Author's Introduction:

Thanks so much to all my reviewers! I really appreciate how constructive and kind everyone is.

Okay, so Jazz was able to get rid of her concert ticket, trick Danny into eventually helping her write her review, and get a date for the Fall Ball. Everything would be perfect if she could just find her missing psychology notes. Where could they have gone?

Obligatory disclaimer: Money can't buy Vlad Maddie's love, it can't buy the Packers, and it can't buy me Danny Phantom—although I've tried. I also don't own any elements of the Switchfoot song "Stars" that opens this chapter and can be found on the album "Nothing Is Sound".

Ordinary World

A Danny Phantom fanfiction

Chapter Four: Chance of Rain

Maybe I've been the problem, maybe I'm the one to blame

But even when I turn it off and blame myself, the outcome feels the same

I've been thinking maybe I've been partly cloudy, maybe I'm the chance of rain

And maybe I'm overcast

And maybe all my luck's washed down the drain

(Stars, Switchfoot)

Jazz tossed and turned all night, visions of red 'F's dancing in her head. In nightmare after nightmare she searched for her missing page of notes, confronted with the standard bad-dream sentinels of doors that wouldn't open and drawers that wouldn't shut, ending at last in front of a closet full of jumpsuits exactly like her mother's and the Fenton Ghost Gabber on a high shelf endlessly repeating, "I am your future. Fear me."

She woke in a cold sweat, heart hammering beneath the freshman-year Casper High gym shirt she wore to sleep.

It didn't make any sense. All of the notes were in the trash can where she'd left them, all but one. And that page hadn't even been on top of the bin—she'd thrown that page in first and stuffed the others on top of it. Someone searching through the bin would have had to go looking for that page to find it. Someone had taken that specific page on purpose, but why? Why?

It had to have been someone in the Fenton house. No one else had gone in or out since the day before, of that much Jazz was sure. Since she lived in a rogue's gallery, she had no trouble making a list of suspects.

Jack or Maddie might have seen it and read all the questions on it—questions a suicidal kid might ask themselves to weigh the pros and cons of suicide. To an overdramatic parent, it would definitely have looked bad.

But her parents weren't exactly the most attentive parents in the entire world. They didn't even know that Danny was half-ghost, for crying out loud. They wouldn't make the mental leap from Jazz's suicide-paper notes to a reason for a parental freak-out. And they would never suspect her of being suicidal. Besides, every book and every article she'd read about suicidal teens listed similar signs, and she didn't exhibit any of the signs.

That left Danny, and he knew she was writing the paper and what it was about. He had no reason to sabotage it.

Or did he?

She had told on Danny to her parents the night he'd come in after curfew, and he hadn't been too happy about it. Plus, Jazz was always getting good grades, while Danny's were less than stellar.

Then she shook the possibility out of her head. Her brother would never do a thing like that, no matter what fights they had. Plus, they'd been getting along so well lately—he'd taken the concert ticket and agreed to help her write her review, she'd helped him patch up his disagreement with Sam—

Sam.

Jazz's memory flashed back to the Sam's pale scars, to her shocked, angry eyes. Danny had been so defensive when she'd made fun of Sam; they were so protective of each other. He knew, Jazz thought. He knew about Sam's scars and taking her notes was his way of warning Jazz to back off.

Fully awake now, she threw the covers back and jumped out of bed. It was nine A.M. on a Saturday, way too early to be barging into Danny's room, but this was an emergency. "Danny, I have to talk to you—"

Her brother was sprawled on his still-made bed, snoring. He was still wearing the jeans and the army-green t-shirt he'd worn the day before, and his Converse All-Stars were still on his feet. Jazz noticed dust on his cheek and in his hair; a scraped knee was visible through the torn leg of his jeans.

What the hell had happened to him last night?

She shook her brother's shoulder, her voice far softer than she had intended when she'd come in. "Danny. Hey, Danny."

He stirred, batting at her hands weakly, caught in the place between sleep and waking. "No. No…leave me alone…"

"Danny. Danny, it's Jazz. Danny!" She shook him harder.

He blinked, his blue eyes opening. "Jazz? How'd you get in here?"

"I'm asking the questions," she said, but not unkindly. "Why are you all dirty? How'd you scrape your knee? Why are you still in your clothes from yesterday?"

"I'll take 'None Of Your Business' for a thousand, Alex," Danny yawned, rolling over so he wasn't facing her anymore. "I'm okay, Jazz. It's clotting."

Jazz wrinkled her nose. "Ew." Now that he was facing away from her, she could see a bruise on the back of his upper arm beneath his short sleeve, as if someone—or something—had grabbed him by the arm and squeezed.

She wanted to reach for her brother, to hug him and tell him she was proud of him, that all the cuts and bruises were worth it in the end. But she couldn't. She had no idea what the entire truth was, and he didn't want her knowing, or else he'd have told her already. It was so hard not to show how hurt she was by his silence.

Her head ached with everything she didn't know, so she decided to stick with what she did know. She reached for his shoulder again.

"Danny, listen to me. In the trash can in the kitchen—"

Danny's groan was muffled by the pillows. "Come on, Jazz, I'll do it this afternoon!"

