-gets pelted with tomatoes- So sorry about not having this chapter up sooner! I've been working on a lot of different writing projects, including some lovely DxS oneshots. Muhahaha. But now I have here for you, an extra long chapter that I think you guys will like! Woot!
Onwards!
Chapter Five
Third and fourth periods were as dull as rusty screw—and the teachers' voices kind of reminded me of one, too. Luckily, though, after fourth period came lunch. Sanctuary! And I didn't even get lost—I just followed the hoard of people towards the big building when the bell rang.
Unfortunately, my victory wasn't to last for long—I ran into two very big problems as I trekked through the lunch line.
One, about eighty percent of the choices were meat-based. MEAT! What's an ultra recyclo-vegetarian like me to do? I decided not to make a big deal about it—at least not yet—and just chose a salad and a bottle of water. I'd get this school's awareness about vegetarianism up somehow.
Two, as I entered the cafeteria with my stupid tray of stupid salad, I realized I had no one to sit with. I could've sat with Jazz, but she was nowhere to be seen, and I had overheard that she was a junior—she probably had a different lunch period. For once in my life, I wished Tucker was glued to my side. I didn't realize how hard it would be the New Kid until seemingly millions of faces were scrutinizing me. I could practically hear the A-list's insults.
"Goth freak! Loser! Geek!"
Oh wait—they really were yelling insults.
I heaved a sigh and made my way towards a table in the back, where one lone girl was sitting at the corner, hastily eating a bagged lunch. I attempted to give her a small smile, but she didn't even glance my way. Whatever.
I scanned the cafeteria, wondering if I'd ever find a friend as good as Tucker here, when I noticed something odd about one of the cafeteria ladies. No one else seemed to be noticing that she was floating about a foot in the air—but then again, maybe it was because they couldn't even see her.
'The first ghost I encounter in Amity Park is a cafeteria lady?' I thought in disgust. I remembered joking about that to Tucker last night. Oh, that boy was going to get it! I knew he was jinxing me!
But on the other hand, the lady was just floating there kind of sadly. Maybe she wasn't out to destroy—she really didn't look so bad...
"MEAT!"
...Or not.
I stood up, watching horror as she grabbed the various meat-induced entrees and flung them into the air, much to the confusion and horror of oh, everyone in the room. It didn't totally register that something evil was happening on the spectral plane, though, until the ghost managed to fuse all the meat together and create a sort of—well, meaty shield for herself. But because the slabs of beef were still earthly, no one knew there was a ghost inside there—they just saw a giant meat monster.
"Sweet mother of mutton," I muttered. Everyone around me was now screaming and running from the cafeteria in panic.
"GIANT MEAT LADY!" the jock called Dash cried, running for his life. I noted with amusement that he had an oddly girlish scream.
"Ew, that's like, disgusting!" Paulina shrieked, making sure no meat drippings got in her hair. Shallow little witch.
The girl who had been sitting at the corner of my table was frozen in the spot, but looked like she wanted to fight—but how can you battle something you really can't see? Once this meat was gone, there was going to be nothing there—to everyone else, anyway.
"Meat, meat, MEAT!" the ghost chanted, creating little meat babies to attack the few people left in the room. Well, this was odd. I've honestly never had to deal with a beef-obsessed ghost before. It was really too bad she had tried to attack everyone though—now I couldn't go and talk to her without looking really suspicious. I wondered why she was so mad at the meat anyway.
"SOMEONE'S CHANGED THIS MEATLOAF RECIPE! THIS RECIPE HAS BEEN THE SAME FOR FIFTY YEARS! RAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
Well, that answered that.
I looked down at the floor, trying to compose myself. What the heck was I supposed to do in a situation like this? I had no way of attacking the meat monster, and I couldn't talk to the ghostly Lunch Lady unless I wanted to be asked some major questions—sure, practically everyone in the room was gone, but how would it look if the Mother of Mutton was defeated and I was the only one there? Suspicious, that's how.
Now I really wished Tucker was here. Not only is he good at coming up with ways to get me out of jams like this, but he inhales meat like there's no tomorrow. He would've polished this whole mess up, no problem. This was definitely the first time in my life I regretted being a vegetarian.
