Danny walked into his room after school and threw his books and homework down onto the floor. He sat on his bed and covered his eyes with his hands.
"So…much…stress…" Danny moaned. The stress from school was making Danny's adrenaline so high that he felt like his powers were suddenly much stronger. But then, Danny assumed that everyone felt a little bit stronger when they were really upset.
After thinking about all the work he had to do for a little while, Danny opened up his backpack and pulled out all the work he missed. His first priority was understanding Romeo and Juliet a little better, because failing the test on it would mean failing the grade. Throwing all his other work aside, Danny picked up his copy of the play and started reading it out loud.
It only took a few moments for Danny to get frustrated and make him even more upset and overwhelmed. He couldn't understand a single thing that was written, even with all the glossary words to help him.
After banging his head on the book a few times, Danny's mom yelled up to him "Danny? Are you okaaaaayyyy?"
"Yes, mom," Danny said in an exasperated way.
"Did you take those antibiotics yet?"
Danny sighed. "No, I haven't. I'll take them now."
Danny went over to his night table and pulled out the bottle of antibiotics that doctor gave to him a few days before when he went while he was sick. After swallowing the antibiotic, Danny immediately went back to his work. He got distracted for a moment when he heard the phone ring. He was running to get it until he heard his mom yell that she would pick up the phone instead.
After a minute or so, Danny heard his mom hang up the phone. Danny continued working until he heard his mom yell "Danny! The doctors want to see you again!"
"That's great. When?"
"Now!"
"What!" Danny dropped his books on the floor and started to release a bit of the frustration that he had from all the work. "Why now? How come I have to go to the doctor's now? I'm fine! I'm perfectly healthy!"
"It's about the blood test they performed on you!" Danny heard his mom yell. "The doctors said there was a beyond-normal amount of ectoplasma in your blood! They say that much is normally only found in ghosts!"
Danny gulped. By performing the blood test, the doctors just found out that Danny had way too much ectoplasma in him for a normal human.
"Oh no," Danny groaned. "Are the doctors going to figure out that I'm part ghost from this? Great! Another thing for me to worry about!"
Out of frustration and stress, Danny knocked all his books over onto the floor violently. He then reluctantly went outside to his mom's car as she drove him to the doctor's office. That entire time, Danny was driving himself nuts with all the things he had to worry about.
"How am I going to get all my missed and regular work done on time?" Danny thought to himself in the car as his mom was driving him to the doctor's office. "What if I don't get a passing grade on that test this Friday? Does it REALLY mean I might not be able to go to tenth grade?" And now, Danny's new main concern was "What if the doctors figure out that I really AM a ghost? How will I explain that?"
When his mom reached the doctor's office, Danny nervously got out of the car and started walking towards the front door. His heart was pounding, he was hoping his secret wouldn't come out during whatever it was the doctor's wanted to do.
It wasn't a long wait for the doctors to get ready for the procedure. When they were ready, they called Danny into a large room. In that room was a large machine, and it didn't look like anything Danny had ever seen before. There were four doctors there: three who Danny had never seen before, and the one who examined Danny two days before.
"Danny, here's what I want you to do," Danny's doctor said when he walked in. "I want you to lie down on the metal table, and we're going to hook these wires up to you until we get a reading on the computer."
Saying this, the doctor pointed to a screen built into the piece of machine. That was apparently the "computer" he was talking about.
"When something appears on this screen, the test will be over," the doctor said.
"What 'test'?" Danny said as he was being strapped down onto the table and hooked up to all the wires and other things. "I thought you were going to tell me something about my high amount of that ectoplasma stuff."
Danny tried his best to make it sound like he had no clue what the doctors were talking about when they mentioned the ectoplasma. He thought that if he made it seem like he didn't know what the doctors were talking about, they wouldn't become so suspicious.
"This is a test," the doctor reassured. "It's supposed to see how a regular human can survive with such high amounts of ectoplasma in their blood. That is, of course you're not actually human. You're not some other monster that can survive with that high amounts of ectoplasma, are ya!" the doctor joked.
