Somehow

Manners 101: How to Politely Decline a Dinner Invitation

Without a life vest I'd be stuck again
Wish I was much more masculine
Maybe then I could learn to swim

"Into the Ocean" - Blue October

"It's a fruit."

"It's not a fruit."

"Totally a fruit."

"Totally not a fruit."

"Fruit."

"Bullshit. It's not a fruit."

"It is a fruit. It has a seed."

"That's not a seed, that's a pit, Sam."

Sam sighed. Tucker could be such a child sometimes. "Tucker," she said with raised eyebrows.

"Sam." He responded in a similar manner.

Sam looked the boy dead in the eye. Her eyes were narrowed and on the brink of condescending. She pinched the bridge of her nose before taking a deep breath and saying, "An avocado is a fruit."

"No it's not!" Tucker burst out, standing up from his seat and rattling the food that littered the table.

Several people in the restaurant looked towards them at Tucker's outburst, but no one said a word. They were far too used to the friendly bickering that occurred between the two on a near-constant basis to question it.

"Give it up, Tuck." Sam said. "A fruit is defined by whether or not it has seeds. An avocado has a seed. It's clearly a fruit."

"It is clearly not a fruit." Tucker countered. He withdrew his smartphone from his pocket and began tapping the screen. "If you can make it into a pie, then it's a fruit. Have you ever seen an avocado pie? I haven't. Avocados are definitely not—oh." The teenager stared at his smartphone screen for a number of seconds, blinking every now and again.

"Still not a fruit," He finally spoke sometime later, tapping the lock button on his phone and attempting to put it away as discreetly as he possibly could. A blush lit his dark skinned cheeks. "An avocado is a nut, not a fru—"

Sam cut him off by lashing out suddenly and taking his phone. She easily typed in the boy's password, earning a disgruntled "hey!" from him in the process, before accessing the phone's home screen. Sam puled up Tucker's most recently visited page.

"'Avocados,'" she read off the webpage with a raised eyebrow, "'or Alligator Pears, refers to the fruit, botanically a large berry that contains a single seed.'"

Sam grinned in victory and handed Tucker his phone back. "If Google says it, it's fact."

"I still don't believe it."

"You don't have to," Sam stated smugly. "But, since it is, in fact, a fruit, you now have to make an avocado pie."

Tucker suddenly looked a little pale. "Who on earth would ever do that?"

Sam shrugged. "Probably someone who believes the sole distinction on whether or not something is a fruit is by their edibility if made into a pie."

"Witches are made of wood…"

Sam rolled her eyes at the reference. "Alright, Tuck, enough of this, we got places to be."

Tucker groaned. He hated leaving his food unfinished. If he was going to get an XXL Triple Nasty Deluxe Burger: Supreme (limited edition, of course), he should very well be able to eat all of it! No wonder Sam finished her food faster than he finished his! She ordered a salad. A salad! Can you believe that? The very concept of plants coming anywhere near his mouth made him feel a little green – no pun intended.

"You have places to be," Tucker corrected, taking a whopping bite out of his burger, as if to determine his stance on the matter.

"Yeah, and so do you. Your movie starts in a half hour."

"Oh shit," Tucker gasped, dropping the remnants of his burger. "I totally forgot about that. Valerie's gonna kill me if I'm late."

"Got that right. So what's it gonna be: scary girlfriend or disgusting half-eaten burger?" Sam smirked at his glare.

Tucker sighed and turned his attention to his burger. "It has been a joyous ride, my dear sweet Triple Nasty Deluxe. And although you were supreme, my lady awaits, and we shall have to continue our delicious love affair..." He ran a finger along the smushed bun seductively, "...another time."

"You're ridiculous." Sam said with a deadpan expression.

"You think all love is ridiculous."

"I-" Sam paused for a moment. "...True. Anyway, I have a job I gotta get to and you've gotta movie to catch."

Sam and Tucker stood from the booth and threw their trash away (with Tucker wishing his hamburger one last tearful goodbye) and left the restaurant. Sam shot Tucker a "smell ya later" and Tucker responded with a simple two fingered salute as he hopped on his moped to get to his movie, which was across town.

Sam smirked at her hurrying friend. She and Tucker had known each other since they were kids - they hated each other at first, mind you, but grew fond of each other at the start of fifth grade when Sam was finally allowed to attend public school (after being thrown out of every private school her parents attempted to send her to). The duo befriended Valerie at the beginning of their Freshman year of high school, when she and her dad moved from Luistonville a few towns over after her dad got demoted from his job and they had to find more affordable housing.

