I was jittery the entire duration of the storm. I didn't sleep, and by the time Maddie woke up the next morning the entire house was spotless. The thunder was still rolling, and I was still running about finding every possible thing to do to burn energy.
"Storms sure do make you energetic," she mumbled, yawning and grabbing a cup of coffee.
"Only thunderstorms, because of all the static energy in the air," I replied quickly, babbling. She shot me an amused glance, obviously not thinking this was an issue.
Jack was the next up, excited by the idea that the entire house was clean. He thumped me on the back when I bounced past him, trying to find a way to get rid of my manic energy. Then Jazz got up, needing to get to her classes much earlier than Danny did. She shot me a worried look, the only completely human person in the entire house who knew what was going on. Finally, Danny got up, stumbling his way downstairs. I ran into him a total of thirteen times.
Eventually, with the storm showing no sign of stopping, I finally just collapsed in the living room and panted. I twitched constantly; keeping still wasn't something that was going to happen. However, all the energy did have a positive effect among the negative ones; I was not likely to fall asleep in class today. And neither was Danny, because I'd spent the night fighting off ghosts so that he could sleep. Also to burn off energy, but ghosts had stayed clear once they all realized that the thunderstorm was hyping me up.
At school, I couldn't concentrate; I just kept tapping my foot and twitching, the poster child for ADHD. Even Mr. Lancer got fed up with it; we had him for most subjects this year, my friend and I. After English, he stopped me from leaving and questioned me about it.
"It's just the storm, sir," I giggled maniacally. "All the static energy in the air." I giggled my way out, the energy inside of me trying to free itself. Luckily, I got a very nice surprise: I had a double Gym period today.
Well, not really. But we were having lunch inside and we were allowed to use the gym to mess around in, sort of like recess from when we were in elementary school. I did laps around the gym right after eating, and then I got to do the same exact thing at the very end of the day.
Mrs. Tetslaf was impressed, to say the least. She'd never seen a kid complete five laps around the huge gym in less than three minutes. And then after I ran the required laps, I ran around the track until the very last person had completed their laps. I wasn't the slightest out of breath; thunderstorms tended to make me get an adrenaline feeling. I twitched the entire time she talked, and then I twitched during dodgeball.
Dodgeball was pretty fun, though. Like, what other kid could say they got Dash Baxter out of the game no less than five times while willingly getting themselves out every chance they had to run laps around the gym? While also having ghost powers and leaving the class unseen every now and then to fight off ghosts? And not being the least bit tired?
***line break***
Apparently, the storm would be ending around five pm. That meant that Danny had to deal with a hyper boyfriend for the next three hours. He eventually forced me to lie down, but he couldn't keep be down long. I was far too full of energy to just stay in one place for longer than half a minute. I made a new record just because I loved Danny enough to lay with him and do homework for two minutes. It was torture.
I was pretty happy to beat up Box Ghost, as it gave me an outlet for my energy. He was defeated far to easily, though, so then I did ghost patrol until I actually felt tired. I flew back home, but no sooner did I get there and lay down for about three minutes did my energy spark back up. It annoyed me. Greatly.
Finally, finally, 5 pm came around and the storm finally started drifting off. I'd taken a shower already and was just drying my hair when suddenly all of today's exercise took its tool on me. I groaned and hit my head against the sink counter, the hairdryer falling from my hand. Danny had to come in and help me finish blow-drying my hair.
"All that exercise finally getting to you?" Danny asked, looking like he was trying not to smile. He was failing at that.
"Yes," I mumbled, leaning against Danny and letting him comb my hair. I didn't normally let people touch my hair, but right now the shocks that I was giving off weren't enough to do anything.
"And are you going to do this next time there's a thunderstorm?" Danny said calmly, as though I was a child who had been repeatedly told not to run through the house and had hit my head on a wall because I was running.
"Probably," I sleepily answered, cracking a smile.
***line break***
I woke early and panicked because I hadn't done my homework, but found that Danny had already done it for me. For someone who was against cheating, he faked my handwriting pretty well. I stayed awake until Danny woke up, letting him sleep in again. School was much more fun when I wasn't waking Danny up every five minutes. He asked me if I was okay now, and I told him that if he didn't stop fussing over me we'd be late for school.
He let it drop. Smart boy.
Mr. Lancer was much more pleased with how I acted the day after the storm. At least, I actually paid attention to what he was saying.
"A gerund is a verb that is used like a noun. Mr. Forrest, could you give us an example?"
"Running is fun," I said distractedly. "Running is the gerund because it is a verb, but 'is fun' are two helping/linking verbs and are thus the verb of the sentences, making 'running' the subject and the noun."
"Very good," he praised. "Now then, we'll be working on writing essays that consist almost entirely of gerund phrases..."
I zoned out after that and didn't really pay attention, passing notes with Danny and giving him tips on his essay. I finished the first draft of mine in only a few minutes, but it was poorly written and definitely not my best effort. I would be rewriting the essay later that day.
Algebra passed by very quickly as well and I didn't really listen to what Mr. Koriwa, a relatively young man with white hair and startlingly red eyes, was teaching us. Something about dividing exponents. Sam would probably have to help me with my homework. About halfway through the math period, a younger red-haired boy with pinkish-purple eyes slipped into the room to talk to him; this red-haired kid had to be something like two years younger than Mr. Koriwa. They talked like old friends and the younger boy let the teacher ruffle his hair before he awkwardly waved to the class and disappeared. Mr. Koriwa followed him to the door and I pretended I didn't see them share a quick kiss.
A friend of Mr. Koriwa's, indeed.
***line break***
At lunch, I furiously rewrote the first draft of my essay. I'd used poor wording and had even skipped quite a few words; how did I ever think this draft was a good paper? I listened in to my friend's conversation distractedly.
"So my brithday's next week," Sam said, looking happy.
"Sixteen, right?" I very suddenly spoke, startling my friends.
"Yeah, 16."
"Cool, Sam," Tucker said energetically. "Are you having a sweet sixteen party?"
"Ugh, no," she scoffed. "In case you've forgotten, I'm a unique individual. I don't need a party."
"But you'll let us get you presents, right?" Danny asked suspiciously.
"Because even if you say not to, I'm getting you a present anyway," I snorted.
Sam never did win that argument.
***line break***
I actually got my homework done before a ghost attacked for a change. Well, 'attacked' wasn't the right word. It was more along the lines of... Kitty popped up unexpectedly and I nearly shot an ecto-ray at her in surprise.
"Kitty!" I scolded. "You know not to surprised me like that."
"Well, your birthday is in a few months, right kid?" she countered. I rolled my eye.
"Yeah. In like, August. It's not even Halloween yet."
"So I'm not allowed to know what you want in advance?" she said, feigning a hurt look. "Your own foster mother?"
I snorted and pulled her into a hug. "Try asking in June, okay?"
She sighed. "You're no fun kid. But I actually wanted to ask you if you'd ignore Johnny and I tonight. He wanted to bring me to a movie. One of those romance ones."
I shrugged. "Yeah, go for it. I don't really care what you do as long as no one gets blown up. And remember to at least act human, okay? We don't a repeat of what happened when you brought me out for cotton candy when I was eight."