"Mommy?"

Sam looked into the face of her questioning son, then quickly back at the road as someone passed the beat-up compact.

"What is it Alex?" she asked messing with the air-conditioning to distract herself.

"Why do we have to move again?" the seven-year-old implored. "Why did we have to leave home?"

What was she going to tell him? That Daddy kicked them out? That Daddy had wanted a different life with his first wife; the one he had been married to for six years while at the same time he was married to her for eight? That Daddy was a double cheater and Mommy never wanted to see him again?

"We just had to sweety," Sam said after a pause. "We weren't welcomed there anymore."

"But where are we going to go?" Alex asked with worry in his voice.

Sam had been asking herself the same question. She had nowhere to go anymore. Her husband had kicked her out, but she liked to think that she had left him, and her parents disowned her after she had married the creep. They wouldn't answer the phone, return e-mails, or reply by snail mail if they were from her. They didn't even know that they had grandsons. Sam had never been on a good plane with her parents, but she missed them badly.

She decided the best thing to do was to start over. She would use her maiden name while the divorce was getting settled by the lawyers and just start over. She would enroll the boys in the school, she would get a job somewhere and hopefully they could be happy. It was going to be hard, but she was confident that she could make it on her own.

Sam glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her eldest son, Conner, playing with his gaming system. Conner was ten and had a dark outlook on things right now. You know, the phase where he thinks everyone is out to get him and he thinks that he is all that. That he can control the world in a single heartbeat.

This was a tough time for him because he understood more than Alex did. He knew what his father did and it troubled Sam that he did know. No child should have to see their parents act like that, to be this hurt by the separation. Sam was trying her best to explain to Conner that things just weren't as simple as he thought they were, but he chose to ignore and defy her every chance he got. Sam really didn't blame him, but she did wish that he would straighten up his act in front of people. She was tired of fighting with him, but Conner wouldn't give up so easily.

Sam returned her attention to the road and glanced at the billboard that advertised their new home.

Amity Park, a nice place to live.

"What's so great about it?" Conner asked, having looked up from his game to peer outside.

"This place is said to be haunted by a great number of ghosts," Sam explained.

"Haunted?" Alex asked worriedly, pulling his security blanket over his head to hide himself.

"Don't worry Alex, nothing is going to happen to us," Sam said smiling warmly at him.

Alex was a worry wart and had a great number of allergies; any one of them could set off his asthma. He worried about germs, always carrying some disinfectant with him in his pocket and his blanket. It was a tattered old brown thing that went through the washer every morning before he went to school. The other kids would make fun of him because he still carried it around, but Sam didn't have the heart to take it from him. Now that he wouldn't see his father around, whom he looked up to like a god, he needed some sense of security, and his father had given him the darn thing after all. Sam knew she couldn't take from him now, not in a million years.

"Yeah scaredy-baby," Conner said flicking Alex in the head with his finger.

Conner, on the other hand, she could a number of things too.

"Conner, don't make me pull over and take your game from you," Sam warned him.

He leaned back in the seat and stared out of the window at the passing sights. The game must have low batteries, Sam guessed.

"Whoa!" Conner gasped suddenly sitting straight up and looking back at where they had come from.

Sam looked in her side mirror to see what had startled him. There was something flying at them, but it wasn't a plane. Could it be a bird, a mechanical toy of some sort?

"What is it?" Alex said twisting in his seat to look back in the rear window. "What is it!?" he said this time with more alarm.

Whatever it was, it came up at them fast, but it didn't disturb the car at all. It flew by, being nothing but a blur in their eyes. Then something else came up at them, but this one at a much slower pace. It came to slowly match the pace of their car, which was going about 70 on the highway.

Sam gasped when she saw it and couldn't help but stare. Conner had a smile plastered on his face and Alex hid his head in his blanket.

It was a man, but he obviously wasn't human. He had white hair, whiter then the clouds above them in the sky. His eyes a neon green, glowing like nightlights. His hazmat suit was black with white gloves, boots, and a belt where odd gadgets of all sorts hung from it. His body seemed to be a bit transparent, as if looking through a really thick black fog and his skin was so pale, he looked like a corpse. However, he was flying like Superman would, arms out and legs back like a straight line.

He wasn't looking at the car, his vision fixed on something in the distance. The other thing that had flown by earlier, but it had been going too fast for him to follow. The determined look on his face told Sam that he wasn't going to give up so easily, and he looked kind of cute, in a dead way.

