Chapter 04

Waking up the next morning, his chest felt sore from the abuse it suffered yesterday at lunch. Some of the bruises faded, but the majority remained dark and ugly. Danny dressed quickly and grabbed his book bag from where it hung off his chair. When he reached the kitchen to grab his breakfast, he raised his eyebrows when he saw his mother serving up a plate of pancakes while his father got out the syrup.

"You're not in the basement?" Danny asked with some surprise as he took his seat at the table.

"Well, since we finished up our latest project yesterday," his father said, joining his son. "So we decided to take a little break and start work a little later than usual today."

Danny nodded as his mother sat down, placing the plate with a large stack of pancakes in the center of the table. "It's good to take breaks. You wouldn't want to overwork yourself, now would you?"

"Quite right," his mother said and took a sip from her glass of water. "But don't think you can use that excuse to slack off and not do your homework." She gave him a stern stare that she used when she meant business.

"I couldn't slack off even if I wanted to." Danny piled some pancakes onto his plate with a grin. He usually felt too lazy in the morning to make anything like pancakes and normally only fixed up a bowl of cereal or oatmeal or occasionally made eggs. "If I don't keep my grades up, Lancer won't allow me to keep up with my job taking pictures for the newspaper."

"That's my boy!" His father gave him a slap on the back, and Danny nearly spilled his water. "Such a go getter! You want to do something, and you get out there and find a way to make it happen. Now if only you took some interest in our work." He frowned, almost pouting.

"Which would be easier if I had any idea what kind of work you did." Danny reached over and patted his father on the shoulder. "I bet it's really fascinating." His father's dark blue eyes lit up with the exciting prospect of talking about whatever they worked on in the basement.

"And yet, we can't talk about it." His mother's stern look turned on her husband, who sighed in disappointment.

Danny frowned as he chewed on a mouthful of pancakes. After he swallowed, he said, "Sometimes, it really sucks that you work for the government. Just," he shrugged, "it would be nice sometimes to hear about what you work on." He frowned as he pushed around the last few bites of his breakfast. "Sometimes people think that because you work so much, you don't care about Jazz and me."

"You know we love though, right?" His mother frowned with worry as she reached across the table to take hold of his hand and squeeze it. His father rested a hand on his shoulder with the same concerned expression on his face.

"Of course." Danny smiled reassuringly at his parents. "It just gets kind of frustrating to hear those comments from the other kids at school. But they don't know anything about our family. You've always been great parents to Jazz and me." He heard a honk from outside. "And that's my ride." He got up from the table and grabbed his book bag. "I'll see you after school." He hugged his father then walked over to give his mother a kiss on the cheek before he hurried to the front door and exited the house. He felt a little guilty even bringing that up to his parents, knowing it probably hurt them and made them feel like he thought they weren't being good parents, but there was a small sense of relief to actually speak up about that frustration.

"How are you today?" Sam asked, frowning at her friend as Danny hopped into the back seat of her car.

"A bit sore," Danny said and rubbed at his chest. "But it's not like I haven't taken a beating before." He shrugged.

"That doesn't make it right." Sam glowered as she pulled the car away from the curb and headed off to school. "Bullies shouldn't be allowed to get away with that."

"They got punished right alongside me, so I can't be too angry." Danny leaned back against his seat. "Not that I'm not angry, because I am. But Lancer really didn't have a choice. I fought back, so he had to include me in the punishment."

"It just sucks though." Sam's hands tightened around the steering wheel.

"You're not going to do something crazy, are you?" Tucker asked, frowning at her with a hint of worry sneaking into his green eyes. "Like start up some crazy campaign to get the school rules changed or something?"

"Why is that crazy?" Sam snapped her head around to glare at him. "Why should victims of bullying be punished if they fight back to defend themselves?"

"Sam, it's a nice idea, but the rule is there to try to stop violence in school," Danny said, raking a hand through his hair. "We're lucky that we weren't just kicked right out of school. And that fight never would have started if it wasn't for Calvin anyway. Heaven forbid I drop their stupid football on the floor and refuse to pick it up after he threw it at me, on purpose, and got my lunch all over me." He rolled bright blue eyes, feeling frustration rising inside him. "Anyway, getting the rule changed won't fix anything. If you want things to change, you need to figure out a way to stop the bullying."

