This fic is:
1) A celebration of a fantastic secular holiday.
2) An advance celebration of having spent one year on (Awesome! Thanks a million again!)
3) A continuation of the Spirit Quintology.
Warning: This fic contains major spoilers for the Spirit Series. If you haven't finished reading The Tempest, you will be spoiled. Proceed at your own risk.
As You Like It
Dani stirred under her Dumpty Humpty quilt and spent a good minute enjoying the warmth of the spring sun without really even moving. Even though she'd had a safe home for the last seven months, she still felt lucky from time to time to have it. Living at Ghost Zone High hadn't been fun.
Dani shifted again and cracked open a bleary eye. The ecto-powered alarm clock on her bed stand read 9:17 and the date was scrolling along below.
April 1. April 1. April 1. Dani had the unsettling feeling that she was forgetting something. She was just about to remember what when her closet door started speaking.
"Oh good. You're finally up."
Dani stiffened, placed her hand casually on her clock, and in a swift, sudden movement hurled it at the source of the voice, which said, "Ow," a moment later and turned into a tall blonde man rubbing his shoulder.
"Teach you to hide in here invisibly," Dani told him, drawing herself into a cross-legged sitting position. "Cathy and Will know you're here, Aster?"
"Cathy does," the man said. "She let me in. Will's gone to help Danny deal with some prankster across town."
"Prankster?" Dani asked, puzzled. Then it clicked. "Oh my God, it's April Fool's Day!" She sprang out of bed and grabbed a pile of clothes off her chair. She turned back to face Aster, who was laughing softly.
"Stop it," she growled, as she walked past him and through the wall into the bathroom. Five minutes later she returned the same way to find Aster sitting on her windowsill, grinning. Dani immediately stopped dead and scanned the room for potential dangers. There didn't seem to be anything, so Aster was probably just excited.
She tossed her pajamas onto the bed as she crossed the floor and her pillow exploded, sending chunks of stuffing to the far ends of the room. Dani jumped and Aster started laughing hysterically. A moment later Dani's door opened and Cathy, her surrogate mother, stuck her head in. She took in the scene, raised her eyebrows slightly, and shut the door shaking her head. She'd been expecting the pranks to start soon after she'd let the hippie into the apartment, and at least the first was relatively tame.
When Aster managed to stop laughing, Dani was back on her bed, after testing the rest of it with various thrown objects. She was holding a notebook, and gestured Aster to join her.
"Whatcha got, scamp?" he asked, letting himself fall onto the bed next to Dani. "Anythin' good?"
Half an hour later, Cathy, sitting in the recliner in the living room, watched Dani and Aster rush out of the girl's room into the kitchen. The fridge opened and closed, several cupboard doors banged, there was a period of silence, and then Dani skipped back into the living room. Aster was a few steps behind her.
"Can I go out with Aster for a bit?" Dani asked.
"To prank people?" It was April Fool's Day and Cathy was talking to Amity Park's biggest practical jokers. She already knew the answer was yes. "You're not planning anything dangerous, are you?"
"Don't worry, Blue. I'll take care of her," Aster said reassuringly, resting a hand on Dani's shoulder and smiling over at Cathy. "Hippie's honour."
Cathy nodded. "All right. I can't stop you two. Just remember, no pranking after noon."
"'Course not!" Dani answered. She and Aster transformed and flew out into the city. Cathy watched them for a while to see which direction they'd gone in, and was only mildly surprised when, about a hundred yards out, Aster grabbed Dani's wrist and teleported them away.
Two ghosts appeared above an apartment building on the other side of town, gave each other a thumbs-up, and dove down through the roof. Over the next few minutes, there were a series of crashes and screams as people who'd been sleeping or sitting calmly suddenly found themselves on the floor.
The ghosts reappeared in an alley behind the new Bi-Zone Gym downtown. The female, in a black and white outfit and a ponytail, flew through the back wall and reappeared a moment later. Two rings of light encased her, and she quickly left the alley and casually walked into the gym from the front in her human form.
A ghost with the appearance of a robot was pacing between a man working the rowing machine and a man lifting dumbbells. He caught sight of the girl pushing open the door to the gym and strode over.
"Good morning, Dani. Message from Spirit?"
"Nope, not today!" She bounced on her heels. "Just came to say hi!"