'I need someone to help me out of this...'
"I'm changing the menu—permanently!"
My head snapped up as I heard a heroic, slightly nervous voice. The next thing I knew, there was a blur of movement as someone—as in, a ghostly someone—knocked the Lunch Lady's less meaty form from her shield. The meat floated there for a second before falling into a huge pile with a disgusting squish.
My eyes darted around the room in shock as I tried to find the ghost that had saved me from a potentially awkward situation, but I found nothing except terrified students and teachers tiptoeing their way back into the cafeteria, noticing that the meat had lost its evilness.
I snuck towards the back and out the door while the teachers poked the pile, afraid it was going to leap up and attack them. I needed to walk around and process what had just happened—plus, it wasn't like today could get any more weird.
Or maybe this time I was cursing myself.
--
The rest of the day was uneventful and mutton-free, except that I couldn't get the ghost who had saved me out of my head. It was odd because he didn't even technically rescue me—contrary to what Tucker believed, I had zero ghost allies. Honestly, I thought they were all out to get me, but this time, they attacked each other. I'd been out of Dimmsdale for less than two days, and already the whole world was upside down.
I was so out of it that I nearly missed Jazz when the final bell rang, ending the first day of school at Casper High. In fact, a bus probably would've run me over if Jazz herself hadn't pulled me out of the way of the bus loop.
"Are you alright Sam?" she asked, her face full of concern. It appeared she was the only one, too—everyone else was laughing at me. Eh, you win some, you lose some.
"Yeah...I guess," I answered. "I mean...well, I was in the cafeteria when that...uh, monster attacked...meat monster...and, well anyway, it sure was one heck of a first day, if I do say so myself." Yeah, like that made any sense.
"Oh, you saw that creature?" Jazz sighed and rolled her eyes. "It's ridiculous. They made us eat in our next period classrooms for my lunch period while they cleaned up all the meat. I'm hearing rumors that it was some kind of...ghost, but—" He gaze fell to the ground as she shifted her books in her other. "—I refuse to believe in that. Ghosts don't exist. They don't."
My eyes widened. "Passionate about hating ghosts, aren't you?" Though, in retrospect, this was a good thing. At least if I ever ran into one around her, she'd just assume I was crazy and talking to myself instead of some ghost.
...Okay, so maybe it wasn't such a good thing.
Jazz opened her mouth to say something, but then sighed and shook her head. "Yes I am, in fact. But anyway, do you need to call your parents before we go on our little tour of the town? Or maybe we should stop by your house?"
"No, no, calling them is fine," I coughed. I wasn't in the mood for Jazz to see my massive, oversized house. Although I got the vibe that she could keep a secret, no matter how important, I just really wasn't ready to show of my 'bling-bling' status to anyone at Casper High.
I pulled out my cell phone, noticing Jazz's eyebrows go way up as I flipped it open. "What?"
"That's a pretty nice phone. What'd you do, rob a bank?"
I laughed. "Not exactly." I punched in the speed dial button for my mother's cell phone, and she answered right away.
"Hi, Sammykins. How was your first day?"
"Hey Mom. Uh, it was alright—as a matter of fact, a girl named Jazz has offered to give me a tour of the town and invited me to dinner at her house. I'd just thought I'd let you know."
"Oh..." Mom paused for a second. "Well, that's just splendid, dear! You girls have fun now. Buh-bye."
"Later," I grimaced, rolling my eyes.
Jazz gave me a sideways smile. "Let me guess—you and your mom are total opposites?"
"Pretty much," I agreed. "She's day, and I'm night. It was pretty much pure torture to be stuck in a car with her and my dad on a drive clear across the state."
"I'd imagine." She was smiling a little more now as we climbed into her car—a pink convertible. How fitting. "What was your old hometown like?"
"What, Dimmsdale?" I smirked. "Pretty boring. It's the kind of place where everybody's known each other since pre-K, and we were all about to go into the same high school. I've known just about everybody in that town my whole life."
