Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom.

Jack and Maddie stood in the kitchen, working on their newest project. It was an energy scanner/sensor, which would be sold to the government. Their main focus may be ghost hunting, but they did have to bring the money in from somewhere.

"Jack, did you hear about Ida?" Maddie said as she bent over to rewire the device she was making the final touches on.

"Who?"

Maddie sighed exasperatedly. "Ida McDevitt, the woman who lives next door?"

Jack wracked his memory, then it came to him. "Oh! You mean the lady who gave us fudge?"

Maddie stifled a snicker. If a person gave her husband fudge, he would never forget them. "Yes, she is, Jack. She's a nice lady...anyway, she's having her granddaughter stay with her for a few weeks while her daughter and son-in-law go on a cruise. She's about Danny's age, and she's arriving tonight."

"Danny's age, huh?" Jack said as he fiddled with his invention.

"Mhmm," she said, baiting him. When she saw it wasn't going to work, she said, "Maybe we could introduce them? Give Danny someone to play with?" Danny didn't have many friends other than Tucker, and he had been on vacation for most of the summer. The nine-year-old was going to drive his sister up the wall if his time wasn't occupied with something other than pranking.

"Huh...yeah! We could set up a playdate," Jack said, saying the last word excitedly. His children were hardly even children in his eyes; Jazz mostly wanted to stay in her room and read, and Danny wasn't very social with anyone other than Tucker.

Maddie smiled. "Yes, we certainly could. I believe the little girl's name is Samantha…"

"Grandma, what are we going to do? Can we go to the park? I want to feed the geese you were talking about!"

Ida McDevitt looked down at her granddaughter, smiling and shaking her head. "Bubeleh, the geese I told you about attacked the person who fed them. Why on Earth would you want to feed them?"

Sammy Manson pondered this for a second, then said, "I can train them before they attack me...yeah! I could totally do that!" She nodded her head confidently.

Ida chuckled. "Maybe next time. We can go to the park; however, no feeding the geese. Understood?"

Sammy groaned. "Yes, ma'am."

The park was great; it was just like Sammy imagined it: green grass, big oak trees; just simple looking. And definitely no snooty rich kids around.

She took off immediately to the swings, her grandmother following her. There was a park near her house in California, but she hardly ever got to go there and her mom would only let her play on the kiddie swings. She hadn't been on a real swing in forever!

She climbed on the big swing, the soles of her shoes slightly touching the ground. Yes! That means she could push herself this time!

Sammy happily swung back and forth on the swing, laughing the entire time. After a few minutes she noticed the boy sitting on the swing next to her, who was barely swaying.

The park was mostly empty due to the cloudy weather, but apparently there was another kid here. Sammy slowed her swinging down a bit, peering over at the boy.

"Hey!" She said. "Why aren't you swinging?"

The boy looked up, and she got a peek of his cerulean eyes. "Whoa," she thought. "His eyes are really blue!"

He shrugged his shoulders, and then looked down again. He was looking at his hands, where he was fiddling with a...thing.

"What's that?" she asked as her swinging became idle.

"Oh, this? It's my dad's. I think he called it a...energy sensor? Yeah, that's what it is. He told me I could play with it."

"You're taking it apart though."

"Yeah, that's the fun part!"

"Really?" Sammy had never taken something apart before, or fixed anything. Anything that was broken was always replaced, and her mother wouldn't let her within a foot of a screwdriver or any other tool. "Can I see?"

He gave the device to her. She saw that the slide covering the wiring had been removed, exposing the complicated system of copper and silicon. "Woooaaahh, this is cool! I've never seen the inside of a machine before."

"Really?" the boy said. "I see them all the time! Do you even play with technology?"

"Of course I do! I just don't take it apart." She gave the energy sensor back to him.

"Huh," the boy turned slightly in the swing to get a good look at her. She noticed that he had thick black eyebrows, matching his dark raven hair. "Me and my friend Tucker take them apart all the time. Well, he likes to take apart the software more than the hardware, but that's still fun."

"Hardware? Software?" Sammy questioned. She'd heard the terms before, but she never really knew what they were.

The boy giggled, and then said, "Hardware's all the wires and stuff you see when you take the tech apart. Software is when you mess with what makes the machine do what it does. I don't really know how to do it, but I think it's got a lot of numbers. Tucker says it's called 'hacking'."

"Numbers? Like math? That's boring," she said, making a face. She didn't like her fourth grade math homework, and was extremely glad to not have to do it over the summer. Why would someone do it for fun?

He shrugged. "Ask Tuck."

Then Sammy realized something. "Hey, what's your name? I'm Sammy," she said, sticking her hand out.

"I'm Danny," he said as he took her hand. He squeezed it hard and shook it up and down jerkily. Sammy laughed and shook his even harder. Danny brought his hand up and down hard, and they soon fell off the motionless swings and into the soft tanbark.

They laughed again and sat up, not bothering to brush the bark off themselves. Sammy giggled. "That was fun," she said.

"Yeah." Danny giggled with her but then stopped when he heard a name calling him from a distance. They looked behind them, by the pond, and Sammy saw a small woman with red hair and a weird blue outfit.

"Aw...I gotta go now." Danny stood up. "I'll see you later, Sam!" He ran off.

Sammy got up too, and then realized what he said. "It's Sammy!" she yelled after him.

So I told you that the next chapter would involve Sam, so here it is. In this universe, Sam's grandmother lived here before her parents moved to Amity Park, but then old age caught up to her and she had to stay in a wheelchair. So now her parents take care of her in Amity Park. Just for this summer, though, little Sammy's staying with her grandmother. Who happens to live next door to our favorite crazy family.

The next two chapters will be like this one, all involving Sam and Danny and probably Jazz. This is the first one, and the next one is called Schemings.

If you have any critiques you want to share, please don't hesitate!

Until next time.