While these things were going through her head, she wasn't watching the road and didn't see the semi that had pulled out in front of them. When Sam finally did return her attention to the road, they were two yards from crashing into the giant truck. Sam screamed, the boys screamed, and she was pretty sure the truck driver was screaming too, or cursing.

Things seemed to slow down for Sam as the distance between them closed. She braced herself for the impact, and the pain that was sure to follow.

It never came. Her body felt as light as air and a small chill had crept over her skin at the feeling of something touching her.

"Press the brake," said a commanding voice that had an odd echo to it.

Sam did as it said and slowly put her foot on the lever. The car came to a stop and something put the car in park and put on the emergency break.

Sam opened her eyes to see that the truck was now a few yards behind them, everything unharmed and not one piece of metal lying in the road. The truck driver was running up to them, but Sam barely noticed as she looked up and saw the odd man that had been flying beside their car a moment before.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice the one that had told her to put on the break.

"F-fine," Sam stammered out. "Wait! How did you get in the car?"

He was sort of floating between her and Alex who was staring at the man with bug eyes. Conner was doing the same of course.

"I phased through," the man said simply, as if it was common knowledge.

To prove it, he literally flew through the roof and out of the car. Sam, her interest perked to an extreme level, fumbled with her seat belt and the door handle before she got out of the car.

"Stay here," she told the boys before closing it.

"You're a life saver Phantom," the trucker was saying to the odd man.

"Just doing my job," the man, Phantom said humbly. "In fact if I wasn't idling beside the highway, this wouldn't have happened."

He was blaming himself for this mess? Sam found that odd in a human being now a day, though he wasn't human, he was, and to her surprise she was saying it, a ghost.

"You might want to show them the way into town," Phantom was saying to the trucker. "I have to see a man about a dog."

Then he flew off like a rocket. No 'you're welcome' or anything else. Sam found it a little rude, but he did seem to be in a hurry.

"Who was that?" Sam asked the trucker as he came up to her.

"That's Phantom," he said with a wink. "He's been the local guardian of this here town for years. Like a local superhero I guess. He really doesn't like much attention though like other heroes get, stays mostly in the shadows unless he needs to talk."

"He was sort of brusque."

"Ghosts haunt this city like flies in a manure pile. They're everywhere and he tries to be everywhere at the same time."

"Sounds like a big job for one person," Sam murmured to herself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, so can you show us the way into town? We've been on the road since yesterday afternoon."

"What happened to you man?" Tucker asked Danny as the half-breed phased through the ceiling of the apartment that they both shared.

"An ectopuss, an ectohawk, and then I had to stop a car crash that I caused," Danny grumbled while taking a seat on the couch and wincing as his arm brushed the armrest. "A very cranky and stinging ectopuss, it feels like I was stung by a hundred bees."

"Jazz isn't going to be happy about that."

"That's because we've learned not to tell her, right Tuck?" Danny's eyes glared at his best friend and Tucker backed off with his hands up in defense.

"Alright, but seriously dude, you have to tell your sister to back off. You're twenty-six for crying out loud, you don't need to be babysat."

"How many other people with ghost powers do you know?" Danny asked. "Jazz will do anything to make sure I'm safe, short of putting me in a straight jacket and throwing me in a safe room. Do you know how many times she told me to think about my career?"

"You're a part time substitute teacher at the school while Lancer gets over his back problems, and a pilot for hire, which hasn't been happening lately by the way," Tucker said rolling his eyes. "Not much of a career dude. Unless you count the freelance ghost hunting."

"It's not exactly freelance any more. I do it because I feel it's the right thing to do. Plus I'm an employ of Clockwork, I'm called to do things he needs me to do."

"Like that time he needed you to straighten up the spat in Africa between the ghost prairie dogs and the ghost dung beetles?" Tucker said without much enthusiasm. "Oh yeah, that was so important."

"I do what needs to be done, you don't know how time works Tucker. One little thing can send it off balance. Didn't we learn that during the CAT's catastrophe?"

Tucker shuddered at the memory.

"I couldn't go into the Nasty Burger for weeks after that one," the African-American said. "So okay, you may be right about that one. But what about the time he had you press his capes?"

"He just needed a favor done."

"And he calls you up?"

"Well I am the only friend that he has. Everyone else is scared of him Tuck. They think that he might put a curse on them or something, as if he's this all powerful god."

"Isn't he?"

"Far from it Tuck, he's as mortal as you or I. I need some alcohol to put on this."

