Chapter 11: Home-School-Sick

After almost 4 weeks of being home schooled (mostly to get her used to having a single home and a family, but also to avoid the prying eyes of the press), Danielle was starting to go stir-crazy with cabin fever, and couldn't resist the urge to look out the window, daydreaming about being able to go around freely without being accompanied by someone older then her.

"Danielle, pay attention," Maddie said sternly as she stood in front of the digital board.

"Sorry, Grandma," she said with a sigh as she looked back at the notebook and textbook placed in front of her at the kitchen table.

"Now, as I was saying, if Y=3 and Z=30, in the equation 3x+y=z, what is X?"

"Um…" Danielle paused, reviewing the notes she had taken before. "X=9?"

"Very good, sweetie," Maddie beamed before turning back to the board.

Danielle let out a sigh of relief, relaxing into her chair. If there was one subject she hated, it was math. Although, with being home schooled, she wasn't really enjoying any of the subjects she was supposed to be learning from her family. It was always ending badly, one way or another.

Science:

"Um, grandpa, are you sure you know what you're doing?" Danielle asked nervously as Jack continued to mix various chemicals on the lab table. The once clear liquid that was contained in small vial was now a bright glowing red that was admitting a small amount of heat, though Jack had not noticed.

"Nonsense! I was doing this kinda stuff before you were even born!" he boasted as the mixture finally hit its peak, and started to shake the vial violently in his hand.

"Yeah, that's what worries me," she muttered as she transformed into her ghost form. "HIT THE DECK!" she yelled, flipping the table and her lab book in front of her over and going intangible as an extra precaution. A sudden flash of light illuminated and bathed the entire lab as the chemicals exploded in Jack's hand. Danielle covered her ears as the whole room seemed to shake from the reaction and all the noise in the air seemed to disappear. When the light finally faded, smoke cleared and Danielle turned tangible again, she proceeded to peer over the table to find Jack still standing, hair blown back, covered in soot and the right half of his jumpsuit missing. Jack opened his mouth to say something, but only managed to cough up more soot before falling over backwards. "Oh my god! Grandpa!" Danielle cried as she ran around the table and kneeled next to him. "Are you ok?"

Coughing a few more times, Jack managed to throw her a thumbs up and a smile before finally speaking.

"Never-'cough'-better, sweetie. But let this be a lesson to you; never play with the chemicals in the lab without you grandma's supervision.

English:

"Alright, Danielle. I want you to read pages 120 to 160, and write a one to two page response paper on it, due by the end of the day," Jazz said as she placed a book in front of the young girl.

"Ugh. Do I have to?" she groaned tiredly as she sat at the kitchen table and resisted the urge to yawn.

"Yes, and I don't wanna hear anymore about it," Jazz said with a bit of a sternness in her voice as she placed her phone in her purse. "Have a good day," she said, kissing her niece on the cheek, much to Danielle's annoyance. Jazz smiled as she made her way toward the backyard where her car was, pausing in the doorway to look back at Danielle one last time. "And remember. Stay. In. The. House."

Danielle let out a frustrated sigh as she scratched her head. Of course she knew she wasn't allowed outside because of the press, which had yet to let up about her and was still itching for an interview, but the constant reminder from every single person who did and didn't live in the house was really starting to work her nerves and getting tiring.

Checking the time, she realized that it was only about fifteen minutes to eight, and much like her father and mother, she wasn't happy about being up so early, especially when she of all people should be able to sleep in. Realizing her parents and aunt wouldn't be back until at least 3:15 that afternoon, and that her grandparents where probably going ghost hunting for a majority of the day, she figured she had at least seven hours to do her work. Smiling at the thought, she hopped out of the chair she was sitting in and ran upstairs into her parent's room where she proceeded to play a few hours of Doomed, increasing her character's level by ten, and took a quick nap.

With four hours left, she trudged down the stairs and back into the kitchen where she made herself a sandwich to help her ease her hunger and focus better on her paper. An hour later, it was high noon, Danielle had finished the reading but was now stumped on how to even begin the paper. Just as she had given up and set her pen down, Danielle felt the familiar cold sensation of her ghost sense as it passed her lips.

"Well, it never hurts to take a little study break," she said with a grin as she transformed. Grabbing her thermos, and phasing threw the roof, she set off in pursuit of the ghost that had set off her sense.

Unfortunately for Danielle, she had spent more time fighting then she had thought. First, she had to take on a pair of the Ecto-Pusses as they attacked the park, and from there it only got worse as she had to fight both a ghost wolf and a ghost snake at the same time. That was more difficult then she had hoped since both wanted to eat her, and she had yet to master the art of duplication.

