ZOMG! I live! And I bring with me from my semi-death Chapter 2.
Disclaimer: No posesso DP. No speako Espanol. Tu speakas?
Chapter 2: Unexpected Visitors
I pushed open the double doors to Casper High, like you would see in an old Western. I like to make an appearance. My one vanity, I would consider. Black suit? Check, though a little bit rumpled and wearing thin at the elbows, knees... well, everywhere, but ghost hunting was not exeptionally profitable. My black hair, buzzed short, blended very nicely, I thought, with the rest of my black outfit. I had forgotten my sunglasses (FBI style,) though. They were probably lying in pieces on some Godforsaken street in this Godforsaken town by now.
The first thing I noticed about the inside of the building was the noise. Adolescents screamed, they ran for cover, they held excruciatingly boring conversations about the latest fall fashion lineup. The decibel level was one that I would usually expect to hear with an ear up to artillery being fired. But as far as I knew, artillery was't allowed in public schools. (Yet.)
The second thing I noticed was the surprisingly avacado-shade paint that decorated most of the inside of the building. It coated lockers. It coated walls. It surprised me that the children's eyes' hadn't exploded.
The third thing that I noticed was Danny Fenton, the son of the two parents, being shoved into a locker by a large, blonde, violent-looking boy. The big one looked angry.
"Fenturd!" he yelled, still trying to fold the kid into a shape that would fit into a locker. "Why...won't...you...fit!" He accentuated each word with a shove, his face contorted into an almost-feral rage. Danny rolled his eyes between little grunts of pain.
Fenton, on the other hand, looked bored (if in pain.) His expression, far from the panicked-hunted-animal look that I would have seen on any child that I would have shoved into a locker, said plainly, I haven't got all day, you know. And apparently, he didn't, as the bell rang right above my head and the students flooded into their respective classes. Fenton landed, grabbed his books out of his locker, and headed to his first period class along with the rest of them. The only damage he seemed to have gotten was something on his leg, I thought, as he hobbled away. Weird.
The other two Fentons, equally weird in a different way, barged in through the door. They actually kicked it open, if you can believe that. So cliche. So amateur. Any hitman-in-training can tell you that even they, contrary to popular belief, do not kick open doors.
"Where'stheghost!" yelled Jack, drawing a weapon out of who-knew-where and waving it threateningly. Maddie and I gave him a look, and he put it down, looking contrite. "Sorry," he explained. "Force of habit."
"Let's just get to the office," I said. We were wasting time. I just wanted to get the ghost kid and leave. Maddie, sensing my exasperation, led the way to a large door on our left, a stained wood that seemed to be the exact shade that would least go with the avacado paint. We entered the office, which was just as odd-looking as the rest of the school.
A hideous potted plant squatted menacingly on the secretary's desk, leafy fronds draped over the sides of the pot in a decidedly octopus-like gesture. Some chairs surrounded a small table in the middle of the room, throwbacks to some bygone time when chairs didn't nesscesarily need cushions, arms, or most of their legs. A couch, a shade of puce that didn't agree with my stomach, sat heavily against the wall near the door, looking like it would would swallow the next person who dared to sit on it. A few pictures involving children, bicycles, and young animals hung lopsidedly on the walls in a halfhearted attempt to beat back the awfulness of the rest of the room. It was an altogether horrible place.
The secretary glanced up at me, saw the Fentons, grinning in their spandex jumpsuits, as well, and let out a long, world-weary sigh. She pressed down a button on her desk, and held a microphone up to her mouth. "The Fentons and someone else..." she paused and put the microphone down. "What's your name, sir?"
"Vincent Tabarowsky," I said, at my gruffest. The secretary shrank back a little bit and picked up the mike again.
"The Fentons and a Vincent Tabarowsky to see you, Ms. Ishiyama," she continued.
"Is it important?" a loud voice said over the office intercom, very brisk, businesslike. "I don't want to see them if it isn't important. You know that, Sherry. Actually, I usually don't want to see them at all." The voice laughed at its own joke.
There was a long pause, in which Jack and Maddie Fenton looked very offended and the secretary looked like she was holding back laughter.
