On the grey, cloudy Monday morning of November 15, Danny woke up and realized something terribly important: Sam's birthday was in two days.

Sam's birthday was in two days, and he and Tucker had forgotten.

Calm down, Fenton, it's in two days, you still have time to get enough money to buy something for Sam and plan an awesome birthday surprise with Tucker.

Oh, who am I kidding, we're screwed.

Danny pulled out his flip phone and pulled up Tucker's number.

"Sup, dude?" Tucker's voice was strained, as if he was doing something.

"Tuck, it's Sam's birthday in two days!"

Danny heard something fall (probably Tucker), then some scrambling, then heavy breathing (and mild cursing):

"What?! I forgot! Oh, crap, we are screwed!"

"That's what I said," Danny responded. "Did you fall over?"

"No!" Tucker denied, then admitted, "I lost my balance pulling my pants on… And I blame you! We'll figure something out. Mom's calling, I'll see you in school!"

And Tucker's end was dead.

[The only reason the boys were 'screwed' was because both knew they were awful at giving gifts. Two days was not enough time for them to think of something that the receiver would like and save the money to go buy the gift.]

On Sam's 14th birthday, Danny and Tucker decided to try to replace her previous birthday experiences (which were awful) with fun activities so that their female best friend would not be in a bad mood due to a certain birthday that had happened the year before her 14th birthday.

Mr. and Mrs. Manson were Jewish, but they were not Orthodox or Conservative: they kept traditions, but that was it.

So when Sam turned thirteen, her parents forced her to have a Bat Mitzvah, which left Sam completely traumatized. She had been looking forward to having a Bat Mitzvah, but instead of the dark purple and black dress that she'd wanted, her parents bought her a bright pink, poofy fluff ball of a dress and forced her to wear it.

Ever since that horrifying incident, which both Danny and Tucker had witnessed (because she'd invited them, obviously; while they had just become friends earlier that year, they were the only friends that she'd had), the goth girl always kept a bottle of black fabric spray-paint on hand. Never again would she be forced to wear a bright pink atrocity like that again.

Danny finished getting ready and skipped breakfast to run out the door, but right as he was about to turn the final corner on his way to school, his Ghost Sense went off.

The boy sighed, but quickly ran into the closest alleyway and hid behind a dumpster to transform, following the chill until he heard-

"I AM THE BOOOX GHOST! TREMBLE BEFORE MY POWER OVER ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE!"

Danny audibly groaned.

"OK, this is starting to get annoying."

Apparently, the Box Ghost heard him.

"YOU AGAIN? IT DOES NOT MATTER, FOR YOU WILL ALSO SUCCUMB TO MY AWESOME POWER!"

The Box Ghost snapped his overalls, then stretched out his arm and threw the empty cardboard boxes he'd commandeered from UPS at Danny, who destroyed each box with an ectoblast.

The Box Ghost was not pleased.

"WHAT?!" The blue-skinned ghost was obviously grinding his teeth, chewing over whether he should stay and fight and thereby probably end up in the Thermos, or flee and come back later with more boxes (and still have the same chance of being sucked in the Thermos).

He chose the latter option.

"YOUR TEMPORARY VICTORY WILL BE… SHORTLIVED! I WILL BE BACK, AND YOU WILL TREMBLE BEFORE MY AWESOME POWER OVER ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE!"

And the Box Ghost popped out of the visible spectrum and fled, the few remaining empty UPS boxes dropping harmlessly on the curb next to the UPS truck that had been abandoned by its driver.

Danny was in no mood to pursue: he had to get to school, anyway.

So the ghost boy took advantage of his flight and flew to school as quickly as possible, but he was still four minutes late for English.

"Mr. Fenton, I understand that it's a Monday morning, but that does not excuse tardiness due to sleeping in. If it happens again, you will receive detention and I will inform your parents," Mr. Lancer drawled, not even bothering to look at Danny as he tried to sneak into the class.

Danny's hand found its way to the nape of his neck.

"Sorry, Mr. Lancer, I'll try to not let it happen again," the black-haired boy apologized meekly.

"'Do or do not,' Mr. Fenton, 'there is no try'," Mr. Lancer responded irritably. The entire class silently stared Danny down as he slunked into his seat.

Danny had unfortunately already become accustomed to the prospect of never making it to school in time for first period. The late-night excursions were happening more often, significantly reducing the amount of sleep the boy was able to manage every night.

Not to mention, even if Danny was able to wake up on time, the Box Ghost was starting to make a habit of turning up during the day, terrorizing UPS drivers as they made their daily rounds.

