Author's Introduction:
It's been the worst day since yesterday. And I didn't want to talk.
Luckily, Jazz did.
Obligatory disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom, but regardless of whatever happens to me or to the show, it will always have a special place in my heart.
One of my best friends and I also recently attended a concert by Lisa Loeb (that made me feel my age XD) which was partially filmed for her E! reality television show, Number One Single (If anyone catches the episode, I'm the only goth in the audience, with my dark hair just above my shoulders and wearing cutout sleeves like Sam's in Parental Bonding. XD HA!) which is probably why her songs are stuck in my head right now, but I don't own them, either.
Not For Anything
A Danny Phantom fanfiction by Firestar9mm
Chapter One: She Was Shooting Them Down
She wanted to be a cowboy;
She was shooting them down.
She was tramping around.
(Lisa Loeb, Falling in Love)
Unlike her mother, whose hair was a darker, blood-in-shadow color, Jasmine Fenton's hair was the warm red of a California sunset—all except for one strand. It was nearly hidden in the rest of her tresses, but she knew that it was there, behind her ear, not red, but grey. One single solitary grey hair, and she frowned every time she saw it, because she knew the stress from which it had come.
"Dad," she said in a warning tone, "you've got about two seconds."
"I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am, Jazzie-pants," her father said as he rubbed his chin in thought. "I thought for sure my calculations were correct this time!" As the big man spoke, he stared up at the ceiling.
Which Jazz was currently stuck to.
She'd begun the afternoon in her room, trying to finish her calculus homework before dinnertime. But even shutting her door didn't drown out the sounds of her brother Danny and his friends doing their own homework in his room down the hall. Judging by the shouting, they'd all argued over what CD to listen to while they worked. That had escalated into some kind of a pillow fight, if the thumps and crashes were any indication. Sam must have won, which didn't surprise Jazz—the goth could be entirely ruthless sometimes. At any rate, they'd put one of her CDs in the stereo, and turned the volume up way too loud. If Jazz had to listen to "Lucretia My Reflection" one more time, she was going to rip that grey strand out—along with the rest of her hair.
Finally, their laughter and the bass line had been too much for Jazz to take. She'd taken her books down to the kitchen and swallowed two Excedrin with some water from the sink. Unfortunately, the problem she was working on required use of a graphing calculator and she'd left hers in school. Thinking her parents were sure to have something like that in the lab (while Jack was more of a technophile, Maddie Fenton often paid homage to the old-school ways of measurement), she'd crept cautiously down there.
Not cautiously enough—as soon as she'd set foot in the lab, Jack had seen her. Lighting up at the chance to explain his latest toy to someone else, he'd immediately swung the gun towards her, yelling, "Hey, Jazz! Wanna see my new invention?" He'd pulled the trigger, and before Jazz knew it, gravity had abandoned her and she'd fallen—not down, but up, to smack against the ceiling of the lab very ungracefully.
"Why don't you start with getting me down, and then we can move on to the apologies?" Jazz snapped irritably, scrabbling for purchase on the ceiling and losing one of her pumps in the process. Apparently whatever had been done to her only worked on living tissue; the shoe dropped to the floor with a clatter.
"Of course I can get you down, princess!" Jack brandished his latest Fentonworks invention above his head. It looked like a cross between a laser rifle and a dust-buster. "The Fenton Anti-Gravity Ray has more than one setting!"
"Stop pointing that at me!" Jazz shrieked, trying to hide behind an exposed pipe and keep the other pump on at the same time. Crawling across the ceiling, it seemed, was much harder than crawling across a floor. "Just get me down!"
As was usually the case, her father wasn't really listening to her. "This is really going to come in handy as soon as I get the bugs worked out. Those pesky ghosts are able to levitate, and that gives them an unfair advantage over us earthbound ghost hunters. So I thought, why not try to level the playing field? If WE could levitate the way they do, we'd have a much better shot at catching them! And—" With a big flourish, Jack pushed a button on the Anti-Gravity Ray. "—what if we just grounded the suckers?"