Before she could even let out a sigh of relief, she was startled by the yelling of an annoying ghost that snuck up behind her.

"BEWARE!"

Danielle shrieked in surprise as she turned around to find the one and only Box Ghost floating behind her, hands waving around wildly like a mad man as he continued to rant.

"I am the Box Ghost! Here to make you life miserable with my cardboard controlling powers of Doom!" he said.

"Oh god. It's only you," she said as she put her hand on her chest and breathed a sigh of relief. "And here I thought I had an actual problem on my hands."

The Box Ghost blinked in confusion as he took in the white hair, green eyes and black and white hazmat suit with the familiar "DP" logo on the front and compared them to his memory of the infamous ghost boy who had thwarted him numerous times. The height difference, the more feminine look in the face and eyes, and not to mention the slender waist and hourglass figure that curved from the hips up to the small breast; yeah, something wasn't right here.

"Hey! You are not the Ghost Kid!" he declared in irritation.

"Uh, correction. I am a Ghost Kid, just not the Ghost Kid. The name's Dani. Dani Phantom. And that's Dani with an I. And you are the Box Ghost, the most annoying, and probably pathetic, ghost in the entire Ghost Zone," she said with a confident smile.

"BEWARE! For I have nothing more to say to you. But tremble before my awesome might as I attack the Ghost Boy at his school!" he yelled before streaking toward Casper High.

Danielle squeaked in fear as she took off after him as fast as she could. With little effort, she caught him, grabbing him by the back of his overalls. She yanked him hard, pulling him away from the school as fast as she could, praying to whatever power above that she hadn't been seen.

"Are you insane!? Do you know what he would do to you, and more importantly ME, if he knew I was out here fighting ghost when I'm not even supposed to be outside right now without someone else to accompany me!?" Without hesitation, she pulled out the thermos she'd been using all day and sucked him into it.

'And not only him, but Mom, Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Jazz would hit the roof.'

Just when she thought it was all over and she was finally done for the day, her ghost sense went off once again. Letting out a growl of frustration, she turned around only to get hit with a bright blue ball, causing her to become frozen solid in a block of ice.

"Yay! Now you can be my friend!" Klemper said, hugging the block in which she was frozen. After almost 20 minutes of being frozen and another 15 minutes of fighting the overly friendly ghost, she finally captured him, only to realize that it was five minutes past three.

"Ah! I am so dead!" She said as she took off at full speed toward home, not even realizing the irony of her statement. Landing on the front porch, Danielle reverted back into her human form, exhausted from the long day. Opening the door, she was met with a very unpleasant site: Both her parents, grandparents and Aunt, standing in the living room, arms crossed and stern looks on their faces. Ever have five adults looking angrily at you? Not fun.

"Crap," she muttered. Needless to say, she was not happy having to spend the rest of her weekend writing papers and being grounded to her room with no computer for disobeying them. Although she tried to argue that she hadn't been caught, it was virtually useless when her picture showed up on the news of her fighting both the snake and wolf. "I hate the press," she said as she sat at her desk and wrote the paper she had blown off.

History:

"And that is how the first PDA was thought of, constructed and distributed," Tucker said as he pointed to the schematics he had displayed on the board. Turning around, his smile fell at the site of Danielle's denim beanie, rested over her eyes and a light snore coming from her. "Jeez. Everybody around here is the same. No respect for the tech."

Psychology:

"So tell me, Danielle. Based on the evidence presented here, what is wrong with the person in this case?" Jazz asked.

Danielle rolled her eyes, head propped up on her elbow as she tried to pretend she cared, but was failing miserably.

"They're a fruitloop?" she guessed in a bored tone.

"Danielle! This is serious! You need to be able to analyze a person's motives and moves if you ever want to become a better ghost hunter, and fight more effectively," she said, holding up a picture of the man. "Like him. In his profile, it says he's a loner and generally doesn't communicate well with others. What do you think that means?"

"That he's a lonely fruitloop? Like Vlad? Who needs a cat? Like Vlad!?" she smiled excitedly, causing Jazz to smack her own forehead in disbelief.

Art:

"Now, while we're here, I want you to try to tap into your inner darkness. I want you to feel it and let the poetry really reflect how your inner soul feels. Let the darkness that ravages your soul out with your words," Sam said, smiling a creepy smile that made Danielle feel uneasy.

Looking at her mother with a bit of fear, Danielle swallowed down the creepy feeling that was invading her as it radiated from every person in the shop.

'Why couldn't I get a normal art teacher?' she thought. "Um, Mom? Not that I'm not all for poetry and expression, but did we really have to come to this creepy bookstore for a poetry slam?" she whispered, taking in the many depressed stares and angry words coming from the various audience members and the current performer, most of which looked paler then she did in her ghost form.