"No, Danny, there were some notes in there for my psychology paper. I—I threw them out by mistake. I got most of them out, but the last page is missing. I really need it."

"It's got to be somewhere." Danny rolled over again and opened one eye. "Wait a minute, you threw out your own homework?"

Sometimes Danny was more perceptive than she gave him credit for. "I said it was a mistake. And you were supposed to take out the trash—"

Danny yawned, stretching flat on his back once more. "I know, I'm sorry already. I'll do it this afternoon, I said."

Jazz clamped her lips together. "No, Danny, you're not listening to me. I know you're worried about Sam, but I promise not to upset her. Just please give me back my notes."

Danny propped himself up on one elbow, squinting at her. "Jazz, what the hell are you talking about? What do you mean, I'm worried about Sam?" Both eyes shot open. "Should I be worried? What do you know?"

Exasperated, Jazz brought a hand to her forehead. "Fine. Be cagey. I don't care, Danny, I just want my notes back."

"I don't have your stupid notes!"

"Danny, I'm not kidding—"

A rattling sound from the window stalled the argument; both siblings turned to see the prongs of a ladder, clearly visible at the sill. A sleepy smile curled Danny's lips and he sat completely upright. "Hi, Sam."

Sam appeared at the top of the ladder, her combat boots loud on the rungs. "Hey, Danny—Jazz!" Her warm greeting turned into surprise, and she fell the rest of the way into the room. "What are you doing here?" she asked from the floor.

"I should be asking you that! Where'd you get the ladder?" Jazz pointed accusingly at Sam. "And why are you using it to climb into my brother's room at nine in the morning on a Saturday?"

Sam hauled herself up from the floor. She brushed imaginary dust off her third plaid skirt of the week. Today's colors were green and purple beneath a black tank top. "I'll take 'Mind Your Own Business' for eight hundred, Alex."

Danny flopped back to the pillows. "Get out of my brain, Sam." He blinked, then added, "Get out of my room, Jazz."

Jazz frowned. She couldn't bring up the missing notes again while Sam was in the room. "What about telling me how you got those scrapes and bruises?"

Sam hopped onto Danny's bed, bouncing on the mattress. "It's cool, Jazz. Danny and I were racing our motor scooters last night, and he sucks at it so he fell at the edge of the boulevard. No big."

"I don't suck." Danny smiled into his pillow. "Sam cheats."

Jazz looked at Sam's smile and knew she was lying. Danny had been out fighting ghosts again, had crawled home bloodied and exhausted to collapse into bed, and now Sam, like a good soldier, was here to protect him from prying eyes and leading questions. Jazz felt like a bully.

"Rise and shine," Sam said, taking Danny's hands and pulling him off the bed and to his feet. "Up, up, up."

Danny groaned, draping his arms over Sam's shoulders, a human coat for the goth girl. "What time are we meeting Tucker?"

"In two hours at the multiplex, so into the shower with you." Sam hooked her chin over his forearm.

"Well, gee, Mom…" Danny chuckled as Sam led him out of the room.

Jazz hurried into the hallway after them. "Hey, you," she said, grabbing Sam's shoulder before she marched Danny into the bathroom. "You stay out here while he showers."

Sam rolled her eyes. "Grow up, Jazz." To Danny she said, "I'm going to make toast. Want some?"

"Love some," Danny said as he closed the door. "You're the best, Sammy!"

Sam rolled her eyes, but smiled. She turned to Jazz. "Want some toast?"

Jazz couldn't believe it. "…Toast?..."

"Yeah. Toast. It's bread, only burned. Want some?" Sam asked, as if she were dealing with someone a little slow to catch on.

The toast wasn't what Jazz was having a problem with. What was bothering her was how normal Sam was acting—for Sam. Jazz knew her secret now, and she was talking about breakfast.

Just like Danny, Jazz realized with a sickening start. Sam was pretending she didn't have a secret, and Jazz was pretending she didn't know the secret.

"Welcome to the family," she murmured. "Let's go get some toast."

High school, like the Serengeti, had two opposing factions: predators and prey. Casper High was no different. At any given moment of any given school day, one could see examples of either faction in the labyrinthine hallways (where Dashus Bastardus could often be seen shoving a nameless Freshmanus Victimus into a locker), the urban jungle of the cafeteria (where Beauteous Vapidus and her various satellites held court at their table in the center of the room) or the savage garden of the quad (where Gothicus Succubus, Technicus Geekimus, and Fentonus Spiritus sometimes chose to take their lunch, trying to lay low and avoid the ever-sweeping radar of Casper High's biggest predator, Lancerus Maximus).

All this had occurred many a time before the watchful eye (but never interfering hands) of Casper High's very own sociologist, Jazzus Observerus.

Being smarter than the average Casper High student, Jazz had often seen herself as a teenage Jane Goodall, prowling the hallways and studying the strange pack behavior of the kids around her. This particular Wednesday proved to be no different. For instance, right now she was watching Dash and Kwan stick a sign on the back of an unsuspecting Nathan. However, instead of the usual "Kick Me" sign, this one said, "Go Ravens" in celebration of Spirit Week. Jazz blinked, realizing how distracted she'd been lately.

