A/N: Hope you're enjoying this fun and cute little story. And ditto for the character's thing. Now, here is Chapter 7. Enjoy!!
Rumor Has It—Chapter 7--Some Kind of Hope
The next morning, Danny again met up with Sam and Tucker at the front of the school. Many of the students around them immediately reacted when Danny drew near. Groups of them huddled together with hushed whispers and accusatory pointing. Every once in a while Sam and Tucker heard a "Do you think...?", a "Let's make sure…", or a "But what about…?…" leak out amid all the even more buzz that was being generated around the school. And there was always someone somewhere spying on them. And especially with all the excitement that happened in the cafeteria yesterday, the rumor just wouldn't go away and the friends were getting more desperate. It was getting harder and harder for the three friends to find some time to be alone.
As Danny got close enough for Sam and Tucker to see his face, they could see that his eyes weren't as dark as they had been the day before, but their friend still looked tired.
Pulling him and Tucker away from the crowd, and seeing that they were far enough away to at least whisper something to each other, Sam turned to Danny and in a hushed voice dryly commented, "Up all night trying to duplicate yourself?"
"Up all night trying to duplicate yourself, I mean, myself!" Danny muttered, tired and discouraged. "No, I mean, I did get some sleep. I had the usual less sleep that I usually get fighting ghosts. But sort of enough awake time to practice and not fall asleep."
Sam and Tucker blinked at him kinda knowing what he meant, and Tucker hesitantly asked, "You mean you couldn't do it again?"
Danny winced and instinctively held his head and stomach again at the memory. "Well, yes and no! I can duplicate myself as Danny Fenton or as Danny Phantom. And each time I tried, I increased the amount of time I could maintain the duplicate Danny Fenton or Danny Phantom. But I can't do both of me at the same time!"
Sam and Tucker blinked at him, again kind of sure of what he meant. Then all three of their shoulders drooped, and they sighed, disheartened about their situation.
Tucker finally muttered a sad reply, "Then I guess we're going to have to put up with that rumor and all those traps that come with it!"
They entered the school and headed toward their lockers.
As they walked along, Sam, still undaunted in trying to think of a way through this mess, glanced up at all the posters advertising the Mardi Gras masquerade dance. She smiled with the wild idea that hit her, and excitedly exclaimed, "I know! What if Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom both show up at the masquerade dance this Friday?"
Danny, getting a little cranky, uttered, "Sam, weren't you listening?"
Sam also got a little irritated—and yet excited--and replied, "Yes, I was, but I have an idea! You can't show up as two Danny Fentons because then you can't use your powers. But you can show up as two Danny Phantoms if one of them was dressed up as Danny Fenton in a masquerade costume."
Danny shook his head in an effort to wake up. He wasn't getting her drift because of his fatigue.
"Urghh!" Sam uttered in response to his inattention. But she pressed on just the same. "Don't you get it? If you were two Danny Phantoms, one of them could be in disguise at the masquerade and the other one could fly around or something, impress everyone, and then everyone would see that the "real" Danny Fenton was at the dance and couldn't possibly be Danny Phantom."
Tucker, slightly bewildered by her plan but ready to go along with it, answered, "I caught that, I think!"
Danny yawned and remarked, "I don't know, Sam. I'm still getting the hang of the "splitting" part, especially the memory of my head and stomach splitting. But I'm not so sure how long I can stay duplicated, either as Danny Fenton or Danny Phantom."
Sam chimed in triumphantly, "Like you said, you're getting better all ready! So you have to do it just long enough to convince everyone that you are two 'different' people. And when it comes to Paulina and Dash and their cronies, that won't have to be very long at all! So, we better go to the store after school to get some stuff we'll need, because the dance is tomorrow night!"
"I still don't know, Sam," Danny hedged.
Tucker nodded weakly, agreeing with Danny.
"Well, do either of you have a better idea?" she challenged.
Neither of them said anything.
"Well?" she demanded.
Danny answered her. "Don't have one for now, but I did think of another idea while I was practicing duplicating that'll help us keep away from everyone as much as possible until I can duplicate better to the point that the duplicate can actually help us get rid of this rumor."
And his friends paused and blinked again, a little surer of what he said than the last few times.
He proceeded to tell them.
"Simple, but brilliant. It might work!" Tucker smiled and both boys looked to Sam.
"It's better than anything we can come up with in a hurry! OK. Let's try it!" she agreed with a shrug. "It just might work..."
