A/N: Latin Dancing! Now you get a little taste of Cumbia! My favorite dance.
Anyways, I don't own Danny Phantom.
P.S. For those of you who don't know what cumbia is, I've provided a YouTube link at the bottom. ;D
It was a strange Saturday, to say the least. Like every other day, Danny was chasing down ghosts and capturing them into his Fenton Thermos and, as usual, the Box Ghost had once again somehow managed to escape the Ghost Zone.
Danny had been flying after the plump ghost when the unexpected occurred.
The round ghost craned his neck to peer back at the teenage hero. "I am the Box Ghost! Fear-!" The ghost was cut off abruptly by a loud pop that was followed by the ghost's sudden disappearance.
Danny stopped abruptly and glanced around, eyes darting around the area.
Confused, he flew around in wide circles, scanning the sky and the ground for the pesky entity.
He was pretty bewildered when the ghost never reappeared. Eventually, Danny just shrugged it off. The Box Ghost would, he deduced, reappear by the end of the day.
So, deciding to ignore the anomaly, he proceeded to continue his daily routine as if nothing had happened and flush the ghosts back into the Ghost Portal.
He had just finished reverting to his human form when a knock on the door pulled his attention back to the real world.
Danny rushed up the stairs and swung the front door open only to find himself completely dumbfounded and utterly shell-shocked at whom he found at the door.
"Hi, you must be Danny." The girl smiled pleasantly at him and peered over his shoulder, curiously glancing around his average-looking house before focusing back on the raven-haired teen. Danny's eyes fell down to her extended hand. "My name is Teresa Sanchez. Paulina told me to come." Danny automatically grasped her warm hand and continued to stare in stunned silence. She smiled, pulling her hand away. "May I come in?"
"Oh! Uh, sure! Yeah! Come on in!" He moved aside and provided her with space to enter his humble abode.
"Nice place." The girl smiled and inquisitively took in the whole house, eyeing every detail with an intrigued expression. She was very good-looking, needless to say. She had sleek, dark-ish brown hair that was swept up in a careless bun, bronze skin stretched out over her slim and extremely curvy body, dark brown eyes that glittered with friendliness, and thin glossy lips that stretched out into a polite smile when her eyes fell back on Danny as she openly studied him.
He immediately presumed she was Hispanic and, although her beauty rivaled Paulina's, she did not look even remotely similar to her snarky cousin. If it weren't for the identical cute pixie-like nose he wouldn't have labeled them off as relatives. In fact, if he hadn't known she was coming, he would've thought her a stranger.
"Well, Paulina's told me about you but what she didn't say was how cute you were." Her dark eyes met his own icy blue ones.
He blushed profusely, her flirtatious wink causing him to break their gaze. "That's a compliment, you know. If I were single, well…"
She chuckled and dropped her handbag onto Danny's countertop, rummaging through its contents. Danny wondered how long it would take because the bag was rather large, in his opinion. He firmly believed that it could probably fit six of his textbooks and still have room for a bag of pencils.
"Um," she pulled out a flat, square container and opened it to reveal a round disk. She held the CD up in her hand, causing it to release a rainbow-like reflection beneath the clear lighting. "I brought a CD. I figured you might not have a radio so I called my boyfriend to bring us one." She paused and added, "And to help with the dancing, of course. I hope that's okay." Her eyes flickered to Danny. "Do you mind having another visitor? Because if not, I can call and tell him not to come. I mean, I know you didn't know he was coming and all, and I don't want you to get in trouble with your parents or nothin'." She paused and her gaze flickered around the house. "Even though it looks like they're not home…"
"It's fine," Danny replied, motioning for her to follow him into the family's living room. He flashed her a curious look. He was having a tough time believing that this sweet, pretty Latina was associated to the grouchy teenager that used to emotionally bully him.
"How are you related to Paulina?" Danny blurted out, unable to stop himself.
"Oh," the girl laughed joyfully. "Her father's my uncle." She beamed at the hybrid. "Yup, she's ma cousin."
"Um, well, that's not what I meant..." Danny's cheeks flushed a rosy color as he glanced away. "You just don't look like her."
The Hispanic teen smiled. "Why? 'Cause she's gorgeous?"