"Were they upset when you moved?"
"Eh...I can't really say most of them were...just my best friend Tucker, basically. Although I think he misses my—" I was about to say 'home theater', but that would pretty much guarantee I'd blow my 'I'm not filthy rich' cover. "—my, uh, cell phone," I lied. "Yeah...he's really into technology, and like you said, this is a nice phone, so he feels he's technology-deprived."
Jazz gave me a funny look, but kept on driving. "Dimmsdale, was it?" I nodded. "Well, it seems like Dimmsdale is a lot like Amity Park. We're a pretty tight-knit town, and everybody knows everybody's business." She let out a huge sigh. "Though lately, that's becoming more and more of a burden."
"How so?" I asked curiously.
She shook her head. "Never mind. Oh, look over there—that's the town's park."
I was dying to ask her how everybody knowing her business was troubling her, but I turned my head towards the direction she was pointing at anyway. Already, some kids I had seen around school were tossing a football around, scaring the living daylights (and dentures) out of an old man sitting on a bench when it smacked him in the back of the head.
"And over there's the Nasty Burger, another popular hangout," she pointed. I had to laugh—Jazz sounded so much like a professional tour guide, even though she was talking about a place with the word 'nasty' in its name.
"People actually eat there?" I asked.
"Yup. I will admit, they hold Amity Park's best burgers and curly fries."
"Well in that case, I can see why it's called 'nasty'," I smirked. "I'm an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian."
"Good luck finding any good veggie places around here," Jazz smiled good-naturedly. "Most people here aren't like that."
"Eh, that's okay. I've been abnormal my whole life—it's pretty safe to say I'm used to it."
"Well..." Jazz scrunched up her nose. "Sam, you don't seem abnormal, just different. There's a big difference between the two."
"No, trust me...I'm as strange as they come." Although why I was so different was something she didn't need to know, not ever.
Jazz didn't really reply, but instead pointed out the library, and some stores that were on the way. For being such a small town, Amity Park could sure cram in stuff to do.
The entire tour lasted around two hours, and our final stop was Jazz's house, which made me finally understand why she hadn't said much about it.
The home seemed fairly normal-looking—as long as you didn't glance up. The place was literally glowing with a strange laboratory structure on the roof, different silver gadgets protruding from the main base. A huge, glowing sign proclaimed the place to be called 'FENTONWORKS'.
Fenton. That name...
All at once, it flowed into my head as to where I'd heard it before, so I wasn't at all shocked when Jazz turned to me before we entered the house and said, "Excuse my parents, Sam. Just remember that they mean well, and...well, they're not trying to hurt you."
"Why exactly would they?" I asked, already know the answer.
"My parents are 'professional' ghost hunters," she answered, making air quotes around the word 'professional'. "So if they freak you out too badly, I give you full permission to run out of the house screaming."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that to you," I laughed nervously. "Trust me, I've dealt with weirder...but just barely."
"If you say so." She bit her lip and slowly opened the front door, letting us both in.
I was starting to grow uneasy. Fenton, of course! How could I have forgotten that? 'Fenton' was the last name of the ghost hunters Tucker had been telling me about!
Of course, it was unlikely that they had my strange little ability, but what if they did? Or what if they were looking for someone like me, and wanted me to get ghosts for them to perform experiments on or something? Or maybe they were in a league with the ghosts, and some of my enemies were in cahoots with them, looking to throw me into an endless abyss...
"Mom, Dad, this is Sam. She's new in town."
Or they could be the two crazy, jumpsuited people I had seen chasing an out-of-shape teacher down the sidewalk.
My mouth fell open, but I quickly snapped it shut when Jazz's mom gave me a warm smile, extending a hand out towards me. "Hi Sam," she greeted. She didn't seem so bad, I decided, as we shook hands. "I'm Maddie Fenton, and this is my husband—"
"The competent Jack Fenton!" her dad bellowed, a huge grin plastered on his face. He took out some silvery doodad and pointed it at me, pressing a whole bunch of buttons, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in frustration. "So Sam, have you ever seen a ghost?" he asked as I threw my hands up in surrender.
