Chapter 8

The next morning at school was, quite plausibly, one of the worst Danny would have to experience in his life. There was no tripping over and hurting himself this morning, or anything vaguely similar to how his Wednesday morning had begun. In fact, Danny had high hopes for Thursday.

Getting out of the front door with more than enough time to spare, Danny walked to school, Tucker and Sam joining him at their usual stops. They chatted about Phantom for a while, before arriving at school with half an hour to spare.

And then they walked into the corridor.

Everyone in the corridor fell deathly silent, like they were at a funeral or some other morbid affair. And every single person turned to face Danny. Tucker swore he heard necks creaking as they turned.

There was utter silence.

"This isn't good, is it?" Danny muttered to Sam.

"Nope," she replied.

"But what have I done?" Danny asked her.

"No idea," Tucker responded.

Tentatively taking a step forwards, Danny was relieved to find that nobody started running towards him while screaming "GHOST!". Instead, whispers began to come from what seemed like every single corner.

Danny took another step.

Nothing dangerous happened. The whispers just grew louder.

Realising that the whispers were the only thing that would happen to him (and possibly bring his social status down; however, that pretty much wasn't possible) Danny, Sam and Tucker quickly traversed the hallway, reaching their lockers quickly.

Danny quickly put in his locker code, and opened the locker door. However, as he did so, dozens of slips of paper, envelopes and cards fell out of it and slid across the floor.

Every single one of them was addressed to Danny.

"How did they get in there?" Sam asked, rather stupidly.

"There's a vent on the door of my locker," Danny murmured. "They must have put all of these through there."

Picking up the closest letter to him, Danny ripped open the envelope and read what was inside. With his forefinger and thumb he pulled a pink card out and winced as he read the front.

BEE MINE, it read in bold script, with a cartoon pink bee sat on the front. Danny opened it tentatively and read what was inside.

After a few seconds, he dropped the card altogether, to the general amusement of onlookers. "I hate my life," he muttered, slamming the locker closed and stalking away.

Neither Tucker or Sam followed him, instead deciding to read the card out loud for amusement.

"Hello darling," Tucker read out (he lost the game of rock-paper-scissors and was forced to read it). "I hope that your affections follow mine in every way possible, and I just want you to know, that if you need any blood, I'm more than happy to give it. Paulina."

"What the heck is that about?" Sam asked.

"They think he's a vampire," Tucker wheezed in between laughs.

Sam looked mortally wounded. "But that's goth!"

"Not any more, it isn't," Tucker smirked. "And anyway, it seems like these girls think that vampires are real, too."

Sam sent him a dark but sarcastic look. "I hate you." She walked off, leaving Tucker alone and laughing.


Danny got into class late, his hair even more ruffled than usual. His skin looked pale and he refused to meet anyone's eyes. To be honest, he had just released Cujo, and the small dog had been quite happy to chase him for a number of minutes, leaving the young half ghost begging for forgiveness and also regretting ever letting the ghost go.

"Sit down, Mr. Fenton," Lancer snapped to him. "You'll be glad to know that we'll be comparing evidence today of our results yesterday, so you'll be working in groups of about seven, with one test-ee per group."

Paulina's hand shot into the air and her eyes whipped around to face Danny. "Sir, can we pick our groups?"

"Yes, as long as you have a more or less equal amount of boys to girls," Lancer said pleasantly. "Anyway, get going!"


Placed in a group with Kwan, Tucker, Valarie, Paulina, Anyah and Phoebe, Danny had officially decided that if his week continued like this, he would actually not come to school. Ever again.

Paulina, Anyah and Phoebe were all staring lovingly at him from the other side of the table, while Kwan sat next to them, folding his arms angrily. Valarie and Tucker seemed to be the only ones able to function properly around Danny, although Valarie did keep stealing confused glances between them all.

Lancer had written up the results on the whiteboard, and had told the confused class to copy down the table before writing a conclusion and a follow up to show other experiments that could be done from the results gathered.

Scrawling down his work into his book, Danny fled to the front of the classroom where Lancer was marking work. Paulina watched him go, sighing dreamily.

"He's so amazing..." Paulina sighed.

"I know!" Anyah agreed.

"Obsessed much?" Tucker asked them.

Valarie really didn't get the big deal with her ex-boyfriend. Yes, he was cute - even she knew that - and he wasn't a total jerk like all the other males she knew. She just didn't understand why half of the school's population (all female, obviously) had only just realised this.

"What's up with the fan-girls?" Valarie asked Tucker curiously.

Tucker shrugged sheepishly. "Haven't the slightest idea. Something to do with vampires, I think."

Phoebe sighed heavily. "Why won't he answer any of our letters, though?" she almost wailed.

"Well, he's obviously having to fight rogue vampires all the time," Anyah said, quite happy to go to Danny's defence. "That's why he's always late to school and almost every lesson."

None of the girls realised how flawed their logic really was.


After calling the class to attention, Lancer decided to ask the kids as to how much attention they really put into their science work. "Well, class, what have you realised from doing this experiment."

A hand shot up. "Yes, Miss Blackthorn?" Lancer asked.

"Well," the girl started, "I believe that the results are different from many different contributing factors. For example, Dash has quite a heavy body type, but is rather lean, leading me to believe that his pulse rate would be slower than a person who may not be as fit as him."

"Thank you." Lancer smiled radiantly. "Now, anyone else?"

This time it was Sam's hand. "Miss Mason?"

"However, we had a wild card mixed into our information: Danny. His results didn't seem to match his body type, nor the body type of any person his age. Why we got this information, we don't know."

Danny glared at her. Thanks for adding fuel to this already blazing inferno, Sam, his glare seemed to convey.

Sam grinned in reply, then nodded cheekily.

Danny almost head-desked again.

"Excellent, Miss Manson," Lancer replied. "But there was another odd co-incidence with your data and the data for an average 14 year old. What was it, Mr. Fenton?"

"My data was halfway between the Cujo... uh, the ghost dog's data and the average person's data," Danny replied miserably. "I have no idea why this is, or how it happened, but something it has."

"Thank you, Mr. Fenton," Lancer said smugly. "And personally, I intend on finding out why this is happening."

Danny's ghost sense went off, so asking to go to the bathroom, he rushed outside and turned into Danny Phantom.

And then, without a warning, the outside wall of the classroom crashed in.