Sing to Life
Chapter 5: The State of Denmark
Danny waded through the masses of screaming hyperactive kids, trying not to dump the contents of his lunch tray on anybody bigger than himself. He spotted Tucker in the crowd and joined him at a bench, letting his plate clatter to the aluminum table.
"Hey Danny," Tucker said around a mouthful of something.
"Hi Tuck." Danny ripped a spork from its plastic wrap and gave some lumpy, yellow, malformed blobs an experimental poke. They didn't explode, ooze, or attack him, so he put one in his mouth. "Hm. Tater-tots."
"Yup," Tucker agreed. "They're really gettin' creative with the menu these days." He jabbed his meat patty and dunked it in some ketchup. "'Least it's still edible. Looking forward to tutoring today?"
"Yeah right. I don't even know anybody who goes to tutoring." He sighed, poking at his food.
"I've heard Chris and Duncan help out," Tucker offered. "A lot of the smarter showoffs like to hang around there."
"I guess Duncan's not so bad. Still, it's embarrassing." He wondered where Sam was. She was good at math; maybe she could come with him. He around the cafeteria. "Have you seen Sam around today?"
"She said she had to do some make-up thing at lunch." Tucker crossed his arms on the table, leaning across to Danny. "Hey, it is just you and me going hunting tonight, right?" He tapped his fingers tunelessly on the table. "I mean, Sam's not coming, right?"
Danny rolled his eyes and shoved his tray aside. "No Tucker. Sam's not coming. You're way too touchy about all that. We're not planning to team up and sell you into slavery or feed you to one of my dad's stupid machines, alright?"
"Alright! Okay!" Tucker replied. "Whatever." He slumped over the table, staring into the depths of something that may have been peas at one point. He hadn't meant to tick him off, but Danny did spend a lot of time with Sam. Some form of payback for that last comment was called for. He stirred his peas for another moment before grinning up at Danny. "Do you know what you're doing for her anniversary yet?"
Danny grimaced. "Nope."
"She's expecting something really special, you know. She thinks this is a big deal."
Danny put his head in his hands. "I know she does."
Tucker leaned on the bench. "So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know," Danny mumbled. "Hey, um, Tuck, did you ever, uh, finish that thing you were doing?"
Tucker raised an eyebrow. "The drafting project?"
"Yeah. That."
"I finished it. It was of the thermos, you know." Tucker rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a three-dimensional image of the thermos, complete with metal plating, platinum sheen, and lime rubber buttons.
Danny took it, letting his eyes roam more or less randomly. "Wow. That's um, pretty good." He squinted at it, trying to find something specific to point out. "It looks... good."
Tucker rolled his eyes and took back the picture. "Don't worry about the dumb present. You'll think of something."
"Yeah, I guess so." Danny's spork wandered through a few remaining tater-tots. He still had no idea what he was going to do for it.
Tucker reached over and shook his shoulder. "Man, we just need to get you out at night more often. A little ghost-butt-kicking will have you back to normal in no time."
"Maybe." Danny continued to stir his tots.
The next period saw Danny into his counselor's office. He ambled into the small room and slouched down in a padded chair next to her desk. She greeted him and shifted around a few papers, shuffling through them before organizing them inside a nearby filing cabinet.
The counselor looked at him with thin brown eyes, wrinkling her nose at his posture. Danny glared at her until she let off. She pulled up his transcript on the computer and asked him how he liked his classes, how school in general was going. Danny thought that the session might not be so bad, in spite of its cold beginnings. He thought that right up until she touched on his geometry grades. Danny scrambled to the defensive, mustering his paltry brigade of teacher-weaseling tactics as the onslaught against his competence commenced.
"I'm just not very good at math!" he insisted. "I'm going in for tutoring after school today. I don't need to repeat the entire class."
The counselor drew her mouth into a line. "We all want you to graduate, Danny, and I've heard your parents expect you to get into a good college." She turned the computer screen for him to see. "Thing is, most good colleges want better grades than what you're showing me here."
Danny didn't need a good look at his transcript to know it wasn't good. "Yeah, maybe I wasn't doing too well in freshman year. But look, at the end my quarter grades really picked up. See?" Danny sat up to show her, pointing out a line of B's and C's from his first three quarters that jumped to a series of B's and A-'s in the fourth quarter. "And this year just started. I just, um, needed better study habits. My sister started giving me a hand." He was sure she'd take that bait. It was a lie, but it was close enough to the truth. His grades had turned around after his run-in with Alex, and there was no denying that Jazz had had a strong hand in that victory.
