Chapter 2:
Lid of a Box
"Hey, Danny. How'd the ghost-thing go?" Tucker asked his friendonce he hadrejoined them at the Nasty Burger.
"Oh, just some giant purple fire-breathing griffin thing. I beat it in like, half a minute."
"Well, that's a new one," Sam remarked. "So, then what took you so long?"
"I saved these two little kids from it. And then they came back to thank me," Danny explained.
"The ghost or the kids?"
"Oh, ha ha Tucker."
"At least the town likes Danny Phantom now," Sam remarked.
"Yeah? Well I don't," Valerie growled. She had overheard the lastpart of the conversation from her lonely spot at a booth. She smiled at them. "Hey, Danny."
"Oh, uh, hi Valerie," Danny said. "Still holding a grudge?"
"No! What makes you say that?" Valerie replied sharply, crushing one of the napkin dispensers in her hand.
"I think that's a yes," Sam remarked dryly.
Valerie glared at her. Danny decided to find a different subject.
"So, uh, Valerie. We're going to see a movie. Want to come?"
"Sure. It's not like I have anything better to do, since my dad confiscated all of my ghost-hunting stuff."
"Danny, why'd you have to invite her?" Sam whispered angrily as they left for the theater.
"Hey! She doesn't really have any friends anymore," Danny muttered, looking up at the girl walking in front of them andchatting to Tucker.
"So? She's been the victim of her own shallow popularity. As far as I'm concerned, she deserves it. You know how she used to treat us," Sam retorted. "Besides," she continued before Danny could speak, "I don't think she'd let you live it down if she ever found out that you're the ghost-boy. Literally."
"Sam, you worry too much. People change. And besides, I've saved this town how many times now? I think I can handle a ghost-hunter with a grudge, particularly since she doesn't have any of her weapons." Danny looked at Sam as she opened her mouth to speak. "No, and if you keep talking about it while she's ten feet away, Valerie's bound to find out."
Sam glared at Valerie as Danny caught up with them. She had her own reasons for keeping him away from her.
"Mom? Dad?Jazz?I'm home!" Danny called as he walked through the door.
"Hey, son! I've got good news! We--meaning your mom--fixed the Fenton Finder!" Jackgreeted happily.
"The Fenton Finder?" Valerie, who was still with them, asked. "What's that?"
"It detects ghosts," Maddie said, showing them the device. "Now we just turn it on, and-"
"BEEP BEEP BEEP! Ghost detected," the Fenton Finder bleeped.
"Ha-ha! It works!" Jack exclaimed.
"Uh, that's...great! Now, if you need me for anything that doesn't involve ghosts, I'll be up in my room," Danny said hurriedly, dashing upstairs. He made a mental note to destroy it with a ghost ray the first chance he got.
"Uh, and we'll be up there with him!" Tucker said, while he and Sam both followed Danny.
"I guess I'll follow them," Valerie said, wishing she could remain to look at their entire ghost-hunting surplus.
The Box Ghost looked at the small box.
It wasroughly the size of those boxes that fancy engraved pens came in, and was dark gray incolor. Green luminous symbols etched on a lid that lay next to the boxproclaimed words in a language he couldn't understand.Both werelined with red velvet, but besides that, were empty. The Box Ghost was annoyed, but it was still a fine specimen. He felt that it would aid him the battles against his formidable enemy.
The box, however, seemed to have other plans. It blurred around the edges, like a square mirage, and began to fade.
The Box Ghost was startled; this wasn't normal box behavior! He watched as it dissipated into wisps of gray smoke, then vanished all together.
He looked at the lid, which, immune to theevaporation of the box,still remained. A new word had appeared beneath the original green writing, written in the same strange, unrecognizable language.
He sighed. He'd found the box floating, already opened, throughout the Ghost Zone. Attracted by its appealing squareness, he'd picked it up. Now all that remained was a lid, and he was no Lid Ghost.
He threw the lid, green symbols and all, away into the abyssal realms of the Ghost Zone.
"Beware!" he cried, although no one was there to hear, and flew off to find an abandoned box-filled warehouse to haunt.
The rain waterfalled down from the heavy gray cloudsthat blanketed the sky in thick shades of ever-darkening gray. Water cascaded through gutters, gurgled down storm drains, washed through the streets. Windshield wipers were hard put to keep the glass remotely clear on the few cars that sped along the streets, misting up clouds of water from the pavement to mingle with the rapidly-falling drops. Rain leapt up from puddles as it fell, and patteredforcefullyagainst windows and roofs.