Danny turned human and Tucker saw the real damage. It looked like Danny's skin had been stripped off by a whip or something. Danny didn't want any help bandaging it, knowing how nauseated Tucker was by blood, but he couldn't do it by himself. He surprised Tucker by duplicating himself and having the other Danny wrap it for him.

"Jazz is going to spy that from a mile away," Tucker said after he saw the faulting bandaging job.

"I'll live," Danny said gruffly. "I have to go and pick some things up, you coming?"

"I have a presentation to give in a week, I'm focusing on that bro."

Danny shrugged and walked out the door, grabbing his jacket on the way.

It would have been easier to fly, but Danny liked to be human for a while. After all, Fenton had to be seen some of the time, or else they would probably make the connection with Phantom.

Danny looked to his right as he heard something big rumble by. It was the Ghost Assault Vehicle, or Fenton RV for short. The driver's side window rolled down as Danny came to a stop and expected to see his dad, but he saw his mom instead.

"Hey Mom," he said crossing the street to talk with her. "What's up?"

"I just saw an ectopuss go by. That wouldn't happen to be your handy work would it?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"No, not really. The thing's too darn fast to chase right now. I had to deal with a few other things and I was beat by the time it showed up," Danny frowned. "I can do whatever you like with the sap."

"Good, I have him in the back right now," Maddie said grinning.

Danny gaped at her.

"How did you—? Never mind, I don't need to know. How's Dad?"

"Oh his back is still bothering him, but he's fine otherwise."

"Eating you out of house and home isn't he?"

"He's so bored Danny, I don't know what to do with him," Maddie sighed, banging her head on the steering wheel.

"I'll arrange some ghostly chiropractics to straighten him out," Danny offered, cracking his knuckles at the thought of forceful persuasion.

"You know that your father doesn't like a ghost to touch him, except for you sweety. I'll just have to get him to see a doctor about his back."

"If that doesn't work out, the ghosts can always work while he's asleep."

"I'll call you in a week to see if I need the help. Oh, and we have a take on the room."

It was Danny's turn to look skeptical.

"You're pulling my leg," he said close to laughing.

"No, we have a taker. A Samantha Manson and her two boys. She's just moving to town after a nasty break up, didn't give to many details. She needed a place to stay and I brought the price down a little for her. She'll need a guide Danny, to show her around town."

"Stop trying to hook me up Mom."

It was true, his mother wanted him to settle down, but the ghosts and him being a half breed wouldn't be good on a relationship for a wife or kids who might turn out to be ghosts themselves. Plus this woman was just leaving her husband with two kids, she wasn't going to be on the market any time soon.

"I was being very serious," but something her in eyes told Danny that was a lie. "I have to go home now, your father has called me three times in the last fifteen minutes. Bye!"

Danny waved as his mother drove off and got back on the sidewalk.

Manson? Why did that name sound so familiar? Danny shrugged his shoulders and continued to walk.

He avoided his sister's pent apartment which was three blocks from his own. He really needed to move to the other side of town, or the other side of the state. Jazz had become very over-protective after one incident that had left Danny with a slight limp. He told everyone that he had a bad fall when he had been camping with his parents senior year of high school, but the truth was that he had broken that leg pretty badly when he had battled Plasmius, which was during the camping trip. It hadn't healed perfectly, thus why he had a limp, but it wasn't that noticeable if people didn't stare too much.

He made it to the pharmacy, picked up some things that he was running low on, and then he made it over to the zoo. It was closed on Sundays, but that didn't stop the half ghost from phasing through the entry doors and making it over to the wolves' pen. One of the wolves looked him in the eye and seemed to smile at his company.

"How are you doing buddy?" Danny asked, rubbing the wolf on the head and scratching its chin at the same time.

The wolf licked his face, which made the rest of the dogs jealous as they awaited their turn to be petted. Ever since Danny had that accident in his parents' lab, he had somehow become more connected with nature. It must have been the ghost in him since most spirits were connected to some sort of nature. Animals were more sensitive around ghosts, knowing if they were evil or not. Even something as timid as a rabbit would jump up into Danny's arms for comfort. He could even understand them to a certain extent, but he wasn't sure how. It wasn't like he could hear what they were saying to each other and he could talk the same way back, it was just something he knew.

After visiting the wolves, Danny went back to the apartment, finding Tucker gone and a message on his answering machine.

"Alright kid, I'll bring the price down just a tad for you, but that's it. You can come in tomorrow and sign the papers to move in."

