Chapter 7

"Okay, class," Lancer said loudly. "Back inside. Let's cool down a bit and then we'll do the final test: temperature."

Trooping inside with Tucker and Sam, Danny collapsed onto a stool. His hair was sticking to his forehead in a disgusting way and he pushed it out of his eyes, still breathing heavily.

"Look at the way his hair flops into his eyes," Paulina said dreamily. She was sat on the other side of the classroom to Danny, however was still lovingly gazing in his eyes.

Phoebe was still checking out the dark haired boy. "I suppose he's pretty cute," she concurred. She watched as he yawned slightly and fell back into his chair. "Okay, very cute," she admitted.

"He has pretty eyes," Star commented. "He has, like, this aura..."

"You've told us already," snapped Anyah. She was currently going out with a boy from a few years above them, and she really didn't want to split up with him.

All three of the other girls turned to her. "SHHH!" they hissed.


Ordered to stand at the front of the classroom, Danny stood up straight, but yawned. He hadn't exactly had a good night's sleep, and now after the running, he was feeling even more drowsy.

"I've got three thermometers here for the students," Lancer explained, "since we already know that ghosts are a solid zero degrees Celsius." He passed the thermometers to Star, Dash and Danny and then instructed them to place the thermometers in the fold of their elbow. "You're going to have to keep them in their for the next half-hour and take it out every ten minutes to measure temperature changes.

"Now, I'll be sticking you into teams to measure it. Mr. Baxter, you can go with Mrs. Mason. Miss Gaea, you can work with Mr. Seville. And Mr. Fenton, you can work with Miss Sanchez."

Groaning as he glanced over at the over-hormonal looking girls, Danny sent a 'help me pleaaase!' look at Sam, who merely smirked in reply. He slumped, then walked slowly over to Paulina, who was fluttering her eyelashes and checking out her nails repeatedly.

"Hi," Danny sighed monotonously, sitting down slowly and sticking the thermometre into fold where his elbow was.

Paulina, Star and Phoebe all checked out the young boy repeatedly as he sat there. He kept looking around nervously, like a wild animal trapped in a cage, and kept sending evil glares up at Lancer, who seemed oblivious to it all.

"Hey Danny," Phoebe purred. "I hope you're glad to come over with us." She grinned, swiping her tongue over one of her canine teeth.

Danny shuddered as Paulina came to look at the thermometer. "Hey, your temperature is only fifteen degrees Celsius," she commented, plucking it out from his arm. "Stupid thing must be broken." she shook it a little, trying to get it to work.

"Hey, sir!" Phoebe called Mr. Lancer across the room. "Danny's thermometer is broken!"

"What do you mean?" Lancer stalked over to the three girls and boy and grabbed the thermometer, inspecting the temperature. "Stupid thing must be broken!" he exclaimed, shaking it himself.

He glanced at Danny, who was looking up at him worriedly. Fenton is obviously hiding something if he keeps looking so apprehensive...

"I'll get you a new thermometer!" Anyah said unhelpfully, standing up quickly and hopping over to Mr. Lancer's desk. She grabbed a thermometre and stuck it in the crook of Danny's arm.

The girls and the teacher all watched it expectantly.

Danny felt slightly like head-desking.


"Why are all these thermometers broken?" Lancer exclaimed, throwing the third thermometer onto the floor. "Miss Sanchez, go and collect Mr. Baxter's thermometer and we'll use his."

Paulina rushed off and came back seconds later, Dash's thermometer in hand. "This one works, sir," she stated. "It says that Dash's temperature was 36 degrees Celcius."

Danny was starting to get extremely nervous. He had realised that his temperature had adjusted from when he had been 100 percent human, however this was just taking it out of normality and into some sort of extreme and horrible dream. He knew that if the class got whiff of anything else, they might have a chance of piecing it all together.

"You're so cold..." Star commented. Her temperature had already been measured and she had come over to join the rest of the class.

Anyah and Phoebe both touched Danny's arm. Yes, he was cold. Amazingly so.

"You're like ice..." Anyah murmured, her eyes going wide. "And you have a really, really, really low pulse rate..."

Looking at each other, Star, Anyah, Phoebe and Paulina all gasped, coming to the same conclusion at the same time.


Swinging his bag behind his back, Danny walked home with Sam and Tucker. Clouds were beginning to come over the horizon from the east, but Danny shook it off as some bad warning and instead decided to enjoy his time with his friends.

"So, how did it go with Lancer and the thermometers?" Tucker asked, once again on the internet on his PDA.

Danny shrugged, twisting his lips slightly. "Lancer said that the whole box of them must have been faulty and he was going to send them back and ask for a refund."

"So you managed to get away with that?" Sam pressed.

"Yeah, somehow," Danny muttered, rubbing an eye with the palm of his hand. "At least for tomorrow I'll be back to nerdy Fenton and people will have forgotten about me."

Sam laughed slightly. "Well," she said, "I wouldn't try staying with that idea. As I left the room I heard Paulina and her friends talking about vampires."

Danny made a disgruntled noise. "I hate my life."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Danny, think of all the poor, starving people out in Africa? They have almost no food or water and yet you're happy to say you hate your life?"

"I get what you're saying, Sam," he moaned, "but I get enough attention as being Danny Phantom. I don't want it while being Fenton as well."

"It'll die down," Tucker interjected. "With you it usually does."


While Danny, Sam and Tucker had been slowly walking home from school, Phoebe, Star, Anyah and Paulina had all been riding home in Paulina's father's car. Paulina's dad, named Joseph Sanchez, couldn't help but listen into the girl's rather intense conversation.

"When I touched his arm, he was so cold!" Phoebe said loudly. "I mean, we all knew he was gorgeous already, but now..."

"I think he's a vampire," Anyah muttered, boyfriend long forgotten. "Like the ones out of Twilight!"

There was silence in the back of the four by four, then all four of the girls burst out squealing. They loved vampires, and in their eyes, Danny hit all the criteria for being one of the supernatural creatures.

After a bit more squealing, the girls then fell into picking who they thought were were Danny's loyal vampire friends.

"I mean, it must be Dash!" Paulina said quickly. "Dash just does it to make sure

It wasn't until Danny Phantom flew through the car that they even added ghosts to the mix.

Walker was hovering in the air, brandishing what looked like a handcuff gun. Danny, meanwhile, kept dodging and missing the flying handcuffs, obviously trying to escape Walker's grasp.

"I'll have you in for ten-thousand years!" Walker growled. "Multiple offenses of attacking members of the public, dangerous weapon use, cohering with the Master of Time, having possession of real-world items in the ghost zone, escaping from prison..." the list droned on for a while.

Bringing what looked like a Thermos out from a bag lying on the ground, Phantom landed on the tarmac road before opening it with a click and letting the brilliant white light engulf the white-suited ghost.

"Enjoy your time, in-mate," Danny muttered to himself, then laughed loudly. He shot off into the dusk air, soon disappearing from sight altogether.