Mystery Meat: Part 1
Danny had gone down to the basement to get his mom's signature for a field trip. He had seen the sign on the door that said "Testing Trans-Dimensional Portal, Do Not Enter", but his parents' basement door signs always said stuff like that. They were ghost fanatics, always had been, but their ghost catching inventions never worked. It was only the week before that they were running around a 'haunted house' with their new 'Fenton Thermos', trying to vacuum ectoplasmic beings out of the air. Danny and his sister, Jazz, were used to it by now.
When Danny reached the bottom of the steps, he saw his parents standing behind a plexiglass wall, looking at the empty metal doorway they'd been welding together for weeks. It stood about a foot from the cinderblock basement wall, and electrical coils jutted out the sides at regular intervals. Despite the symmetry, it looked thrown together-as did the entire lab. Ghost research didn't pay well, so most of the Fentons' equipment was collected on night raids to the town dump.
Danny walked over to his parents, who were fiddling around with a control board for the doorway.
"Mom," he said, "Could you-" His mom turned to look at him.
"Danny! Didn't you see the sign?"
"I just wanted your signature for a field trip," Danny said.
"Maddie," Jack Fenton said coaxingly, "Let him stay! I'm sure he'd like to see the activation of the first Trans-Dimensional Portal to the Ectodimensional plane."
"Dad, really, it's fine. I just need-"
"Danny, get behind the wall, you can see everything from here," Maddie Fenton said, and dragged him by the arm.
And so Danny was stuck watching another failed invention. It was a good thing his parents had day jobs, or his family would be out on the street by now. His dad toggled a few switches on the control board. The electric coils fizzled a little bit, then nothing. Danny's parents stared, stumped. His mom spoke up.
"Jack," she said, "Lets go start on dinner. The portal will be here in the morning. Come on Danny."
She herded both of them up the steps. Danny realized he'd left the permission slip down in the basement.
He ran back down the steps, but saw the control board was still on. Great. His dad was always doing this. The TV, the radio, even the oven, he forgot to turn everything off. Mom called it his Achilles heel. Danny called it getting old.
He went over to the control board, searching for an off switch. Of course, none of them were labeled, so he just started pressing the most likely candidates.
Which was a pretty stupid idea, because sparks started coming out of the electrical coils on the doorway. So he walked over to unplug it from the control panel.
He grabbed the cord connecting the controls to the door, which was a really stupid idea, because a moment later all he felt was white hot pain in his arm. He couldn't move his hand. He couldn't see. Jerking back, he hit the doorway. His hand spasmed, letting go of the cord.
He fell through the portal.
Danny could feel, but he couldn't. He could think, but he couldn't. He didn't know where he was, and he could see, but he couldn't. Oh God. He was dead. He was definitely dead. He was killed by his parents' stupid invention!
"Danny!" Someone called, "Dinner!"
Danny hit the ground hard. Groaning, he sat up and rubbed his head. It hurt. A lot. He was...sitting in the basement...next to the portal thing. He must have fallen. Standing, he spotted the permission slip by the control board. He grabbed it and ran upstairs.
His mom stood by the sink, scooping noodles onto plates. His dad stirred the pot of meat sauce at the stove. Spaghetti night!
"Hey Mom, could you sign this?" he asked. she didn't respond.
"Mom?"
"MOM!" Jazz called, walking up behind him. Danny turned in the doorway to look at her. She was storming up, her hairdryer hanging from the hair on the left side of her head. The name "Fenton GhostBlaster 2000" was written on the side of the hairdryer in Sharpie.
"Woah Jazz, slow down!" Danny said, but she didn't. In fact, she walked right through him. One minute she's going to run into him, the next, she's yelling at Mom and Dad in the kitchen and Danny's left with a lingering feeling of not being able to breathe. He stumbled back.
"What just happened? Jazz? Mom? Dad?" he said.
"Jazz, is Danny in his room?" Mom asked, ignoring her daughter's complaints.
"DANNY!" Jazz screamed back towards the hallway.
"I'm right here!" Danny yelled back. But Jazz didn't seem to hear him.
"No." Jazz said to her mom, then resumed her rant.
Danny stared at his family for a moment, then turned and took off for his room. He ran up the steps, but when he reached his door he couldn't turn the knob. His hand kept going through it. Frustrated, he tried to bang on the door with both hands. Apparently, the universe wouldn't even let him do that, because he fell right through the wood.
