"I'm not talking to you."
Danny looked up as he and Tucker slid into seats across from Sam Manson in the dining hall. "What did I do?" he asked.
"Not you -- him!" Sam pointed towards Tucker who was furiously salt and peppering his eggs.
"Hey, what did I do? "Tucker asked.
"I'm not talking to you."
"Come on, Sam, lighten up."
"Don't make excuses for him, Daniel Fenton. You're on my list, too!"
"Hey, no one calls me 'Daniel' but my mother! And even then only when I'm in trouble."
"You don't think you're in trouble?"
"But I tried to warn you. Isn't that what you would have wanted me to do? I tried to do the right thing."
"Just barely. How could you come sneaking under the girl's cabin. That's almost as bad as drilling a hole in the girl's shower."
"Drilled? I thought it was a knothole or something." Tucker said
"I'm not talking to you."
"Sam, I was just trying to warn you."
"Then why didn't you come to the door? That's what people who aren't perverts do."
"I--I couldn't."
"Because you'd be seen by the others?"
"Yeah," Danny said softly, sadly.
"If you had tried to stop this before it happened..."
"If I had I may as well have packed my bags and left camp because my life would have been hell for the rest of the week. And I may as well plan on moving to another school because Dash would rally all the jocks against me and make my life hell there, too."
"He's right, you know." Tucker injected.
"I'm not talking to you!"
"Come on, Sam." Tucker plead. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry about last night. It seemed like fun when Dash was explaining it..."
"Dash?" Danny and Sam said in unison. "Dash was behind this?" Sam continued. "Oh! He is such a creep."
"And Danny tried to stop me," Tucker continued. "But I was so caught up in the moment. And the way Dash explained it nobody would get hurt..."
"You were violating our privacy!"
"I thought you weren't talking to me?"
Sam growled and bent down to attack her breakfast, which as an Ultra-Recyclo-Vegetarian, consisted of some greasy hashbrowns and toast. Some vegetarians only refuse to eat meat while others vegetarians, like the Ultra-Recyclo-Vegetarians also refuse to eat eggs or any dairy product since they come from the exploitation of animals.
"Sam, I'm really sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. And I would never, ever do anything like that again."
"You're only sorry because you got caught." Sam said.
"I was trying to apologize, but if you don't want it, fine, I'll go someplace where I am appreciated." Tucker grabbed his tray and get up. He headed across the room to where T'keisha was sitting.
"Sam, you know he really is sorry." Danny said.
"Only because he got caught!"
"Come on, Sam, you, I and Tucker have been best friends since forever..."
"kindergarten"
"Exactly. We've all of us, done things which were pretty stupid at one time or another. I don't want to have to choose between you and Tucker. I don't want to lose either you or Tuck as friends. You've got to forgiven him." Danny plead.
Sam had been picking the hash brown patty apart, looking closely at the greasy strings of shredded potato. "Do you think this is lard or vegetable oil?" she asked.
"Sam!" Danny ask with exasperation.
"Oh, probably. Just not right now. I am so mad at you two. You and your dumb code of Omerta."
"Code of what?"
"Omerta. Silence. Didn't you ever watch The Godfather?"
"Oh." Danny eat in silence for a moment. He watched Sam slaver a slice of toast with something yellow from a tub. "Are you sure that's not butter?" he asked. "Knowing Cook, I'll bet it is."
Sam looked at her slice of toast then dumped it on her plate. "I have got to talk to the Head Ranger about a proper alternative vegetarian menu."
"Danny Fenton, you have got to call your father!"
Danny and Sam looked up, startled, at that. Abigail Farley-Smythe-Hyde sat down in an open spot next to Sam.
"We had three ghost attacks yesterday," she explained. "That's serious. We need to find and stop this ghost before something really bad happens on Friday."
Sam, confused, asked, "Why Friday?"
"It's the13th, and she believes that ghosts are more malevolent on the 13t,." Danny explained.
"Also it's the full moon. We need to find out if the full moon makes ghosts more powerful." Abigail added.
"Why do you say there were three ghost attacks yesterday. There weren't any." Danny said.
"Oh, come on, don't be dense," Abigail snapped. "First there was the ghost that attacked me..."
"Your horse stepped on a branch and bolted at the sound of the branch breaking. There was no ghost involved," Sam rejoined.