The Casper High Ravens had spent the majority of last season getting their asses kicked by every team in the league. It was customary to open the season with a thrashing by the neighboring champions at Spellman High, the ironically named Spellman Specters. Jazz often wondered if that was why they threw the Fall Ball every year—so the team could lick their wounds and try to forget that homecoming was never much of a celebration.

In all of Jazz's years at Casper High, the Ravens had never beaten the Specters. She was pretty sure it had been like that for a long time before she'd ever attended the school. But she almost liked it better that way—if the Ravens won against the Specters, there'd be no reason to have the annual pre-game pep rally, which got bigger and bigger every year and was sort of looked upon as an unofficial school holiday. The Ravens-Specters game was on Friday; the pep rally was held on the Thursday before.

Annoyed with herself for allowing her stress to get to her, Jazz's face darkened like the storm clouds that had been gathering outside the window since the weekend. Paulina and her major satellite, a blonde named Star who had a cute and sunny voice to match her Walt Disney cartoon name, had their perfect noses pressed to the glass as they watched the clouds boil on the horizon.

"But it can't rain on pep rally day, it just can't," Star wailed, hands rising to her cheeks in horror, as if someone had told her there would be no Christmas this year.

"Pep rally's not until tomorrow. Maybe the forecast will clear up by then," Paulina said hopefully. "I've got the most wonderful idea for our skit!"

In all the recent stress, Jazz had forgotten about the pep rally. Usually she tried to participate in some way, even if it was something small and simple like adding to the decorations (one of her previous year's posters was still hanging near the trophy case—a poster board with a black felt raven and the words "Casper High, We've Got The Spirit!" written in glitter pen) but she'd been so busy this semester that she hadn't had time.

Most of the Casper High students enjoyed the seasonal Spirit Weeks scattered throughout the year—kids like Dash and Kwan got to flex their muscles, girls like Paulina and Star got to be in the middle of a crowd of adoring students—but the Casper High attendee who enjoyed Spirit Week most of all was Mr. Lancer. Pep rally attendance was voluntary, but Lancer cheerfully made it mandatory in the case of misbehaving students, his creativity coming alive as he doled out punishments that forced school spirit into even the most gloomy of kids. Jazz remembered last semester's rally—Tucker and Danny had been unwilling tackling dummies for a demonstration by the entire football team while Sam was forced to sell refreshments—cheeseburgers and hot dogs. A strict ultra-recyclo vegetarian, Sam was nearly green with nausea by the end of the rally, while Tucker and Danny were black and blue.

As Jazz watched, the man in question stopped Paulina. "I must say, Paulina, I was very impressed by your idea for the pep rally this semester. It's good to see you taking such an interest not only in Casper High, but in Amity Park's current events as well."

At the mention of current events, Jazz had to wonder: just what had Paulina come up with?

"Thank you, Mr. Lancer," Paulina trilled. "I only hope we can get enough people to participate!"

Lancer's eyes glinted, a smile of absolute wickedness curling his lips. "Not to worry. I'm sure I'll find a few…volunteers."

A chill shook Jazz's senses and she closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against the wall. Danny, Sam, Tucker…be good this week. For the love of God, please be good!...

A hand fell on her shoulder, jarring her back to the waking world.

"Jasmine Fenton," Lancer said as she whirled to face him. "Just the person I wanted to speak to. I know I can always count on you to bring spirit to our pep rallies…"

And just like that, the observer became the prey.

"I can't be in any skits," Jazz immediately protested without thinking.

Lancer chuckled. It was probably supposed to sound warm and comforting, but instead it came out like a comic-opera villain's laugh. "Oh, Jazz. I would never waste your talents in something as paltry as a skit."

Jazz arched an auburn brow. "My talents?"

"Your ability to reach the student body," Mr. Lancer said smoothly. "No one can whip them into a spirited frenzy quite like you can. We saw that at our last pep rally."

Jazz pursed her lips. Her psychology teacher wanted her to dissect the student body. The newspaper editor thought she wasn't reaching them. Now Lancer was insisting she was the best at it.

Her head hurt.

"Mr. Lancer, I've got a huge psychology paper…"

Making up excuses wasn't one of Jazz's strong points, although she'd improved slightly with all the practice she was getting keeping her parents away from the "ghost kid". Still, she wished Danny, Sam or Tucker—the king, queen and duke of making up excuses—were around to give her some pointers. She couldn't even come up with a halfway decent reason not to participate in a school pep rally, but her brother and his friends could take an explanation involving meteorites, cherry Coke, and the First Amendment and come up with something that actually made sense.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Lancer?" Matt Prescott walked up to them, mercifully interrupting. His trusty Nikon F5 was around his neck, hanging from a strap that read "Casper High - Go Ravens!" on it. Jazz remembered those from her very first Spirit Week freshman year. She'd tied her strap into a bow and kept her car keys on it now.

"Matt. I understand you take pictures for the yearbook." Lancer turned his attention to Matt. Jazz smiled at him.