Danny groaned as he remembered that the Box Ghost was still at large, and would probably come back with more boxes specifically to challenge him. Lovely.

A piece of folded paper landed in front of Danny with a soft thump. Danny knew that Lancer's back was turned, so he felt no need to glance up before opening the note and reading what was written on it.

What's the plan?

Right. Sam's birthday. The already irritated boy glanced at Tucker, then at Lancer, before jotting down,

Later.

He glanced up again at Lancer, then flicked his wrist, sending the folded note flying on to Tucker's desk next to him.

He didn't get a note back.


As Danny expected, the Box Ghost reappeared conveniently during lunchtime, equipped with two dozen boxes.

He destroyed all of them and easily sucked the ghost into the Thermos.

Unfortunately, he was five minutes late for his next class and was running on fumes, due to his lack of breakfast that morning and having only eaten half of his bought lunch before the Box Ghost showed up.

So Biology was not a good time for Danny.

Not to mention, there was no opportunity for him and Tucker to plot a surprise for their best friend's birthday Wednesday. The first opportunity came in the evening, after dinner had been eaten (Maddie had tried to fix the ecto-powered hot dog maker, but the dogs came to life again, so pizza was ordered instead) and homework had been (almost) finished. Danny called Tucker and the two proceeded to brainstorm.

"Well, she doesn't exactly need money, so that's out the window…" Tucker started out.

"Tuck, we're her best friends, we wouldn't just give her money," Danny scoffed as he jumped into his bed. "Maybe we could get her a book, or a plant, or… something."

"Please, please, please tell me you did not just say the 'p-word'!"

"Plant?"

Tucker groaned.

"Why would we get her something like that?"

"Because she likes them? We could get her some darker-colored flowers, or-"

"Why don't you get her a Venus Fly-trap?"

Danny jumped and fell off his bed to the floor in a rather undignified sprawl. Standing by the door was a rather amused older sister.

"Danny? Are you OK?" Tucker asked, his voice carrying over to where Jazz was standing, who chuckled again and said rather loudly,

"Danny was just being oblivious, as usual."

Danny growled when he noticed the twinkle in his sister's eyes.

"Very funny, Jazz."

The red-headed girl rolled her eyes as she sat down at the edge of Danny's bed, the owner of which scrambled to get back up.

"Anyway, I'm sure Sam would appreciate a Venus Fly-trap. It's a cool plant, and it's almost a natural insecticide. Who wouldn't think carnivorous plants are cool?"

"Did someone say 'carnivorous'?" Tucker perked up on his end.

"I saw that the flower shop downtown has them on sale right now, it wouldn't cost too much," Jazz continued, ignoring Tucker's question. "I think they're about ten dollars, if you go tomorrow, there might be one or two left…"

Jazz trailed off before pinching Danny's nose, who yelped and covered his nose, only to have his hair ruffled just as Jazz stood to leave.

"Don't stay up too late!"

And Danny and Tucker were alone once more.

Until Jazz quickly popped in again.

"Oh, just a warning: Biology might get a little… awkward soon. If I recall correctly, the Dreaded Purple Packet is up next," she mock saluted her brother and spun on her heel, her hair whipping around as she flounced out of Danny's room.

"The…dreaded purple packet?" Tucker asked as Danny's face blanched at the thought. "What's that?"

Danny shuddered as he remembered the previous year when Jazz had taken Biology.

"Human reproduction."

The silence on the other end of the line was all Danny needed to hear to know that Tucker had paled (as much as he could) the same way Danny had, since the test on the current unit was that Friday.

"Can't… wait…" Danny's phone suddenly croaked.

Since Casper High was a relatively small school, the school board determined that Sex Ed would be implemented in Biology so that time or money wouldn't be wasted on a semester-long course covering the subject that could be covered in one unit.

"So… a Venus Fly-trap…" Danny switched the conversation back to what was currently important.

"Let's go for it, you can't say no to a carnivorous plant," Tucker quickly said. "Should we split the cost and have it be from both of us?"

"I'll check out that goth store Sam likes so much tomorrow, see if there's anything she might like there," Danny added.

"OK, if you can't find anything, we'll both get her the plant, if you do find something, I'll get her the plant, deal?"

"Deal."

"Cool. What should we do after school?"

And the boys continued to plot their surprise until eleven, which was Tucker's "bedtime", according to his parents. Since Doomed had come out, Tucker had been caught multiple times staying up past midnight playing the game, so his parents had implemented a 'lights out', which was an hour before midnight.

Danny stayed up for half an hour to finish the homework that he'd been procrastinating, then prepared for bed.

