-Chapter Two-
Who, Invited Doppelganger over here?
A newspapers, by definition, are the modern day heralds of all sorts of tidings. By extension, however, it also brought new perspective, such as a green-eyed Danny Kern gracing the front pages.
Danny picked it up off the stand and gingerly examined the picture, only to have Sam snatch it away from him.
"It's at least two years old," Sam finally spoke up.
"Two years?" Danny widened his eyes and peered over her shoulder. "What's it say?"
Sam found the blurb in the article and began to read it aloud for them to hear. "Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson, wanted for question in the Long Island disappearance of his mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where he accosted several elderly female passengers. The bus exploded on an east New Jersey roadside shortly after Jackson fled the seen. Based on eyewitness accounts, police believe the boy may be traveling with two teenage accomplices. His stepfather Gave Ugliano, has offered a cash reward for information leading to his capture.'"
Exploding buses? Disappearing mothers? Danny shook his head. This doppelgänger of his was causing him a headache the size of Vlad's inflated ego. Distantly, Danny could even hear the bell ring, must be time for his consciousness to wake up cause this seemed exhausting.
Ever since Tucker had pointed out the weird looking guy in the papers, Danny couldn't stop seeing him everywhere. He showed up at school, briefly at the cafeteria, everywhere Danny could legally go in the school hours, mystery dude showed up. A mention there, a picture here, he couldn't avoid the strange kid who looked just like him.
There he was. Walking down the sidewalk with a grim expression by a couple of trees, Danny gaped. The weird kid who looked like him was right there.
"Mr. Kern, is the tree outside more entertaining or more educational than your literature class? Now tell me, what does Squealer in Animal Farm tell the animals about how Boxer got taken away?" Mr. Lancer kindly redirected his attention with a frown.
Danny opened his mouth to answer but closed it again. "Wasn't it Napoleon who said something, not Squealer?"
"Correct, Mr. Kern, I'm glad to see you actually doing your reading for once."
"Mr. Lancer," Danny raised his hand, "Could I be excused?"
With a sigh and a frown, Mr. Lancer nodded.
While he returned to the front of the classroom to scribble something on the blackboard, Danny darted out into the hall and into the restroom. He transformed, tingling with the electrifying energy – or ectoplasm rather. At the speed of a bullet, he burst through the ceiling and walls intangibly heading for the outside world. Danny swirled and slowly slipped into a landing pattern, lightening his speed and transfiguring his tail into legs. There stood the boy he had seen. Danny landed without a noise and invisibly took in the other's looks.
Wild black hair, a stubborn jaw, and those soft blue-green eyes reminded Danny of someone, whom he couldn't remember at that moment. He flashed into existence next to the T-shirt and jeans clad guy and smirked since he was directly behind him.
"Boo."
"Gahh!" He swung out a pen and the tip of a sword slammed before his face. "What in Hades' beard are you?"
Danny sassed back, "Well what are you doing in Hades' beard?"
He stood there, speechless and began to laugh. He laughed so hard, the stranger began to smack his knee with the hand not holding the sword, and he dropped the sword a little. Clearing his throat and wiping his eyes, the oddball sighed contentedly right before frowning at Danny. "Seriously, though what are you?"
"I'm a ghost." Danny raised a white eyebrow. "What never seen a ghost before?"
Sea eyes smirked, raising his sword back towards Danny's throat in an aggressive manner. "Oh, I've seen ghosts, you just don't look like the ones I've seen before."
His electric ecto-colored eyes blinked. Sword-y didn't look like he was kidding, but then again he had a sword. Wait – how did he get the sword? Didn't he have a pen at first? – Hold it, Kern! Focus. Danny breathed in softly, however deeply, and exhaled with just as little pressure. Was he here to contact the Fentons? …That could be dangerous. Great.
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?"
Percy Jackson, Sword-y's name as Danny remembered vaguely, shrugged. "Nah. Just a dam kid who has some relatives who need help. Again."
Danny nodded. "Phantom." And he offered his white gloved hand.
He lowered his sword and frowned. Just as Danny was about to retract his hand, he took with a full-blown grin. Wait where'd that sword go? "Name's Percy, Percy Jackson."
"What's the Percy stand for?"
"What's Phantom stand for?"
Danny shrugged his shoulders. "Fair enough. Well, as long as you're not causing any trouble, then I'll get going."
"Sounds good," Newly named Percy slipped his hand into his pocket, his other hand twirled a pen between his tan fingers. "Catch you later, Phantom?"
With that Danny felt rather satisfied and blasted into the air towards the school. The class bell rang and he cringed – well, at least it wasn't a ghost fight or the like, then he would have ended up skipping school all together rather than just Lancer's class.
Warmth of humanity tickled his nerve endings as he slipped back to his regular self. And just for effect, he flushed the toilet in the stall and went to go wash his hands. Or at least that's what he wanted to happen. This is what happened instead:
Danny's back groaned as someone threw him against the wall. Laughter rang in the boy's bathroom as the blonde elitist Dash Baxter curled up his first for a sucker punch. This was gonna hurt.
Ah, so much for the warmth of humanity, he felt like the chill of a ghost would have helped the bruise, Dash kindly gave him for Dash's failing grades.
As the bullies left, Danny tottered out the door and to his locker, grabbing some concoction that Sam had cooked up for him a while back. His mom always did tell him, "Life throws lemons, so it always beats being prepared to make some wicked good lemonade." She always did have the best phrases.