Maddie sighed. "Jack, I told you—"
"Aw, c'mon baby, it never hurts to ask!"
I turned to Jazz, and she rolled her eyes, giving me an 'I told you so' look. "Well, I'm going to drop my stuff off upstairs—back in a flash." She hurried up the stairs.
The gadget in Jack's hands suddenly exploded, sending green goop all over himself and Maddie. I vaguely recognized it as the plasma-like substance a ghost usually leaked out when it was hurt.
Maddie heaved a sigh and turned to me. "I'm sorry sweetie, we're just going to fix this and get ourselves cleaned up—Jazz won't be long, so just make yourself comfortable."
"Alright," I agreed, still slightly shocked that these goofballs were the so-called 'world's best ghost hunters', and they didn't even recognize what the green stuff was from. Then again, it also posed the question as to how their little thingamajig had been full of the stuff in the first place...
I decided not to worry about it and sat down on the couch, glancing around the spacious living room. There were tons of family photos plastered on the walls, and I squinted, taking a closer look at them while I waited for Jazz.
A lot of the pictures were of Jazz herself—as a baby, a toddler, a pre-teen. I smirked at a baby picture of herself clad in nothing but her birthday suit, sitting in a bathtub with her hair sticking up wildly.
There was a full family portrait, so I got up to have a closer look at it. I recognized Jazz and her parents, of course, but there was also another person posing—a boy who looked around my age, with messy black hair and big blue eyes. He looked a little uncomfortable to be in front of a camera, but the smile on his face clearly stated that he was a dorky, nerdy goofball. In fact, I actually cracked a smile just looking at his own captured one.
As I took a harder look at the wall, I found out this boy showed up a lot—which only confused me. Jazz didn't mention she had another family member—was he a cousin? A foster kid? An adopted son? 'Brother' also crossed my mind, but that was absurd—surely Jazz would've mentioned to me if she had a younger sibling. She had, after all, freely told me about her oddball parents, and invited me over to meet them nonetheless.
I sat back down on the couch, crossing my arms in confusion. Usually I wasn't that much of a snoop, and family was family—yet, I couldn't get this boy out of my mind, or why his face was plastered on the Fenton family wall. It was like my mysterious ghostly rescuer that day—neither would leave my brain.
Maybe they were connected somehow...it was definitely possible. Maybe this boy had the same little gift that I did; but he ran away or something because his parents would use him to get at the ghosts...
I frowned. Even so, why wouldn't Jazz have mentioned him? Okay, she did claim she had a rather large hatred of ghosts, but even so, it didn't seem like she would keep a sibling a secret—after all, in her eyes, Jack and Maddie were completely loony, yet she told me about them of her own free will.
So what was it?
Jazz walked down the stairs just as her parents came up the other stairs. Before I could ask anybody what was up with the kid in the picture, Maddie clapped her hands in delight. "Dinner's almost ready! I hope you like hot dogs, Sam—Jack and I invented a way to cook them ten times faster than a microwave!"
Jazz eyeballed me and raised an eyebrow—her parents didn't know I didn't eat meat. Oops. But then again, how would they know, anyway?"
"Um, actually Mrs. Fenton—"
"Oh, call me Maddie, dear."
"Maddie...actually, I'm a vegetarian."
"Oh!" She looked a little surprised. "Jazz didn't mention that...well, I'll just whip up a salad for you; will that be alright?"
"Uhh...sure," I smiled. Jazz's parents seemed a bit...overbearing, but they were definitely nice enough people. Plus, Jazz herself seemed to have a brain, unlike the rest of the people at Casper High—maybe it wouldn't be so bad to live in Amity Park. This place was going to be just dandy.
"BEWARE!"
My eyes darted towards the right just as I was about to follow the Fentons into the dining room. Jazz noticed I had stopped in my tracks and was giving me another funny look.
"Are you alright, Sam?"
"Huh?" I shook my head. "Uh, fine...actually, I needed to, uh...use the restroom before we sit down to eat."
"Sure," she replied, the weird look she was giving me not leaving her face. "Upstairs, second door on your right."
