She's on the Horror Roll!
Chapter One: The First Day of School
"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full." - Henry Kissinger
This year is going to be different. No more cutting class, no more being late, no more grades below a B minus. I am going to study hard, pay attention in class, and not let ghost attacks get in my way.
I've been working my ass off, trying to perfect my Duplication power. When I duplicate myself, I mentally give my copy a set task to perform. Usually, it's something simple like "attack" or "defend" or "get me a soda because the Box Ghost just had a massive temper tantrum and I need to be lazy for a minute." But, that's not going to cut it anymore. I've seen Vlad Plasmius's own copies at work. I've seen at least one actually think for itself, at least to an extent, so I know it's possible. If I'm going to be a better student and still keep the peace, I need my duplicates to act on their own, to think on their own. I've battled my own copies to practice, and they seem to be progressing pretty well. Granted, they don't do anything too complex or shout out any puns or even speak, but they can fight well enough to get me through the school day.
But, since it's only the first day, I'm hoping I won't have to test them any time soon.
"Ah, junior year," Tucker says with a grin as we meet up in the courtyard.
He has recently upgraded his style from "classic techno-geek" to "cultured techno-geek" (his words, not mine). Personally, I think he looks like a hipster, but to each their own. Today, he sports a mint-green button-up tee, khaki pants, and brown sneakers, plus his signature red beret.
Sam, for her part, is as gothic as ever, though she has been experimenting with color lately. Well, dark purples and reds, but it still counts. She wears a maroon t-shirt with black lace trim on the sleeves and neckline, black skinny jeans, the usual combat boots, and a black pentagram necklace. She's been growing out her dyed-black hair, and it now hangs just past her shoulders. No make-up aside from lipstick that matches her shirt.
As for me, I've stuck with my "boy next door" look, as Sam calls it. I'm wearing a soft red t-shirt with a large white stripe across my stomach over a white long-sleeved shirt, dark blue jeans, and white sneakers. The sneakers are brand new, and we'll see how long they stay white.
Tucker puts his hands on his hips. "My friends, we are officially upperclassmen."
"And, more importantly," Sam adds with a smirk, "we are officially out of any of Mr. Lancer's classes."
I laugh. "Come on, Sam. Lancer isn't that bad."
As if trying to prove me wrong, we hear Mr. Lancer talking to some students nearby. Although, considering that he's reading from his old copy of How 2B Hip, I don't think "talking" is the right word. "'Sup…peeps. Welcome to this…rocking…pad of…edutainment." Little does he know that everyone left after "'sup peeps."
I laugh again. "Okay. He's pretty bad."
As my friends and I walk into the Casper High building, we compare our schedules. Sadly, it looks like this year we only have the same lunch period, which is shared by everyone in our grade level.
"Ah, you're so lucky, Danny!" Tucker whines as he peeks at my schedule. "You've got Ms. Mae for homeroom and last period. You get to start and end the day with her. I only have her for second period."
Sam checks her own schedule. "I've got her for third. What's the big deal about Ms. Mae?"
"Yeah, you know her, Tucker?" I ask.
Tucker stops us in our path. "You haven't heard? She's a new teacher this year." He gives us a sly grin. "And, I hear she's H-O-T, hot!" He punctuates this statement with finger guns.
That's why he's so excited, I think in amusement.
Sam rolls her eyes. "Tucker, you think anything with boobs is hot."
"Hey," Tucker snaps. "I don't think you're hot, do I?"
Sam narrows her eyes, and Tucker realizes what he just said.
"Well, if you're still alive later," I say with a meaningful look at the cowering black kid next to me, "I will see both of you at lunch." I know how to pick my battles.
I find my new locker, put some stuff away, grab other stuff, yadda yadda, and make my way to homeroom. On my way there, a sharp breath escapes me, releases a faint blue wisp that shoots a wave of dread through my stomach.
My Ghost Sense. On the first. Day. Of school. Why?
Don't panic, Danny. This is why you've been practicing Duplication. You've got this. Er, your copy's got this. But, you're the one making the copy, so- Whatever.
"You okay?" a woman's voice says, jolting me back to the here and now. "You look a little freaked."
The woman who approached me is about an inch or two taller than me. Her black hair hangs above her shoulders, the tight curls appearing to go wherever they please, though it looks intentionally messy and not like she just rolled out of bed. Her reddish-brown eyes are slanted enough that she might have some kind of Asian genetics. She wears a lime green pantsuit that should look ridiculous but compliments her skin tone, which is darker than Tucker's. I wonder if this is Ms. Mae. If so, she certainly is easy on the eyes.
"Kid, you alright?" the woman asks, concerned.