The ghost was taken aback. "Well, hello then."
"Soooo, whatcha doin', Skulker?"
"I'm supervising the gym."
"Why?" Dani's eyes widened to the peak of endearing innocence. Behind Skulker, part of a weight machine swung around and raised itself to the level of Skulker's neck.
"Because otherwise someone might hurt themselves," the ghost answered.
"Okay! Bye!" Dani bounced a little more, and left as quickly as she'd come. Skulker looked after her a moment in confusion, then gave a little shrug and turned back to his duties. His neck hit the protruding bar and separated itself from the rest of his body.
"Come on, Geoff! It's a groovy day out there! The sun is shining, the grass is green... You're still pale as a ghost, man. You need sun. Come on!" Aster tugged at the arm of a pale, dark-haired man standing in the doorway of a modest older house. The man stood his ground firmly.
"Aster, I was writing," he replied testily. "I'm inspired. I need to write. I can't just drop everything and enjoy the day."
"But Geoff..."
"No. And that's final." The man yanked his arm out of the hippie's grip, and turned back into his house. Aster stood in the open doorway watching his retreating back. Geoff made it back to his study, at which point he stiffened.
"Danielle Lancer! What do you think you're doing?"
Aster turned and ran, and Dani dropped the romance novels and did the same a moment later.
Dani and Aster reconnected in the park across from Casper High.
"How ... much ... time's ... left?" she wheezed.
"Ten ... minutes," Aster answered. "Time to do ... something ... at the school, ... maybe."
"You're ... on," Dani said. "Danny's... class?"
"Yeah." Aster went ghost and fingered his necklace thoughtfully.
At 12:10 Aster and Dani made a somewhat giddy landing in Lancer's living room, picked themselves off the floor, and headed off to the kitchen giggling. Cathy, putting the finishing touches on lunch, turned and looked at them, taking in the ghost forms, disheveled hair, and laughter before asking the obvious, since they expected her to.
"Have fun?"
"Yup!" Dani pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down heavily on it. "We got everyone on our list! You should have been there! When we switched Ember's guitar for a toy one..."
"Or when that ectogun started shooting bubbles?" Aster added with excitement.
Cathy laughed dryly. "I'm too old for the physical stuff. I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves. Are you staying for lunch, Aster?"
"Sure!" The hippie was leaning up against a wall, back in his human form. "You don't mind, do you, Blue?"
"Nope," the woman answered cheerily. "Made enough for five already." Cathy grabbed a spatula and quickly flipped the two grilled cheese sandwiches she was cooking.
"Geoff called about fifteen minutes ago. Said something about a bunch of romance novels?" she asked pointedly. "I told him you two would go back later and get rid of them. No sense in him wasting his time cleaning up after the two of you."
"Awww, Cathy..." whined Dani.
"I'm in the clear, Blue," protested Aster. "I was just talking to him..."
"So Dani could do the prank," Cathy answered. "You two are going back if I have to come with you. Now go get washed up. Will should be back soon."
The two pranksters contritely left the kitchen, and half a minute later the apartment door opened, and closed with more force than was necessary.
"Will? You okay?" Cathy called out.
"Fine," Lancer answered. "Just never want to have to deal with a shapeshifter again."
"I didn't think the blobby green ones were that tough."
"They're not." Lancer walked into the kitchen. "This wasn't one of those. He was a lot more humanoid, and he could do existing people. Including me, at one point. He was just playing tricks, but it was still out of hand." He began to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. Cathy nodded in understanding.
"Dani and Aster pulled tricks all morning too. I don't think any of them were harmful, but they have to go back to Geoff's later and get rid of some books." Cathy slid the last sandwiches onto a plate and leaned over to Lancer conspiratorially. "I told Geoff he might want to test out that new keyboard you two found."
Lancer chuckled, then stopped quickly as the people in question came back into the kitchen. He quickly dried his hands and took a seat at the table along with them. Cathy picked up the plate of sandwiches, went over to the table, and dished one out onto each plate. Then she took her seat as well.
"Dig in!" No one needed to be told twice. Ten seconds later, Dani and Aster both stopped dead in the middle of chewing their first bite.
"Banana peppers," Cathy explained at their look of inquisitive pain. "I don't believe in time limits."
Happy April Fool's Day, everyone!