Danny's accidents seemed to occur more often. He broke at least five breakables in Biology because his hands decided to turn intangible at random times, which did nothing to help his patience. Mr. Lancer, who was also the Biology teacher, decided that a good punishment for Danny's 'clumsiness' was to write on his whiteboard "I will not fool around in class" at least 50 times. That punishment was rebuked, however, when the marker kept slipping out of his hand every 10 syllables.
Danny's punishment turned to not touching breakables again and letting other's handle the glassware for him.
That lead to Danny's feet deciding to turn intangible, making him even clumsier than he originally was. His foot would sink into the floor much farther than he was expecting, making him fall forward and land on his face.
By the time people heard the crash and looked over to where Danny was, his intangible leg had realigned with the rest of his body and turned tangible again. This happened at least three more times before Mr. Lancer reformed Danny's punishment to "Sit down and memorize, Mr. Fenton!" as he slammed down a blue packet of paper in front of Danny.
Danny groaned before opening the packet to see information on cells. There was a large picture of a cell with arrows pointing at various things within the cell, naming those things as "nucleus", "cell membrane", "Golgi Apparatus", and so on. There was a table on another page that listed the parts of the cell and those parts' functions within the cell.
Danny flipped through the packet and found another cell that looked the same as the first except it was square instead of round. It also had its own list of functions. He flipped the page again and found what seemed to be text copied from a textbook.
"You want me to memorize the text, too, or just the parts and functions of the cells?"
"Just the parts and functions, and the process of cell reproduction," Mr. Lancer answered.
"What? Where's that-" Danny flipped through the packet again and found four pages showing a cell splitting in two.
"Oh."
"Get to it, Mr. Fenton. There's 20 minutes left in class."
Danny tried his hardest to stay awake, he really did, but since he didn't sleep very well that night (waking up 20 times in different places in the house due to his new powers), and the information he was trying to memorize was so boring (who needs to know about cells anyway?), it was only natural that his exhausted body tried to make up the lost rest it really needed to adjust to the changes it went through only two days prior.
"MR. FENTON."
Danny's head shot up to see Mr. Lancer's eyes glaring at him. Two inches away from him.
He jumped and fell out of his seat, then scrambled to stand up.
"This is the second day in a row that I've caught you sleeping in my class. Care for an explanation?"
"Uhh…" was Danny's intelligent reply.
"Speaking of which, where were you this morning, Mr. Fenton? You weren't in any of my classes."
"Ummm…"
"Chicken Soup for the Soul, Mr. Fenton! Are you so incompetent that you can't answer with proper English? I know you're more intelligent than that!" Mr. Lancer burst.
The entire class was silent as they witnessed Mr. Lancer's annoyed rage.
"His parents have been very… excited, recently, sir," Tucker piped up. "One of their inventions that they've been working on for months was a success, and they've been talking non-stop about it."
"Actually, they've been working on it for years. You know about it, right?" Danny asked.
"Yes, the entire town knows about your parents' antics. Why would that make you fall asleep in my class two days in a row and make you miss all of your classes this morning?" Mr. Lancer rubbed the bridge of his nose, just waiting for the poor excuse Danny would come up with.
"I think my parents could tell you more about it than I could. They were the ones who decided to keep me from class to make sure I wasn't overexposed to ecto-energy," Danny answered.
"Ecto-energy?" Mr. Lancer drawled. He was clearly skeptic of anything Danny or his parents had to say.
Danny shrugged.
"I don't know. Mom could explain it better than I could. You could call them, if you want."
Mr. Lancer glared at Danny, resulting in the two having a stare-off, although Danny was looking more like a scared puppy facing off a fat, bald mountain lion.
Danny was literally saved by the bell.
"Don't forget about the test tomorrow, then next week, we'll be starting on cells." Mr. Lancer called out to the students fleeing.
The rest of Danny's day was riddled with tripping, dropping objects, and other random acts of clumsiness that made him even more annoyed with his powers (and his parents, since they were obviously responsible for him getting his powers, even though they didn't know it) than he had ever been the past 36 hours.
Later that day, in the privacy of his room with Sam and Tucker (doing their homework), he found random body parts becoming invisible, intangible, or both.
He also discovered that any control he had over his powers were lost to him, as he couldn't turn himself tangible whenever he found himself intangible.
He blamed his parents for it all. He blamed them for messing up his social life, his family life, and finally, his life in the first place because now he obviously only had a half-life, thanks to the portal. That his parents had conveniently created.
Danny kept his anger to himself. His eyes gave his anger away, though, because he was releasing his anger by glaring holes into the floor. Not literally, but if he concentrated his anger, it would have been.