"Yes, sir. I also take the pictures for the newspaper." Matt was the kind of guy who was just polite to everybody, called them "sir" or "ma'am" as the situation warranted, always used someone's full name until he'd received permission from them to use a nickname. Jazz liked that about him. It was comforting that chivalry wasn't entirely dead.

Lancer steepled his fingers with the casual air of a megalomaniac. "Ah, yes, which brings us to the reason I called you out here. Mr. Wat and I had an...exchange of ideas..."

Read: argument, Jazz thought.

"...regarding your participation in this semester's pep rally. Of course we'll want pictures from the rally for the yearbook, and while I understand the Invisible Ink is just as important a part of the school as, oh, say, the trophies in the trophy case..."

Jazz and Matt exchanged small smiles. It was obvious which part of the school Lancer thought was more important. Mr. Lancer, Casper High's biggest, baldest cheerleader.

"...I must say that the student body will want to see their star running back in full uniform on that field...weather permitting..." The last was a grumble, and Lancer glared towards the window. He seemed as upset about the inclement weather as Paulina and Star had been.

"Well, of course, sir. Anything for the team, sir, but a commitment is a commitment..." Matt shrugged, not sure what to say. Jazz smiled. He was almost as good at spouting counselor catch-phrases as she was.

It was a good argument, and Jazz respected it, but Matt was going to lose. It was hard to stop Lancer from getting his way once he got on one of his Spirit Week crusades.

And then, just in the nick of time, like always, the Only Normal Fenton had a brainwave. And, like most of her good ideas, it served more than one useful purpose.

"I can help," she cut in smoothly. "Would that be okay, Mr. Lancer?"

"What do you propose, Jazz?" Lancer became all business now that his waxing poetic about the football team had been interrupted.

Boldly, Jazz seized Matt's camera strap and carefully took it from around his neck. Holding it up, she said, "I can take the pictures for the newspaper and the yearbook while Matt participates in the rally with the rest of the team. That way everything gets done the way it's supposed to. I'm sure we'll have to ask Mr. Wat if that's okay, but it shouldn't be a problem, right?"

Lancer frowned, eyebrows working. Jazz could tell he was looking for a hole in her logic and couldn't find one. "I was looking forward to another of your enthralling speeches, Jazz."

The funny part was that he seemed serious about that. "I don't mind taking pictures, Mr. Lancer. It's good for all of us to expand our horizons," she added with happy inspiration, cribbing from Mr. Wat's speech to her about changing the way she wrote her newspaper articles. "It might do me well to see things from...another perspective." She punctuated this by looking through the camera's viewfinder at Lancer and taking a picture.

Blinking away the afterimages of the flash, Lancer nodded grudgingly. "All right, I'll clear this with Mr. Wat. Please show up promptly at 3 tomorrow for the rally, okay?"

"Yes, sir," Jazz and Matt answered, then exchanged a blush and smile almost worthy of Danny and Sam.

Jazz let out a sigh of relief as Lancer walked away from them. "Sorry about that," she said to Matt, handing him back his camera.

"Are you kidding? You just saved the day," he joked, advancing the camera. "Thanks, Jazz."

"Don't thank me. I just took a rather awful picture on your camera..."

Matt chuckled. "Yeah, he can be scary sometimes. We'll use it for the Halloween issue."

"If the picture even came out," Jazz added. "I should have probably told Lancer that I have no idea how to use that thing."

Matt smiled. "It's easy. I'll show you." He glanced at his watch. "Do you have fifteen minutes or so? I could show you right now."

"Don't you have practice?" Jazz asked.

"Yeah, but I can be a little late." He smiled at her, then added. "You're always saving the day, Jazz. Are you some kind of super hero or something?"

"I'm no hero," Jazz sighed. "That's my brother."

If the sun rose on Pep Rally Thursday, it was hidden behind a mask of clouds that began to pour rain right before lunch. This meant bad news for a lot of people.

It was bad news for any P.E. classes held that day, because they were trapped in the gym and forced to play dodge ball, the worst of all indoor sports.

It was bad news for anyone participating in the pep rally, because now it was going to be held in the gym, rather than out on the field.

It was bad news for Danny, Tucker and Sam, because they were stuck in the cafeteria during lunch, and therefore unable to avoid Lancer, who was all too happy to deal his three favorite troublemakers a pep rally-related punishment.

Jazz found this last part out as she headed towards the gym doors at the final bell. The three ghostketeers were gathered at Sam's nearby locker, looking glum.

"Hi, guys," she said, walking over to them.

"Hey," Danny said, looking up from a white sheet he was holding folded over one arm. "What's the camera for?"

Jazz held it up and looked at him through the viewfinder. "I'm the official Casper High photographer for the day. I'm taking pictures for the yearbook and the newspaper. How do I look?" She pressed the shutter, snapping a picture.

"Like a big flash going off in my face." Danny blinked. "Ow."

"Since when do you take pictures for the newspaper, Jazz?" Tucker asked. "I thought you wrote reviews on movies and books no one's ever heard of."

Jazz took a minute to frown at that. "I'm helping Matt Prescott. He's the official photographer, but since he's on the football team, he can't be in two places at once."