"There was so a ghost there. It pulled me off my horse and tried to carry me away to its lair. If I hadn't fought it off who knows what it would have done to me!" She paused for a breath. "I'll never forget it's hideous visage. It had glowing eyes, like two saucers, green and malevolent. And hair, white and blowing in the wind like it was made of fire. And it wore some kind of black robe with some kind of stupid insignia on its chest."
"It wasn't stu--" Sam began
"It wasn't what?" Abigail asked.
"I--ah--was--ah--asking Danny if he was going to finish those eggs," Sam pointed to a greasy fried egg still untouched on Danny's plate.
Danny looked at the egg, listened to his stomach grumble, then manfully said, "sure. Here, enjoy." and slide his egg onto Sam's plate. She cut off a portion of egg white and popped into her mouth and chewed. She hastily swallowed before her stomach revolted.
"It sounded to me that that ghost was trying to save you after you fell off the cliff, not have its way with you." Danny suggested.
"You don't know anything. You weren't there!" Abigail rebuked.
Danny opened his mouth to protest. He caught Sam shaking her head and closed it. "So when did the second ghost attack that place?" He asked instead.
"That was when Tracy got lost. Only she didn't get lost. The ghost lured her away from the group and then carried her away."
"I thought she had fallen into a ravine and had been knocked out?" Danny said.
"Ravine? Tracy didn't say anything about a ravine."
"But-- I-- I thought-- Her shoe--"
"What are you going on about?" Abigail asked.
"I--don't know. What did she say happened?"
"Well, she can't remember too much about what happened at first. She kind of remembers wanting to go for a walk. Then it's all kind of dark until she woke up being carried by this demon. Green eyes, white hair, black costume, stupid insignia on its chest. So it had to be the same one that attacked me. If she hadn't fought free who knows what it might have done to her?"
"But it seemed to be bringing her back to the Polo Field." Sam said. "It kind of sounds like it was trying to, you know, rescue her as well."
"Rescue her, are you nuts? Why are you taking the side of a ghost?"
"Maybe he's a friendly ghost?" Sam suggested.
Abigail rolled her eyes and turned back to Danny.
"The third time was last night when those creepy boys were trying to spy on us. There was a whole host of poltergeist-related phenomena. It was almost a classic case. Firewood was flying through the air, a wind whipped up but only around Butterfly. Then that ghost boy came in to try and carry Butterfly away."
"I thought he was trying to rescue her from the --ah-- poltergeist?" Danny said.
"Oh get your head out of the sand. You're Danny Fenton, Jack Fenton's son. You know more about ghosts than anyone else at this camp and you can't see that the ghost was attacking Butterfly?"
"But poltergeists are related to awaking sexuality," Sam interrupted. "And expresses the anchors' fears and anxieties. So who exactly was the anchor for the poltergeist? The boys? Hardly, since it attacked them? The girls in the shower? They never saw who was involved. The only one who fits is Butterfly. She saw the boys, she felt violated by them, she attacked them. That explains everything without bringing in your ghost boy at all. So it seems to me that the ghost boy was there to fight the poltergeist, not the other way around."
"Where did you learn so much about ghosts?"
"When you hang around with a Fenton, you pick things up." Sam smirked.
Danny looked longingly at the egg on Sam's plate. She hadn't touched it since taking the one bite. "Look, if you're so concerned about this ghost, why don't you call in your father. Have a professional take care of it."
"Are you nuts!" Abigail exploded. "If I tell my dad that there's a ghost at this camp he'll have it closed down so fast your head would explode. There is no way I'm going to call my father and ruin my vacation. That's why you've got to call your dad."
"Like my dad wouldn't come charging down here and ruin my vacation?" Danny angrily answered. "The last thing I want is my dad running around the camp yelling "ghost" every five minutes."
"But with your dad isn't that kind of normal? If he came down no one would really notice."
"Would you stop putting down my dad!" Danny was getting red in the face.
"I'm not putting down your father."
"Then what do you call it?"
"I was stating--"
" 'Facts'? I don't think so."
"But this ghost is serious, Fenton. I got a reading on it Tuesday that was off the chart. That's what I was looking for when I ran into you. But then the spectral surge had disappeared. But for a moment it manifested itself at a level I have never seen before. We have to stop it before people get hurt, and there is no question in my mind that it intends to hurt people. You have got to help me stop this ghost."
"Call you dad." Danny said, too angry to dare say any more.
There was a clatter of dishes besides Danny. He looked and saw Tucker slipping back into his seat.
"Private conversation here." Abigail hissed.
"What's the matter, Tuck, I thought you were eating with T'Keisha?"
"She's not talking to me, either."