"No worries. As natural creatures of the night, we express ourselves better in an environment that reflects the way we feel."

Danielle groaned, placing her head on the table as she foresaw it being a long night.

Gym:

"Hold still!" Danielle yelled, throwing another round of ecto-disk at her opponents.

"You're gonna need better aim then that if you wanna beat us," the four Danny's said in unison. "Looks like you inherited Dad's aim," they said, laughing at her frustration.

Danielle growled as her hands charged with energy. She was mentally cursing herself, as well as Vlad, for not being better at duplication, and charged full speed at the closet duplicate who barely had enough time to stop laughing and register it before getting slammed into the lab wall and vanishing in a bright light. Turning on her heels in mid-air, she let a fury of disk fly from her hands and feet, effectively distracting two of the Danny's. Both covered themselves with an ecto-shield, only to see the young halfa had disappeared.

"Where'd she go?" they said in unison once more.

"Keep your eyes on the ball, boys," Danielle yelled. The two looked above them to see her become visible again as she launched a giant ball of ecto-energy, hitting them both and sending them to the ground, ending their time as well. Danielle looked around the lab as she landed on the smoldering burn mark of her previous attack, desperately trying to find her last opponent. "Come out, coward, and fight me like a man!"

"Actually, when playing Hide and Seek," Danny said, appearing in front of her and nearly knocking her off the balance, "it's more traditional to say 'Ready or Not, here I come'," he said with a smile as he grabbed her by the arms, effectively restraining her movement. Danielle struggled to break free of his grip, but with him being older then her and obviously having more muscle with being a teenage boy, knew it was no use. Just when she thought it could get no worse, her blood literally ran cold at the site of his eyes as they went from their usual green to a bright icy blue. Danielle panicked as her whole body was covered in ice, eliminating the last of her mobility.

"Hey! No fair! You can't freeze people in dodgeball unless you hit them with an ice ball, cheater!" she protested as he phased his hands out of the ice.

"Well considering how you slammed my duplicate into the wall, it looked more like football then dodgeball. Besides, I prefer freeze tag," he said with a smirk.

Danielle growled at his as she struggled to free herself from her frozen prison.

"Let me out of here!"

"Nope. You broke the rules, so, now you gotta sit in the penalty box," he said as he made his way to the stairs and changed back to normal. "And since you can't phase out of ghost ice, I'll be back to free you later."

"What! No! Dad! Come back! Daddy! Daddy!" she screamed at his retreating form.

Danielle pouted at the memories as her stomach growled in anticipation for food. Noticing that Maddie had her back turned and was still ranting on about some equation that she didn't care about, Danielle turned intangible so as not to make any noise to alert her grandmother. She quickly slipped out of her chair, and floated over to the cookie jar resting on the counter behind her. Danielle smiled as her hand passed through the jar and she got a hold of the sweet treats she desired.

"Danielle Lilith Fenton!"

Danielle jumped in surprise before cringing at the tone and usage of her full name, a feat that only occurred when she had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to or was in serious trouble. Turning herself fully tangible again, she turned around to find her mother standing behind her, hands on her hips and spider backpack still on her back. Danielle gave a nervous smile like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

'Man, if that's not ironic.' she thought.

"Hi, Mom. How was your day?"

"Mine was fine. Now do you mind telling me why you're using your powers to steal cookies from the cookie jar, literally, behind your grandmother's back?"

Danielle sighed in defeat. "I'm sorry. I just got kinda hungry. Sitting at a kitchen table all day is boring," she said with her hands behind her back, a cookie in each hand.

Sam rolled her eyes and held out her left hand. "Fine, but you can only have one. And I don't want any excuses or complaining about eating your veggies at dinner."

Danielle smiled and handed over one of the cookies while eating the other in one bite.

"So where are Danny and Tucker?" Maddie asked as she cleared the table of all papers and books.

"They're filling out a couple last minute papers for Danielle. Tucker said that they should be all ready and in the system soon, and that she can start school next week."

"Oh thank god!" Danielle said in relief. "I didn't know how much more of all this home-schooling I could take."

"Come on, it wasn't that bad," Maddie said.

"No offense, Grandma, but between lunch coming to life last week and having to use various tables in the house as cover from Grandpa's weapons and experiments, I think a little normality sounds good. Or, at least, school wise."

"Fair enough. But for the record, you don't come from a normal family, dear," she said with a smile as she walked out of the room.

"Yeah, no kidding! What other kid has to worry about their food giving them an attitude?" she asked as she shared a laugh with Sam.