He just hoped his excuse would sell.
The counselor swept back her hair and considered it, looking over his transcript again. She sighed. "Alright. But if you start to have trouble-"
"I know, I know. I'll get help. Just don't move me down a class."
"Alright. I guess we'll see how this goes." She signed his pass but stopped in the act of giving it to him. She withdrew it, examining a paper lying at her elbow. Danny tilted his head to get a better look at it. The xeroxed form had been filled in with his own handwriting, dated the beginning of freshman year. Danny turned his eyes away when he saw what it was.
"Says on your career survey that you want to be an astronaut." The counselor looked up at him. "Is that true?"
"Yes." Danny squirmed in his seat.
"Do you know about all the training they have to go through? All the classes they have to take? Do you know what-?"
"Yes, I know how rigorous it is." Danny kept his eyes fixed on his shoes.
The counselor crossed her arms, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. "You know you'll never make it into space without good grades."
Danny clenched his teeth shut. She was being way too generous with that statement. He'd be lucky to end up as some scientist's secretary, let alone an actual astronaut, even with good grades.
The counselor shook her head and gave him the pass. "Get back to chemistry."
"Thanks," Danny said. He took the pass and walked out of the office and into the halls. He kind of missed the days when he had taken the whole space-astronaut-thing seriously. Those were ambitions for normal students, though. He would just have to find some new ones. Maybe something in the line of costumed super heroism. Danny smiled to himself. That wasn't so bad. Spiderman had worked as a photographer, and Superman was in journalism. The Iron Man was some kind of accountant, and the Fantastic Four even got federal funding. Granted none of those people were real, but for imaginary characters they did pretty well.
He turned the knob of his chemistry room and walked into a class full of dozing or daydreaming students. Nevers looked up at him from the whiteboard.
"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Fenton. Take your seat. We were just going over intermolecular forces."
Danny slept through chemistry and played like a first-grader all through pottery. No longer would he, Danny Phantom, be a victim of the precocious days of the week. No sir. He was taking charge. He had been assigned to make a coaster. Well, this was going to be the best friggen' coaster Ms. Trey had ever seen. Look at all those cool shapes and wobbly borders it had. There was no way he would do badly on this.
The bell rang. Danny looked up at the clock. It couldn't be that late already, but it was. This coaster was due today. Trey was putting it in the kiln after school, but he hadn't finished. Danny shrugged and packed up his stuff. The last of the students were filing out the door, pushing and shoving one another to get by. He looked back at his little coaster.
"Danny?" His teacher was looking over his shoulder. Danny hadn't seen her come up.
"Hi, Ms. Trey. You're firing these after school?"
She inspected his work, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards. "You did a nice job on this." Most students didn't take this assignment very seriously. "You're not finished."
"Nope. I can't stay after, either." Danny slugged on his backpack.
"Do you want to come in early tomorrow?"
He broke into a smile. "Sure."
"Alright. I'll be here from seven to eight, and lunch." She put it up on a rack for him, separate from the others.
"Thanks a lot." Danny walked from the room. He must be turning into a sissy or something to be caring about a stupid coaster. Still, he had to admit that it would be a pretty nice stupid coaster. Chances were slim that anybody would notice or care anyway. There were only two who might, and he didn't think it would matter to Sam. Tucker had taken sewing freshman year, so Danny didn't was pretty sure that he would make a stink about it either. Tucker had insisted that it was just for the ladies, but he'd still been teased about it.
After a trip to his locker, Danny arrived at the door to Mrs. Lows' classroom. He looked up and down the hall, making sure it was empty. Maybe the pottery thing would be overlooked, but if the jocks caught him here they'd hang him from the flagpole by his boxers and shoot spit wads at him until the sun went down. If they could catch him, that is.
Which they wouldn't.
Danny smiled and pulled the door open. Ten or fifteen kids sat in clusters of three at various corners of the room. A larger group had gathered around Lows, who was hunched over a sheet of paper working out a problem for them. One of them had stubble, probably one of the seniors from her calculus class.
Lows spared a glance at him. "I'll be with you in a minute."
"Okay." Danny sat on a desk nearby, resting his backpack in the seat. Chris and Duncan were in one corner, explaining something to Joseph. Joseph was wearing his trademark clueless look, and Chris and Duncan were exasperating themselves. All three of them were in Danny's class.
He wandered over and sat next to them. "Hey. What's up?"
Chris shook his finger at Joseph. "This man... is an idiot."
Joseph shrugged, grinning. "Oh, come on. Explain it to me one more time."