"Falling" was not the best word to describe what Jazz went through when the button was pressed and the inital effect of the gun on her was negated. "Plummeting" would probably have been a better choice, but the floor was rushing up to meet her far too quickly for her to say anything but "Daaaaaaaagh!"
When she managed to roll over, her father's beaming face filled her vision. "See? Isn't it great?"
That was it for Jazz. "Great?" She hauled herself to her feet, telling herself not to count aches and pains until she was safely back in her room. "Of course it's not great! Dad, I am sick of being shot at, vacuumed up, french fried, and slammed to the floor by your ridiculous inventions! I'm lucky we weren't outside when you did this, or else I'd be sailing through the ionosphere right now! Don't you care about that?"
The big man looked sheepish. He scratched his head with one hand and shrugged with the other. "Of course I care, Jazzie, I just didn't think—"
"Dad, you never think," Jazz burst out. "It doesn't ever occur to you that maybe I'm just not interested in you and Mom's crusade to rid the world of spectral prowlers! Maybe I can't wait to get out of here and do something with my life someday, did that ever occur to you?"
It was obvious from Jack's crestfallen expression that it hadn't. He looked like a little boy who'd been reprimanded; he shuffled his feet and wouldn't meet her eyes. "Didn't know you felt that way, Jazz."
"Of course you didn't," Jazz huffed, jamming her foot into the recovered pump and stomping past him without even asking for the graphing calculator
In the kitchen, she slammed things. Her book cover, the refrigerator door. Stalking upstairs with a can of cherry Coke, she passed by her brother's open door and glanced in. They'd turned the stereo down and were quizzing each other. Danny was sitting on the floor, his book in his lap, a pencil stuck behind his ear. Tucker was in Danny's desk chair, one arm resting near Danny's computer keyboard as if the techno-geek couldn't stand to be too far away from some form of technology. Sam was posed languidly on Danny's bed, looking like a gothic pinup in her usual attire of a plaid skirt and fishnets.
It was the goth who noticed Jazz first, eyes darting up from the printed page as Tucker tried to answer the question Danny had asked. "Hi, Jazz," Sam said, bringing all their attention to the doorway. "What's going on?"
Jazz felt weary suddenly. "Do any of you have a graphing calculator?"
"A what calculator?" Danny asked around his pencil, which had made its way from behind his ear to between his teeth as he concentrated.
Sam shook her dark head. "Nope, sorry."
"I don't need a calculator," Tucker said cheerfully, spinning in the chair and holding up his trusty PDA. "My PDA can do the equations without one. What kind of problem are you doing, Jazz? I'll help you."
Jazz was so grateful for the offer of help that she wasn't even embarrassed to have to ask the younger kids for assistance. Sam was already rolling to a sitting position, making room on the bed. "Here, Jazz, you can sit here."
Jazz was just about to walk into the room when she heard the pounding of excited footsteps on the stairs. Freezing in her tracks, she cringed. "Uh—never mind, guys, thanks. I'll do it later." Whirling, she ran into the hallway, then darted into her room and slammed the door just in time. Slumping against it, she could hear their muffled exclamations.
"Hey!" Danny said.
"What was that all about?" Sam asked, and then the pounding footsteps reached Danny's door.
"Hey, Danny!" Jack yelled. "Wanna see my new—"
The rest of the sentence was swallowed by the sizzle of a laser, and then a horrible, unearthly howl was heard, followed by a crash.
Jazz winced, wondering which of the kids had ended up on the ceiling. A faint scent of ozone crept beneath her door.
"Whoops," Jack muttered. "Darn it! I thought for sure I had it this time."
"Wow, Dad," Danny said appreciatively, so Jazz guessed he was still firmly on the floor.
"What the heck just happened?" Tucker said, his voice thin and panicky. Bingo.
