It didn't stop. There was no music all night long. Then seven o'clock rolled around, and Danny was rousted from his bed once again by the sound of trumpets. Previous experience had convinced him that Elegy could read his mind, so he spent most of the morning thinking black thoughts at her for not letting him sleep in.

Then Mrs. Tetslaff walked into Home Ec. wearing a slinky evening gown. It was blue, and it glittered. The only thing that could be worse was if Lancer suddenly did likewise, so it was with no surprise that he suddenly did likewise. "Are you trying to scar me for life?" Danny asked the ceiling. Valerie snickered a few desks away.

"Could be worse," she pointed out. "They could be doing a conga line or something."

Danny cringed. "You shouldn't have said that. Now, they will."

"No, they won't," the girl argued. At that moment, the bell rang, and the students and both teachers lined up to conga line from the room.

"Told you."

They trailed after the line, trying not to get caught up in it. The conga line was like an epidemic; everyone it came into contact with was somehow engulfed by it until practically the entire school had happily become involved. Danny briefly thought about how horrible and terrible and wrong it would be if it caused them to miss second period.

"Oh, give me a break!" Valerie jumped and whirled around, ready for a fight. Danny merely grinned, turning at a more sedate pace. "Do you really think reverse psychology works on me?"

"It got you here, didn't it?" he pointed out smugly.

Elegy took a breath, turned a most fascinating shade of red, and muttered, "Okay, point."

"Wait a minute!" Valerie exclaimed. "That's Elegy? You said she was an alien; I was thinking…" She trailed off and shook her head. Suddenly, her expectation of little green men seemed a bit goofy. And she didn't much care for that knowing expression on the woman's face. Surely, she couldn't read minds…

"Well, not exactly," Elegy mentioned, earning a questioning look from Danny. "Anyway, I really shouldn't be here, but you keep attributing this…debacle to me."

The teens exchanged glances. "It's not you?" Danny asked suspiciously.

The woman blinked, then huffed and folded her arms. "When's the last time I directly interfered in the way your wor-work-world works, huh? Fiona's done it; Nocturne's done; and both times the only r-reason I showed up is because I…I was ch-ch-chasing them. Dang it all! Now, you've g-got me going again!"

Danny decided to ignore the accusation and simply be grateful for the proof that he was, in fact, dealing with Elegy. "Then if it's not you, who is it?" he demanded.

The woman tried to smirk and failed miserably, but it seemed to get the point across. "I was going to tell you," she replied, speaking slower. "But now I'm feeling v-v-vin-dic-tive. See ya!"

Then she was gone as though she had never been. After a moment, Valerie shook her head slowly. "Now, what do we do?" she sighed. "How do we beat someone that can bend reality like this?"

Danny was about to say that he didn't know when a memory flashed across his mind. "With someone else that bend reality, of course," he laughed. "Wait here."

"No way, ghost!" Valerie protested, letting the simple word emphasize her feelings on certain subjects. "I'm coming with you!"

"I'm going into the Ghost Zone."

There was pause while the young hunter weighed her chances of coming out alive, pronounced them good enough, and settled on simply not wanting to be there. "I'll wait here."

One day in the not so distant past, Technus and Skulker got into a huge fight over ownership of the Ghost Zone side of the Fenton Portal. The event caused a massive riot that finally culminated into eighty-three arrests and the Fenton Portal being barricaded for weeks. Walker was livid to the point that dimensional travel even under one's own power was expressly forbidden. Anyone caught by Danny and sent back through earned a mandatory hundred-year sentence. It had, in fact, gotten to the point that Walker chased delinquents through himself, and Danny was the only one immune to his wrath for reasons he had yet to learn.

The boy looked around furtively at the lonesome barricades and wondered what had happened. It wasn't like Walker to just abandon his post. He shrugged and flew on, simply grateful that he wouldn't be chased on his way.

Something was different other than the obvious. Rock music blasted through Ember's open door. Looking around, Danny realized that many doors were open. Walker never tolerated that. Suddenly, the boy was a little worried; change might be a good thing in the Ghost Zone, but he wouldn't bet money on it.

Not that it mattered right then. No one paid him the slightest bit of attention. They were far too busy having a huge party that had nothing to do with Elegy, or the Force Responsible's, influence. He was tempted to find out what had happened, but the sight of several of his worst enemies doing the Can-Can, complete with long skirts and fishnet stockings, drove the thought from his mind. He had just enough time to wish he'd brought his video camera before he felt its weight around his neck. With a brief thank you, he switched it on and focused the lens on the dancing ghosts, taking care to get a nice close-up of Plasmius for future black mail.

Finally, however, he did arrive at his destination. The doors were open, which was unusual for libraries in general. A wavering music staff flowed out, complete with notes, and the dancing girls from the day before were back. Danny drifted past them, uncertain exactly what to think until he saw the chaos within. He tried desperately not to laugh as he asked, "Why are there daisies-"

"Don't ask!" the Ghost Writer snapped. He swatted at an owl that appeared out of nowhere and returned to frantically typing. The potted daisies sitting on his head vanished at last only to be replaced by a robin's nest. "There is no logic!" he wailed, giving up for the moment. "How can anyone possibly write such…such…sugar-high randomness?"

Danny snickered. "Her name's Elegy," he offered.

"Yes, I know. Sadly, I know. She's tried doing this to me before. And now, you're here, and I fear she's won at last." He pulled the bird's nest down and set it on an available section of keyboard to stand and pace. "How can I combat such disregard for sanity? How can anyone call himself a writer who writes such drivel? It's…cheating!"

"Wait, she's a writer?" Danny interrupted, earning a bemused stare. Although, thinking back, it did explain her tendency towards literary terms. "So…she has powers like yours, then."

Ghost Writer scoffed. "Please. I'm twice the author she will ever be. The fact that she has resorted to this," he gestured toward the singing roses that were slowly climbing his bookshelves, "only proves that." He made a face as a monkey landed on his shoulder and started picking through his hair.

Danny covered his mouth to muffle his laughter for a moment, then froze. "Wait a minute…I know that monkey!"

Puck jumped across to the Quantum Keyboard and pressed a key at random. Ghost Writer, suddenly shifting to overprotective author mode, lunged forward to swat at the little creature. "Hey, get off of that! My keyboard is not a toy!" Rather than listen, Puck merely leaped out of the way, screeched happily, and started jumping on the keys.

Danny didn't pay much attention as author and monkey played Pop Goes the Weasel around the room, complete with appropriatemusic. His mind had drifted back to the day before to the out-of-place organ grinder. Something had bothered him about that meeting, and he just realized it was because she spoke in rhyme. Considering the circumstances, it was less the rhyming and more the speaking. Everyone else around sang, but not her. In fact, it occurred to him that the orchestra had stopped playing while she had turned the crank of her small barrel organ.

With a sly smile, he quickly flew away. Ghost Writer was rather too preoccupied to notice.

A/N: Credit to Esme Kali Phantom for the "scar me for life" line. It was so befitting of the situation.