Phanniemay Day 11 - Moms
in a world where the bounty hunters weren't scooby doo parodies and the bounty that was put up on danny's head was actually a serious threat
Absolutes
x - x - x
[ab·so·lute: a value or principle that is regarded as universally valid or that may be viewed without relation to other things]
When the bounty went up, every ghost hunter and their uncle was suddenly in Amity Park.
It ground Maddie's gears. This was their town, and she and Jack as the resident ghost hunters should be capable of protecting it. They shouldn't need outside help in capturing such a nuisance. Which was why she and Jack threw their full effort into catching the ghost kid before anyone else.
It was almost a day after the bounty went up when a flag of alarm went off in the back of Maddie's mind. Why hadn't they seen Phantom yet? She couldn't remember the last time they'd gone a full day without a sighting. Now, it seemed he'd up and vanished.
He couldn't have left Amity, could he? In fear of the influx of people who wanted his head on a spike?
She dismissed the thought as readily as it came. Phantom couldn't have left. It went against the nature of ghosts. His obsession was protecting Amity, and as a ghost he could not break free of it. Her conviction in this was absolute.
It was that night of the second day when Jazz came quietly into the lab, twiddling her thumbs anxiously. "Mom, have you seen Danny around?"
"No, but you know how he's been lately. He's probably still out with Tucker and Sam."
"Yeah but.. he didn't come home last night. Didn't you notice?"
Maddie put down the soldering iron and frowned at her daughter. "Of course we noticed, Jazz. But he doesn't obey curfew no matter how often we ground him. What do you expect us to do about it?" Danny was rapidly becoming a full-blown teenager, with the disrespect of rules and authority hard-wired in. She worried, but there wasn't much she could do. Especially when there was so much else going on. Danny was just being a teenager, and eventually he would come around and realize how his behavior was hurting himself and his family. Her conviction in this was absolute.
Frustrated, she picked up the iron again. "Just send him down to talk to me when he gets home, okay?" But when she looked back up Jazz had already gone.
By the next morning, the local news was running a segment on Amity's most controversial citizen. Where is Danny Phantom? Maddie frowned at the television, reaching for the pot of coffee to pour another mug. "Jazz honey, is your brother awake yet? He can't miss another Monday or Principal Ishiyama is going to have our butts on a platter." Her daughter was unresponsive, staring raptly at the news program. "Jazz?" Maddie rested her hand on her shoulder, and Jazz gave a start, rising swiftly from her chair.
"Gotta get ready for class, sorry mom." As she pushed past her mother, wiping her eyes, Maddie stared after her in bewilderment.
Upstairs, Maddie pushed Danny's door open gently. "Hon.. You're gonna be late if you don't get up."
Nothing. Maddie flipped on the light, and saw she was alone in her son's room. "Danny?" No, his closet was empty too. Not only was Danny not in there but… the room was far messier than she'd last seen it. There were clothes strewn everywhere, drawers half falling out of the dresser… What had possessed Danny to let it get this bad? She would have to have a stern conversation with him when he got home.
This sneaking out, the staying out all night with Sam and Tucker, the surprise sleepovers he forgot to mention until he was coming home the next morning… the lies, the half-truths, it had to stop. She was sick of checking in on him and finding an empty bed.
How long since he'd last been home anyway? She understood that a young boy needed to spend time with his friends, getting into crazy hijinks and whatnot, but honestly. This had gone far enough.
When she went back downstairs she paused outside Jazz's bedroom door, her heart fluttering. Was Jazz crying? When had she ceased to understand her children's behavior?
Ring, ring, ring, Hey this is Danny's phone. If it's an emergency, keep calling till I pick up. If I'm still not picking up, call Sam or Tucker.
Ring, ring, ring, Hey this is Danny's phone…
The fact that it rang before going to his voicemail was disconcerting. It meant his phone was on, but he was choosing not to answer it.
"It's been two days since the dearly beloved town hero was last seen, and meanwhile there have been three ghost – " Maddie muted the television, her coffee mug shaking in her hands. She honestly couldn't think about Phantom right now. There was a nasty feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Tucker's phone went to voicemail, and Sam's as well, and Maddie slammed the house phone back on the hook, feeling the nasty pit of unease spread into full blown panic. Where was her son?