"Move him towards the ceiling fan!" Sam said gleefully.
"No," Tucker said. "Sam, for the love of my PDA, don't!"
Danny laughed. "They don't call him 'Bad Luck Tuck' for nothing. Don't worry, Tucker, we'll get you down." Then he added, almost as an aside, "You can get him down, right, Dad?"
"Of course I can! The Fenton Anti-Gravity Ray has more than one setting!"
Jazz groaned at the similarities to her own encounter with the anti-gravity ray.
Another sizzle, another scream, and Tucker landed with a thump.
"Ow!" Sam screeched. "Tucker, get off me!"
"See, what I was thinking—" Jack began, but Danny smoothly interrupted.
"That's great, Dad," he said. "Really! In fact, I'd love it if you showed me how it works later, in the lab. We just have this test to study for."
Jack took this in stride. "Good thinking, son! Your schoolwork's very important. Almost as important as learning to fight ghosts! When you're finished studying, all three of you should come down for a quick tutorial."
"Sure thing, Mr. Fenton," Sam said. She sounded as though she were in the middle of crawling out from under Tucker.
"Yeah, we'd like that," Tucker added nervously. "Just shoot Sam or Danny with it next time, okay?"
Jazz was all set to admire her brother for how skillfully he'd distracted their father from wrecking their afternoon--something she still hadn't figured out how to do yet. But her temper flared at his next words.
"Have you shown Jazz, Dad?"
That little twerp! Jazz fumed silently. If Dad comes in here, I swear I'll—
But Jack's tone was dejected, although he tried to hide it. "Ah, Jazz wouldn't be interested in this, I don't think. Best not to bother her while she's working." Footsteps; he was exiting Danny's room. "You kids study hard, now," he added, a little more cheerfully.
"We will," the three younger kids chorused, and then Jack's heavy footsteps continued down the hall.
Jazz felt something prickle at her heart, but she immediately reminded herself of all the times she'd been an unwilling subject of one of her parents' "experiments". Sniffing haughtily, she returned to her homework, wondering how to solve the problem without a graphing calculator, or a PDA.
Every day when dinnertime rolled around in the Fenton household, Jazz considered faking a headache to get out of it. So far, she'd never used that excuse, but every so often there would come a day when she would wish she had.
Like tonight, for example.
Jack apparently still hadn't worked out all the bugs in the Anti-Gravity Ray, and even Danny was starting to get upset. Right now he stared up at their supper, which was currently floating near the kitchen ceiling, with an almost pathetic look on his face. "Hot wings," he murmured longingly. "Dad, can't you get them down? I'm starving."
Jack ignored his son. "Not bad, right? They're still floating, but now they're not stuck to the ceiling."
Maddie Fenton was too fascinated to care that their supper was unreachable. "How come only the wings are floating, and not the platter they were on?"
Jack smiled, happy to be able to expound on his theory. "Well, it only affects living tissue," he said. "In fact, Jazzie lost a shoe from the lab ceiling today, right Jazz?"
Jazz only glared. "I don't want to talk about it."
"But Dad, the hot wings aren't alive," Danny pointed out. "They're dead. Really dead. Which means they really ought to be eaten before they get cold." He blinked big, I'm-hungry eyes at his parents, and Jazz was tempted to laugh in spite of herself.
"Good point, son," Jack said, pointing at the hot wings. "Thanks for correcting me. I shouldn't say the ray only works on living tissue. I should say it only works on organic things. Jazz's shoe, for instance, was far too chemically processed to be affected by the ray."
"We'd better make sure those wings are fully cooked," Danny said thoughtfully.
"Speaking of the wings," Jazz said, "can we get them down? I still have a ton of homework to do."
"You should have let Tucker help you," Danny said mildly, reaching for the cherry Coke. "He really knows a lot about that stuff."
Jazz only pouted. "Mom."
