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Chapter Six

Valerie:

Part Two

I'm hanging by a moment here with you…

"How is he?" I asked.

Tucker walked over to me after coming back from the nurse's office and shrugged. "I didn't stay to find out."

I stared at him. "Some friend you are," I teased, slightly shocked.

"Danny's fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "He's been beat up worse than that."

"Really?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tucker looked nervous suddenly and cleared his throat. He smiled. "I remember at the beginning of freshman year…we were headed to Danny's house, on our bikes and Danny was talking to Sam and he ran right into a parked car. I've never laughed so much before…"

"That does sound like Fenton," I agreed, laughing. "Then what happened?"

"Sam could hardly ride her bike the rest of the way there. We got to Danny's house and she was practically crying with laughter. It was pretty funny. So she and Danny were daring each other to do some pretty weird things."

"Like what?" I asked, moving my paintbrush up and down the walls.

"Oh…Really only stupid stuff except for a few things…." He looked like he was trying to decide whether or not to tell me something and my curiosity heightened.

"Go on," I urged.

"Well, Danny's parents…His dad had this new thing…" He stammered and it was funny to hear. What could possibly be so hard to think about?

"What new thing?"

"The…the Fenton Portal," he muttered.

"Oh, if you're worried about that, I've already seen the Fenton Portal," I said, shrugging it off. "Remember, I've been to his house before."

"Right," he said. "Anyway…let's continue, shall we?"

"That was pretty brave of Danny to catch Sam like that," I said, realizing that he was right and that we should probably get back to work.

"He would do that for her anytime," he said. "But do you want to know the weird thing?"

"What?" I asked.

"He would save Sam…and she would save him," he said.

"What?" I was confused now.

"If she thought that there was someway she could get to him…she would jump off a freaking train. And he would save her just because he in someway, he wants to get to her. Get it?"

"Jump off a train? Do you mean bridge?" I wondered, starting to understand it a little.

"Yes, that's what I meant," he said quickly.

"So…it's kind of like, a "you jump, I'll jump" concept then?"

"Yep…he'd do anything for her, and vice versa. That's the way it's always been between Danny and Sam. Even when they were younger."

"Hmm…." I dipped my paintbrush into the can and swirled it around. But there was still a few things I had to ask. "So…what's with the whole 'beautiful' joke?" I asked. "I don't get it. Why doesn't she like to be called beautiful?"

Tucker burst into laughter. "Oh, you wouldn't believe it. It's an old story. When Danny and Sam first met…maybe a few days after, he started saying, "Hey Beautiful" to her all the time. It's funny because insides she likes it and she blushes all the time."

"So she doesn't get the hint that he likes her then?" I asked.

"See, it's the opposite. For the most part, Danny does not realize that Sam likes him. He's clueless like that. But when he flirts with her, she's the same way. You know what I mean?"

"So she doesn't get that he might like her a little then?"

"Well…not really. But she might after tonight's date," Tucker said with a grin.

I looked over at him. "What idea did you come up with?" Tucker had seriously come up with an idea? This should be interesting to say the least. All I'd thought of was what Paulina had suggested yesterday.

"That's…the thing…you seem to be the one to take risks lately, you wouldn't mind…helping Sam to dress up a little, would you?"

I stared at him incredulously. "You mean, play 'Model' with Sam? Boy you be seriously out of your freaking mind. I don't even know Sam that well, but I highly doubt that she'll go for that."

"But if you help Sam out a little, Danny will go for it totally," he said, smiling.

"You mean…if she looks good, Danny will flip?" I said, not believing this.

"Off his rocker. I remember the first dance we had. After we dropped her off at her house after it was over, he actually said that she looked pretty. And no jokes. He was kind of spacey after that," he said. "And you don't really have to dress her for her, I mean, she's not Barbie. But just mention some random thing about dressing up a little. She'll pretend not to care, but I'm telling you, she'll be wearing something different."

"Wow, Tucker. When you actually do pay attention, you're quite observant," I finally just stated.

"Wait till you see him with a PDA," said a voice.

I jumped and turned around to see Sam and Danny standing behind us. I hadn't noticed that they'd been there, which made me wonder how long they'd been there exactly…

"Hey guys…" Tucker said nervously. "When did you get here?" It was funny and kind of strange how we were actually on the same page a lot lately.