And as the day dragged on, each of the friends worked very hard at using Danny's plan to keep as far away from Paulina and her friends as possible, while trying to keep as far away from the rest of the student body, too.
All of that seemed impossible, of course, except that they were surprised that Danny's plan actually worked! They would never have guessed that sticking rigidly to their actual school schedule would throw everyone else off track! And they also stayed away from their lockers most of the day and were the last to leave their classes and the first to arrive at their new classes. They ate their lunches outside rather than in the cafeteria. And then right after school, they met in a rarely used area at the school and disappeared—literally-- thanks to Danny's invisibility power.
They all became visible once they landed in the alley near Tucker's house.
"What a sweet plan, Danny!" Tucker said. "I already got all my homework done because of it!"
"Yeah, so did I!" Danny smiled in triumph. "How about that?"
"Yeah, but let's not get into any habits!" Sam dryly said with a half-smirk. "We all ready have one bad rumor on our hands without starting the rumor that we actually want to study!"
They all laughed at her joke and then she said, "And speaking of 'rumors', we still have to get ready for the dance tomorrow night. Danny and I are still going to the store to get some stuff we need for it. Want to come along, Tucker?"
"Naw. Now that I have all this extra time, I'd rather catch up with my latest video session. I've been neglecting it too long!" he said with a smug smile.
Danny and Sam left and headed to the store…
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"First, we gotta dye your hair," Sam said matter-of-factly to Danny, as she looked down the aisle containing the hair products in the store.
Mortified, Danny gasped, "What?!" She had said nothing about this!
Sam frowned and said, "Duh! Danny Phantom has white hair! It needs to be dyed black if he—you—are going to play being Danny Fenton, uh, during the dance, uh, you know what I mean!"
She picked out the box she thought would be the one to use and Danny's eyes widened.
He stuttered, "Uh, I dunno, Sam!"
Sam, getting irritated, replied, "Really, Danny! I don't think that we'll get another chance right now to convince the school that the rumor is false, even though we know it isn't! I think this is the only way. Unless you have come up with another one?"
He suddenly thought of another plan other than dying his hair permanently but he was afraid to share it with Sam, for now, because he didn't think she would agree.
They left the store after she bought the dye and then they headed to the costume shop.
But just as they got there, Danny's ghost sense went off. "Oh, no!" he moaned.
"Well, the hair-dying and the costume-shopping will obviously have to wait," Sam said.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," Danny said as he transformed into his ghostly form and soared away.
But, unfortunately, he wasn't back right away. In fact, several ghosts had escaped from the Ghost Zone and Danny took most of the rest of the day trying to round them up. By the time he got back, no time was left to do either task. He called Sam right away and they agreed to meet at her house right after school the next day, which was, of course, the day of the dance. And that would give him the chance to try out his own plan to hide his white hair color before he would meet up with her…
Finally it was tomorrow. Each of the friends agreed to try the same plan they used so successfully yesterday to get them through the day. But fortunately, they didn't have to try very hard, because most of the talk was about the Mardi Gras dance. And much to the trio's relief, any talk about the rumor by Paulina and her conspirators was momentarily pushed aside. Everyone else was too excited to even notice that the three friends were trying to avoid them. But Paulina and her crew were undaunted. They would have another chance at the dance to prove the rumor. And they would wait until then…
All three friends hurried home right after school in order to get ready.
An hour later, Sam was pacing inside her bathroom while constantly checking her watch. "Where is he? I hope he didn't have to fight any more ghosts! We don't have much time!"
Finally, she startled slightly when Danny Phantom finally phased in, wearing a large baseball cap which was totally covering his head.
Sam pointed to the hat and dryly asked, "And just what is that supposed to say?"
"That my idea didn't work!" He sheepishly answered.
Sam gasped and uttered, "And just what was your idea?"
Danny took off his cap and revealed his grotesquely mottled black and white hair and gingerly replied, "That black shoe polish doesn't stick well to ghost hair!"
Sam stifled her laugh and didn't have the heart to tease him. "Well, if shoe polish won't stick to your ghost hair-- and I can't imagine why it wouldn't-- then hair dye certainly won't!"
"Sorry, Sam," Danny said in embarrassment, as he stuffed the baseball cap into his pocket.
Sam looked at her watch and exclaimed, "We don't have much time to worry about it! The dance is gonna start in two hours and the costume shop is gonna close soon. Let's just hope we can find something there that can help us! Let's go!"
He grabbed her and phased out of her house; and they headed to the costume shop.