Chapter 03

Danny eyed the building before him as Sam led the way up to the open double doors at the top of the white marble stairs. Sam grabbed his hand when Danny lagged behind, dragging him through the doorway and into the grand entrance hall. The white of the inside nearly blinded Danny, and he wanted to shy away from the stark, spotless world of the wealthy, but Sam refused to release his hand from her death grip. They crossed the entrance hall, and the stares following Danny didn't surprise him. He probably gave off some sort of middle class aura the wealthy could pick up on with a single look.

"Samantha!" Standing in the doorway to room where the benefit was being held, Mrs. Manson placed her hands on her hips, and a smoldering glare upon her pinched face of displeasure. Put next to each other, the difference in mother and daughter stood out sharply. Mrs. Manson's auburn hair was perfectly styled with not a single hair out of place and a slight curl at the ends brushing over her shoulders. Where Sam dressed in black and other dark colors, her mother wore bright pink, and expensive looking, dresses.

"Sam," she corrected with a pursing of her purple lips. If Danny had learned anything about his friend, it was that she hated being called Samantha.

Mrs. Manson bristled at the correction, her expression twisting as if she sucked on something particularly sour. "What happened to the dress I laid out for you?"

"I dressed appropriately," Sam argued, unaffected by her mother, unlike Danny, who currently wanted to blend into the shadows and disappear to avoid an awkward situation.

"You know full well that you were supposed to wear a dress to this."

"Too late now." Sam shrugged off her mother's rage. "It would take me forever to drive back home and change, and by then there would hardly be any point in coming back because I would have missed everything."

Mrs. Manson's expression soured, if possible, even further then snapped her attention onto Danny. "And what is he doing here?" Her tone actually made him flinch because it sounded like she was referring to him as a piece of trash being brought in to dirty up their perfectly clean home.

"I invited him," Sam answered with great finality in her voice. "And now we're holding up the line so we should just go inside already." She hooked her arm around one of Danny's arms then dragged him through the doorway past her mother without another word or a second glance.

Danny did glance back, however, and caught sight of Mrs. Manson gasping like a fish out of water in response to her daughter's rudeness. "Your mom is so never letting me near your house again."

"Like she hasn't threatened that before." Sam rolled her eyes.

"You do know that your mom just wants the best for you, right?"

Sam glared as if he had betrayed her, and Danny cringed away but her hold on his arm prevented him from escaping. "She might think she knows what's best for me, but I'm almost an adult. I should be able to make my own decisions about my life. If I just follow everything she wants me to do, then I'm nothing but a mindless lemming doing what I'm told. I don't want to be some stay at home wife of some rich guy."

"The money would be nice though," Danny said wistfully. His parents made enough money to live on, but they still ranked within middle class. They also refused to hand him money for nothing, requiring him to do chores for an allowance and suggesting he get a job if he wished for more spending money.

"Money isn't everything, Danny." Sam flicked him on the forehead, and he flinched. "I plan on doing something with my life. Something important. Which means not bowing down to my mom's wishes to become some silly housewife. Ugh," she groaned as something caught her attention.

Danny followed her gaze to a group of four women. Paulina stood out among them, wearing a delicate pink dress and her ebony hair draped over one bare shoulder with pink and white flowers decorating it. She still managed to take Danny's breath away, though a hard elbow to the ribs woke him out of his daze. He couldn't help it though. Sometimes when he looked at Paulina, he simply fell back to being fourteen and madly crushing upon the beautiful Hispanic woman.

Standing with Paulina, Star held a hand to her mouth, giggling over something said among their group. Her blonde hair was swept up in a twist and pinned in place with an orange flower. Valerie, on the other side, rolled green eyes with an appearance of boredom. Her soft powdery yellow dress looked stunning on her, and Danny thought maybe he saw a hint of annoyance in Paulina's emerald eyes. Didn't like being outshined, did she? The other woman was one Danny only recognized in passing but couldn't put a name to her bronzy face.

"And I think it's time we head in this direction," Danny said, guiding Sam toward the opposite side of the room. "Look. Drinks. I'm thirsty."

"See?" Sam sighed with perhaps a touch of relief. "This is exactly why I needed you here with me. If I was alone, I'd be too tempted to start something with Paulina."

"Well, at least, it looks like they serve some decent snacks." Danny picked up a bite sized treat from one of the platters on the table by the drinks. He popped it in his mouth then caught the wicked smirk on his friend's face.

"That was snail," Sam said, and Danny spat out the treat without a second thought. It made a splat as it hit the floor, Sam laughing the whole time.