"Matt Prescott?" Sam asked, penciling more black eyeliner under one eye, then blinking at her reflection in her locker mirror, which was full-length and barely fit inside the locker door. "Isn't he the senior with the big guns and the nice smile?"

Jazz couldn't help but smile a little herself. "Yeah, that's him."

"Jazz has a crush," Tucker teased. He had another white sheet in his lap and a pair of scissors in his hands, sitting Indian-style on the tiled floor.

"Jazz has a date for the Fall Ball, Tucker," Jazz sniped back. "Something I'm pretty sure you don't have yet."

Tucker pouted. "I'm working on it!"

"His 'guns' aren't so big," Danny said, looking at his own arms. He sounded a little jealous. "Since when do you like football players, Sam?"

"I like nice guys," Sam corrected him, smudging her purple eyeshadow.

"Jeez, Sam. Where do you get your makeup, Sales From the Crypt?" Tucker quipped, cutting a round hole out of the sheet in his lap. "I don't know why you're even bothering to make yourself up like that. No one's going to see you under these stupid things anyway."

"You could get to Wonderland through that mirror, Sam," Danny laughed, looking over the goth's shoulder at their reflections. "It's huge!"

"Most people just get a magnetic mirror," Tucker said.

"Well, that's our Sam," Danny said, a little admiringly. "Always different."

Sam blushed, giving Danny a smile. "Want to try?" she asked.

"Try what?"

"Try to go to Wonderland." Sam leaned back against the mirror.

Danny laughed. "No, thanks. The last time I fell through a mirror, it wasn't such a good time."

They laughed, and Jazz wasn't sure why it was funny. She figured it was some ghost joke that she wasn't supposed to know existed. She pushed it to the back of her mind, irritated by the shared secrets she had no part of.

"Anywhere would be better than here." Sam sighed and closed the locker, turning back towards the boys. "How do I look?"

Tucker handed a sheet up to Danny, who grinned and threw it over Sam. "Boo-tiful."

Sam kicked out from beneath the sheet, her boot connecting solidly with Danny's shin. "I hate you."

"Ow!"

Jazz watched this exchange with a cocked eyebrow. "Okay, I thought maybe I could guess, but I'm just going to ask. What are the sheets for?"

Sam pulled her sheet off, mussing her hair. "Paulina's stupid skit."

Danny chuckled bitterly. "Don't you know? We're the Spellman Specters."

Jazz touched one of the sheets with her toe. "Don't go home dressed like that, or Dad will blast you all the way to Kenosha."

"I'd rather be blasted to Kenosha," Danny said. "I can think of ten places I'd rather be right now, and three of them involve me being on fire."

"Dare I ask why you guys are in the skit?" Jazz asked. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you didn't volunteer."

Tucker pointed at Sam, Sam pointed at Danny, Danny pointed at Tucker.

Jazz expelled air through her nose. "Never mind. I think I should just be glad no one was hurt."

"It's no one's fault," Danny sighed. "There just isn't a god. Lancer would have nailed us for anything he could think of. He was dying to get us to participate in this stupid thing."

"It wouldn't kill you guys to have a little school spirit," Jazz said loftily, which earned her glares from the three younger kids.

"That remains to be seen," Sam said darkly, taking her sheet up again.

Jazz stamped her foot. "You're always so negative. Why can't you just look on the bright side for once?"

Sam looked a little taken aback, but Danny stepped in to save the conversation. "Trust me, Jazz, when you see what we've got to go through out there, you'll realize there's no bright side to this." He punctuated it with a grin, and Jazz felt her irritation fizzle away. That was Danny, always ready with a smile or a joke, no matter what armies were approaching to the north.

"Maybe Jazz is right," Sam said, shocking the assembled party further. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Jazz smiled at Sam. "See, there you—"

"We die horribly, and then it's over." Sam finished her own sentence with a shrug, and Jazz's smile flipped to a frown. But it earned Sam laughter from the boys, and she basked happily in it. Jazz was jealous—how could they be so happy when the chips were so obviously down?

"Get together," she said suddenly, raising the camera.

Danny looked over at her. "What?"

"Get together," Jazz repeated, waving the camera. "I'll take a picture."

"You're supposed to be taking pictures of the rally," Tucker said.

"Right. That means I can take pictures of people who are participating in the rally. That means you guys."

"We're participating under extreme protest," Sam joked. "We don't count."

"Of course you count," Jazz said, more fiercely than she'd intended, maybe because it was Sam who said it. "You count. Now get in close."

Danny and Tucker each looped an arm around Sam, and as Jazz centered them in the viewfinder she thought they were already as close as any friends could get.

"Perfect. That's perfect." She smiled and lowered the camera. "That's going to come out great."

"I can see the headline now. 'Picture of the three teens moments before the pep rally that caused their deaths'," Tucker joked.

Jazz arched a brow. "How bad is Paulina's skit?"

"Bad," all three teens said.

Jazz tilted her head in thought. "How bad?"

"Paying ten bucks to see The Matrix: Revolutions bad," Tucker said.

"Ashlee Simpson on SNL bad," Danny said.