Danny was grateful that no ghosts had shown their faces since the rain had begun. Nor did any such paranormal activity seem likely. He had made sure that the Fenton Portal was sealed up tight, striped doors locked and warding off the spectral dimension much as the doors to the outside were shut against the rain. It would be just his luck, battling Skulker or Technus or even the ridiculous Box Ghost outside today.
The rain still managed to put a damper on the day, though. There was nowhere to go. Sam, Tucker and he had quickly exhausted every video game Danny owned. Their movie supply had been exhausted that previous night. And it wasn't as if Danny would willingly seek out some ghost action in this weather.
So,Saturday found a bored trio of teens lounging in the living room of the Fenton household, staring at the blank TV screen.
Jazz found them next.
"What are you doing?" she asked as she came in from the kitchen.
"Watching the TV," Danny replied boredly.
"It's not even on!"
"I know," Danny told her. "I said we were watching it; I never said we were watching a show."
Sam turned another page of a dark poetry book she had been reading. She'd read it six times already that day, and was beginning to loose interest, despite the fact that it was her favorite.
"She does have a point," Sam remarked. "Why watch the TV when it's not even on?"
"Because we couldn't think of anything better to do?" Tucker supplied, quite truthfully.
"Well, don't you have any homework?"
"Finished it," they said simultaneously.
"Video games?"
"Played them," they replied, again in unison.
"Ghost fighting?"
"Jazz, there is no way I'm going out in this weather to find a ghost--that might not even be out there in the first place--just so I can fight it!" Danny said angrily, waving his hands to make the point.
"Did someone say GHOST?" a voice boomed. It heralded Jack Fenton,runningup from the basement laboratory.
Danny eyed the now beeping Fenton Finder grasped in his mother's hands, who had followed her husband up the stairs.
"Ghost detected. BEEP BEEP BEEP!"
"Uh...yeah!" he said quickly. "Um, it just ran outside!"
"We got a runner!" Jack exclaimed. He dashed outside, into the rain, to fight the supposed ghost. Maddie followed close behind, calling out something aboutFenton Umbrellas, andplacing the Fenton Finder upon a table as there was already one installed in the Fenton RV.
This gave Danny an idea.
"Well, now that they're off chasing phantoms--more figuratively than literally, this time--let's play a little game," Danny remarked evilly, picking up the still-bleeping Fenton Finder. "It's called 'How many ways you can destroy the most annoying ghost detector of all time.'"
"That's a long name," Tucker remarked.
Dannygrinned evillyand phased through the floor, down into the lab. Sam, Tucker, and Jazz followed--via the stairs, of course.
"Danny, you're not really going to-" Sam began.
"Not going to what? Spend the rest of the afternoon thinking of a creative way to trash this thing, and various other ghost-hunting weapons that keep detecting me in the most annoying way possible?" Danny finished innocently. "Wouldn't dream of it," he said, eyes glinting.
"This isn't going to end well, is it?" Tucker asked. No one replied.
Danny had already 'gone ghost', and tossed the Fenton Finder in the air. He aimed a finger at it and sent a brilliant green ghost ray in towards it. Tucker was quick to seize another offending invention--this time the Ghost Gabber--and waved it in the ghost boy's direction.
"Get this one next, Danny!" he called as he threw it up into the air. Danny flew towards it, flipped around,and kicked the Ghost Gabber into the wall where it snapped in two.
"Hey, this is fun!"
Danny flew lower. "Come on, Sam!" he urged. "It's not like any of this stuff really works, anyway! Well, some of it does, but-"
Sam crossed her hands and shook her head, muttering something that sounded like "Boys," in a contemptuous voice.
"Okay, then." Danny grabbed a device that looked somewhat like a toaster and threw it towards his techno-geek friend. "Go long, Tucker!"
Tucker ran to catch the toaster, but missed, and the toaster soared past him to hit a panel on the opposite wall and fall to the ground. As it did so, two toasted pieces of bread popped out half a foot into the air.
The panel the toaster had hit was the 'On' button to the Ghost Portal.
"Nice catch, Tucker," Danny said dryly. He picked up one of the pieces of toast and took a bite. He spat it out, complaining, "Yuck! What'd they do, use ectoplasmic butter?"
Sam pointed to a plastic tub of margarine, which wasfilled to the brim with the slightly luminous green goo. "Survey says, yes."
A small, hard object chose that moment to hit Danny in the back of the head.
"OW!" he exclaimed. "All right, that stupid 'BOO-merang' is going next!"
The item on the ground, however, was not the BOO-merang. Nor was it anything that had come from the FentonWorks lab. It was the dark gray lid of a smallish box, lined with red velvet on the inside, and etched with glittering green symbols in a strange language.
-E.P.