Danny recognized the voice. It was one of the men he had frequently flown. Danny flew private jets for the famous and glamorous. He was the best pilot in the area, probably in the nation, since Danny could fly without a plane and knew what was coming when to make the ride as smooth as possible. He also practiced aerial maneuvers, in case he was needed in the army again, but those weren't really required when going from one place to another at a leisurely pace.

He closed his eyes and thanked whoever was up there running things that he could get out of his friend's apartment and get into a house of his own. One that was on the far side of the city so his sister wouldn't annoy him as badly. He hadn't told anyone except for Tucker and he had sworn his buddy to secrecy. He would tell his mom that night over the phone, he knew that she could keep a secret. He would tell Jazz after he had moved in so she wouldn't help him with the move and probably try and find something closer to him.

He felt something brush up against his legs and looked down; Dawn, a Siamese cat, was rubbing her back against his legs and purring loudly. She had been a gift from Clockwork about two years before and Tucker wasn't really happy about a kitten moving in with his electronics, but Danny liked the companionship and Tucker let the cat stay. Now that they were moving out, Tucker would be ecstatic that no more cat hairs would be on his floor and sofa.

He picked Dawn up and took her to the kitchen where he fed her some extra shrimp from the night before when had Tucker had gone out on a date with Valerie, the crazy ghost huntress.

True, Danny had dated her a few times in high school, but that was before her obsession seemed to take her over. She was living two lives, like Danny, but no one knew about it and she had become two totally different people. Sometimes she didn't even remember when she hunted a ghost. She had become dangerous after that, but if Phantom didn't help Valerie, then Fenton would. He and Valerie still stayed in touch and were mutual friends, but he never knew how to let on that he knew about her ghost hunting. He decided to wait for her to open up about it, unless it became more serious and Valerie was put in a mental ward. Tucker had only recently started to date her, and Danny was uncomfortable about it, but he trusted Tucker not to let anything slip, unless he had too much to drink.

Danny winced at the thought. Tucker wasn't known to hold his liquor, often spewing it on the floor when he got home and having a hangover in the morning after two shots. He knew Tucker was just trying to best Danny at something. Because Danny was more fit, and use to drinking sometimes to delay the pain of his injuries, he could drink more and still be clear minded, but he rarely drank. He was a hero after all and didn't want to be under the influence when there was an emergency. Tucker was probably feeling inferior, but he had more brains then Danny did, that was something Tucker should be proud of, and he was, it just didn't seem like enough. Danny decided that he would have to talk to Tucker about it.

"What have you gotten into?" Danny asked his cat as he petted her back while she ate.

He noticed that she had gained some weight again, in almost a month that was probably another pound.

"You probably found a way to get into the fridge again," Danny shrugged and frowned at the same time. "I should take you to the vet to make sure you didn't digest anything dangerous."

His only reply was a muffled yowl as Dawn licked her bowl clean of the shrimp.

Sam pulled up to the house and stared at the giant glowing sign and satellite attached to the top of the roof.

"I bet they're aliens!" Conner said looking up at the massive metal disc.

"Aliens!?" Alex cried pulling his blanket over his head, Peanuts gallery style. "I don't want to go in there Mommy!"

"Don't be such a baby," Conner chided him with a sneer.

"Conner," Sam warned him. "Alex sweet-heart, these people are ghost hunters. They have a very sterile environment because of the experiments that they do. I picked this place because it was the best I could get for you."

Alex put his blanket around his shoulders, and Conner rolled his eyes at his mother's explanation. Still, living in a ghost hunters' house could be really cool. Maybe they would see some ghosts too!

A petite woman came out of the front door, wearing a teal hazmat suit, complete with red tinted goggles. Alex frowned at her choice of dress, and Conner agreed with his brother, for once, about her pick of outfit. Sam was a bit taken aback as well, but she quickly got over it, having been encountered by weirdness before. She only hoped that the Fentons were a good kind of weird.

"Hello, I'm Maddie Fenton, call me Maddie," the woman greeted with a smile. "You must be Samantha."

"Sam," Sam corrected her. "That's um, quite an addition you have," she pointed to the roof.

"Oh yes," Maddie said looking over her shoulder at it. "That's the op's center. It's used in emergencies, like hostile ghost takeovers."

Sam blinked in confusion at the woman and considered turning around and getting back in the car.

"Would you like to see the rooms?" Maddie asked.

"Uh yes, that would be great. Conner and Alex, come out and say hi to Mrs. Fenton."