He scrambled to his feet, and ran into his bathroom. When he looked in the mirror, he nearly screamed. He wasn't there. Come to think of it... when he looked down at his hands, he couldn't see them either. How hadn't he noticed? There was only a faint distortion of the air where he was standing.
Danny spoke aloud: "How am I invisible?" Was it because he had been shocked by the stupid doorway? As he thought about it, he saw himself begin to appear. He leaned into the mirror, excited, but had another shock when he was fully visible.
He had white hair! Not like covered-in-flour-white, it was full on untouched-winter-snow-white. And his eyes were green. And glowing. In fact, all of him was glowing a little bit. He started to get worried. What would his parents say? What had even happened to him? As he became more and more anxious, he noticed he was getting taller. Or at least it seemed like he was getting taller, because his head was definitely closer to the ceiling. Looking down, he let out a yelp. He was floating! In the air! Floating in the air! Danny waved his arms around, trying to get back down. Instead, he just hit his head on the ceiling. Before he could sort out his thoughts, whatever was holding him up dropped him. He hit the tile floor hard, and let out a groan. I give up, he thought, laying on the floor in defeat. A horrible thought came to him. He could walk through walls, disappear, and fly. He had white hair, and was pale as...well...a ghost. A tingling sensation came over him. He was a ghost. He HAD died, and now he was a ghost.
...His parents were so going to dissect him.
"So..." Sam asked, "How are you, you know, human now?" Danny shushed her, glancing around the cafeteria.
"Danny," Tucker said, "No one is listening to us. We're the loser table."
"Whatever. And I don't know what happened, but when I stood back up, I was normal again." Sam crossed her arms.
"Convenient," she said. Danny frowned.
"You don't believe me?" he asked.
"No offense Danny, but ghosts...aren't real. Until today you were more adamant about that than Tucker and I put together."
Danny looked at his friends' disbelieving faces. Sam looked concerned, and Tucker just looked bored.
"I can prove it!" Danny blurted out. The concerned look on Sam's face grew deeper.
"Danny-"
"Follow me," he said. He led them out of the cafeteria, and into a side classroom. He walked over to one of the desks and held his hand over it.
"Watch." He swung his hand down at the desk. It struck solid with a loud slapping sound. Danny sucked in breath, jerking his hand back to his chest. He emitted a small sound of pain.
"Danny! Enough! It was cute in the cafeteria, but don't go and hurt yourself," Sam said.
"I can do this! I was doing it this morning!" Danny said, frustrated. Again, he held his hand over the desk. Closing his eyes, he concentrated very hard. He heard Sam and Tucker gasp, and he swung his hand down. This time, his now translucent hand passed right through the desk.
When he opened his eyes, Sam and Tucker were staring at him. He grinned.
"I can't do my whole body yet, but I've learned to control it. As he spoke, he started sinking down into the floor. His feet had turned translucent. He jumped up, and his feet were back.
"Kind of control it," he amended. He looked at his friends, waiting for them to talk.
Sam spoke first.
"Danny, you have to tell your parents-"
"Are you kidding?" Tucker cut in. He grinned. "This is awesome! Dude, do you know how many things we could do with this!"
"Tucker!" Sam snapped, "He's a...a ghost! That's not normal!"
"Says the goth girl," Tucker muttered. Danny stifled a laugh, and Sam's rage was turned on him.
"Danny! Something serious has happened to you, who knows what other mutations you could be going through."
"Sam, it's fine. Besides, you know how my parents feel about ghosts. They would want to experiment on me or something," Danny said, "I thought you would be more excited." Sam crossed her arms.
"Just because I'm goth doesn't mean I'm into ghosts or the occult," she said, "And I still think you should tell your parents!" She stormed out of the room. Tucker and Danny were silent for a few moments.
"So...can we go get some free soda from the drink machine?" Tucker asked. Danny grinned.
"Heck yeah!" he said, and the two boys headed off. As they walked back in the direction of the cafeteria, Danny tried to squash down the guilt he felt at making Sam so upset. She shouldn't have been so uptight, he thought. It wasn't much consolation.