But Maddie was smiling at her husband. "Maybe I shouldn't spend so long at the grocery store, if I'm going to miss such great breakthroughs when I'm out!"
Jack beamed, basking in her praise.
Jazz slammed a hand down on the table, but Danny miraculously saved the day, just as he had earlier in his room. "Mom? Remember when me and Jazz were younger, and we weren't allowed to bring our toys to the dinner table? I mean, Dad's invention is cool and all, but we should probably start eating."
Jazz stared in wonder at Danny once again. She wasn't sure if it was all the experience outsmarting his enemies or simply a side-effect of becoming more mature, but she had no idea when her brother had become such a diplomat.
Maddie also looked sufficiently impressed. "That's an excellent point, sweetie," she said to Danny, then mock-frowned at Jack. "Jack? Put the anti-gravity ray away. You and I can play with it after dinner."
The biggest Fenton kid pouted, but he pulled the trigger on the ray gun once more, and Jazz and Danny covered their heads for fear of getting hit with hot wings.
Jack slammed a fist down on the table in delight, causing the silverware to shudder. "See! It worked!"
Maddie was still squinting at the ceiling. "Ohhh...Jack, how am I going to get the barbecue sauce off the ceiling?" she moaned.
Danny was already gnawing on the wing that had dropped onto his plate, but he didn't look happy. "Aw, they're all cold."
Rather than looking upset, Jack and Maddie exchanged excited glances. "Fenton Grill!"
"No," Jazz shouted, rising to her feet as her parents brought out the device, which was about the size and shape of a George Foreman grill (which the Fentons did not own one of, on "principle"). "You remember what it did to the hot dogs."
The Fenton Grill was supposed to cook things faster than normal appliances. However, the first instance of its use had led to the creation of a small, fanged army of zombie hot dogs that had lived in the refrigerator until they had died bravely in the line of duty, protecting Jack during an inspection of the shed. Jazz and Danny exchanged nervous looks, unsure of what the grill would do to hot wings.
Maddie Fenton could smile through a hurricane; she was already loading the hot wings into the grill. "Oh, Jazzie, that was a long time ago. Besides, we've perfected it this time."
Jack sniffled a little, eyes shining. "We must never forget those brave hot dogs. They gave their lives so that I might clean out that shed."
Danny rolled his eyes good-naturedly and pretended to play "Taps" on an imaginary bugle. Jazz kicked him under the table.
The grill pinged, and Maddie opened the lid. "See? They're done!"
Danny eagerly reached for a wing, but his fingers passed right through it to burn against the hot metal of the grill. "Ow!" Yanking his hand back, he blew cool air across his fingertips.
"Be careful, sweetie," Maddie warned. "Give them a second to cool."
"No, Mom, I can't even pick it up," Danny said, poking at the wing again. His finger passed through once more. "They're intangible or something."
Frowning, the two elder Fentons leaned over the grill. "Must be the ghost energy we use to power this thing," Jack said. "They've...they've gone ghost!"
Danny snorted, then clapped both hands over his mouth and nose to hold in his laughter. Jazz glared sharply at him.
All hope of actually eating the hot wings was now completely lost, but Maddie and Jack didn't seem to care. "This was unexpected," Maddie said. "Are the wings really there, or are we just seeing a spectral image of them?"
Jack grinned. "To the lab?"
"To the lab," his wife agreed, hoisting the grill.
"I can't wait to get out of this house," Jazz growled, seizing two fistfuls of her hair in frustration.
All eyes turned to look at her; Maddie dropped the grill back to the table with a clunk. "Jazzie? Honey, what's the matter?"
Jazz stared incredulously at her mother. Most of the time, no one ever listened to her. It would make sense that the one time they did, she'd be saying something she didn't want them to hear.