It took a while for Sam to warm up to her but Tucker was head over heels. The two were making eyes at each other all throughout Freshman year and by the last day of school they stopped denying the "love birds" jibes thrown at them by their fellow classmates (and Sam herself). Come Sophomore year, the two were dating, and have been ever since.

They were ridiculous. But that was Sam - she thought that all love was ridiculous. Not bad per say, just... ridiculous.

She scoffed and shook her head, unlocking her car and stepping inside. Normally she would have opted for a bike on a day as nice as today but Sam was headed to the Fenton's house for her first day at work... and the last thing she wanted to be was late.

Punching the address into her GPS, Sam took off.

The Fenton's house really wasn't all that far from the restaurant, and quite honestly Sam was surprised she didn't see it from miles away.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting before she came to their house - they were rich, after all, so maybe something big but... humble was on Sam's list of "things she expected."

That's what Jazz told her, anyway. She was the Fenton's daughter, the one in charge the intern process. Sam's never met her in person but had talked to her plenty of times over the phone, Skype, and through email. She specifically wrote, "You can start Monday, one o'clock. Here's our address, but I really don't think you'll have any trouble finding our humble abode."

Okay well, now that Sam actually got her first good look at their house, she could definitely detect the sarcasm in Jazz's last email.

The house itself was amazing. Built into the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean, the house had to be worth several million dollars. It was gorgeous: grand brick walls stretching several stories into the air topped by a gigantic observatory on the roof - large and made of glass, the observatory looked like it was built for stargazing. Sam couldn't see the other side of the house, but she wouldn't be surprised if they drilled into the cliffside and incorporated it into the overall design. Sam wondered what kind of toys they had to travel the ocean - boats, subs, whatever else.

However, there was one more thing about the Fenton's house that really made it stand out among the other beautiful observatory-topped multi-story cliffside brick houses... And Sam wasn't surprised at all, come to think of it.

There were signs. Big, gigantic, enormous green and orange neon signs flashing on the front of the house screaming "FENTON WORKS" with, get this, an arrow pointing towards the front door.

At least she didn't have any trouble finding the place. Gulping, Sam stepped out of her car and walked over to the door. She stood in front of it for what seemed like an hour before finally gathering her nerves and ringing the doorbell.

Honestly, Phantom's had enough.

Okay, so, crustaceans are great. Really, Phantom wasn't a picky eater. But after twenty teeny tiny clams with a side of stale seaweed, he was just tired of it. The taste got old real fast. They were dry, no flavor. No appealing factors. And Phantom's metabolism was so fast that all the clams and seaweed really did was give his mouth and hands something to do to pass the time.

Which is why he was here, chasing a giant tuna deep beneath the waves.

These waters were odd, that's the first thing he registered. They were very clear - which made it only that much harder for him to sneak up on his prey. His pitch black scales and tail made hunting in the deep dark waters of the Atlantic a dream, however in the bright sunny waters of the "Florida Straits," he was a dead give away, like a fish out of water. He was a starving predator, and at this point a painfully obvious dark spot in the crystalline ocean. He's seen boats rushing to and fro overhead, which prompted him to dive deeper until he was kicking up sand on the ocean floor.

It wasn't too deep here, thankfully - Phantom didn't want to push his luck deep sea swimming at this point, as his gills were heaving from his prolonged game of tag with the freaky looking megalomaniacal bounty hunter. He saw no humans nearby, heard nothing - he even let out a shriek or two to see if anything would return the echo to his location. Nothing did, although there were a few blunt oblong objects lined along the ocean floor not too far from where he was - about as long as his forearm, oval shaped, possibly manmade but not a likely threat.

And this giant tuna.

Phantom must have been chasing this thing for ten minutes. It was just so damn fast. Sure, Phantom could catch it if he really wanted to, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself - either from other merfolk or something more dangerous. He could also sneak up on it using his special little power set, however the energy needed for that stunt, well, he just didn't have. So he'd have to catch this guy the old fashioned way. Stalk, chase, kill.

"Hey," Phantom grunted in frustration as the silver fish evaded him once again. It was all open sand and water down here, making it more of an arms race than anything else. "Listen, pal. I just wanna be friends. Invite you to dinner. Meet your buddies. Does that sound so bad?" The fish flicked its tail in offense, seeming to eye him disbelievingly from two hundred feet away.