Danny sat in his room that night, playing with his new abilities. He was trying to turn into a full ghost again-when he had the white hair-but he couldn't seem to get it down. He concentrated first on his hands, then his arms, but when he focused on changing any other part of his body, his hands changed back. It was infuriating. Eventually he gave up and threw himself back on his bed.
In his pocket, his phone buzzed. It was a text from Tucker:
Concrete?
Danny sighed, and replied that yes, he could phase through concrete. Well, he thought to himself, he could if only he could turn all ghost.
Danny's thoughts turned to Sam. She still wasn't talking to him. Geez, he thought, girls can never just let stuff go. Making a snap decision, he called her cell. It rang just twice, then cut to voicemail. Danny scowled.
"Sam, answer your phone!" he said at the beep, and hung up, just to call again.
"What." Sam snapped when she picked up.
"You can't keep giving me the silent treatment," Danny said.
"I'm not-whatever. I told you to call twice only in emergencies."
"Maybe you shouldn't ignore my calls."
"Maybe you shouldn't ignore my advice."
"Sam!" Danny said, "Can't I just have fun with this for a little while?"
"So you think stealing is fun now?" Sam shot back.
"It was two sodas, no one's going to miss them."
Sam was silent on the line for so long Danny thought she'd hung up. She spoke right before he took the phone away from his ear.
"Danny, I'm just worried something worse than turning invisible and floating will happen to you. I mean, if you melted into a puddle of goo or something, that would leave me alone with Tucker." Danny grinned.
"Aw, Sam, I didn't know you cared so much," he joked.
"Bullshit, you know I care," she said, "...No mom, I said 'push it'!"
"What?" Danny asked.
"My mom. I gotta go Danny."
"Bye."
"See ya."
Sam hung up. Danny tossed his phone onto his nightstand, glad they'd made up.
The next day at school, Sam was officially talking with the two of them. During history, she even passed Danny a note asking him what he could do with his powers. Confident their friendship was intact, Danny and Tucker went back to joking and teasing her like they usually did. She fought back with the usual merciless insults, so everything was cool. Well, until lunch.
Danny and Tucker walked up to the line, trays in hand, eager for burgers and fries. What they found was veggie burgers, whole wheat buns, and carrot sticks.
"What! Today's burger day!" Tucker said. The lady standing behind the counter shrugged.
"Menu's changed," she said, and dropped a veggie burger on Tucker's plate. Tucker and Danny, expressions of shock on their faces, walked off to join Sam, who was sitting at their socially assigned 'loser table'. She was munching happily on a veggie burger.
"I can't believe this! They've deprived me of my meat! I can't live without meat!" Sam laughed.
"You call that 'cow' mush meat? These are so much better for you!" Tucker pushed his tray away.
"Fine. I'll eat it," Sam said, grabbing his plate.
"Who's idea was this anyway..." Tucker muttered. Sam nearly choked on her food.
"Are you kidding me?!" she exclaimed. Tucker just looked at her, confused.
"I've been trying to get the school board to do a vegetarian education month since the first day!" Sam said.
"Why?!" Tucker said.
"Because the food is healthy, and it's good for the environment."
"Healthy? Rabbits eat this stuff! Why would you make the rest of the school eat your crazy diet for a whole month?" Tucker said.
"Really?" Sam asked. She wasn't shouting anymore, but this voice was a whole lot scarier. Danny shrunk back from the conflict. He was already on thin ice with Sam.
"Really?" she said, "Because I've been talking about it pretty much everyday for months. And every day you and Danny say you think it's a good idea. At least now I know my friends don't even listen to me."
"Sam, we listen to you-" Danny tried to say.
"Whatever Danny," she snapped, and stormed off with her tray. Danny felt guilt bubble to the top of his mind.
"This is SO not cool," Tucker said, "I'm gonna sneak out for some REAL food. Want anything Danny?"
"Nah, I'm fine," he said.
"Suit yourself." Tucker dumped the rest of his tray and left the cafeteria. Danny picked up the veggie burger, and (albeit wrinkling his nose) gave it a try. Sighing, he put it back down on his plate. It wasn't bad, just...well...it wasn't a burger. If only he could get into the kitchens and find something good to eat. A smile spread over Danny's face. Duh Danny, he thought. Trying to look casual, he dumped his tray and went back out to the hallway.