The boys tumbled out of the car and Maddie looked at them like any mother would.

"Oh they are precious," she said like a grandmother. "They reminded me of my Danny when he was little."

"You have a son?" Sam wondered out loud.

"Yes but he's all grown up and graduated collage now," Maddie said leading them inside. "So is my daughter, in fact, it's their rooms that we're renting out. They're right next to each other so the boys can share one and you can sleep in the next room."

The living room was normal enough with a TV, couch, and such. So was the kitchen and the upstairs looked fine from Sam's point of view. Maddie led them upstairs and to the left. There were two doors open and she let Sam look at both. They were fully furnished, clean, and allergy free as far as she could tell.

"This use to be Jazz's room," Maddie said as Sam sat on the bed of the more girly looking room since it was painted a muted magenta. "I wouldn't be surprised if she left something in that old desk of hers."

"I'll let you know if I find anything," Sam said getting up to look at the other room.

It was almost the same as the girly one, only the walls were painted blue with faint traces of rockets on the walls. She could tell that a boy had lived in here at one time since she had two of her own to deal with.

"This will be good for the boys," Sam said. "But I'm not sure if they would like sharing the bed."

"We can get a cot in here if we need too," Maddie said. "Actually, there might be an extra mattress that we can lay on the floor."

The phone rang in the hall and Maddie went to answer it.

"Hello?" she asked into the receiver. "Oh hi sweety. I was just about to call you. Do we still have that extra mattress from the old guest room before we converted it?... Yes that's what I thought. Would you mind coming over and help to move it?... Your father isn't up to it I'm afraid…. Thank you sweetheart. What did you want to talk about, since you called first?... Alright then, I'm looking forward to it. Bye-bye," Maddie hung up the phone and looked at Sam. "That was Danny, he'll be by later tonight to help move the mattress."

"That's very nice of him," Sam said.

"Oh Danny has a bit of a hero complex, but you can count on him for anything. You don't have to fear him in any way. Are you any good at cooking dear?"

"I'm a vegetarian, so I don't know what kind of help I'll be," Sam shrugged.

"Then you can help with the salad," Maddie smiled. "We're having lasagna tonight, should I make your part meat free?"

"That would me great Mrs. Fenton."

"Maddie, please."

"Maddie then. Where's the kitchen?"

Sam and the boys had joined Jack and Maddie for dinner and it went great. Jack was a big man with a hazmat of the orange nature, which sent the boys into peals of laughter when they saw him. Jack was a bit of a clown, but he had a good heart and took the boys' laughter as something to ignore.

About the time the dishes were being done, the doorbell rang. Jack got up to answer it after Maddie had asked him.

"Jazz!" Jack beamed as his daughter walked into the house.

"Hey Dad, Danny said you have a tenet," Jazz said, bringing up the rear with her little daughter, Jane.

"Then come in, don't want you to miss out on the fudge," Jack said scooping Jane up in his arms and sitting back down on the couch.

Sam came in from the kitchen and shook hands with Jazz. She was probably about two years older than Sam, her daughter about the same age as Alex, maybe a little younger. She had red hair, like her mother and teal eyes. Jazz was almost a carbon copy of her mother, as was Jane of her mother and grandmother.

"I'm Sam," Sam said after they had shaken hands. "And these are my boys, Conner and Alex."

"Nice to meet you Sam," Jazz said. "Jane is there with Dad. So what exactly brought you to this place? I couldn't wait to move out."

"Well, I like the unusual, plus Alex is allergic to anything, so a clean place was important."

"Well then good choice. Just watch out for random explosions."

Then the phone rang again. Maddie was quick to answer it.

"Hello?... Danny! When are you coming over? Jazz just… oh, I see. Well be careful. Bye-bye," she hung up the phone and turned to everyone. "That was Danny, he won't be coming. Seems something came up."

Danny closed his cell phone just as another blast from Valerie nearly knocked him out of the sky.

"Hey! I'm on the phone here!" Danny yelled, brandishing the phone as proof.

Valerie took another shot and Danny dodged again, but his phone was crumbled into dust by the near heat of the blast.

"Now you aren't," Valerie said shooting yet again.

"Crap! Do you know how fast I go through those!?" Danny yelled at her while shooting his own blast at her.

"I don't care! You probably steal them anyway," Valerie said, dodging his blasts.

