alright?" Sam asked after a moment.
Tucker shrugged. "I've got an ecto-blaster in the saddlebags on my moped. I'll run and get it," he said.
He looked around the side of the tree to see if the coast was clear and ducked right back as multiple streams of glowing ectoplasm rocketed past.
"I'd say Danny's OK!"
The fighting continued for a few more minutes, oddly quiet except for the zap and sizzle of the ectoplasm bolts and the occasional grunts as the opponents closed in for an exchange of physical blows.
Finally there was a quiet for half a minute. Then a tremendous, lingering crash following by a lot of snapping and crackling. "That can't be good," Sam said and peeked around the side of the tree. "Dang!" she hissed.
"What is it?" Tucker asked.
"Someone knocked over a tree."
"So much for doing this discretely. Anyone hurt?"
"I can't see."
Tucker looked around his side of the tree. A hundred yards off a large oak now lay on its side, roots pointing into the sky like giant fingers. "Come on, Danny, where are you?" he half prayed.
"Right here."
The voice came from behind him. Tucker spun around with a bit of a shriek. "Danny! Don't do that!" he panted. "I think you scared ten years off my life."
"So where's the ghost?" Sam asked, trying to keep her voice level. She didn't want Tucker to know that she's been as spooked by Danny's sudden present as he had been. Goths were all about the cool. She had to keep up appearances.
"It dropped a tree on me and by the time I got out from under it, it had disappeared." Danny explained.
"So what are you going to do," Sam wondered. "Hang around here and hope it shows up again?"
"Maybe for a little bit. But it's a school night and we've got that test coming up. I can't afford to be falling asleep in Mr. Lancer's class tomorrow."
"That'll be a first," Tucker jested.
"Besides I don't thing it's going to be back tonight. Not while I'm here. If it came back it might lead me to its lair and I'm pretty sure that it doesn't want to do that."
"What could be in its lair that's so precious - baby 'gator-head ghosts?" Tucker asked.
"Crocodile." Sam corrected.
"Whatever."
"Ghosts don't have babies, as far as I know, so it wouldn't be that. But there must be something there important to it to fight so fiercely."
"A mate?" Sam suggested.
"Maybe."
"I brought some hot cocoa on my bike. In case we were going stake out this place. Want some?"
"Sounds good." A flash of light followed and Danny Fenton not Danny Phantom followed Sam and Tucker back to there mopeds.