"Two seasons of The Simple Life bad," Sam said.

Jazz's eyes widened. "That does sound bad."

"Oh, you'll see," Tucker chortled eerily. "You'll see."

"It could be worse," Danny said, pulling the sheet over his head. "At least no one can tell who we are in these things. Come on, Sammy, I'll race you." Danny gave Sam a push and ran through the gym doors.

"No fair! You cheated!" Sam squealed, giving chase, her own sheet folded over her arm.

Tucker groaned. "If they don't hook up before we graduate, I'm going to owe a lot of people a lot of money."

"You've got semesters and semesters of pep rallies to go before then," Jazz murmured, watching them go through the gym doors.

"Yeah, don't remind me." Tucker pulled his own sheet over his head.

"They say high school is the best years of your life, Tucker," she said absently, still looking at the gym doors.

Tucker's sheet was misshapen over his trademark red hat. "You volunteered to be at this thing, right, Jazz?"

It was weird to talk to a sheet with eye holes, but Jazz nodded. "Yeah. Well, sort of. Yes."

"We didn't. But here we all are, in the same place."

And with that, he turned and walked through the doors, sheet and all.

If you had a camera around your neck, everyone suddenly found reasons to be standing right in front of you. Jazz had to elbow aside two cheerleaders, a few members of the chess club, and the mascot before she could get a clear shot of Mr. Lancer at the podium, trying to "whip the students into a spirited frenzy" as he so put it.

"You are all aware of the long-term rivalry between your beloved Casper High Ravens—" Lancer gave the crowd a minute to cheer and stomp their feet on the bleachers. "—and the odious Spellman Specters. I firmly believe it is your continuing and increasing school spirit that has allowed our Ravens to get closer and closer to victory each year!"

More cheering. Jazz rolled her eyes as she moved to a low seat on the bleachers near center court. She wondered exactly how much spirit it was going to take in order for the Ravens to even beat the spread against the Specters, let alone win a game.

"And now, for your entertainment: a skit by your fellow students, engineered by the lovely Paulina!"

Paulina took her place at the center of the gym floor, sporting a cheerleading uniform, complete with cranberry and white pom-poms. Paulina wasn't actually a cheerleader—she thought the dark wine color clashed with her supposedly "flawless" complexion, but she didn't seem too upset to be wearing the uniform now. She gave the crowd the Queen's Wave, dimpling and posing. "Hi everyone!"

"We love you, Paulina!" the crowd dutifully called.

"I know!" the queen of Casper High sang back, then started her act—badly.

"Oh, my. Look at all these people! They must be as excited for the Ravens-Specters game as I am!" She waved her pom-poms, and the audience took their cue and whooped it up.

Paulina's mouth turned down in an exaggerated frown. "Ohhh," she moaned. "That was a weak cheer! Maybe they aren't as excited as I am!" She put a hand to her ear and popped a hip, inviting another cheer, which the crowd gave, much louder this time.

"Muuuuch betterrrrrr," Paulina approved, arms akimbo. "With cheers like that, we'll have no problem beating those Specters!"

Hearing their cue, the sheeted kids raced onto center court, surrounding Paulina.

"Wooooooooo," the Tucker-sheet howled, running up and tickling Paulina's bare midriff. She swatted at him, stepping clumsily away. Her look of frightened disgust probably wasn't acting, Jazz thought. Poor Tucker, but it served him right.

"Whaaaat heeeee saaaaaaid," Danny-sheet echoed, grabbing Paulina's shoulders from behind and shaking them. She yipped, breaking away from him, but she didn't look angry. Jazz reasoned that was part of the act. She gave her brother credit for not trying to cop a feel, which was more than could be said for Tucker.

The last sheet stomped Paulina's foot as she went by—hard.

"Ow," Paulina shrieked, finally breaking character and scowling. "You did that on purpose, Samantha Manson!"

"Boo!" Sam-sheet cackled, completely unpenitent.

As if suddenly remembering she was in public, Paulina fell nervously back into character, glaring at the Sam-sheet. "Ohhh, no!" she cried. "Ghosts! Are these the Spellman Specters?"

"We've coooommme to sabotage your team's wiiiiinning streeeeaak," said Tucker-sheet.

"Which is juuuuuuust as invisible as weeeee arrrreeee," Danny-sheet joked.

There was some laughter from the crowd. Lancer frowned; obviously that hadn't originally been Danny's line.

"We are masters of all things spectral and intangible! Beware our ghostly wraaaaaath," Sam-sheet said as they circled Paulina like sheeted sharks. "Beware!"

Danny-sheet chuckled, for some reason Jazz couldn't place. Another inside joke, she assumed. Now was not the time to get upset about it.

"Oh no!" Paulina cried, raising her hands to her cheeks in badly-acted horror. "Who will save me?"

Hearing their cue, the football team rushed out to wild cheers from the crowd, one line of five from each locker room door. They worked the crowd for a minute, pumping their fists in the air and posing. When the applause died down, Paulina jumped up and down and clapped her hands.

"Hooray! It's the Casper High Ravens! If anyone can beat these evil Specters, it's them!"