Tucker decided Danny needed to know that his eyes were glowing a bright green.
"Dude, do you think you could tone it down a little?"
"Tone what down?" Danny kept glaring at the floor.
"Your eyes."
Danny blinked, then blinked again. They didn't return to their blue color, but they weren't as bright as a neon sign in the night, the way they were before Tucker spoke.
"Thanks." Tucker returned to his homework.
"Oh, don't forget about Jazz, Danny," Sam reminded.
"Oh, yeah. I should probably do that now," Danny's eyes returned to their natural sky-blue color as he picked himself up from the floor and turned his thoughts away from his parents.
Halfway to his bedroom door, he turned around and asked,
"What should I say?"
"Just tell her that you're sorry about being an annoying little brat that doesn't appreciate everything she does for you," Sam didn't even look up from her history textbook.
"Thanks, Sam," Danny deadpanned.
"You're welcome," she flipped a page in her book, sounding way to happy about getting to dis Danny.
Danny turned again and left the room.
Jazz was busy trying to drown away her emotions by studying psychology when someone knocked on her door.
"Who is it?" she called out.
"It's Danny. Are you busy?"
"No, it's ok, you can come in, Danny," Jazz quickly brushed any tears she could have away from her cheeks.
Danny slowly opened the door and poked his head in her room. His eyes searched the room until he found Jazz sitting on her bed with her back against the head.
"Hey."
"Hey," she replied. Her teal eyes were cold as steel. Danny eyes suddenly lowered to his shoes and Jazz's carpet.
"I-I wanted to say sorry, for being a jerk, and not appreciating you," Danny swallowed.
Why is this so hard? Danny thought. Oh yeah, I'm still mad.
Danny's eyes flashed green for a second, but Jazz didn't notice because Danny's eyes were still glued on the floor.
Jazz was silently observing Danny as he nervously shuffled his feet.
"What are you apologizing for?" she decided to ask.
Danny gulped.
"Well, earlier today, I was telling Sam and Tucker about last night's session, and I was angry enough to say that I hated you. I just wanted to apologize for saying that, and let you know that I'm grateful for you trying your best to help me with my problems, even if I don't show my appreciation for it at certain times."
Danny never looked up while he was speaking to see his sister's reaction. He wrangled his hands for a moment, then started shuffling awkwardly out of Jazz's room.
Jazz was so shocked at Danny's maturity that she hadn't even realized that her mouth was hanging open. She was only knocked out of that state when she heard Danny shut her door.
Jazz smiled and held back tears at Danny's apology. She breathed in deeply, then turned back to her work, her concentration improved since she didn't have to war with her emotions.
As soon as Danny shut the door, he let out an enormous sigh, then turned around to go back to his room. He was prevented by his parents.
"Danny! Come see the results of our tests!" Jack boomed up the stairs. Danny groaned, but walked towards the stairs, yelling to his friends that he'd be back momentarily.
He took in a deep breath, then walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, where his parents were cooking dinner.
"What... are you doing?"
His parents were adding something to the soup that seemed to be... glowing.
"What is that?!"
"We found traces of ectoplasm from your digestive track and blood samples, so we've created something to combat it and that won't harm human cells. From now on, we'll be eating our food with a small amount of crushed ectoranium, a natural ecto-repellant, in case you or Jazz get too exposed to the ectoplasm within the lab," Maddie explained.
"We had some food with ectoranium for lunch! It's perfectly safe! And, it gives the food a little bit more of a crunch!" Jack exclaimed. Danny's eyes widened to the size of teacups at the glowing powder his mom was adding to the soup she was making as if it was a spice.
"What if... Jazz or I are... allergic to ector-what's-it-called-"
"Ectoranium, dear. If you are, we'll find something else that will help you get rid of the ectoplasm left over from your exposure. Hopefully, your body's immune system will be enough to get rid of it, but just in case, we're adding ectoranium to the family diet as a preventative measure."
Danny's mother beamed at him before taking a spoon and sipping at her creation.
Danny's horrified face turned into a grimace when he saw his mother's scrunched nose.
"We'll have to get used to the after-taste, though," she commented.
"I'll be upstairs if you need me," Danny stammered before leaping for the stairs.
When Danny returned to his room, he started on another rant about how his weird parents were now messing around with the food and Tucker had to pry Danny off his legs, since Danny was begging Tucker to let him go home with him so that he didn't have to eat his parents' weird food.
When Danny's parents called for dinner, Sam and Tucker both made quick excuses and left Danny to his family. (But in all honesty, who could blame them?)
To put it simply, Danny was not looking forward to dinner.
A/N So Merry Christmas! (and Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays, etc.)