It sped off again, looping around Phantom and taking off in a different direction.

"C'mon." Phantom moaned, reluctantly chasing after it. He would have given up if this wasn't the best fish he's seen in weeks. And the only one around here.

This thing would set him up to eat like a king for at least a week. Maybe a week and a half.

"Can't you just cut a guy a break? I'm starving!" Phantom called after the fish as he swam after it, pushing himself to go a little faster out of frustration.

He couldn't see it anymore. The silver sheen of its body made the damn thing tough to decipher in the clear waters. Phantom stopped and groaned, and let out a quick, high-pitched shriek.

And listened.

Like clockwork, sound waves returned. The giant soon-to-be delicious tuna wasn't that far ahead. Phantom could catch it.

But in his chase, he didn't realize that it brought him directly over the blunt and possibly human-made objects he detected earlier.

He looked down and saw them - two oblong objects sticking out of the sand, about fifty feet apart from one another. They were shiny.

Phantom could feel his curiosity getting the better of him and he sighed, chuckling bitterly. He hoped to Poseidon his dinner would still be somewhere up ahead taunting him after he was done looking at the shiny things.

He swam down to the nearest one to get a closer look. It was silver, like the fish he was trying to catch. It stuck up out of the ground like a piece of garbage, but it wouldn't budge when Phantom tugged on it. It was rounded on the top, and one side of the object was made of some shiny black plastic.

It looked new.

For some reason, he really, really didn't like it.

Phantom wasn't sure what compelled him to do it, but using as much strength as his starving body would let him, he pulled the thing and forced it out of the ground, revealing a mess of wires and barnacles.

"Oh," Phantom muttered, taking one more look at the strange object he now held in his hand. "Dunno why, but I was expecting something more exciting." He threw the thing into the sand and took off after the tuna again, deciding that the other strange human thing wasn't worth his time.

Sam didn't have to wait very long before the door was thrown open.

"Sam!" The Fenton's daughter Jazz said excitedly, immediately ushering Sam inside the house. "So glad you found the place."

"Pretty hard to find," Sam deadpanned with a hint of a smile, "It's pretty hidden."

"Oh I know it. My friends can never find it. Always getting lost." Jazz sniggered. "It's good to finally meet you in person, Sam. Your eyebrows, by the way, are so on point."

"Really?" Sam said in surprise, reaching a hand up to them, the sudden and random compliment making her suddenly feel self-conscious. "Um... thank you?" She struggled for a counter-compliment - she wasn't good at this kind of stuff. She didn't have many girl friends for a reason.

"I like your... headband?" That was lame. But it was something.

"You do?! It's new, actually." Jazz said, running a hand along the teal fabric of the headband. It was long, wrapping around her hair and falling over her shoulders. It was pretty, she pulled it off well. "First time wearing it out, breaking it in, you know." Jazz waved her hand, smiling like Sam made her entire day.

She was one of those painful optimists, Sam could already tell. Always happy-pappy all day long. Sam shot a brief internal curse at the gods. She already had to deal with Tucker... now there was another one?

"So!" Jazz clasped her hands together, smiling at Sam. She had a pretty smile, too. In fact, that's the first thing Sam noticed about her. Jazz was pretty. All pale skin, flaming orange hair, bright blue-green eyes and freckles. She had a "smart" look about her, like she spent all her time in the library with her face pressed into a book.

"It's your first day, so first-things-first, I should show you around." Jazz made a wide, sweeping motion with her hands and Sam finally took the time to look around inside the gigantic house she would be working in. Despite its outlandish exterior, the interior of the house was relatively normal. It was comfortable, beachy, with a large flatscreen television in the middle of the wall on the far side of the living room she was currently standing in. There was a large overstuffed whicker couch pushed up against the opposite wall with a few matching recliners on either side and a faded hardwood coffee table in the middle. It was an open-concept design, and Sam could see the spacious modern kitchen right around the corner.

What really stood out about the area, though, were the windows. They were gigantic, taking up almost the entire far wall backing up to the cliffside. It created a sort of panoramic ocean view, unlike anything Sam's ever seen.

"Yeah," Sam muttered, the view having briefly put her at a loss for words. "That sounds like a good idea."