"Oh, Man I am so sorry."
"It's OK, Danny. Nothing new for me. Ol' Tuck's luck with women remains unchanged."
"Hello, private conversation here," Abigail interrupted again.
"Yes, I know, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't interrupt," Danny snapped. With a hiss Abigail grabbed her tray and stalked off.
"Well, so much for your girlfriend," Sam teased.
"She's not my girlfriend. And that joke is getting pretty old by now."
"Boy, you two are a couple of downers, that's my job. Look, Danny, our miss Girl in White is right. This ghost is serious and we need to do something about it."
"I know that. But I can't call dad. That would just make things worse."
"And you can't call your mom because she would probably catch onto you being Danny Phantom," Sam continued.
Danny nodded.
But there's still one person you can talk to..."
"Vlad?"
"No, lord, no! Where did that idea come from? Your sister, dummy -- Jazz."
"Why would she help me?"
"Because she's your sister? Because she's been helping you ever since she discovered you were a half-ghost. How many times has she distracted your parents when you needed to go ghost? Ask her. She's understand why you can't go to your parents."
Danny nodded his head. "Ya, that's a good idea. I'll E-mail her as soon as I get out of KP."
"KP? I thought you did you stint already?"
"Head Ranger's punishing everyone in our cabin--8PM curfew, KP for the rest of the week. I think the only reason she didn't expel all of us was because no one besides Butterfly actually saw who was at the wall, and Butterfly is still too distraught to speak."
"Well, you deserve it." Sam stated. She looked at Tucker Foley. He was slowly pushing the food around on his plate. Knowing his talent for consuming a Nasty Burger in two bites, she knew that this wasn't normal for him. With a sigh she said, "I'll have a talk with T'Keisha." Sam got up, looked at the egg on her plate and slid it back onto Danny's plate, then carried her tray to the wash up window.
Danny stuffed a large chunk of egg into his mouth.
"Oh, Man, It's cold!"
In hour later Danny Tucker and Sam were standing around the firepit in the center of the cluster of cabins. Danny had on his jeans and the work boots he'd used for riding. A bulging backpack rested on his shoulders. Tucker, likewise had dressed much as usual except for hiking boots instead of sneakers. His backpack threatened to over-turn him. The instructions for the over-night camping experience had said to only bring the essentials. It was always hard with Tucker to tell what were the essentials. Sam, Danny was surprised to note, was dressed in her usual school gear, plaid skirt over leggings and Dr. Marten boots, and black belly T-short. She wore her safari hat and carried a slender black backpack. Sewn into the back were indigo sequins forming a skull, with red sequins picking out the eyes.
"What did you do, make Tucker carry all your gear?" Danny asked.
"No. When I travel light, I travel light." Besides you would be amazed how much all this stuff folds up."
The counselors got together and started the hike. The group would follow a trail around the north side of the lake up into the mountains in the west. The route wasn't as long as the horse route but was about a two hours walk with an ascent of about five hundred feet. They would be camping near a small waterfall on the Fox river, well below the Polo Grounds, which was being used by Orange Team that day. The weather was calm but warm, promising to get hot by mid-day. All the campers had been warned to wear hats. Danny wore a baseball cap with a NASA logo on it. Tucker, of course already had his red beret, while Sam wore her black safari hat.
Sam surprised them by pulling out a digital camera slightly smaller than a pack of cards and ordering them together for a picture. "Where's T'Keisha?" She asked, but the tall black girl had already started walking with a couple of other girls. "I'll get a shot after we set up camp. If you want to walk with her, Tuck, you can. I talked with her and explained that you're mostly a good kid."
"Thanks, Sam. I owe you."
"Big time. Tuck. You owe me so much your grandchildren will still be paying me back."
"Grandchildren? You think?" He looked ahead to the black girl.
"If not her, then someone else."
The group headed down towards the lake were Team Green was having their day of swimming. All of them were wearing something green, a hat, a head-band or a T-shirt and were being lead in a round of cheers by their counselors. Dash, Danny reflected, hadn't done much to build their team spirit. Danny wasn't much interested in the trophy that the winning team would get he didn't like being embarrassed by better organized teams.