"Ha, ha," Danny grumbled, grabbing a napkin to wipe his mouth clean. "I know I'm hilarious." Ugh, rich people food, he groaned internally as he crouched down and cleaned up the mess he made on the floor. No reason to leave it and risk someone slipping on it. He could hear Jazz's chiding voice in his head, spurring him to think of the potential danger of leaving food on the floor, besides that it was kind of disgusting. When he stood up again, Danny blinked as a pasty skinned redheaded man darted between him and Sam and picked up one of the same treats Danny had just spat out.

"Crab puffs! Yes!" The man popped it into his mouth then seemed to take notice of the people on either side of him. He gave an awkward smile with a mouthful of crab puff then slowly inched away from them. Meanwhile, Danny glared at his friend.

"Sorry," Sam said, biting her lip to hold back a snicker. "I couldn't resist. Your face was priceless."

"Oh, I see." Danny nodded, his blue eyes rolling slightly. "You brought me here as the entertainment."

Sam opened her mouth to respond, but she was cut off with an irritating,

"Sammikins!" Mrs. Manson approached them with the heels of her white shoes clacking on the polished flooring. She wore a false smile and pointedly ignored Danny as she placed herself between him and her daughter with her back to him. "Gregor just arrived," she announced in a singsong sort of way, voice filled with excitement. "Ah," she sighed, "if only you had worn that dress I picked out."

"It was ugly," Sam said flatly, narrowing her eyes unhappily.

"It was five hundred dollars and one of a kind," Mrs. Manson snapped. "No matter." She recovered, straightening out her dress. "Come. Come. He's been waiting to meet you for months."

"Mom, I'm not interested," Sam growled as her mother dragged her away to meet the mysterious Gregor.

Danny hesitated, knowing he should probably do something to help his friend. But Mrs. Manson already hated him, and Danny felt great certainty she would hurt him or worse for standing in her way. He could see from where Sam got her scary side. Mrs. Manson shooting a glare at him over her shoulder as she led her daughter away didn't encourage him to try rescuing Sam from meeting with some guy Danny doubted she would have even the tiniest bit of interest in. With a nervous gulp, he snapped his gaze away and feigned great interest in the crab puffs.

Snail. Danny shook his head as he picked one up to eat. But now without Sam, he basically had no one to talk to, and sweeping his gaze around the room, Danny felt even more out of place. After some time of standing there uselessly, he turned, deciding to seek out a trash can to throw away the napkin with the crab puff he spat out earlier, and bumped into a body he hadn't noticed was there. He winced at the gasp the woman released.

"Sorry," he said. Then Danny paled when she twisted around to pin him with a glare. Valerie's face scrunched up in anger as her drink soaked through the front of her dress.

"You," Valerie growled as she fisted a hold of the front of his shirt then jerked him forward a step. "You did that on purpose."

"No, no!" Danny argued, raising his hands before him. "It was an accident. I didn't see you!" He reached to grab some napkins to help dry off some of the moisture, but Valerie gave him a shove away from her hard enough to make him stumble and fall to the floor.

"You're lucky Dash and Kwan aren't here." Valerie pointed a finger at him, her green eyes cold, hard, and narrowed. "Now I have to go clean this up before the others see. I do not need to be laughed at for the next month because of this." She kicked him in the shin with the pointy toe of her high heels then stomped off to take care of cleaning up her dress.

Gotta remember to thank Sam for dragging me to this. Danny sighed as he climbed to his feet. A trash can stood in one corner of the room, and Danny tossed the napkin into it. He glanced around the room, spotting Sam on the other side. Her mouth pursed tightly, and Danny could imagine she was resisting the urge to deck the man in front of her. The man had this wild white hair sticking straight up, and he wore shades like he was some sort of celebrity. Danny snorted to himself, wondering what kind of idiot wore sunglasses inside. Whatever the man, Gregor Danny guessed, was saying, Sam didn't look pleased in the slightest, but her mother stuck by her side, making it impossible for Sam to ditch Gregor.

Danny wandered around the room, awkwardly trying to avoid people. At one point, he almost ran into Paulina but caught himself, spinning around on his feet to walk back the way he came. Before he got too far away, though, he heard part of the conversation.

"It's bad enough she has to come," Paulina said with a sneer in her voice, "but then she brings her loser friend too."

If he ever thought he had a chance with Paulina, that would have been a kick to the groin. Danny sighed, shaking his head. Since freshman year, he had tried to get in with the A List, wanting a chance at popularity, but every attempt had gone poorly. And usually ended with him being completely humiliated.

