"Mom, dad, I can explain…" Danny started, putting his open hands in front of them as he stood in the doorway.
"Danny!" Jack yelled while wearing his pink and white striped pajamas and holding his teddy bear in his arms, "what do you think you're doing out fifteen minutes past your curfew!"
"I'm telling you, it's not my fault!" Danny said, trying to defend himself. His facial expressions gave away how scared he was for the punishment he was about to get. "Can you please just listen to me?"
"Daniel Fenton, you know there's nothing we hate more than when you stay out past your curfew! Do you have any idea how much trouble you could've got in, or how much you could have been hurt out there?" his mom yelled, sounding angrier than someone on the Jerry Springer Show.
"Actually, I do," Danny said, starting to look away, "But you see…"
"You know the deal, then," Maddie said. "You are grounded for one week: no video games, no TV, no friends, no internet or computer, and no staying up later than 8:00!"
"Mom, you don't understand. Actually, I…"
"No more!" Maddie yelled. Her eyes were so angry, Danny thought that they would stick like it if she kept them in that position much longer. "Up to bed right now!"
Danny slumped his head and didn't say anything else. He slowly started walking up the stairs as they slowly creaked under his feet. He opened the door to his room. He was too depressed to take in the messy surroundings with clothes, school papers and assignments and some electronics scattered all over the floor.
He walked over to his bed and kicked his shoes off. He plopped down face-first on his bed and sighed. He was upset enough about having new neighbors to keep his secret from, but now he was grounded just because he was doing his job. He really didn't want to take it anymore.
"Why me?" Danny said in sad, muffled voice as he kept his face buried in his pillow. "I almost wish I never went into the Ghost Portal and got my DNA all mixed up. But, I guess there's no undoing it now. I just wish I could tell my parents about it. That would at least be one weight off my shoulders."
Danny continued sighing until he sat up. When he sat up, a thin cloud of blue smoke come from his mouth. He gasped, and he knew what that meant: another ghost.
"I should definitely get paid vacation days for all this," the fourteen-year old mumbled. He leapt up from his bed and turned into his ghostly other half. He went intangible and flew out the window, then looked for the ghost that had just set off his ghost sense. It didn't take long.
Danny flew to the ground and saw a fancy-looking ghost with an eye glass staring at him, giving a big grin with two larger than normal front teeth.
"Good evening, my dear ghost friend," the ghost said in his Romanian accent.
"Ugh…you again!" Danny yelled. "I just put up with you a few minutes ago, and because of you I got grounded! Don't you think you've caused me enough pain for one night?"
"Dear me, no," the ghost said, sounding like a snob. "Why, I'm just getting started."
"Yeah, well I've just about had enough!"
Danny didn't waste another moment. He fired a blast of ectoplasma at the ghost and knocked him against a tree a few feet away from the house. He seemed dazed a little, but quickly recovered and got back up.
The rich-looking ghost now had a very angry expression (Danny thought it had something to do with the last blast of energy breaking his eyeglass) and proceeded to counter Danny's attack. He formed a ball of energy of his own and fired it at Danny.
Danny was knocked back a little while, but didn't feel a lot of pain. He scoffed. "You know, I'm lucky a lot of ghosts like you are weaklings who can only give me injuries that I feel for less than half an hour."
"Well then, I suppose I should try harder," the ghost snidely replied.
"Look, I'm tired and I want to go to bed," Danny said. "So if you wouldn't mind just getting in the Fenton Themos and letting me release you back into the Ghost Zone, that'd be great."
The ghost started chuckling. "You cannot defeat me so easily. I will show you what happens when you doubt my greatness."
The ghost fired another blast at Danny, and it actually caused a lot more pain. "You see what happens when I try to deal a lot of pain? I can do it when I wish to."
Danny grunted as he got more and more frustrated with how much trouble this one ghost was. He finally didn't want to take it any more.
"All right, that does it," Danny said. "I'm not going to fight you at all. I'm just going to suck you into the Thermos and we can all live happily after, okay?"
But the ghost ran off and instead flew right into Danny's house. Danny's eyes widened with terror. "Oh man, I gotta get him out of my house! Who knows what he'll do? He'll probably wreck the entire place!"
Danny flew inside after the ghost and stopped him before the ghost did anything damaging to the inside.
"All right," Danny said, "I'm not holding back this time! Now, you're going to go into the thermos, or else!"
"Or else what?" the ghost challenged.
Danny grunted, and then fired a blast of energy from his hand and hit the ghost right in the gut with it. The ghost moaned and fell on the ground; he wasn't expecting Danny to be this strong.
The rich-looking, fancy-talking ghost was now on the ground after taking Danny's blast. Danny pulled the Fenton Thermos out of his jumpsuit again and opened up the lid. He didn't waste any time after that sucking the ghost into it.
"I…WILL…BE…STRONGER…" the ghost promised as he got sucked into the thermos. "JUST…YOU…WAIT…"
When the last molecule of the ghost was in the thermos, Danny instantly closed the lid. He was breathing heavy after the short fight, but didn't seem to have taken too much physical stress from it. He took in the quiet area around him after the battle, and liked how everything in the house was the same, meaning nothing was destroyed.
Danny kept the smile on his face as he walked down the stairs towards his house's basement. That was where most of the ghost-catching gadgets were, the biggest being the Ghost Portal: a portal to another dimension where the beings that humans consider ghosts live.
"All right, back to your fancy house," Danny said, sticking the thermos through the ghost portal and releasing the newly captured ghost in to it. "Now STAY OUT!"
Saying this, Danny still kept the grin on his face as he transformed back into his regular form. He started spinning the thermos around, at least being happy to know he wouldn't get bugged by that ghost again. Unfortunately for him, that happiness was short lived.
"Danny!" cried a surprised voice from behind.
Danny choked on the air in his throat. He recognized the voice coming from behind: it was his mom! He slowly turned around and saw both of his parents staring at him, in complete disbelief. The entire house went quiet as all three Fentons stayed silent, not knowing what to say. They had just seen Danny transform.