"Why?" Sam asked. A certain tone in her voice was challenging, as if she was really starting to suspect something else. Great. How much had she heard?

"Just wondering. You kind of snuck up on us," Tucker said. Heck, even if it had been a lie, because they had sort of snuck up on us, I would have believed him.

"Not interrupting anything, were we?" Danny asked.

"How's your head?" I asked, changing the subject and caring about my friend at the same time.

"He's got a nice little goose egg. Nurse said he could come back to the gym," Sam replied. She turned to him. "Put the ice pack back on," she told him.

"I'm fine. It's going down," he argued.

"Whatever. It looks the same size and your eyes are still funky looking, but it back on." Her voice was very demanding, yet I sensed this deep concern in her tone.

"Fine," he sighed, raising up his hand and putting a towel—wrapped object to the back of his head. He turned to Sam first, making sure he could talk again and she gave him a dirty look. "How are we doing?"

I summed it all up for them, what we'd been doing while they'd been gone. "Donna says that in an hour, we're allowed to go to lunch, but that's all we have today. We've at least finished one wall."

"And we've got two people covered," Tucker teased.

I realized what he was looking at when both Danny and Sam made faces. They were both totally swamped in dried black paint. Danny had it up and down his chin and neck and Sam had it all over the back of her arms and clothes. I couldn't resist a laugh; one joke Tucker had made was actually funny. Imagine that.

Sam rubbed the area around Danny's neck, under his chin, like he had a mustache, and with the considerable amount of it he had there, it actually did appear that way.

"Danny's got stubble," she said, laughing.

"Shut up," he groaned, giving her a look.

"Danny, there you are," said a voice.

We all turned to see Jazz Fenton walk over to us, smiling brightly. I didn't know her all that well, because she was two years older than I was, but from what I'd seen, she was really pretty nice. I also knew she was Danny's older sister, but that was kind of obvious if you knew her last name.

"What's up Jazz?" Danny asked.

"What did you do?" she said, suddenly very surprised and worried. She glanced at his head and gasped. "What happened?"

"You missed it?" I asked.

"I've been in the library all morning. I don't start decorating until tomorrow," she explained. She'd been in the room with me when Donna had asked for volunteers. "But what happened?"

"Sam and Danny fell off a ladder," Tucker said bluntly.

"Oh…eww…are you okay?" she asked, directing this to Sam.

"Yeah, I'm good," she replied.

Jazz punched Danny's arm. He turned around, his blue eyes wide. "Ow, what was that for?"

"You deserved that just so you know," she said. "Why didn't you come find me when this happened?"

"Because you don't need to know every cut and bruise or scratch that happens to appear on my body, okay?" he snapped.

"I took care of him," Sam said. "The nurse said he could come back at least, so I suppose that means he's alright…physically." She gave him a grin and nudged him playfully.

"Ah, we all know Danny will never be fine mentally," Jazz added. "All in due time I know."

"And it will all add up I suppose," Sam said.

"Hey, that kind of rhymed," I said, laughing.

"Oh, no…please don't ever rhyme in front of me," Danny groaned. "No rhymes. None."

Jazz, Sam, and Tucker burst into laughter. I didn't understand this. Some kind of inside joke that I didn't get?

"Have you got problems with poetry?" I wondered.

He rolled his eyes. "Not poetry necessarily, it's just…no rhyming."

"Such a dork," Jazz said, sighing. "Oh, Danny, what I was going to say was they want to know whether or not you're going to be home for dinner."

"Nope," he said. "I'm going out tonight."

"With us," I said. "On a double date."

"It's not a date," Sam and Danny said together. They looked at each other and then looked away nervously.

Jazz glanced between them and then back to Tucker and me. I had no idea what she was thinking because her facial expression was pretty much unreadable and blank, but she put on a smile.

"Date, huh?" she asked. Before Danny said anything else, she quickly cut him off. "I'm assuming since you're the oddballs in the group, it's going to be a long night…"

"We're going to see a movie," I told her.

"And we're going to Skateland," Tucker said.

"We're what?" Three voices chimed in, including mine. When had this come out? And was he going to warn me?

"Yeah, Skateland. The inside roller skating place. It's a school night, so it won't be busy hopefully, right? I think it would be fun," he said. It sounded like he was pulling the idea from out of his head.