"What? Me? Heh heh…no way," Danny lied. He just wanted the test to be over and done with, hoping that the doctors wouldn't be able to figure out that he was a ghost. "I'm just a regular, average, everyday kinda kid."
"Well then, let's begin the procedure, shall we?"
When Danny was completely strapped into the machine, the doctor pulled a switch on the wall. Instantly, Danny felt as if thousands of electrical volts were surging through his body. He tried to flop around on the table, but since he was strapped down, he couldn't. He screamed loudly and could be heard over the entire machine rumbling. Even the table started shaking violently from the machine running.
Danny tried to scream for the doctor to turn down the intensity a little, but no words came out. Finally, he heard a loud beeping sound coming from the computer and the machine was turned off automatically.
When the machine finally stopped, Danny's head was spinning. The doctors untied all of the things keeping Danny down and that was the only sound that could be heard, other than the sound of the machine quietly dying down.
"Wonderful!" Danny's doctor said when the test was completed. "May I please see the results?"
One of the other three doctors handed Danny's doctor a clipboard that had the results of the test that had just been done. Danny's doctor had a smiling face, but when he saw the results, he started frowning.
"Oh, dear…" the doctor said. "This won't do at all."
"Hey, what's wrong?" Danny asked, curiously. "Am I free to go?"
"There seems to be a bit of a problem with the forensics of these results. I am afraid that these are inconclusive."
"What's inconclusive?" Danny said. "What do the tests say?"
"We were hoping we could get to the bottom of why you seem to be able to survive with such a high amount of ectoplasma in your blood," Danny's doctor explained. "But these results were inconclusive. We will need to perform these tests again."
"Oh no," Danny moaned. "Why will we have to do them again? Can't we just drop it, knowing I can survive with that high amount of whatever-you-call-it?"
"No, I'm afraid not," Danny's doctor said. "If it is left in our medical records that a patient has a lot of ectoplasma and we can't do anything about it, then we could get sued. We wouldn't want that now, would we?"
"No…" Danny mumbled.
"Splendid!" Danny's doctor said. "Be back here tomorrow at the same time as you got here today so we can hopefully finish up these tests."
Danny groaned, but really had no choice but to accept. When he went the next day, the doctors said that the results were once again inconclusive. Annoyed, Danny had to go back the next day, but not before he had to confront that test.
It was the end of Lancer's class on Friday, and Danny was still struggling with the test. He had no idea what any of the answers to the questions were, and he was no doubt going to fail. And that meant either summer school or repeating the class.
When Danny handed it in at the end of the period, Lancer saw how upset Danny looked about the test. As Danny was walking out of the class with his head down, Lancer made Danny an offer he couldn't refuse.
"Mr. Fenton, would you please come here?" Lancer asked as Danny was walking out the door. Danny breathed out heavily, knowing that there was bound to be trouble.
"Yeah?" Danny said, still looking very worried about the test he had just taken.
"Mr. Fenton, I can tell by the look on your face that you've been trying harder than normal to pass this test, and I know what's at stake for you if you don't do well. So, I am going to do something totally out of my style. If you get a failing grade, I will allow you to retake the test."
Danny was taken back by this and nearly lost his breath. "You…you'll what?"
"I'll let you retake it," Lancer said with a calm face. "And I'll keep the score of whichever test you did better on."
After profusely thanking Lancer, Danny ran out into the walls and felt as if a giant weight had just been taken off his shoulders. He no longer cared that he still needed to take the antibiotics and go to the doctor's office again to have a test taken on his ectoplasma. The doctors didn't seem to figure out that he was half ghost yet, and Danny had his doubts that they ever would.
Now, for the first time all week, Danny could finally relax. He could plop down on the couch after that test was performed on him in the doctor's office and he could just enjoy himself.
After the trip to the doctor's office that Friday, Danny got more good news: Danny's doctor finally got conclusive results so Danny wouldn't have to go through the machine again. The doctor tried explaining why the results were finally conclusive, but Danny didn't understand them, nor did he really care. He was just happy it was finally Friday afternoon and he had nothing more to worry about.
How wrong he was…