"Great!" Jazz said, smiling at Sam's gaze. "Follow me, then. Obviously this is where we live - see that recliner? That's dad's. Don't sit on that one. Mom doesn't care though so feel free to relax wherever you want. The kitchen is right over here, please help yourself to anything we have in our fridge but I'm warning you, Mom's notorious for accidentally poisoning the food so if it even looks a little iffy, don't touch it." She led the way into the kitchen and the first thing Sam saw was the large, bulky steel door on the far side. It seemed oddly out of place in the beachy-themed modern kitchen, like somebody brought a bank vault to the beach and plucked it in the sand.

"What's that?" Sam asked curiously, gesturing to the gigantic vault.

"That," Jazz grinned mischievously. It was a look she wore oddly well. "That's where we work."

"We're working in a vault?"

"Kind of." Jazz walked over to the door and cranked the circular latch. It swung open without a sound, revealing a dark staircase leading much deeper than Sam would have expected.

"Is that... your basement?"

"It's our lab." Jazz corrected. "Subterranean lab, technically. You wouldn't believe how long it took to build this baby. My parents went nuts. Anyway, down we go." She took off down the stairs, leaving Sam to look after her with a look of utter disbelief on her face. Talk about eccentric, looks like it runs in the family.

She followed behind.

"So, uh..." Sam started as she descended deeper down the stairs. It was dark, and she hoped beyond hope that she wouldn't trip over her own feet. "Um... Is it just you around here?"

Jazz looked over her shoulder at Sam and shot her a smile. "Yeah. Mom and Dad told me to show you the ropes. They got a hit on a few of their marine life monitors out in the Straits, something about a big fish they've never seen before. Took one of the boats out to check it out, you shoulda seen 'em - they were all worked up."

"One of?"

"Well yeah," Jazz laughed - high, striking, and pretty (of course). She reached the landing and rounded the corner, Sam right on her heels.

And she nearly fell over.

When Jazz said it was a "subterranean lab", she didn't mention that it was straight out of a sci-fi movie. Like a massive, looming cave etched into the cliffside, its large vaulted caverns hung overhead, stalagmites rising from the floor and hanging from the ceiling. The stalagmites hanging from the ceiling were obviously there by design, made into lights that cast warm shadows across the scattered tabletops, desktop computers, various fishtanks, observatory stations, random inventions and testing equipment littered around the lab.

But what really rocked her world was the enormous, huge, gigantic underwater window that took up the entire "mouth" of this massive cave. She could see fish swimming to-and-fro. They weren't scared, although she was sure they could see the lights from the other side of the glass. Was it one-way glass? Camouflaged?

Either way, Sam was amazed. Blown out of the water, actually.

"Of course we have more than one boat," Jazz continued nonchalantly, as if this were totally normal to her and the massive and beautiful lab didn't take her breath away. It probably was, come to think of it. "You really think my parents could be my parents if they had just one boat?"

Well when she put it like that... Sam couldn't help it. She laughed.

Phantom almost had it. Almost. He even got his hands on its tailfin. Managed to scratch it. It was toying with him, but Phantom didn't care. He knew for sure he'd catch it eventually, what with his superior intellect and all.

Phantom was a merman. He wouldn't be outsmarted by a tunafish.

Then it turned tail and swam. Swam so fast that Phantom didn't have a dream of catching up with it, not in his current state of malnutrition.

He wanted to scream. That was his dinner. That was his only hope of not going hangry-ballistic. In all his time chasing it, he's maybe seen one halibut from a distance however Phantom was a notorious gambler - he wanted the bigger prize.

That was two hours ago.

And now the tuna was gone.

Why was the world so against him? Sure, he was a cheater, a stealer, a troublemaker, and a liar, but did that really make him a bad person? He still deserved to eat.

He even offered to be friends. Who would turn down a dinner invitation with him?

Whatever. Phantom didn't need that tuna's judgement. It didn't know his life.

He's just going to ignore the fact that tuna was his favorite.

As he skulked and lamented over the loss of his prized fish and his rapidly decreasing energy after the hours-long chase on an empty stomach, Phantom failed to see the white underbelly of a boat creeping quietly overhead.

There's chapter two! Still messing with the idea, thank you all for your support! Updates will be sporadic because school and yeah but they'll (hopefully) happen.

I headcannon that Jazz and Jack have very similar personalities - both being a little eccentric and very optimistic. Maddie is more analytical and mischievous.

Please leave a review on your way out.

Peace,

Rookey