A/N: So… Um, yeah, it's been a while. Sorry…
Summary: Mr. Lancer noticed something that clearly couldn't be right. So now, with evidence in hand, how will he approach this oddity?
~oOo~
Mr. Lancer pulled at his goatee as he looked over the scrawled name once more, his eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.
To clear his mind, Mr. Lancer took a moment to look away from the quiz, and instead, focused on the opposite wall. After a few moments of staring blankly at the off-white bricks, he looked back at the signature; maybe he was imagining it, after all! But when he turned his attention back to the test, to that squiggle, it still looked exactly the same. Right in front of him, in rushed pencil markings, was a name that most definitely shouldn't have been there.
Danny Phantom.
No matter how many times Mr. Lancer tried to 'snap out of it', the name was still there. Of course, he could've been going senile, but the balding teacher dearly hoped that was not the case.
He lay the paper down on his desk in a daze, trying to de-muddle his brain so he could think over the situation without being in a complete gallimaufry. He decided that, in order to come to a justified answer or reason, he would have to think through every single possibility.
He felt normal. All throughout the day, he had acted like he usually did. This was the first out-of-place thing that had jumped out at him in a while. With all of those little facts added together, Mr. Lancer felt like he could safely conclude that he wasn't going crazy. Which meant that the signature was really there.
So, Mr. Fenton had substituted his real last name with the last name of Amity Park's most famous hero. They did, after all, have the same first name. Plus… Fenton. Phantom. Their last names sounded similar enough. Danny also seemed completely 'out of it' the whole entire day. It could've been just a silly mistake caused by low energy and fatigue.
Mr. Lancer thought over his reasoning. Yes, the likelihood of Mr. Fenton writing down Phantom's name in his tired haze was a possibility. But it still didn't completely justify why Danny would write down the wrong name. All his life, he had written down his true name on hundreds, no,thousands of papers for school and other functions. His mind had been practically programmed to write down the name 'Fenton' after the name 'Danny'. He wouldn't just happen to write down this ghost's name by accident in his exhaustion.
The possibility of it all being just a prank didn't escape Mr. Lancer, either. To him, this was one of the more realistic reasons that he could think of, but that didn't mean it was perfect; there were still many flaws with that idea. For example, in the state that Mr. Fenton was in, would he have the humor or the wit to formulate a joke? Mr. Lancer doubted it. And his overtired-ness seemed too real to be an act.
Mr. Lancer racked his brain, trying to come up with every possibility. He dissected the ones that came to mind. Most of them, however, were either stupidly ridiculous, or they were so far-fetched that Mr. Lancer was constantly loosing track of what he was thinking about.
Yes, the chances of it being just an immature joke seemed all the more likely the more he thought about it.
After all, He thought, it's not like Phantom flew in here and signed the test himself…
A gear seemed to click in Mr. Lancer's head. He froze.
No…
That wasextremely unlikely. After all, what would be Mr. Phantom's motive behind it? There was absolutely no way.
But what if, somehow, thatisMr. Phantom's signature?
... But it can't be.
No matter how hard he tried to push it to the back of his mind, this idea refused to leave Mr. Lancer alone. As he pondered over the possibilities - or lack thereof - of this thought, he slowly began to realized that he had a way to prove or disprove the notion once and for all.
After locating his pair of reading glasses in the jumbled clutter, Mr. Lancer pulled open a desk drawer and took out a book. A very pink, very girly 'Top Secret' book that he had just happened to confiscate earlier that day.
It was Miss Sanchez's diary. The one that was totally dedicated to none other than Mr. Phantom.
The teacher could smell the perfume wafting towards him as he lifted the front cover. It was very nauseating perfume that smelled like a mixture of cupcakes and artificial pears. Regardless of the awful headache that this odor was inflicting upon him, Mr. Lancer had to turn each page slowly, not wanting to skip over what he was looking for.
On one sheet that Mr. Lancer had the misfortune to see, Mr. Phantom's emblem covered almost the entire page, colored in with pink Sharpie that bled onto the next few pages. In every available space, Miss Sanchez had then proceeded to write phrases such as 'DP + PS forever!' and 'Mr. and Mrs. Phantom' in her flowing handwriting. It was disgusting, the amount of adoration that Miss Sanchez had for this boy, a specter, nonetheless!
Mr. Lancer shuddered and turned the page once more.
On this spread, a newspaper photograph of Mr. Phantom was glued into the book. Surrounding the picture were florescent pink lip-gloss kiss markings. Something was written at the bottom of the page. Mr. Lancer thought that it could be the autograph, but as he adjusted his glasses, he realized that whatever was written there was written in Spanish.
He groaned inwardly and murmured something about 'Tales of Misery!' before quickly flipping the page.
As Mr. Lancer squinted at this page, the first thing that jumped out at him was the uncharacteristic lack of pink love notes and hearts drawn everywhere. Sure, there were loads of those things on the mirroring page, but this page didn't have anything else on it. Before Mr. Lancer had time to wonder about this, he saw that little squiggle that he had glimpsed earlier that day.
There.
That was the signed page. There had been nothing doodled within a two-inch radius of the autograph because it was being treated like a holy alter without anything tainting it.
Mr. Lancer examined the chicken scratch on the page closely, studying the curvature, pressure, and those odd distinguishable kinks that were only present in Mr. Phantoms' handwriting. It did somehow look familiar.
He then looked at the place where Mr. Fenton's name should have been on the test. He then looked back at the name in the diary. Then back to the name on the test. Every time his gaze changed, his lips pursed even tighter together.
The first names, the 'Danny's, were practically identical. The 'a's had the same little hook on the end. The two 'n's on each name ran together to look like an extra-long 'm'. The 'y's tails both stopped abruptly where most people make a loop leading out of the letter. Even the slant was at the same angle! As for the last name, they were exactly the same, too.
Neither of the names seemed too hesitated. Neither of them looked like a possible forgery. Which meant that they were more than likely written by the same person.
But this realization caused a new, dreadful predicament to come to mind.
Who wrote both of the names… Phantom, or Fenton?
~oOo~
A/N: Okay, so... I'm so sorry. I know that it's been a few days… Okay, fine, a few weeks... Okay, fine, five months. But I have perfectly good reasons! So, now it's sad story time!
Once upon a time, Sarahhaley was almost done with the next chapter of her story. It had taken a long time to write anyways, but then, her computer died. It was a tragic, painful death that made her very sad. She didn't know what to do. She also lost a whole lot of inspiration and motivation because this was the computer that happened to have the only saved copy of that chapter. So she had to re-type the entire chapter, and it somehow ended up much shorter than the original copy. Oh well. THE END.
And now my mediocre children's storytelling is over... So, now that I've updated, I only ask for one thing in return… Ohhh, what is this at the bottom of the page? A blue review button! Why don't you click it? You know you want to.
Disclaimer: I don't own Danny Phantom.
And, of course, last but certainly not least, thanks to my Beta Reader, sapphireswimming!