DANNY PHANTOM: THIS TIME AROUND

DIAMOND GRYPHON

DATE: 9/6/08

DISCLAIMER: I do not own DP. I do not own DP. I do not own DP. . . yet.

Chapter 8

It took Ms. Fenton nearly a half an hour to make herself presentable and come back downstairs.

Sam spent the entire 30 minutes trying to figure out exactly what she had said that would have caused Ms. Fenton to be happy. Apparently, Phantom hadn't been lying when he said that his name would count for something. What that something was, however, Sam wasn't quite sure.

So she was still wracking her brain for something that would tell her what was going on when Ms. Fenton skipped down the stairs.

"I'm sorry that I took so long." There was a smile on her face, even if her words still wavered uncertainly. "I haven't had breakfast yet, would you like anything to eat? We have a couple of apples, some oranges. . "

Blinking her way out of her stupor, Sam stood up and the other woman into the kitchen. "An apple is good. Um, how come you're . . ? I mean, aren't you . . . ?"

An apple was placed in her hand and Sam looked at it for a few seconds before turning to watch Ms. Fenton prepare herself a breakfast out of less vegetarian-friendly foods.

"Why aren't I grabbing the nearest Thermos and demanding to know where the ghost is?"

"Yeah." Sam nibbled on the apple and slumped into the nearest chair. "Something like that."

"Hmmmm." Ms. Fenton absently flipped the omelet. Sam gagged. "I guess you could say that Phantom and I have a sort of understanding. He's saved my life more times than I can count. I trust him, and if he got you involved than you probably do too." She paused, turning to give Sam a look. "You do trust him, right?"

A sigh. "I don't know. I mean, I did, but then he didn't show up for the whole hostage thing and I thought he had abandoned the town and then he shows up in my dream and I just got so angry and then he says he needs me to save Amity and then nothing really made sense and he told me to come see you and . . ."

Sam stopped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She brought her arm up and wiped away the tears that threatened to run down her face.

"Slow down." Ms. Fenton made sure Sam was okay before joining her at the table. "Now, how about we start from the beginning? You said something about a dream."

"Last night, I had a dream about Phantom." She took a deep breath. "I don't think it was a normal dream because I can remember it perfectly and he was talking about stuff I had never heard of before."

"Sounds like something a ghost could do."

Sam sat up straight. "Can Phantom . . .?"

"No, but he has an odd habit of making the strangest friends." Ms. Fenton smiled, lost in thought. "If it was another ghost just trying to trick you, I doubt they would claim to need help from me."

"I guess." Sam didn't seem convinced. "He said that he needed me to deal with the new killer ghosts because he was doing something else and wouldn't be back for a while."

"So, all he said was to keep the ghosts from killing?"

"No, he said some other stuff." The apple suddenly became very interesting. "I'm not quite sure what he meant, but . . ."

Sam looked up at Ms. Fenton, who nodded for her to continue.

"He said the reason that the ghosts were in the human world was because some ghosts called the Ancients weren't doing their job. Apparently, one of them was destroyed and that upset the balance of something in the ghost zone." She frowned. "How can a ghost moving on cause killer ghosts to show up here?"

Ms. Fenton didn't have an answer to that. "After breakfast we can look in the library and see if there is anything on the Ancients. That should give us a better idea of what we're dealing with."

The rest of breakfast was spent in silence as both women dealt with their own thoughts. Ms. Fenton finished first and headed upstairs. Throwing away her barely touched apple, Sam followed her.

The room she entered was filled with dust that nearly made her choke. Ms. Fenton was busy pulling old tomes from their locations on the large shelves on the walls. Sam just stared as the pile of books on the table in front of her continued to grow.

Ms. Fenton slowed down her searching before dropping the last load of books onto the pile. "Well, these are all the books we have on ghost legends and traditions. I'm hoping one of them will have what we need."

Sam eyed the stack dubiously, then sighed. She grabbed one of the least dusty volumes and collapsed in one of the large arm chairs. Ms. Fenton took another book and followed her example.

The rustling of pages filled the library until Sam slammed her book closed in disgust. The other woman looked up in surprise.

"It doesn't have what we're looking for."

Ms. Fenton nodded and went back to her book. Looking over the remaining pile, Sam made a face. "One down, fifty more to go." She reached for another book.

Ding, dong.

They both spooked as the unexpected sound rang through the house. Ms. Fenton was about to get up but Sam stopped her.

"I'll get it. You focus on finding some information."

Sam trotted down the stair and made it to the doorbell started to ring for the seventh time. She opened it wide. "What is your problem? I was coming as fast as I could."

Tucker stood outside the door looking slightly taken aback. "Sam?"

"Yeah, it's me." A pause. "Do you need something?"

Tucker stared at his feet. "Um, I was wondering if Ms. Fenton was okay. I mean, she wasn't at school . . ."

Sam frowned. She had almost forgotten about Danny's trip to Australia and the pain it caused for his guardian. "She's fine."

"Oh." Tucker shuffled his feet. "I guess I should be going then." As he turned to leave, he pulled out his PDA and started pressing buttons. A light bulb went off for Sam.

"Hey, Tucker?"

He stopped to look back. "Yeah?"

"You're pretty good with computers, right?"

"I'm not just 'pretty good', I happen to be a genius." Tucker puffed out his chest. "What do you need?"

An evil grin appeared on Sam's face. "I was wondering if you were any good with searching for obscure information."

"Of course! I can find anything you need on the internet. The trick is knowing the right sites and . . ." Tucker was cut off as he was yanked into the house with the door hurriedly shut behind him.

"Sam! Slow down! What are you doing? Sam!"

I have no idea where Tucker came from. My plan was to never have him show up again, ever. Somehow he managed to pop up in this chapter and now I have to keep him in till the climax. Don't you have when characters have a mind of their own?

More reviews means I update quicker.

-Gryph