"Thanks." I made my way up the stairs, my eyes glancing every which way, barely noticing that Jazz was still looking at me funny, but she finally gave up with a sigh and went into the dining room.
I, on the other hand, was on the hunt. I mean, that voice was really loud, and the fact nobody else heard it only lead me to believe that there was a ghost in the Fenton's house. I was just glad none of Jack and Maddie's ghost-hunting gadgets were going off.
When I was at the top of the stairs, instead of heading into the bathroom, I wandered around the hall, trying to find the ghost without being too much of a sneak. At least I knew Jazz; there were often times I'd break into random houses in Dimmsdale looking for ghosts when the people that lived there hadn't known me whatsoever. So remember—snooping for ghosts is only to be left to a professional.
I wasn't feeling like some kind of expert, though, as the minutes wore on—although I had sworn I had heard a voice, I wasn't seeing any ghosts. I edged towards the room at the end of the hall and gently tried to turn the knob—but it was locked.
"Hmm..." I muttered, crossing my arms and leaning against the wall. Maybe I was going totally psycho. Too many years in this "business" had me hallucinating, or something.
"BEWARE! I AM THE BOX GHOST!"
I jumped up as a round, pudgy ghost flew through the door of the locked room, a whole bunch of boxes in his arms. He dropped them when he landed on the floor with a nice thunk. Glaring at the door angrily, he wiggled his hands in an extremely lame attempt to be frightening.
"BEWARE! I HAVE POWER OF ALL CONTAINORS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE!"
Just as I was about to ask this bimbo why he was bellowing at the door—not that it mattered since I was the only one who could hear him—another ghost phased through the door, his arms crossed in annoyance.
My eyes widened. He was a ghost, that was for sure—and yet, something about his demeanor seemed different. I mean, he was pale all right—but not overly so, like a normal ghost—or me. He was wearing a spandex black and white jumpsuit, which complimented his snowy white hair and glowing green eyes.
"Look, this is the second time today you've haunted that room," he told the Box Ghost in a bored tone, with the slightest hint of bitterness underneath. "I'm sick of your lame old box puns. Can't you find a warehouse to haunt or something?"
"BEW—" the Box Ghost stopped midway of his bellowing and blinked in confusion, as if he was thinking 'Why didn't I think of that?'
"Or better yet..." Mr. Spandex Ghost said, giving a half smile. "Why don't I help you there?"
Before he knew it, Box Ghost had gotten severely pummeled in the gut by Spandex Boy, rendering him intangible and sending him flying through the ceiling. A faint cry of "BEWAAAAAAAAARE!" could be heard until there was silence.
I stood there, my mouth hanging open in shock. Not only were those two of the weirdest ghosts I had ever seen, but they were fighting each other! Usually they would all rally up against me, or whatever human they felt was responsible for their death, but this...this was completely unheard of.
I still remained there, even when Spandex Boy turned to go back into the locked room, but stopped short when he saw me. He eyes widened for a second and then drooped, and I realized that he thought I probably couldn't see him. I couldn't help but keep on staring...he seemed very familiar somehow...
Just as he made himself intangible to enter the room, I mustered up everything I had and cleared my throat, looking straight at the boy, who had once again turned "solid" and was wearing a look equal to the one I had had just moments before.
"So," I said, raising an eyebrow. "Who exactly are you?"
--
Oh, I wonder who! –giggles like the fangirl she is-
Thank you sooo much to all of my lovely, awesomely awesome reviewers for the last chapter: rikagirls, weirdIT, divinedragon7, Kagome M.K, Phantom2B, strange organized chaos, Iamthedemonatrix02, Galateagirl, Serenity the Fallen, conan98002, dArkliTe-sPirit, Kryptonite Riot Girl, silvermoonphantom, lostmoonchild, Ac-chan, Doomsdaydevice # 23548, Terrasina Dragonwagon, dPhantoMfreak, shadow929, flyingwolfatheart, WWMTgirl, and Mizz Moony Luver. You guys rockage my sockage and I hope you'll review again!