Jazz's eyes bounced from the grill, to her brother's nervous eyes, to her parents' faces. They looked concerned and a little hurt, much as her father had looked earlier when she'd screamed at him. Guilt and anger were a sweet and sour lump in her throat; there was no way to tell them how she really felt without making things worse. She looked once more at the grill, and then her vision blurred over with tears she refused to let fall.
"Never mind. Forget it," she muttered. "I'm going upstairs." Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked out of the kitchen.
She left her door ajar when she got to her room, but no one chased after her. Instead, she heard Danny's calm footsteps, then his voice on the telephone.
"Hey Sam. You busy?"
Jazz glared at her silent phone. She was jealous of her brother for having someone to call, someone who understood. Flipping quickly through her mental Rolodex of school chums, Jazz could think of not one that would understand her situation.
"Yeah, the hot wings didn't go quite as planned," Danny continued"No, they didn't come to life, they just went intangible and now we can't eat them...wanna go to the Nasty Burger?" He laughed at something she said. "Okay, great. I'll be by for you in fifteen. Bowling after?... Cool. See you."
Jazz wasn't expecting him to stop by her room on his way out, so she was surprised when he poked his head in. "You got mail today," he said, tossing a double handful of envelopes onto her bed. "You made such a scene downstairs, we forgot to tell you."
Jazz rolled over on her bed, glaring at him. "I made a scene? I'm not the one who glued our dinner to the ceiling, then made it impossible to eat."
"No, but you were the only one who got upset about it," Danny pointed out.
Jazz had no answer for that one.
Danny stuck his hands into his pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. "Listen, Sam and I are going to the Nasty Burger to grab a bite," he said. "Do you want to come?"
It was very nice of him to offer, and Jazz would have liked to go along. So naturally, she refused. She'd already offended two out of three members of her family today. Might as well go for a perfect score. "No, I want you to leave me alone."
Danny sighed and left the room. He waited five minutes in the hallway for her to change her mind. Once she heard the front door close, she sat up and glanced at the envelopes he'd brought to her. Seeing a familiar insignia on one of them, she felt her heart jump suddenly in her chest, knocking painfully against her breastbone.
It took four minutes (four panicked minutes) to open them all, and another eight minutes to quickly skim through them, but when she was done she flopped back on her bed, breathless, as though she'd run a marathon.
Six colleges, six acceptances, six scholarships. Six choices, six tickets out of the ghost-hunting nightmare she'd been living in her entire life.
Six life-changing letters.
And no one to tell.
Author's Notes:
I have two younger sisters, but not a big one, which is why I'm grateful to be friends with Jazz. She's always ready with some kind of theory and a fic idea whenever I need to talk. We've actually been trying to start this fic for a while…sometimes things just pop out of nowhere, you know? And thank goodness they do.
Some things:
The Fenton Grill (as I've named it; I tried to look it up on Wikipedia, but they don't mention it. They do, however, have a detailed description of all the other Fentonworks inventions. Thanks to Cloudwalker for the tip!) appears in one of my very favorite episodes, "Attack of the Killer Garage Sale", along with the mutant hot dogs it creates.
I just bought the Suicide Girls CD Black Heart Retrospective, which features a very cool Alkaline Trio cover of Sisters of Mercy's "Lucretia My Reflection". Which I have been listening to on repeat for nearly a week. It's awesome when stores go out of business. Everything's on sale!
The Fenton Anti-Gravity Ray is my own creation. Funny story about Fentonworks: I once wrote a fic piece in which Jack breaks Maddie's clock radio by trying to power it with something I thought was remarkably clever—an "ecto-converter". Imagine my surprise when I saw "Secret Weapons" and learned the damn thing is actually a Fentonworks invention. Of course the fic bit had to be scrapped, and I worried that maybe the writers down at DP were reading my mind. (shifty paranoid eyes)
And I just want to thank everyone for reading as always. (smiles)
(claps hands.) Okay, so chapter two is next…Jazz, in her usual analytic way, decides to attack her problem with her favorite weapon—a list.