Danny ground his teeth in frustration. He really hated it when Valerie caught him after he just captured a ghost. He was tired after he had managed to stuff Desiree and her little wish granting messes into the thermos, now he had Valerie on his tail, and the best he could do was just run.

He flew through the air like a rocket, taking Valerie on a confusing path through the city. He took her through populated areas so there was less of a chance that she would shoot at him.

He took her through the carnival at the docks, the rides roaring their loud metallic clacking noise and people shouting, laughing, and just having a good time. Danny did a tangled course through one of the rollercoaster rides, winding through the steel beams as if it was an obstacle course. Valerie managed to follow him, but eventually, her board went one way and she went the other direction. She landed in a bounce-around, growling as Danny flew off into the night.

"That was close," Danny said returning to the main part of town. "Jazz is going to kill me for loosing that phone. At least I didn't get any scrapes this time, and I have got to stop talking to myself."

He flew to his parents to put the contents of his thermos back into the Ghost Zone, but he had forgotten that they had guests over.

He phased through the front door and became solid when he was inside the house, but he realized that was a bad mistake when he saw three people that didn't belong in this picture. He saw the people he had helped out on the highway earlier that morning, the woman and the two boys.

Everyone was staring at him, which was making him uncomfortable.

"Hello everyone," he said nervously, hiding the thermos behind his back. "Glad to see you made it into town alright," he said to the black haired woman.

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked him, sounding stern yet curious.

"Just making a deposit Da—I mean Mr. Fenton," Danny said, blushing at his slip and showing the thermos. "Um, yeah, I'm just going to go now. Sorry."

He phased through the floor, almost unable to control the action because of his embarrassment. He quickly shoved his catch into the portal and phased back outside and turned human.

"That was close," he said, putting his ear up to the door to listen in. "Maybe I should just go in, or would they connect the dots? Naw, not after the first encounter with clumsy Danny Fenton."

"What was he doing here?" Sam asked her new landlords.

"Oh, he uses our portal to put the ghosts back," Maddie said, avoiding Sam's eyes as if she was hiding something. "He doesn't come around unless he needs something."

Alex didn't have his blanket over his head this time, but he seemed to be frozen where he stood. Conner waved his hand in front of his brother's eyes, but there was no reaction from the younger boy.

"Mom, Alex is in shock again," Conner said rolling his eyes.

"Oh no."

Sam went over to check her child while there was a knock at the door. Jazz opened it up and let in whoever was there.

"Uncle Danny!" Jane said, jumping off of her grandfather's lap and running over to the black-haired man.

"Jane!" Danny said stretching his arms out and scooping the girl up in a friendly hug. "How are you today?"

"Okay, the food was palpable in the lunch room today, but Sally was being over vivacious again during cheerleading practice," the eight-year-old said.

"Oh, vivacious is a new word," Danny smiled at her, setting her down on the couch.

"I learned it yesterday," Jane said proudly.

"Just like you, how do you manage that?" Danny asked his sister in wonder.

"It comes naturally little brother," Jazz said smiling mischievously at him.

Danny frowned and turned to his parents' new tenet.

Sam was a bit unsure about this man; he seemed familiar for some reason. His hair was black and unruly, his eyes an icy blue, and his figure stated that he worked out a lot.

"Hey, I'm Danny," he said, giving his hand to her for a shake.

She took it and was surprised that his grip wasn't very hard.

"Sam," she said and turned back to her youngest. "Alex sweety, can you hear me?"

"What happened to him?" Danny asked, leaning down with Sam to the boy's eyelevel.

"Phantom came in and shocked him into a statue," Jazz said, looking pointedly at him.

Danny's face became red and he rubbed the back of his neck in nervousness. Sam wondered why that would cause the man embarrassment.

"Maybe I can help," Danny said snapping his fingers in front of Alex's prone face. "Mom, do you still have those samples from last October?"

"Uh, yes, they're in the fridge," Maddie said, pointing to the kitchen.

Danny got up and walked into the kitchen. He came back with a small bowl of some green mushy stuff, and it looked like he was holding his breath.

"Oh this stuff is nasty," he muttered under his breath. "Okay, here we go."

He placed the bowl under Alex's nose and the boy nearly jumped out of his shoes from the smell.

"What was THAT!?" Alex squealed, holding onto Sam's leg.

"Cool!" Conner said getting closer to the goop, but Danny slammed the lid on it and hurriedly put it back in the fridge.

"You don't want to know," Jazz said looking like she was about to throw up.

"Well, now that I'm here," Danny said coming back in. "How about we get that mattress?"