Planes

Originally by: Cordria.

Danny sluggishly opened his eyes and glanced around the crowded airplane. The man who had just jostled him continued walking, never apologizing for waking up the dozing teenager. Pushing himself more upright and working a kink out of his back, Danny stretched his arms. His back twinged painfully from the cramped seats and he groaned a little, checking his watch. There were still over two hours until the plane was scheduled to land.

Rubbing his eyes and fighting back a yawn, Danny glanced around the mostly-full plane. It was brimming with teenagers – many seemingly playing a 30,000 foot version of musical chairs. Tucker's seat beside him was empty for the moment, the famous red beret visible a few rows further up. Slumping back in his seat, Danny allowed himself a yawn and let his eyes drift back closed.

"A Botany of Desire people, sit down or you're not setting one foot on Hawaii!"

Danny grinned at the sound of his teacher's voice cutting through the soft conversation of the people on the jet. He knew that Lancer wouldn't really follow through with his threat. The past few weeks, the balding teacher had been positively pleasant. Despite the repetitious questions and the unending paperwork, Lancer had smiled more often in the last two weeks than he had in the past two years. Danny personally had at least a dozen detentions that Lancer's newly-found good mood had gotten him out of.

And to make it all better, the whole convoluted trip was Paulina's fault. When the students had started to talk about the yearly class trip, Lancer had physically blanched – along with a number of the students. Memories of the previous year's camping trip were still fresh in everyone's minds. The school staff, headed by Lancer, had quietly quelled all the talk with a simple announcement: the class trip was canceled.

There had been an almost instant rebellion. Lead by Coach Teslaff – who had firmly crossed her arms and demanded that the venerable tradition be continued – they had organized all sorts of meetings. It hadn't taken long for Lancer's group to give in, with the simple caveat that the trip take place nowhere near Amity Park or anything remotely ghostly or haunted.

The very next meeting, pretty Paulina, twirling her hair with a look of shallow confusion on her face, had stood up and said what could have been the stupidest thing she'd ever said: "How about we got to Hawaii? That's far away."

After the general laughter about bringing a class of teenagers to Hawaii, the meeting had disbanded with no decision made. But Paulina's silly suggestion had been seeded and, as the days passed, germinated. It worked its way through the teachers and the administration and, by the time the week was out, it was official. Casper High School was going to Hawaii. Even Sam was admitting, through gritted teeth of course, that Paulina had come up with a good idea.

Fund raising began in earnest milliseconds later. The trip wasn't going to be cheap for the students and many – unlike Paulina – didn't have parents that were willing to toss $1400 towards a school trip. Sam instantly refused to participate in the fundraiser on some moral ground Danny hadn't listened to, but she really didn't need the money anyways. Tucker, with the promise to never call them 'lovebirds' ever again if they would kiss once during lunch, magically managed to secure enough money to go… and a black eye that Danny, after a quick glance towards Sam, never mentioned.

Danny hadn't been nearly as lucky. His parents had steadfastly refused to pay a dime for the trip but, after months of fundraising and extra work on top of his normal activities, Danny had come up quite a bit short. He was days from not being allowed to go and one step from falling on his knees and begging – first from his parents, then Sam – when Lancer had suddenly handed him a slip saying he was paid in full.

Danny knew he hadn't paid enough, but whenever he brought it up, Lancer had glared at him and repeated the simple statement that he'd done the math and he wasn't going to do it again. Danny's account was paid and he could go on the trip. When Sam, Tucker, and his parents denied knowing anything about the mysterious extra money and Vlad had looked honestly shocked at the allegation that he would ever do anything nice for Danny, he'd tried his best to find out where it had come from. To no avail, however, and Danny eventually admitted defeat and gave up the search. It still bothered him, even now that he was on the plane and on his way.

All told, thirty-four students had made it on the trip, along with twelve adults and chaperons. Danny had suffered through a moment of panic when Lancer had proclaimed that anyone with detentions or failing grades wouldn't be allowed to go – and Danny had both at the time – but Lancer had handed over the boarding pass without a word. The only reason, Danny had figured, was because his parents had agreed to chaperone the trip. Ghost detection, defense, and mortal embarrassment wrapped in bright orange and blue and, thankfully, seated almost as far away as possible from Danny.

Slumping down into his small chair and doing his best to fall back to sleep, Danny figured that as long as he could avoid death by embarrassment from his parents, any Hawaiian ghosts, and whatever Dash's latest grudge was, this would be the best vacation ever.

He was nearly asleep when the plane lurched a bit, shaking him awake. He blinked his eyes open to look around, but the ground suddenly fell out from underneath them. Slamming into the seat in front of him and a strange roar filling his ears over the screams of his classmates, Danny's thoughts flew to his family and friends. A hand gripped his arm – whoever had ended up sitting next to him, Danny didn't have time to check – and the plane seemed to simply disintegrate around him.

He opened his mouth to scream, to fly, to do something, but a piece of debris slammed into his head and tossed him into blackness.