"...They heard me, didn't they? I hate this new office intercom; second time this week that this has happened... Remind me next time, Sherry," said Principal Ishiyama, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Well, I guess that they can come in... It's not like I have anything better to do with my time besides watch reruns of the Brady Bunch."
We opened the door to her office and headed in, sitting down on some chairs that were probably made for kindergarteners. Jack's chair creaked uncomfortably underneath his weight.
"So..." said the principal, elbows on her desk and fingers steepled. "What sort of ...madness, really, do you want me to let you two do in my school?" She leaned back in her high-backed exectutive chair, which I was sure had cost several rare animals their lives.
"Well..." said Jack.
"I'd like to find a job here," I interrupted, before he said anything stupid. "Inviso-bill haunts this school, correct?"
"Yes...?" said Ishiyama, clearly not getting the point.
"I'm a ghost hunter," I explained. "Meaning that I - " I saw the Fenton's faces, looking very expectant, out of the corner of my eye. "I mean we want to catch Invisobill. Send him to the government for them to vivisect. You know, that sort of undercover thing."
"I'm afraid that we don't have any spaces open for a new teacher," she said apologetically. "Sorry."
"Are there any other jobs that I could take?" I asked, exasperation filling my voice.
She grinned, a nasty, vengeful sort of grin that probably would have looked better on one of my former colleagues. I decided I didn't like her.
DPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDP
I glanced up at the students rushing out of the door to weekend freedom, too busy to give them the stony glare that I reserved for occasions such as these. Too busy with what? you might ask. Leaning against the wall and being generally sullen and bad-tempered? Thinking about different ways that you could catch Phantom?
No, I would respond, and then I would fling you against one of the vegetable-shaded lockers hard enough to dent it. I mentioned before that I valued appearance. It gives others a hint of who you are and what pain will be brought if they mess up.
Unfortunately, janitors cannot wear black suits, no matter how threadbare and worn.
I was busy, to answer your question, mopping the floor where some kid had thrown up a few minutes previously. I was wearing a blue, jumpsuit-like janitor uniform that made me look like some overgrown space cadet, and I was hating every minute of it.
"I'm hating every minute of this," I said to Principal Ishiyama as she walked through the clearing halls. She gave me another demon grin.
"It was your decision to come here," she said, shrugging unapologetically. "You got the job, now do the work." I mopped harder, throwing up a small spray of soapy water and vomit.
"I hate vomit, too," I decided. "I hate everything." If I had been on stakeout, I would have been satisfied. I would have enjoyed being shot at by my target at this point. But no. Being a janitor has a certain air to it, one of indignity and swallowed pride. People sense it. And then they laugh at you.
To add insult to injury, I wasn't even getting paid. "You already have a job," had said Ishiyama, sounding pleased with herself for coming up with this latest boredom-buster. "And besides, you're not really a janitor. You're just standing around, looking like a janitor." I wish that she had told the custodial staff that; despite my explanations and badge-flashing, they had suited me up and sent me out to clean up the various scholarly messes that needed cleaning up. And, of course, I had to remain low-key, as my superiors had so patiently explained. No theatrics. That took what little joy there was in the job completely out of it.
I looked down at the floor to see how progress was. Not very much, I saw. The vomit was thoroughly mixed with the mopwater now, and spread across the tile floor as well. I poked one of the more suspicious-looking chunks with the mop, carefully. What had that kid been eating? I was not a very good janitor, I decided. Maybe I should have tried for something more like cafeteria worker.
And besides, janitor was one of the worst jobs I had ever held, coming in admittedly close second to "live bait."
And then something happened. I didn't see it, hear it, anything like that. But I felt it. A shiver ran down my body unexpectedly, even as the stark fluorescent lighting flickered ominously.
"Welcome to my school, Mr. Tabarowsky," said a voice behind my back, dark and full of strangely rich menace. "I hope that you have a decidedly unpleasant stay." I felt something hit the back of my head, smelled something burning. And then I saw nothing, as blackness trickled down my vision.
Yes, I know that that is, like, the most cliche cliffhanger in existance, and this is a ridiculously short chapter. But what else can you do?
Well, you could tell me by pushing that litttle purple-blue button down there. You know.