"One more time to add to the several thousand OTHER 'one more times'?" Duncan asked. "You're just jerking us around."
Danny pushed Joseph's hefty body to the side and looked at the problem they had been working over. He tapped a finger on it, trying again to solve it. He hadn't been able to do it on the test. "Did you guys get this one?"
"Sure. You want some help?" Chris asked. "Cuz this guy sure doesn't."
"Meanies." Joseph laughed and got up, pushing Danny into his chair. "Good luck."
Danny listened while Chris and Duncan gave it their best shot. They explained the proof to him step-by-step, pointing out how they'd done it and checking periodically to see if he was following. Danny was nervous and did a lot of nodding and smiling for the first couple minutes, but the intimidation wore off when he realized that the two smarter students were not helping him for the sole purpose of insulting him, and Danny found himself actually learning something.
Duncan finished the problem with a flourish of 'ergos.' Chris glanced over to him. "Do you get it?"
Danny perused their work. To his amazement, he found that he could follow every one of their steps. "You know, I think I do."
"Praise the Lord on high he gets it!" Chris shouted.
"Hey!" Lows called. The forest of students around her looked up at the noise. "Keep it down." She smiled to see Danny working with them. "You getting help over there?"
"Yeah."
"Great." Lows returned to her cluster.
Danny had them help him with several other problems while Joseph sat by and drew dragons. The pair made excellent teachers. They were enthusiastic when he got the problems right and patient when he needed help, and both of them started cussing out Joseph when he started to say something stupid, which happened every time he opened his mouth.
Danny listened to them. Here were the kids who might be astronauts. He'd probably pass the class, but he'd never get good enough at this stuff to make the grade. Something very interesting occurred to Danny, and he burst into a grin smack in the middle of a problem. Chris and Duncan gave him a funny look and asked what was wrong.
"Nothing." He couldn't wipe the smile off his face. "Keep going."
After an hour had passed, Lows stood and announced that she had to leave. "That means that you all have to leave. Go back to your lives and try to forget that it's Wednesday until tomorrow." The students filed from her room, walking off in a slow stream. Lows signaled for Danny to wait. When she had finished wrapping up one last calculus problem, she turned to him. "Well?"
"It was alright," Danny admitted. "Not bad at all."
Lows nodded. "A lot of times the problem is that geometry is just a different way of thinking. Once you get the hang of it, it gets easier."
"That's true. Chris and Duncan were a big help."
"Those two clowns usually are." Lows stood and began to pack her own bags. "Nice kids. Had Duncan's sister a couple years back. Brilliant family."
"Oh." Danny watched her stuff some books and papers away into a handbag. "So, about staying in the class..."
"Don't worry about it," Lows chuckled. "Come in every Wednesday, during lunch or after school when there's something you don't understand, and I'm sure we'll have you up to speed in no time."
Danny smiled. "Great!" He left for the door. "Bye."
"See you tomorrow."
Danny sped home and tromped down to the lab. He wondered what his dad had been up to. Four days had gone by without any explosions or inventions, and usually one of those two happened at least once or twice a day. Explosions were the most frequent, by far. He rustled around the desks, pushing aside papers to excavate a blueprint. It was marked 'Ghost Tickler: makes ghosts laugh?' Danny shook his head. He didn't know why his dad even bothered with kooky stuff like that. The thermos was understandable, but a tickler?
Danny pushed a bin of parts aside and moved toward the steps. He heard another set of feet on the stairs: the short, rapid clicks of his father's lab shoes. Danny put on his best innocent face and prepared an excuse.
"Hey Dad. I was just-"
"Danny! Just the son I wanted to see. I built a new gadget today!" He held up a tiny metal box with a single red button on it. "I built it in my sleep. I don't know what it does, but it looks really cool. Your mother will kill me if I press it and something horrible happens, and Jazz refuses to have anything to do with it. Will you push the button?" He shoved it into Danny's hands.
Danny looked between his dad and the button. "You're really, REALLY weird. You know that, right?"
Jack put a hand on his shoulder. "Son, one day you'll understand that I do things for your own good. I'm going to entrust you with this button in the hopes that one glorious day you will assume your full responsibilities as an heir to that proud Fenton legacy of really really weirdness."
Danny faked a laugh. "Fine, Dad." He shoved the toy in his backpack. "See you!" He left him in the basement and motored over to Tucker's.
Tucker opened the door at his knock. "You ready to go?"
"Yeah!" Tucker ran back inside for a minute and came back with his own scooter. "Let's go." He set it up and let Danny lead the way. "How goes tutoring?"