Danny paused when something caught his attention. As he passed by one of the tables set off to the sides of the room, he noticed a tablet sitting upon the white linen. The tablet, itself, wasn't anything unusual, but what he saw on the screen made him back up for a second look. The corner of his mouth twitched as he pulled out the chair to sit down, glad to get off his feet for a time. He stared at the tablet before a soft chuckle escaped him, and he fiddled with what was on the screen.

"Hey!"

Danny jumped, banging his knee on the table. "Ow," he groaned, rubbing at his sore knee as he turned to look up at the person who shouted at him. He blinked up into the bright blue eyes glaring down at him. The woman had to be at least a year, but no more than two, younger than he, but her black dress with the white sash around her narrow waist gave her a more mature appearance. Her raven hair was simply done, tied back in a low ponytail with her bangs swept to one side.

"What do you think you're doing?" She ripped the tablet away from him.

"Oh, I was just, um-" Danny fumbled for an answer. He knew he shouldn't be messing with something belonging to someone else, but he couldn't help himself when he saw what was on the tablet.

"I set it down for two seconds, and-" She blinked as she took in the screen. Then she plopped down in the seat next to him. "How did you do that? I've been staring at that problem for the last half hour trying to solve it."

Danny shrugged as he leaned on the table. "Guess it just comes naturally." Then his eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Wait. Have you been working on that the whole time you were here? Aren't you supposed to be paying attention to, uh, whatever this is?" He gestured toward the room and all the wealthy people gathered in it.

Blue eyes drifted briefly around the room before settling back on him. "What? You mean another pointless fundraiser promoting the whole 'going green' concept so the wealthy can feel good about themselves, like they're actually contributing to the solution of fixing the world's pollution problem?" She snorted. "Please. The money isn't going towards that. They just say that to look good then feed the money into other projects."

"You sound like my friend Sam." Danny laughed with a small shake of his head. "She's all about doing stuff to help the environment. This event must have her wanting to get up on a soapbox and start yelling at everyone about actually doing something instead of throwing money at a giant corporation that isn't going to help the environment at all."

"Your friend sounds like my kind of person." She smiled, but it slowly faded back into a frown. "So you're good at this kind of stuff?" She turned the tablet around to him, and the screen still showed the problem he had solved.

"I've been known to dabble a little here and there." Danny shrugged, trying to go for cool and nonchalant with his response. Though if the woman wanted to be impressed by someone's knowledge, Danny's sister was the genius between them. He frowned slightly, feeling Jazz's shadow creeping over him again. He could admit it. He was jealous. Jazz had brains, and she was fairly popular. Meanwhile, Danny sat in the losers' corner of the school, and his grades weren't nearly as good as his sister's.

"Maybe," she said thoughtfully as she stared at the tablet, "you could give me some help. My dad expects me to attend these stupid functions and maintain a 4.0 GPA." She rolled her eyes as she placed the tablet down on the table and flipped it off to conserve power. "But doing both is killer, and I'm barely keeping up with everything. But if you could, I don't know, tutor me, maybe I could get my grades up, and my dad would stop giving me the stink eye when he sees my grades."

"I don't know," Danny said hesitantly, a frown settling upon his face. "You could find someone a lot smarter to be your tutor."

She lifted her eyebrow in a look of "You have to be kidding me" before she shook her head. "If you can sit here for two seconds and solve a problem I spent half an hour on, you'll do fine."

Danny sighed at the hopeful look in her eyes. "All right. I guess we can give it a try."

"Great!" She rummaged through her black handbag to pull out her cell phone. "Just program in your number, and we can discuss payment."

"Payment?" Danny's eyes lit up as he took the phone. "You should have led with that." He quirked a smirk as he added his number to her contact list.

"Probably should have led with our names too." She stuck out her hand toward him. "Elle."

"Danny." He shook her hand then offered her phone back to her.


The freedom girl: Aw~ But aren't surprises supposed to be fun? Danny's always there for his friends. XD Sam counts on that fact. Jazz is always looking out for her baby brother. Even he acts like a brat about it. XD Aw thanks~ I wish I had had a teacher like Lancer!

Zuvios Gemini: Thanks! =D

midnight: Ugh school assignments. I'd like to forget about them. So true. XD Kwan's more of the "oh gosh! Did I hurt you? Here. Let me help you up." kind of guy. XD Dash is just a grumpy butt. That's probably how Harold gets a good night's rest. He dreams about various ways to kill Danny. It's always the butler in the murder mysteries, right? XD;;;

Tetractys: You'll just have to wait and see! 8) *looks at chapter number* Uh. Well, it might still be a few chapters. *whistles innocently* Well, Danny's luck is probably a little better since there are no ghosts around to pester him. XD

kirahphantom: Leave it to Sam to find some way around what her mother wants. XD If there's a way to piss off her mother, Sam will find it.