"Ten to three? Those odds suck!" Tucker-sheet said.

"This whole thing sucks," Danny-sheet agreed.

Sam-sheet had the last word. "Gives new meaning to the phrase, 'I'm surrounded by idiots'."

Lancer was definitely not happy with the ad-libbing; it was easy to tell by his expression. The student body found it amusing, however, judging by the scattered giggles and snorts.

"Ten to three?" Jazz wondered aloud. Hours of watching the Packers play on Vlad Masters' big screen had taught her more than she'd ever cared to know about football. "But football teams have eleven players on the field at a time."

Paulina gave Jazz the answer in her next plywood sentence: "But who will lead this group of mighty warriors? Where is your quarterback?"

On cue, Dash Baxter swung to center court on one of the ropes used for the P.E. climbing exercises, dressed not in a football uniform, but as—

"Inviso-Bill!" Paulina cheered. "My hero!"

"Ugh!" Jazz couldn't hold back her disgust, but it was lost in the cheers of the crowd. Dash was wearing a white wig and a black track suit. He didn't really look like Danny Phantom, but the effect was enough.

"Yayyyy!" the crowd roared. Apparently "Inviso-Bill"—god, what an awful name!—was finally gaining popularity around Amity Park. It was about time, Jazz thought smugly. He only saved the city from various ghost-related mishaps about three times a week or so.

But her smile faltered almost immediately as she looked around. They weren't really cheering for Danny Phantom. They were cheering for a dumb quarterback jerk in a bad costume, while the real hero was covered by a sheet at center court, his face as well as his identity hidden from the crowd.

"Boo," Sam-sheet hissed, but she wasn't pretending to be a ghost. Apparently she found the whole thing distasteful, too. Jazz wasn't surprised—Sam's love was bloodthirsty, and she took the slings and arrows of Danny's unfair world just as personally as if they were aimed at her. Right now she and Tucker had stepped closer to Danny, flanking him as the cheers grew louder.

Jazz was suddenly, fiercely proud of her brother and his friends. In Casper High's war between predators and prey, they were definitely the prey; however, they went not like lambs to the slaughter, but like tigers. Together they battled, and together they suffered. The football team could have probably learned a thing or two about teamwork from the kids they were about to torture.

"You spooks are goin' down!" Inviso-Dash crowed.

"Oh no," Danny-sheet said boredly. "Help. What ever will we do." He had backed closer to his sheeted friends until all three were standing in a huddle.

Kwan had the "Let's Go Ravens" banner that had spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday hanging over the gym doors in his hands. He passed it back along his line and around to the other line until every player was holding a section of sign.

"Red fourteen! Red fourteen! Go—go—go!" Inviso-Dash ordered.

The team sprang into action, running circles around the sheeted teens until Danny, Sam and Tucker were tied together back to back with the banner. A roar rippled through the crowd; many of them got to their feet with excitement. Jazz remained seated. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take.

"My heroes!" Paulina cried, hugging Dash around the neck. "Thank you, Ravens! Thank you, Inviso-Bill!"

"The irony of this is just sickening," Danny-sheet said glumly.

"Cheer up, Danny," Tucker-sheet said. "At least you can say you got to hit the sheets with Sam."

"Tucker!" the other two sheets yelled in embarrassment, but they needn't have worried. Only Jazz was close enough to hear their "lines" now in the midst of all the cheering.

Dash was grinning at Paulina. "Hey, baby. How about you and I ride off into the sunset?"

Paulina was jerked back to reality; she shoved Dash away, hard. "Get real! You're only pretending to be Inviso-Bill, so I'm only pretending I want to be within ten feet of you!"

Lancer had had enough; he slammed his hand down on the podium and roared into the microphone. "The next person who ad-libs a line is getting detention for a week!"

The crowd seemed to carry Jazz out into the hallway like the tide. More than half the school had attended the rally—the best turnout in a long time—and bodies pressed together on their slow way out, a human traffic jam. Scouting over the various heights and heads for anyone she knew, Jazz saw Matt in his jersey and waved to him.

"Your camera!" Jazz called, trying to keep her head above…water.

"Just hang on to it!" Matt laughed, being swept away by the human waves. "I'll call you later!"

Happy to have an excuse to get a phone call from him, Jazz laughed too. "Okay!"

Since they would all be leaving at the same time, she had decided to wait for her brother and his friends. After the awful trauma they'd gone through, she figured they at least deserved a ride home.

Unfortunately, waiting across the gym doors meant that she had a front-row seat to the Dash and Paulina Show.

"So, do you like quarterbacks?" Dash was asking, still in his costume and still trying to sling an arm around Paulina.

Paulina rolled her eyes. "Clothes do not make the man, my friend. You are so not Inviso-Bill. You have noooooo shot at me."

Dash pulled at the jacket of his black track suit. "Come on, don't you think I look just like Inviso-Bill?"

Jazz was saved from having to hear any more of this exchange by the arrival of Danny, Sam and Tucker. They looked tired but amiable, their humiliation over for now.

"You guys were great," Jazz said cheerfully.

They all regarded her with raised eyebrows.