Out with Sam and Tucker, Jack had said, the first night he didn't come home. When it passed midnight and he hadn't answered his phone, Jack had assured her he'd probably fallen asleep at Tucker's again by accident and would call them in the morning. But the next morning had been Sunday, and they'd spent all day hunting Phantom in vain. Too distracted to wonder where her own son had gotten to? What kind of mother was she?
Ring, ring, ring, Hey this is Danny's phone…
She would need to go rouse Jack from the basement, where he'd been debugging some of the equipment in hopes of bettering their chances of capturing Phantom. A Phantom who was nowhere to be found. The silent TV showed flashes of footage of the past few ghost attacks, for which Phantom had been glaringly absent.
It was unsettling. Phantom hadn't let a ghost attack go unanswered for months. Was it possible that he could defy his nature like that, and break free of his chains to protect himself?
And then the horrifying thought hit her. That maybe Phantom was capable of doing more than that to protect himself. After all, Jack and Maddie were openly hunting him… And how long had Danny been missing? What if – what if he had taken her son? A sort of hostage?
No, it didn't make sense. Even still, she couldn't help the nasty suspicion that had arisen, the creeping goose bumps that went up her arms when she realized her son and Phantom had fallen off the radar at the same time.
It was probably unrelated. How could it be? Definitely unrelated. Her conviction in this was absolute.
Maddie numbly sat at the table, clutching her empty mug in one hand and the home phone in the other, and watched the muted news program, which had moved on to a live-feed of that annoying box ghost destroying a classroom at the middle school, she listened to the voicemail pick up again and again… Hey this is Danny's phone, Hey this is Danny's phone, Hey this is Danny's phone, Hi you've reached Tucker Foley's personal cell, Sam Manson speaking please leave a message at the – And she dialed yet again, Hey this is Danny's phone,and the Ghost Watch news anchor's chest was covered by subtitles which read "that Danny ghost is still MIA" so she turned away from the television and dialed again, and then someone was knocking on the door.
Hey this is Danny's phone. If it's an emergency, keep calling… Maddie left the phone and almost ran to the front door, certain it would be her son. Nervously scratching his neck and trying to feed her some half-assed excuse about where he'd been. Then she could stop worrying.
But when she opened the door her heart leapt up out of her throat. Angela was there, her eyes red and puffy as though she'd been crying. "I've been trying to call your cell," Angela said, her lip quivering. "Can I come in?"
Maddie moved to let her pass, feeling for her phone in her back pocket. It wasn't there. Maddie followed her into the kitchen, and found that Angela had already collapsed into one of the wooden chairs. She sat next to Tucker's mother hesitantly, and tried to summon the courage to ask her why she came.
They both watched the silent news broadcast, staring at the counter in the corner which the station had thrown up for dramatic effect: 51 hours since the last sighting.
Maddie found that she was actually terrified of asking Angela why she had come. Why she'd been crying. Because she already knew. She knew with the same icy certainty with which she had known what her mother had been about to say when she'd called her the night her father died.
So she busied herself making coffee for Angela, who looked as if she might need a cup or four.
And if Maddie hadn't been certain before, she was certain when the phone finally rang and she snatched it off the hook, desperate to hear Danny's voice on the other end, and instead heard someone else's.
"Maddie Fenton?" someone said, their voice strained and so quiet Maddie nearly didn't recognize the voice. "Maddie, it's Pamela. Do – do you – Maddie, have you seen my daughter?" She could hear the hesitation in her tone, the certainty that Pamela Manson would never dream of phoning the Fentons, as if by calling her she'd committed a social taboo. If Pamela was calling, it was serious.
Angela was staring at the caller ID as if it were positive test results for a major disease. "But why?" she cried, bringing her hands up to her cheeks. "Why would they do this? What reason could they have to disappear like this?"
What reason could they have?
Maybe Sam didn't have one. Maybe Tucker didn't have one either. Maddie knew that Danny Fenton certainly did not have one. Her conviction in this last part was absolute.
But as the news plowed on in her peripheral vision, and the little ticker in the top corner flipped from 51 to 52 hours, she couldn't help but think of the person who did have a reason to run away. And her conviction that Phantom's disappearance didn't have anything to do with her son's disappearance was no longer absolute at all.