I realize that I'm staring at her and clear my throat, praying that my embarrassment doesn't show. "Um, yeah, sorry. Just, uh, first day jitters, you know?" Jitters brought on by potential ghost problems when the school year hasn't even technically started yet.
The woman buys my excuse. "Yeah, I feel you. Try being the new teacher. I'll be eaten alive," she adds with a grin.
I chuckle. "So, you must be Ms. Mae, then. I'm in your homeroom." My good humor dies when my Ghost Sense goes off again.
Luckily, Ms. Mae doesn't notice. She waves me into the classroom beside her. "Come on in, then."
I follow her into the classroom. Usually, teachers will decorate their rooms with pictures and trinkets that coincide with whatever they teach or just their own personal interests. Ms. Mae's room lacks any real decor. Since she's new, maybe she just hasn't gotten around to decorating yet.
I tune out the chatter of the other students and take a seat, on high alert for any signs of paranormal activity that isn't my own. Nothing unusual so far. Nothing obvious like screams in the hallway. Nothing subtle like an atmospheric shift that only another ghost would feel.
"Hey, Fen-tit!"
Because the mystery ghost wasn't bad enough, right?
Dash Baxter - school bully, football player, and one of the many banes of my existence - towers over my desk, all bajillion pounds of muscle and, like, seven feet of height, now? There's a rumor that he repeated freshman year twice. I wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be fact.
"Uh, hi Dash," I say with a weak wave because what else am I supposed to do without revealing my secret identity? I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to shoot this guy with a ghost ray.
Not that I've never…found less conspicuous ways to get back at him.
Dash braces his hands on my desk and leans in close enough that I swallow a comment about breath mints. "Looks like we've got homeroom together," he says with a sinister grin. "Maybe this year will be more fun than I thought."
Oh, joy.
Dash is the star quarterback and has parents with money and connections, so teachers don't do much if anything to him. He's also huge and stupid, a dangerous combination, so my peers are too terrified of him to step in.
And then, there's me, Danny Fenton. Shy, quiet, has crazy ghost-obsessed parents and a super smart sister he can never hope to compete with. Nobody ever cares about losers like me. Dash has other punching bags in this school, but I'm his favorite by a long shot. I don't know what I did to deserve that status, but there it is.
And yet, the guy practically idolizes my ghostly alter-ego. Irony truly is a fickle being.
What's even more ironic is that helping people is my Obsession, yet only three people have ever stuck up for me. Not that they had much success, but A for effort, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker.
Someone clears their throat. "What's going on over there?"
Ms. Mae is sitting at her desk, elbows perched on top, hands folded, chin resting on those hands. Her expression is blank, almost bored, but her tone carries the slightest threat. She may be a new teacher in this school, but I can already tell this isn't her first rodeo.
"Big guy, blond hair," she says. "What's your name?"
Dash sends me a quick smirk before facing our teacher. "Dash Baxter."
Ms. Mae hums in acknowledgement, unimpressed. "Well, Dash, I hope for your sake that what I just heard wasn't as threatening as it sounded."
Ghost Sense again. Whoever it is must be close. Please let it be something simple like an ecto-pus.
Dash is momentarily thrown off, accustomed to teachers ignoring his bullying ways. Then, he chuckles. "That's right. You're the new teacher. You must not have heard yet. I play football." Ms. Mae doesn't react. "Quarterback." Still nothing. "Football is a sport where you-"
"I know what football is," Ms. Mae says curtly. She leans forward in her seat. "Dash Baxter, I don't care if you play football. I don't care if you invented the sport itself. When you are in my classroom, the only thing that you are is my student. And, you will treat your fellow students with respect."
Whoa.
The room is silent. The room is silent because a teacher is actually telling off Dash Baxter. The room is silent because I think he's listening to her.
I can't even enjoy it because my Ghost Sense just went off again.
And, Ms. Mae isn't even done yet. "Now, apologize to…" She twirls her hand toward me.
"Uh, D-Danny," I stammer.
Ms. Mae refolds her hands and says with that same clipped but polite teacher voice, "Apologize to Danny and, in the words of Junie B. Jones, mind your own personal beeswax."
Dash half-glances at me, irritation radiating off of him as he mumbles what sounds like an apology.
And just like that, I've found my new favorite teacher.
Word about what happened in homeroom spreads like wildfire. It's not every day that Dash Baxter gets a dressing down from a teacher, and the fact that the teacher is new only adds to the drama. One minute, no one knew who she was beyond being a new member of the faculty. Now, she has a reputation for not taking crap from anyone. Hopefully, my Duplication strategy works out so that she doesn't have to not take crap from me.