Only to have his Ghost Sense go off just as he'd climbed into the soft cushions.

"Goin' Ghost," the boy muttered sleepily, changing into his ghost form and zooming out of his room intangibly after grabbing the Fenton Thermos from his backpack.

Nearly two hours later found Danny exhausted and back in his bed with a few new bruises, burns, and a newly emptied Thermos.


Danny was sore the next morning, but at least he woke up early enough to eat breakfast and get to class in time. Most of the school day was uneventful until Danny's last class, which was American History, where his Ghost Sense went off about thirty minutes before the bell would ring.

He glanced up at Mrs. Sawyer, who was in the middle of lecturing about the Battle of York, and tentatively raised his hand.

She finished her sentence and turned to Danny.

"Did you have a question, Mr. Fenton?" she snipped in her Southern accent. Mrs. Sawyer was born and raised in the heart of Alabama: her accent had never left her, and it never will.

"Can I gotothebathroom?" Danny rushed through.

"Say that again?" she drawled. Mrs. Sawyer was one of those teachers that absolutely hated interruptions that didn't further pursue what she was currently teaching.

"Can I… go… to the… bathroom?" the poor boy positively squeaked, slightly cowering under the middle-aged woman's glare of death. Danny was positive that he'd probably finish dying one day under that gaze.

Mrs. Sawyer's eyes narrowed for a moment before she inclined her head, accompanied with a 'git'.

As soon as Danny was away from any form of witness, he transformed into his ghost form and flew out of the building, heading as quickly as he could to where the ghost was.

As fate would have it, the ghost was a decaying bald eagle. A huge bald eagle the size of a small car.

"Well, so much for making it to the end of class," Danny muttered.

Danny was… less than eager to go near the ghost, because the eagle wasn't very… pretty, basically. Half of its green feathers were missing, one red eyeball was literally drooping halfway out of its socket, some places on the eagle's body were dripping like melted wax, and the eagle was so skinny it was practically a skeleton.

That didn't stop the ghost from looking like one extremely ticked off bird.

The being squawked, emitting a sound that would be similar to wailing demons, loud enough for Danny to clench his hands over his ears.

"Definitely not a songbird!" he groaned.

When Danny couldn't keep watching the bird continue to make the dead-awful sound, he momentarily clenched his eyes shut. The ghost took this moment to attack, sharp talons first, heading right for Danny's eyes.

Danny opened his eyes just in the nick of time to see the sharp talons suddenly in his face, and automatically switched to intangibility as his defense. When the ghost realized that its attack wasn't working, it flew back and glared at the intangible ghost-boy.

"My turn!" Danny cried out, releasing his intangibility and zooming towards the eagle quick as… not lightning, but pretty fast for a regular human being.

The bird turned and zipped away even faster.

"I always wanted to chase birds," Danny grinned, then realized the innuendo he'd just said and blushed heavily (green because he was in his ghost form, naturally, but Danny doesn't know that yet).

Note to self: never let Sam know I ever said that.

The ghost zig-zagged in all directions, left, right, up, down, and all in-between, which Danny followed diligently. He eventually realized that he wouldn't be able to catch up to the ghost.

Maybe I can hit it with an ectoblast…

Danny's arms were already in Superman-position, so he unclenched his hands and placed his palms out, still flying as fast as he could. Keeping a close eye on the ghost, he imagined his arm as a cannon with the cannonball coming out of his palm.

He could feel the energy crackling down his arm and forming a blast just behind his wrist. He aimed just above the ghost, restraining his energy until he'd properly aimed (as well as he could properly aim flying 150 mph 6000 feet above the ground).

He released the energy and watched as the ectoblast just missed the bird, who squawked again, this time in surprise, before diving to the ground, which Danny followed.

As the two plummeted to the earth, Danny formed another beam and hit the bird right on its behind. The ghost screeched, glanced back at Danny, then flew straight into the ground and disappeared. Danny floated about twenty feet above the tallest building in proximity and waited for the ghost to return.

It didn't.

With a heavy sigh, Danny quickly flew back to the school, which had definitely ended at least 15 minutes prior.

The halls were empty except for a couple of lone students at their respective locker, both sluggishly putting their belongings in their backpack. Danny, invisible and still in his ghost form, walked through the door to his last class to fetch his abandoned supplies.

And froze.

Mrs. Sawyer was still there.

She was still there, and she was royally ticked. Danny noticed her gaze flickering from the papers she was grading to the belongings on his desk to the still closed door multiple times. She was waiting for him.