"Come on guys, no standing around, get to work!" Donna shouted, standing up on the bleachers. I cringed; whoops, I suppose I should have been working at the same time.

"Sweet," Sam said. "I am so gonna kick your butt."

It took me a moment to figure out that she was still on the topic of the skating. And what more was…I suddenly realized what Tucker had done.

"Never gonna happen," Danny argued.

"What's never going to happen?" I asked.

"Danny and Sam have this contest, I guess you would call it," he replied. "They seem to think that they're so graceful on skates and so they have races across the floor when we're skating."

"Who wins?"
"Sam…until recently," Danny said, glancing at her with a sly grin.

"Cheater," she muttered.

"Ah, ah. Not cheating. Cheating is bad," he said. "Very, very bad. No more cheating. I'm just getting better and you're making up excuses."

"Danny's a cheater, huh?" I asked, smiling.

Sam cleared her throat. "A-are you kidding? He's always trying to scam Algebra homework off me," she said nervously.

I didn't know why she was nervous. It was kind of weird. Danny didn't say anything, like he hadn't expected me to ask any questions. In a way, this was really frustrating; either there was some background, personal issue going on here that I should stay out of, or it was just something I didn't understand…or heck, it could have been both.

"But I'm just tired of letting Danny win, so I think I'll reclaim my prize," Sam continued. We were back to the skating again. Wow, they really had a contest going.

"Whatever. Never gonna happen," he said again.

"Oh, just let it die," Jazz grumbled. "I'll see you before your date then probably."

"It's not a date," Sam and Danny said in unison. They looked at each other again and then away. Was there some kind of inside joke to that as well? I was starting to notice that they did this every time they said something together.

"Whatever," Jazz sighed. "I'll see you later."

"You never said we were going to Skateland," Sam said, turning back to us as Danny's sister walked away.

"It was kind of a last minute plan," Tucker told them. Yeah, really.

"Sounds fun," Danny said.

"What movie are you guys going to?" I asked.

"Serenity," Sam replied.

"Cool," I said. "We're probably going to go see Spiderman 2."

"Ooh…that was good," Sam said.

"You've seen it?" I asked. "Didn't it just come out a few days ago?"

"Sam likes superheroes," Tucker said. His tone made me look up at Sam and she retaliated and smacked Tucker hard in the head, knocking his red beret off. ("Ow.")

"Guys, hello? Work, decorating? Remember the dance?" Donna called.

"Sorry," I said loud enough for her to hear. "We'd better get back to painting."

Sam nodded, looking back at Danny. She grabbed his hand and put it up against the back of his head again, because he'd taken the icepack off while Jazz had been talking with us. He rolled his eyes.

"Just so you know," I teased. "The more paint you get off now, the less you'll have to take off of each other later."

Didn't I just love their facial expressions after that?

This episode took reference to; Parental Bonding, Memory Blank, Reign Storm, The Ultimate Enemy, Control Freaks, and Doctor's Disorders (Tucker's fear of nurses, not really big, but hey). And of course, it also involved, the "Hey Beautiful" joke from Love Me, Love Me. (One of my stories if you haven't heard of it.)

There's someone new you'll see. My first shot…well, second really, at writing someone else's point of view in first person. Coming soon, Jazz will join the little plot, but not just yet. Paulina and Dash also won't come back for a while.

Until then, I think the main characters will hold you off, right? The next chapter is Tucker's again, but then instead of Danny's, it's Sam's again and then probably Jazz. I haven't decided yet. But I do know the next chapter will be definitely interesting for you…takes place a few hours later at the official "double date."

Chapter Seven: Tucker: Part Two

"It's just something they do because they're completely oblivious to the fact that they're both strangely in love," I said, shaking my head as I watched them.

"Yeah, really," Valerie agreed. She glanced up at the disco ball on the ceiling of the main floor. I didn't realize she must have just been listening to something I wasn't. "Hey, I haven't heard this song since She's All That." I listened to the song and recognized it immediately.

"Right about now…the funk soul brother…check it out now…the funk soul brother…right about now…the funk soul brother…check it out now…"

"Cool song," Valerie said, beating her foot to the beat.

She had no idea what this meant. I stood up, watching Danny and Sam and grinned. "Hey, Val…want to see a show?"

Lateraina Wolf