Speaking of which…
At lunch time, my friends and I are seated at one of the tables outside. After they finish grilling me about Dash, we lower our voices as I inform them of how often my Ghost Sense has been going off today.
"Have you guys noticed anything odd?" I ask.
"Beyond the usual high school weirdness, no," Sam says, spearing one of the cherry tomatoes in her salad. "Tucker?"
Tucker swallows a mouthful of hamburger. "Not a thing. Maybe the ghost was just passing through?"
"I hope so," I say. "Just because I've been working on Duplication, doesn't mean I want to test it today. The last thing I need is for something to go wrong and make me look like an idiot on the first day of school."
Suddenly, my friends have horrified looks on their faces as they stare at something behind me. "Uh, that just got a whole lot harder," Sam says.
Since my Ghost Sense hasn't gone off since second period, my first thought is that Dash has decided to take out his humiliation on me. Then…
"Attention, students of Casper High!"
End me.
I whirl around in my seat. My jumpsuit-clad parents are here. Dad is holding the Booo-merang, and Mom is speaking into a megaphone. Both of their belts are covered in equipment.
"Pay us no mind," Mom continues through her freaking megaphone. "There has been a spike in ghostly activity at this school, and we merely seek to dispose of whatever deranged entity has decided to manifest in this facility of education."
"What she said!" Dad pipes up. "Whatever she said."
Mom lowers her megaphone and clarifies to him, "I mean that we're going to get rid of the ghost."
"What she said!" Dad repeats.
Seriously, end me.
I turn back around and scrunch up in my seat. "If I don't acknowledge them," I whisper, "maybe they won't notice me."
Alas… "Hi, sweetheart!" comes the sugary, megaphone-y voice behind me. My face heats up, and my friends cringe in secondhand embarrassment. "How's your first day going?"
"Hey, Danno! Danno!" Aaaannd, Dad has the megaphone. "My main man-no, Danno! Over there! That kid with the dark hair and the red shirt who looks like he wants to be somewhere else. That's our son! How you doing, son?"
I slam my forehead into the table as students snigger around me.
"So much for not looking like an idiot," Tucker says unhelpfully.
A puff of blue air falls into my lap. I raise my head. "Though, my parents aren't wrong about the ghost."
I scan the courtyard. Nothing seems out of place - apart from, you know, the obvious - but Principal Ishiyama rushes out of the school building and pushes past Ms. Mae, who carries a tray of food and looks a little confused. Ishiyama storms up to my parents and plants her fists on her hips.
"What is the meaning of this?" She demands.
Mom holds up her hands placatingly. "We're not here to cause trouble. Our sensors indicated an increase in ecto-energy at this school-"
"I don't care about your sensors, Fentons," Ishiyama states. "You cannot just waltz on to the property and cause a disturbance."
"With all due respect," Mom says, "we're trying to prevent a disturbance."
Dad holds up the Booo-merang. "And, once our trusty Booo-merang is thrown, it'll show us exactly where the ghost is."
Ishiyama tries to stop him from throwing it, but it's too late. Dad throws it in a random direction, and I close my eyes, bracing for impact.
But, the resulting "Ouch!" doesn't come from me.
It comes from Ms. Mae, who didn't even reach the table before getting beamed in the noggin. Her tray of food is spilled out on the grass, though her clothes are miraculously untouched. She rubs the offending spot on the side of her head. Then, she picks up the Booo-merang and marches up to my father. He and Mom regard her with suspicion as she angrily shoves the device back into Dad's large hands.
"You don't think…" Sam says as this all goes down.
"Come to think of it," I muse, "my Ghost Sense was going crazy in her classroom. And, only in her classroom." So much for my favorite teacher.
"Ms. Mae?" Tucker says. "But, she's hot!" Sam and I glare at him, and he backtracks. "I-I mean, she seems so nice."
The principal's stern voice brings us back to the embarrassing scene before us. "And now, you've assaulted a member of our faculty. You know, Ms. Mae, you could press charges, because I'm considering doing that myself."
Oh, great. As if things can't get any worse.
My parents look as panicked as I feel until Ms. Mae holds up her hands. "Now, now. It's the first day of school. The students have suffered enough and, honestly, I'd rather not make waves when I'm as new as the freshmen. So, how about we just put all this ghost nonsense behind us?"
Mom, Dad, and Ishiyama get blank looks on her face for barely a moment before hesitantly agreeing.
Yeah, I bet Ms. Mae does want to put all this ghost nonsense behind us.
"Wow," Tucker says, impressed. "First Dash, now this. Ms. Mae sure knows how to work people."