Danny kicked his scooter into gear. "Not so bad, actually. Chris and Duncan gave me a lot of help."
Tucker looked over at him. "Really?"
"Yeah. I guess Lows asked them to come, but I bet they'd be looking over the shoulders of the calculus kids if they didn't have anyone to help."
"They're sure smart enough for calculus."
"I think I know what I'm going to do for the anniversary," Danny said.
"That's great! You found something?"
"Yeah." Danny sketched it out for him, nearly falling off his scooter several times in his excitement. "It'll be great!"
"Sure sounds like it."
They talked as they rode into the city. The light was beginning to fade, the white glow turning bronze with the approaching evening. They passed under the cold shadows of office buildings and through the angry, honking streets of commuters bogged down in rush hour. The laughter of the two friends echoed from the concrete walls, disturbing shadows that had slept through the blaring of car horns and the crunching of minor accidents. They passed on through the commercial and business sectors, threading their way through the traffic and returning the motorists' dirty looks with goofy faces. The traffic thinned out as they traveled farther. Warehouses and factories belched smog into the sky where office buildings had formerly towered. Danny didn't notice until his ghost sense went off. He pulled up to a full stop and Tucker followed suit.
"What?" Tucker asked.
"Look, Tucker."
Tucker looked around. "This a good spot?" He shrugged. "Okay. Let's get the thermos."
Danny gulped and shook his head. His voice wavered. "No Tuck. You're not looking."
"Don't be such a-" Tucker stopped. The shadows around them were moving.
Shreds of darkness pooled on the building sidings, in the darkness of dumpsters, sneaking and curling around the last fading piercing beams of the sun. The grey wisps danced in the darkness, staying just clear of the light.
A shiver ran up Danny's spine as he transformed. "Who's there?"
"I AM THE BOX GHOST!"
Tucker clapped his hands over his ears as the plump blue-glowing menace hovered above them, armed with unbaked cartons of pie.
"I hate that one," Tucker grumbled.
Danny laughed the tension from his body. "I'm pretty glad to see him, myself."
"FEAR my unbaked rectangular fury, little humans! For I am the-"
"-boxed ghost," Danny finished, cuffing his ears.
"Owwww..." The ghost whined. It rubbed its ears and shook its head clear. The Box Ghost glanced up, its little pug-eyes a pale red, almost pink. "I am-"
"History!" Danny hit it again, knocking it up against the rusted siding of a warehouse.
Tucker was putting the thermos through little bored spins and flips. "Having fun?"
Danny turned to answer. "Actually, yeah."
The Box Ghost clocked him a good one with a nearby cinder block. Tucker gaped as Danny went flying across the road, barely phasing through the opposite building in time.
Tucker went to check on him as the Box Ghost cackled gleefully.
"Still having fun?"
Danny reemerged coughing. Puffs of dirt and dust drifted from him as he hovered in the air, the fabric at his shoulder ripped. "Ugh. This place is a dump. Let's wrap this up and go play video games or something."
"Suits me."
"Ha ha! You cannot defeat my special brand of prepackaged evil!"
Danny made a face. "I'd rather take another cement block than keep hearing that." He fired a beam of plasma at the ghost, and Tucker caught it neatly in the thermos.
"Really?" Tucker asked.
Danny shrugged. "No. Let's get out of here. This place is really weird tonight."
The two put away their ghost-hunting material and sped back the way they'd come. Behind them, the shadows continued to stir. The road watched them leave with cold eyes, waiting as the dying sun finally sank beneath the horizon in a blaze of fireworks that bled scarlet against the clouds. Elsewhere a playful zephyr rustled along the streets, toying with scraps of paper and bottle caps, but it died away long before it reached the darkening road. Not a breath of wind rustled the dirt. No rats skittered along the buildings, and only a few small bags of refuse lay couched in the rusting dumpsters. The air lay still and dead over everything, and in a dark corner a wispy shade took form. It curled like a vapor, spinning and curling across the road to dawdle at the scooter marks. It danced in the rising darkness, and others crept from the shadows to join in.
---
A/N: Whoo-wah! Less than two weeks (barely)! The following people are thanked: smile7499, Wiggle Lizard(who saddens with with her giving up, but I wish her luck), Sakura Scout, Mrs. Granger-Weasley, and Creator Chaos. Your reviews make me smile. You did read the new summary correctly, by the way. This IS an 'apocalypse fic.' Pfft. You guys think Alex is bad news? You ain't seen nothin' yet. ;)