"Oh, and how do I do that?" Sam snapped her gaze to the rearview mirror, glaring at him through it. "Should I go play nice with Paulina?"

"To be fair, it couldn't hurt." Danny winced as those violet eyes narrowed in the reflection of the mirror. "I'm just saying that if we could somehow get the A list to be nice to everyone, bullying would decrease."

"That's far too idealistic, Danny." Sam shook her head.

"I have to agree with Sam on this one," Tucker said with some reluctance. "There's no way the A list will ever start being nice to everyone."

Danny sighed. "Yeah, but it's a nice thought though." He was still holding out on the hope that his talk with Dash yesterday might improve their relationship, at least in the sense that Dash wouldn't bully him as much.

When they arrived at school, they climbed out of Sam's car and headed into the building. Danny swallowed nervously as they neared the A list section of the hall, fearing that Dash would decide to stick to his bullying ways. But they passed without harassment, and when Danny glanced toward the three friends, he saw that Dash didn't even bother to look his way. He smiled a little to himself as he returned his focus to his friends. Maybe things were starting to take a turn for the better, as long as he steered clear of Calvin. After grabbing a book from his locker, he waved goodbye to his friends and headed off to his first class.

Danny was glad he didn't have a class with Calvin as it allowed to stay focused on what the teacher was saying without constantly throwing worried looks around the room to see if the jock was waiting for a chance to beat him up. He sighed tiredly then shuddered as he remembered yesterday during his punishment in which Calvin tried to drown him in dirty dish water. But the memory wasn't the only reason he shuddered. A wave of coldness washed through the room, and he noticed that the other students reacted similarly. He turned his head toward the door of the classroom as the sound of faint giggling caught his ear.

The sound of a ruler slapping against the blackboard jerked everyone's attention back to the front of the class where their teacher stared down her long, hooked nose at them. "Perhaps I should give a pop quiz to see just how many of your were paying attention to today's lesson," she said with a scowling frown as her green eyes narrowed at them, snapping around the room. Every student shook his or her head in response, and their teacher wrinkled her nose before she continued with her lecture.

Danny tried to return his attention to his homework, but his mind kept wandering back to what just happened. He, and everyone else apparently, felt a chill. It was the same as last night. No windows in the room were open, and the school was at a reasonably warm temperature, and the room had no drafts. Why did it feel like the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees? His blue eyes drifted over toward the door to the classroom. And why did he hear that laughter? His brow creased as he turned it over in his mind, but he couldn't come up with any answers.

Shaking the thought from his head, Danny forced his attention back onto what the teacher was saying. He couldn't allow for distractions if he wanted to maintain his grades. When lunched rolled around, he was happy to get out of class and filed out with the rest of his classmates.

"You seemed a bit distracted," Sam said, lifting an eyebrow at him as they walked down the hall with each other.

Danny shook his head. "You didn't feel any weird chills today, did you?" He glanced at her with a worried furrowing of his brow, but Sam merely stared back at him in confusion. "There was this weird moment when-" He shivered like an ice cube was suddenly dropped down his shirt.

"Like that?" Sam hugged her arms about her body as she rubbed at her arms despite the long sleeved shirt she wore.

"Yeah." Danny nodded and glanced about the hall, his ears alert for that laughter he heard the last time. Then he heard it again, faintly in the distance. "I'll catch up with you later!"

"Wait! Danny!"

But Danny jogged down the hall, ignoring Sam's calls as he followed after the sound. He weaved his way through the crowd of students heading for the cafeteria. Turning down another hall, he managed to break away from the sea of students. He glanced back to see the tail end of the students disappearing around the corner before the giggling drew his attention to the other end of the hall. He took a few steps down the hall then paused.

It was faint at first, the woman with silvery blonde hair tied up in a high ponytail with the ends neatly twisted and her flesh had an icy blue hue to it. She laughed as she twirled about the hall with the skirt of her Casper High cheerleading uniform flaring up with the movement. But the uniform didn't match the ones they had. It looked decades old. Her whole appearance made her look out of place as if she was yanked forward from the past. When she spun his way, Danny caught a flash of red eyes. For several long moments, he could only stand there watching, shivering lightly in the chilly hall and barely noticing the way his breath appeared in a puff of white with each exhale.