Danny knew that he couldn't come back later: Mrs. Sawyer would undoubtedly throw all of his schoolwork into the burner in her office. It had happened before, Jazz had warned him as the school year started to not mess with Mrs. Sawyer. Apparently, some trouble-maker in Jazz's grade had left the class multiple times with his stuff still on the desk and would leave it there for hours.

Everyone now knew what the kid had been doing, and he was still serving time for it in the Juvenile Detention Center in Valparaiso.

Danny couldn't help but gulp as he softly walked out through the door before checking the hall to see if anyone was still there, or if a camera could see him.

He was safe, so he transformed and ran up to the door and opened it as softly as he could, blushing deep red as he felt the woman's unforgiving gaze from the other side of the room. He walked as quickly as he could to grab his stuff, then turned to leave once he had it.

Only to be stopped by Mrs. Sawyer.

"You know as well as I do that the school has seen this kind of behavior before, Mr. Fenton."

Translation: I've got my eye on you.

"Am I making myself perfectly clear?"

Danny gulped.

"Yes, ma'am."

He hurried to the door, wrenched it open, and was about to leave when he heard his teacher speak again.

"Next time, it'll be detention with me, Mr. Fenton, and you'll wish Coach Tetslaff was your mother."

Danny had no doubt that the woman was telling the truth. He didn't reply, though: his tongue was too tied up in fear to properly answer without stuttering or squeaking.

He left the room, accidentally closing the door with a very loud bang, then winced.

That's not going to help my case.


Tucker nervously coughed as Sam started picking up her things as the final bell rang.

"Do you think we should get Danny's stuff?" she asked before he could open his mouth to pretend to be sick so he and Danny could sneak off and get everything needed for the next day.

"Uhh…"

"Leave Mr. Fenton's belongings, Ms. Manson," Mrs. Sawyer's voice called from the front of the room. Sam glanced up at the historical expert, but then looked away when she remembered that Mrs. Sawyer was as stubborn as she was. Arguing with the teacher wasn't worth the trouble. Not when this one was fully willing to skew anybody's grades just enough to make it difficult to pass at the end of the year.

She loudly dropped Danny's belongings back on his desk and stomped out of the room, sulking back when she'd realized she'd forgotten her jacket.

Tucker said nothing, but hurried behind her, not daring enough to glance back at the menacing teacher.

As soon as Tucker caught up to Sam, who had been walking at a very fast pace, he suddenly remembered he was supposed to be coughing and pretending to be sick.

So he coughed. Then cleared his throat. And sneezed (the sneeze was actually real, something had flown up his nose). And repeated the process.

Finally, Sam couldn't stand it any longer.

"Will you stop? I know what you're trying to do."

"Do what?" Tucker sniffled, then wiped his nose with his sleeve. Sam's nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Don't worry about my birthday, Tucker, but you and Danny obviously have something planned, I'll let you go and do whatever it is you were planning on doing after school, while I go home and do nothing," Sam snapped, crossing her arms.

Tucker's brain quickly went through every possible scenario that could fix or destroy the situation (girls were so weird!) and went with what he thought was best. Which was, in fact, the worst.

"Wait, it's your birthday?"

Sam's mouth opened, then clamped shut. She blinked a couple of times, then stormed off without saying a single word.

Tucker had honestly expected Sam to scream at him or just roll her eyes and say how dumb he was, but he was definitely not expecting that.

Crap, I just said the wrong thing!

How was he going to fix this? Tucker had absolutely no clue. He removed his glasses to rub both eyes with his palms as he groaned.

Better find Danny.


A/N So I know that it's been more than a month, and that this chapter doesn't really have very much, and I am very sorry. This chapter would not come to me, even though I have the next couple of months leading up to the next episode planned.

Of course, fate would have it I only get my first (and tiny) burst of inspiration in months the day before a really really important project is due.

I might have been able to have gotten something out by last week, but I was actually travelling and visiting my family last week... because my brother (I'm sure I've talked about him already and bored you all with him, but I'm really very proud of him) was in his high school's musical (the high school version of Les Mis), and he was Javert, and he's a superb singer... how could I not go see him?

Basically, April was really weird. I will, once again, blame school, work, and writer's block (there's no way I'm blaming my family, they have no fault in this whatsoever).

Hopefully, I'll be able to go back in full swing this wonderful month of May. Oh, who am I kidding, classes are taking up all of my week, and work is taking up the remaining time I have. ... you know what, nevermind, it really will, because the only way my brain actually decides to turn on is when it's trying to avoid schoolwork. (That is in no way a promise, unfortunately)

A really big thank you to Distant Radiance for helping me keep my hopes up. :)

Hopefully, we'll see each other again next week! Or two weeks from now...