"Maybe a little too well," I say.
On their way out, Dad waves at me as Mom lifts up her megaphone and calls out, "See you at home, Danny! We love you!" As soon as they're gone, my peers bust up laughing.
I share a homeroom with Dash, one of my teachers might be a ghost with manipulation powers, my parents are on the prowl, and now I've been utterly humiliated. What a great start to the school year.
"Is it me," Tucker says slowly, "or have your parents been extra nice to you lately?"
Sam crosses her arms. "If you can call this nice."
I sigh, remembering that I never told these guys the full extent of my trip to Nebraska. After helping a girl named Mira Scott, who had been a ghost for less than a day at that point, find her way home, her parents were endlessly grateful. Through a series of events involving heartache and butt-kicking, I'd made the executive decision to reveal my half-ghost status to them. The whole family was more than willing to keep my secret.
That's the part that Sam and Tucker know about.
What they don't know is that the subject of my own parents being dedicated (read: obsessive) ghost hunters came up. I overheard (read: eavesdropped on) Mira's parents talking about how worried they were about my safety. They even discussed asking me to move in with them. This happened a week ago, and I still can't wrap my head around it. They decided against the idea but only because they didn't want to "uproot my life," as Mira's father put it.
The morning after I came home, I asked my parents, very hypothetically, how they would react if someone they knew became a ghost. They assumed I was talking about Mira, who they thought was a friend who died right in front of me in a hospital, and I rolled with it. In a nutshell, they informed me in the nicest way possible that people lose their humanity when they die. According to Mom and Dad, ghosts become angry and vengeful, even if they still retain sentience. They basically said that they would destroy a ghost no matter what without directly saying it. Long story short, I stormed out of the kitchen in tears. Mom and Dad know they made me cry, even if they don't know the full extent of why, and they've been trying to make up for it ever since.
Jazz knows all this because she was there when my composure broke, both that morning and the night before. I haven't told Sam and Tucker because I don't want them to worry over something that doesn't apply to them.
"They just said something about ghosts that got under my skin," I summarize. "It's nothing important." When my friends don't look convinced, I add, "Really, they're making a bigger deal out of it than it is."
It hits me that I've gotten so good at lying to my family that lying to my best friends comes naturally. I don't like it.
The rest of the day goes by without incident. Unless you count the occasional jeers from other students, particularly Dash, but I was expecting that after the display at lunch.
Eighth period comes and goes without my Ghost Sense activating. I'm trying to decide if it's because I already suspect Ms. Mae of being a ghost or if she really is human and the actual ghost isn't here anymore. I'm rooting for the latter.
When the final bell rings, everyone in my history class gathers their things and heads out the door. I try to do the same, but Ms. Mae calls me up to her desk. I keep my guard up as I approach her.
She folds her hands over her paperwork and regards me sympathetically. "You doing okay, Danny? That was quite an event at lunch."
Nothing about her comes off as threatening. She even seems like she genuinely cares. Then again, Penelope Spectra was the same way when she posed as a guidance counselor in my freshman year. I hear a sophomore committed suicide after a session with her. Coincidence? I think not.
"I'm fine," I say. "Embarrassed as all heck, but nothing I can't handle."
Ms. Mae accepts my response. Then, she leans forward with a conspiratorial grin. "You know, I hear from some of your old teachers that you have a bit of a reputation."
"Oh? What do you mean?" I ask, playing dumb, though this isn't the first time today a teacher has mentioned it.
Ms. Mae nods and straightens. "Coming in late, cutting class, not doing your homework, and the like."
Even though I've heard a few variations of this already, it still burns me. I give her the same response I gave the others. "That was the old me. I promised myself and my family that I would turn over a new leaf. And, I don't break my promises. Ever."
Ms. Mae nods again, satisfied. "I'll hold you to that. One more thing," she says when I turn toward the door. Her tone is more gentle now. "I've also heard that you're a very sweet young man who's always eager to lend a hand. True?"
Huh. No one's brought up anything positive yet. "True," I confirm, wondering where this is going.
"In my experience, nice kids who misbehave in school have a reason for doing so."
That's a little too close to home. "How do you know I'm not just a bad student?"
Ms. Mae shrugs. "Suppose I don't. But, Danny, if there is something wrong, I want you to know that you can talk to me about it. You're my student, and as your teacher, I want to see you succeed. Don't hesitate to come to me if something's wrong, okay?"
My head feels foggy for a moment, and there's a tickle at the base of my skull. I scratch it, but it doesn't go away. "Uh, yeah, sure."
As I walk out the door, I can't help wondering why I agreed so easily…and if a certain someone is the reason for it.