Then he fumbled around in his book bag, searching for his camera. He barely managed to get it out and snap a photograph before the woman simply vanished from sight. Warmth slowly returned to hall, and Danny blinked several times at where the woman was last seen. Then he dropped his gaze to his camera. Did he actually manage to capture a picture of her?

"There you are!" Sam said when she finally caught up to him. "What happened back there?"

Danny turned around hesitantly to see his friends standing behind him with concerned looks on their faces. "Guys," he said with a massive amounts of uncertainty about whether or not he should even mention it to them, "I think I just saw a ghost." He knew the only way anyone would believe him was if he actually caught the picture of her, assuming that ghosts could even be photographed. He didn't often watch shows with people that investigated the paranormal, but the few times he caught a show like that on television, their pictures were always fuzzy and never anything clear. He would probably be lucky if he merely caught a blur of something misty on film.

"Dude, ghosts aren't real," Tucker said, concern still in his green eyes. "Did you stay up late watching horror movies again?"

"No, I stayed up doing my homework." Danny glanced down at his camera. As soon as developed the roll, he would show them the picture. Though if nothing turned up on the picture, it would only serve to make him look crazy. "She was right there." He pointed down the hall at where the woman was. "I could see right through her!"

"Right, Danny," Sam said, nodding her head, but there was disbelief in her eyes. "Maybe you just thought you saw a ghost. Maybe you just need to get some more sleep at night."

"I'm not crazy," Danny said flatly, frowning at his friends. "And I'll show you. I'll go straight to the dark room and develop this film." He held up his camera then headed down the hall and toward where the school had a dark room for photography class and yearbook pictures purposes. "You two can go head to lunch. I shouldn't be too long."

"We never said you were crazy," Tucker protested as he and Sam hurried to walk with him through the halls.

"You didn't have to say it." Danny's mouth thinned as frustration rolled over him. He knew exactly what he saw, but no one else was there to see it too. It didn't come as a surprise at all that his friends wouldn't believe him when he said he saw a ghost. Before a moment ago, he certainly wouldn't believe anyone else if they said that they saw one.

When they arrived at the dark room, Danny went into it alone and got to work developing the roll of film. He had gone through this process many times over the years and could do it swiftly in the darkness without being able to see.

"Danny, lunch is going to be over by the time you get those pictures developed," Sam said, knocking on the door to the dark room.

"I told you that you could go to lunch without me." Danny opened the door with the developed roll in his hand as he held it up to the light and looked at the final image on the strip. "You can't really see anything like this." He frowned, and his friends leaned in to try and get a better look at the image on the roll.

"I only see the hall," Tucker said as his brow creased and his eyes squinted.

"Just wait until have the time to actually get the picture developed," Danny grumbled, rolling up the film to place into a container from his bag. "Then you'll see." He hoped, at least.

"Well, if we're lucky, maybe we still have enough time to grab something quick for lunch." Sam placed her hands on her friends' shoulders and ushered them out of the photography classroom.

Shoving the film container into his book bag, Danny frowned the entire way to the cafeteria. If that chill in the classroom that morning was the result of a ghost's presence, then did that mean a ghost passed by his room last night while he was talking to Jazz? His brow furrowed as that thought turned over in his mind.

Some Weird Chick: I shall not tell a lie then. 8D *dances away* Ah, no real appearance of Phantom quite yet. But he will certainly be coming in soonish! The story can't really go much of anywhere without him. XD;;;;

mrs fentonisme: That is highly likely possibility. 8)

ghostanimal: Indeed! He'd probably be a great teacher. XD; And like years down the line, him and Lancer are teacher buddies. XD

Rii: Maybe~ *whistles innocently* Haha, yeah. Kind of like that line in What You Want, "Am I interrupting something that I hope I'm not?" XD;;; And so the ghosts begin to appear~ 8D Nothing too harmful yet.

midnight: They're both so protective of each other~ Such wonderful siblings! You can, and you would be right! 8D

jelloshots99: Because ffnet likes to be mean sometimes. =( Yay getting caught up though! 8D A very good chance that they are.

Dark Sadist: Aw~ D: I would have thought that there were more Phantom x Fenton stories. Thanks~ =) Phantom shall come! Soon! Eventually! *isn't good at giving exactly when*