Rubbing some on, he ignored the cooling sting and muttered quietly, trying to sort out his thoughts concerning the Percy-kid. He had a sword, and obviously he could use it. Everywhere he looked, there was something to do with Percy and of course he couldn't forget about the weird article sending a man hunt after that kid two years back. Frowning, his innards contorted funny. Something wasn't right.
"Hey, Danny," He swiveled around to see his best friends Tucker and Sam frowning at him. "You okay? What happened back there? A ghost?"
Danny rolled his shoulders back. "Not a ghost, I saw him though. That Percy kid, you know, my double?"
"Well technically speaking he would be more your doppelgänger. But anyway, what'd he say?" Sam crossed her arms.
"How'd you- never mind. He said he was here temporarily." He took out his books for the next class – Algebra yeah…. – and shut his locker door. "Percy said he was just passing through, but here's the thing. He's never been to Amity, but he's seen ghosts, different kinds of ghosts!"
"Different types of ghosts?" His friends blinked and spoke almost at the exact same time.
Danny nodded. "Different types of ghosts. But the funny thing is, he had a sword that he could disappear. I know I've met ghosts with swords and I've fought them using swords, but he was using a sword like he was a samurai or something."
While they pondered the sword, Danny couldn't ignore his twisting gut. He frowned, and cracked his fingers against his book. The three of them continued chatting about Sword-guy Percy and what would happen now that he was in town. If he was dangerous like that article said two years ago, then Danny might have to do something he never wanted to do.
"Welcome class!" Ms. Siobhan pleasantly smiled at the class. "Take your seats and will begin by turning in our books to page 394."
He settled down near the door at the end of the classroom and popped open his book. Taking his time, Danny flipped through the pages, all those numbers shifting across the page only strengthened his headache. Even though English was his least favorite class what with the letters blurring and churning like butter in front of his eyes. And of course, Danny mumbled unconsciously to himself, "numbers just had to make no sense to him and scramble like eggs."
Never, ever, ever did Danny let this come to the attention of his friends or family, his mom had enough to deal with and his friends were busy fighting for their lives. Messed up words and letters never seemed like a big deal to him, as long as he managed to pass his classes with at least a C.
"Ms. Johnson, could you describe what the lesson is on in your own words?" Ms. Siobhan gestured to Star.
Star cleared her throat and smiled. "Well it looks like we're supposed to be doing long division with equations instead of just numbers."
"Correct. Our lesson today is a launching point into Algebra II. So we will be learning polynomial division." At the groans she tutted. "Now, now. This is the advanced class. All of you would have had your former math teacher's permission to join this class as by the end of sophomore year we will be prepping for the ACTs. So don't groan and don't mumble, you're all gifted students with a bright future ahead."
Rolling his electric blue eyes, Danny tried his best to concentrate on the problems. Special math class for gifted students because they had a future, sounded like a bunch of baloney to him. He had absolutely no idea how he even got into that class.
Ms. Siobhan squeaked the marker on the whiteboard and began to diligently explain how the numbers and signs interacted in the strange division. Further on she brushed on what it looked like to then take that and work it like a regular problem. She left one problem on the board.
"I want you all to work on this problem and when you're finished, come up front and put your name by at the bottom of the board." The plump woman sat in her swivel chair and began scratching down something on a piece of paper.
With all that in mind, Danny took out his colored pencils and began to painstakingly write down every single part of the problem with different colors. Each same part got the same color. And Danny began to work on the problem at hand.
Time ticked by and names were on the board, Tucker's was the first –no surprise there – and Valerie's next. Before long Sam's name was on the board and other people wrote their name. Time clocked halfway and Ms. Siobhan stood up. Danny finally looked up from his problem and noticed the board. Everyone in the class had written their name on the board except for him.
"Mr. Kern, are you finding the problem all right?"
He sighed. "I am, I just need more time to work on it."
"I see." Ms. Siobhan hummed, her russet-colored eyes staring at him before switching to Tucker. "Now, Mr. Foley, could you explain to the class your answer and how you got your answer?"
Proudly, Tucker went onto to not only do that but effectively give a lecture on why all popular kids will eventually work for nerds and geeks.
Danny blinked at the sudden note on his desk. Once he deciphered the shifting words, he jotted down his own message and passed it back. Again, Sam was worried for him. Not surprising as she seemed to almost always worry about him despite many of his situations being her fault because of her overly aggressive nature.
The bell rang, ending Tucker's speech, and Ms. Siobhan dismissed the class assigning twenty-odd problems. Before he could leave, the red-head math teacher stopped him. "Mr. Kern I wish to speak to you for a moment."
"What is it?"
"You have Dyscalculia, do you not?"
Danny bit his lip. "What makes you think that?"
"Your methods for coping. Do not think for a moment I do not see all my students and all their ways of finding the answers." The middle-aged, short woman tapped a pencil on her desk. "So it doesn't surprise me that that might be the case. Have you found any support group of sorts?"
"I have a mom who's always working," Danny snorted, "and I've got a million and one things to do for school and at home, I don't have time to find support groups or stuff like that."
Ms. Siobhan set the wooden number two pencil down. "We have groups here at school. It is a quiet one that not many people know about, just the teachers and the participating students. It is held every Saturday in the morning at eight. I understand that you many not desire to be a part of it, however please consider it. You would be a lovely addition to the group and perhaps those grades would go upwards."
"I'll think about it." Danny scratched the back of his neck.