"No!" Danny shouted. "Not that you're not beautiful! I mean, you are! Not to say that I like you. I mean, not that you're not likeable. I mean, you're pretty and all and you have a boyfriend and-"
Another knock startled the hero out of his ramblings and he instantly jumped to answer it, his ears burning at the sound of the Teresa's tinkling laughter. He swung open the door and found himself slightly stunned when he looked up to see another, rather good-looking teen. He was about seventeen or eighteen with dark, gelled-up hair and light, hazel-colored eyes. His skin was relatively lighter than the Sanchez girls' but darker than Danny's. He had a wiry body that indicated he worked out some and was approximately a few centimeters taller than the teen hero. The human-ghost hybrid squirmed.
"Yo, I'm Antonio, but you can call me Tony." The tall Latino let himself inside. "You're...Danny, right? I brought the radio, hope you don't mind." He lifted the contraption in his hands for emphasis and peered into the living room.
"Er, it's fine." Danny replied. "Uh, you must be Teresa's boyfriend."
Danny shut the door behind them and trudged after the older teen as he entered the kitchen only to find Teresa sitting on a high stool, swinging her legs back and forth, a happy grin planted on her face. She swung her head back and forth, wiggling in her seat. Danny raised his brows and noticed a pair of earphones plugged into her small ears.
The sound of another angrier pounding caused the trio to glance up at the door. Danny couldn't help but inwardly groan. He had a feeling this was going to be an incredibly long day.
...
"Ohmigod, Danny." Paulina released his arms and rolled her eyes as if she were teaching him basic skills. "It's not that hard! What don't you get? It's step, step, step, kick, step, step, step, kick!" Paulina did the motion with her feet and proceeded to explain. "One foot back! No, then left!"
Danny struggled to move his feet but somehow continuously managed to get his ankles crossed and trip, falling flat on his face. At first, the repeated process had been humiliating, now he was simply beginning to feel deflated. No matter how much he tried to learn the moves, he simply could not get it. He watched and tried to mimic but to no avail. His efforts were completely and utterly futile.
"Look," Tony, who had been comfortably sitting on the couch, which they'd moved up against the wall, finally stood up, interceding their two-hour practice.
Conveniently, they had the windows closed, the only light coming from the fluorescent bulb that hung in their ceiling. Tony gently motioned for Paulina to step aside and she complied with a hiss of annoyance. "First of all, you need to be facing away from him." He turned so that he was facing the same wall Danny had been glaring at for a while. He peered over his shoulder and he held up two fingers so that they were aimed towards his hazel eyes and then pointed to his feet. "Watch carefully but don't repeat."
The young Latino then proceeded to move three steps to the right and kick gently, then the opposite. "Or just one foot back, then together then the other back then together. Those are the two easiest forms." He glanced up to his girlfriend and waved a hand. "Turn up the music."
Danny struggled to follow the teenager the best he could. It was a massive improvement. Now, he was neither tripping nor stumbling, although he did lose his step once in a while. Paulina and Teresa glanced at each other, nodding and shrugging at his dance moves. Teresa insisted that he was 'okay' whereas, according to Paulina, as long as he didn't "screw up" and act like a "bruto" in front of everyone, then he was fine. They continued practicing, though Danny's improvement didn't continue to progress from there, much to his partner's disappointment.
Finally, Tony offered to try the dance one last time before parting ways.
Danny nodded in agreement. "Well, I guess it'd be better if-" a small wisp of mist escaped his lips, "-you guys left right now! I'm..uh...I forgot to do something! You have to leave. Err, my parents are coming home soon!"
He instantly jumped from his place and shoved them out the door. Paulina spun on her heel and parted her lips in confusion. "But-"
"Practice tomorrow at five, got it. Oh, and Tucker and Sam want to come." He slammed the door shut and instantly took off, rushing to fulfill his duties.
"He's cute." Teresa commented, eyeing the door. "In a quirky kind of awkward way, but hell. Paulina, if you don't want him, I'm takin' him."
"He probably had something important come up. Probably a call from his girlfriend." Tony slid his hand around his girlfriend's waist after she did the same. They turned and walked away, leaving behind an irritated Paulina. "Oh, that boy is gonna get it tomorrow," she hissed.
:~:~:~:~:~:~:
A/N: So, so sorry for not updating sooner. College is getting busier.
Oh, and here's the YouTube link I mentioned earlier!
watch?v=aepyO-eIvOc
(Plug in the YouTube dot com in front of this.)