As they passed the dinning hall they paused as a very small, stout, middle-aged woman joined the group. She was introduced as Mrs. Doi, who would be filling in for Butterfly, who remained in the hospital. Danny had never met Mr. Doi's wife before, was kind of surprised that he had a wife, or maybe it was just that he was surprised that his wife filled in around the camp when needed. Mrs. Doi was even shorter than her husband, shorter than many of the girls she would now be in charge of. She wore a dress, sensible street shoes and a large, floppy straw hat. She looked like she was going to a PTA meeting than on an over-night camping expedition. The Head Ranger had stayed with the girls over-night in Hemlock cabin and Danny had assumed she would be with them on the camp-out as well. Certainly the head ranger seemed better prepared for the rigor of the camp-out than did Mrs. Doi.
The group set off again, along the lake till they hit the trail head and marched into the chilly shadows of the woods. Most of the girls from cabin Hemlock clustered around Mrs. Doi for a while getting to know her. But gradually as the first glow of the hike wore off they peeled off into pairs and small groups walking together. Mrs. Doi kept up the pace well but gradually drifted to the back of the group until she was walking with Booger who trailed after everyone else to make sure no one got lost or left behind.
Danny was starting to sweat after a half hour of hiking and was a bit annoyed that Sam was neither sweating or even breathing hard.
"Tucker," Sam unexpectedly asked, "did you ever do that Internet search Danny asked you to do?"
"Yeah," he huffed.
"Great," Danny said, "what did you find out?"
"You would be surprise -- at how many -- newspapers still don't-- have their archives-- on-line," Tucker panted. "Or want -- you to pay to use them."
"And here I left my credit card at home..." Sam said.
"You have a credit card?" Danny said amazed.
"Hello, joking!" Sam snapped.
"But I did get -- a couple hits that were interesting. Seems there was a lawsuit in 1956 for "wrongful death" filed by the parents of a Ben Green in this county. A website on unsolved murders also mentions a Ben Green and he shows up in an F.B.I. annual crime statistics document."
"You have access to the F. B. I.?" Danny was impressed.
"Only the public web pages. Not all of it is secret, you know. Besides -- I have no desire to be caught trying to hack into their system. That's -- major bad news."
"That doesn't tell us much," Danny complained.
"It tells us that the ghost exists," Sam observed.
"We knew that already," Danny answered.
"But it is a start. If we know who he is and when he died, we can narrow in down on that. Did any of those records say how he died?"
"Naah. The court case must -- have been settled out of -- court because there's no other record -- of it. The F.B.I. page -- just says "homicide." The Unsolved Crimes site -- says death by decapitation but -- has no other details. Guys -- I've got to stop!" Tuck collapsed against the nearest tree and panted.
"Here, let me carry something," Danny offered. Not that he wanted to, his back pack was already riding pretty heavy on his back, but friends helped friends.
Tucker unlaced the flap on his pack and handed Danny a folding cot. Danny tucked it under his arm rather than try to re-pack his backpack. Tucker looked hopefully at Sam but she was deftly avoiding eye-contact and keeping her arms crossed. With a sigh, Tucker laced up his pack and swung it on it back, "Thanks, man," he told Danny and got back on the trail.
"Why are you bringing a cot, anyway?" Danny asked.
"Have you any idea how hard the ground can be? I don't plan to be walking around like an old man in the morning because the ground was too hard."
"I've seen you sleep in a booth at the Nasty Burger," Sam chuckled. "Can you really imagine that those seats are any softer than the ground? You slept through a whole pep rally on the bleachers and didn't seem to mind."
"I was very tired then. This is different."
"You mean after today's hike you won't be tired?"
"Just because we're roughing it today doesn't mean I have to--rough it. I plan to sleep in comfort!"
"Come on, let's go before Mrs. Doi beats us to the camp." Sam said, setting off on a stiff pace. Danny tried to keep up but after a moment lagged back to keep pace with Tucker, who was still puffing, even with the lighter pack. Sam slowed so they could catch up.
"Any idea where that abandoned cabin is?" she asked.
"Man, I am so lost right now." Danny said. "I think it was higher, near the waterfalls but farther away. I don't see anything today that looks like anything near the place when we saw it yesterday. Why? Did you want to go find it?"
"We've got some free time this afternoon. Most of the kids are going on a nature walk but I thought since we're so close we could maybe give it a look."
"You think the ghost was murdered at that cabin?" Tucker asked. "But that happened fifty years ago. That cabin can't be that old."
"Why not?" Sam wondered. "Look at the cabins we're in. They were built forty - fifty, maybe sixty years ago. They're obviously real old, but they were well built and have held up well. I'll bet even after fifty years this cabin is still pretty sound."
"I'm not crazy about snooping around where some crazy ghost got killed." Tucker complained.