Jazz sighed. "Okay. You guys were right. It was really bad and painful to watch."

"We told you," Tucker said. "And you got to record it all on a thirty-six exposure roll."

Jazz smiled. "I'll drive you guys home."

"Sounds good," Danny sighed, stretching his arms over his head. "I could use a nap."

"Wait," Sam said. "If Jazz is driving us home, I need something from my locker. I'll just be a second." She turned in a swirl of hair and skirt.

Danny sidled against the wall, moving further down the hall. Jazz could see he was trying to be casual—he wasn't looking directly at Sam, but at her reflection in the full-length mirror as her locker door swung open.

"Fine!" Dash was saying to Paulina. "I wouldn't even want to be confused with that ghost kid. I'm way cooler than Inviso-Bill anyway!"

"I wish someone would cut that guy down to size," Tucker said, frowning at the display.

For a minute, Jazz thought they were still in the skit, because a green bolt sizzled from the vicinity of the gym doors, leaving a faint scent of ozone in its wake and slapping Dash aside as if he were an action figure.

"Ghost boy!"

A large, heavily armored ghost assassin stood almost casually in the gym doorway, the barrel of the laser strapped to his forearm still smoking. "Your little show of spirit was quite enthusiastic," the ghost announced. "Can we bring the cheerleaders to the Ghost Boy vs. Skulker deathmatch?"

The crowd exploded into rolling waves of pushing and shoving, unsure of where the ghost had come from but knowing that he was Something Bad and they should get out of the way. It was almost amusing how used to the ghost attacks the students of Casper High were becoming.

But no matter how used to it they got, they weren't above panicking and stampeding when it did happen. Danny flattened himself back against the wall, blue eyes wide. Sam whirled at her locker, violet eyes fixed on the ghost. Her hands were balled into fists, tense and ready.

"Danny, stay where you are!" Jazz called.

"I have to!" The panicking crowd was too large and solid; they were all trapped where they stood—Sam at the locker, Danny against the wall, Tucker and Jazz further down the hall.

Dash scrambled ungracefully away, eyes wide. "No! No! I'm not the ghost boy! I'm the star quarterback!" His wild gaze darted to Paulina, who stood transfixed, petrified. "Ask her!" Dash shrieked. "Ask her! I don't even look a thing like Inviso-Bill!"

The ghost actually looked perplexed. "It seems I've been tricked. That makes me…cranky." He made an adjustment to the weapon strapped to his forearm; Jazz had spent enough time around her parents to recognize the sound of a laser warming up.

Danny and Sam exchanged panicked glances; so did Jazz and Tucker.

"Change of plans," the ghost chuckled wickedly, cocking the laser and rising through the ceiling like an angel of death.

Author's Notes:

The Fenton Ghost Gabber is definitely one of the funniest Fenton inventions, and appears in the episode "One Of A Kind". It's supposed to translate ghost noise into English—when Danny demonstrates by saying "Boo", it translates into "I am a ghost. Fear me." However, when he adds, "I have to go to school," it translates, "I have to go to school. Fear me." So who knows if it really works. (chuckles). Love it.

Danny and Sam keep making fun of Jazz with "Jeopardy!" jokes. I hate "Jeopardy!", but my grandmother loved it and watched it all the time when she lived with us. I can't bring myself to visit the hospital where she
lives now; the furthest I get is the beach outside, and curse myself for a coward every time.

Danny also says, "Hi, Sam," when he and Jazz hear the sound of a ladder against the windowsill. This is a reference to the first show I ever loved on Nickelodeon, "Clarissa Explains It All". God I miss that show. (smiles.)

Jazz's "observation" of Casper High contains a lot of fake Latin names, which might amuse anyone who watched the old Bugs Bunny-Road Runner hour as a kid like I did. (smiles.) Meep meep!

There is no such team as the Spellman Specters on the show, but judging by episodes such as "What You Want", the Casper High Ravens really do seem to take a beating on that field. Yikes!

Matt Prescott's camera, a Nikon F5, is the kind the criminalists of CSI use to take pictures at their crime scenes. An interesting bit of trivia: David Kaufman, Danny Fenton's voice actor, appears in the critically acclaimed S1 CSI episode, "Unfriendly Skies".

Danny tells Sam that she could get to Wonderland through her large locker mirror—just like Alice does in Lewis Carroll's novel Through the Looking-Glass.

Tucker, Danny and Sam's descriptions of "bad" poke fun at three people who should never have been given video cameras—the Wachowski brothers, Ashlee Simpson, and Paris Hilton, respectively.

In the episode "Bitter Reunions", Jazz refuses to go to the reunion with Jack, Maddie and Danny. Instead, she stays in a theater in the Masters mansion and watches old footage of the Green Bay Packers, who still won't sell their team to Vlad. (chuckles.) Ah, Vlad, will you ever win?

Finally, homage to the best quote in the world, which I was proud to give to Sam in this chapter. My best friend Cloudwalker, an excellent writer who is kind enough not only to be my friend but to beta my stories for me, once told me, "What's the worst that can happen? You die horribly, and then it's over." Truer words were never spoken, not even by Anita!