"You don't have to go if you don't want to." Sam reminded him.
"And let you to have all the fun? No way. I'm in."
They came to a switchback on the trail. The grade here climbed so rapidly that the ground had been dug out and railroad ties dropped in place to form steps. There would be five or six steps, then a straight run for thirty or forty feet, then the trail would double back in the other direction with another five or six steps set into the ground. The trees opens up for a moment, letting in the sun blazing in a cloudless sky. The three stops to look around. They could see the lake glinting off in the distance, a dark smudge off on the horizon that might have been a near-by city. Something flashed to their right.
"Hey, there's the horse trail," Tucker pointed.
Danny could just make out what Tuck was pointing to. The sun was glinting off the polished parts of a bridle from one of the horses making the ascent to the Polo Field. Danny wasn't quite sure where on the trail the horses might be. He guessed they were about at the same spot there he had seen the cabin the day before. Trying to visualize the layout of Camp Sleepy Hollow he could kind of guess where the abandoned cabin lay in relation to where they were. He had been afraid they might not be able to find the cabin again but now he was pretty sure they could.
"Anybody got a trail mix bar?" Tucker unexpectedly asked. "I'm hungry."
Sam pulled one out of her pocket and tossed it to him. Tucker eyed it suspiciously.
"This doesn't have, like tofu or anything weird in it, does it?"
"It's trail mix! Oats, nuts, dried fruit and molasses,"
"I don't know. Oats sounds kind of weird."
"If you're not going to eat it, give it back. I was saving it for later."
"Too late," Tucker said with half the bar making a bulge in the side of his mouth.
"You've been awful quiet," Sam turned to Danny. "Something on your mind, or are you just out of breath?"
"No, I was thinking about this ghost. What we know about it and whether any of that will help us deal with it," Danny replied. "The rumor said he died fifty years again and Tuck's on-line search seems to confirm that. The rumor was that it's head was cut off, and again Tuck seems to confirm that. Tuck's search gives us a name, Ben Green. But does that help us any?"
"It means we can try a search on Ben Green and his family. Find out what kind of a person he was." Sam suggested.
"Why would someone cut off his head, though?"
"To hide his identity, maybe."
"But there still be DNA and..."
"Not fifty years ago," Tucker mumbled through his trail mix bar. "And without the head there would be no dental records. Fingerprints are only good as long as someone has already been fingerprinted. Without some identifying scar a headless body would be hard to identify."
"Tuck, you watch way too much 'CSI', " Danny said.
"But he has a point," Sam said.
"But how does any of this help us defeat this ghost?" Danny wondered.
"Well, you can get Jazz to search on his name, and maybe we'll find some other clue when we explore that cabin today." Sam said.
"I did bring a Fenton Thermos with me," Danny said. "I've gotten to where I don't leave home without one. But I wish I had brought some other stuff as well. Ghost deflectors for you guys. Maybe the Fenton Bazooka or the jack-o'-nine-tails. Wait-- what did Abby say about poltergeists?"
"That she thought this was a 'classic poltergeist'?" Sam answered.
"Right. Jazz is all into ghost psychology. Maybe there's something about this poltergeist thing in one of her books, some weakness we can use against it."
They hiked in silence for another five-ten minutes.
"You know, Danny," Sam began, "there's something else I've been kind of noticing but it doesn't make any sense."
"What's that?"
"Did you notice how this morning when the Head Ranger was introducing Mrs Doi? She said Butterfly was in the hospital but didn't say why. And the girls were talking about it but they all seem to think she had a nervous breakdown or something. No one seems to remember the ghost that attacked her last night."
"Abigail did," Tucker mentioned.
"She remembers seeing Danny. She doesn't remember the other ghost. No one does. It's like the ghost doesn't exist. It does, but it doesn't"
Danny thought about that. "When I spoke with Mr. Doi he knew of the ghost but didn't want to talk about it. I sort of thought he was just being defensive of his employer, the way so many adults are. Then the cook mentioned the ghost but didn't remember it ever doing anything harmful. You're right, Sam, there is something weird going on here."
"But we remember the ghost." Tucker said
"Yeah, that's weird," Danny said. "I wonder why?"
"Maybe because we were expecting a ghost," Sam suggested. She would have said more but just then the trail opened up into the campground. Tucker and Danny collapsed on the ground, too exhausted to go on. Quite few others were sitting down, too. They looked up just in time to see Sam pointing her camera at them. "Say Nasty Burger," she called. Danny was tempted to tell her something a lot ruder.