Chapter 5
Danny's lack of control of his powers compounded with the fact that he was starting to get feverish chills made him certain that he should stay home from school.
Once he got home, he checked his temperature to see if he should take ibuprofen. He gawked at the thermometer when it read 90.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Upon taking it again, it was even lower: 89.8. It wasn't possible that his body temperature could be that low! Was it?
He thought he remembered learning in biology that hypothermia sets in when a person's body temperature gets below 95 degrees...
He felt bad, but he didn't feel that bad.
"Danny, sweetie, are you okay? You don't look well."
Danny speedily erased the memory of the thermometer as soon as he heard his mother's voice.
"Actually, I don't feel very good," he admitted.
"Well, let's check that temp."
Danny hid the thermometer behind his back. "No!" He yelped. Then seeing her alarmed reaction, he explained. "I mean, I already checked. I'm not running fever, but I feel really bad."
She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes.
Danny had a sudden urge to puke. He ran to the nearest bathroom and barfed into the toilet. What he saw terrified him. His vomit was glowing green. What had his parents called that green stuff from the lab? Ectoplasm? It looked a whole lot like that…
"What the -?" He started then heard his mom behind him.
"Are you okay, sweetie?"
He closed the toilet seat and shook his head without turning around. "No, can you give me a minute?"
"Of course," she said, closing the bathroom door for him.
He stood up and flushed the toilet. He felt much better but still unsettled. He looked into the mirror and his eyes were glowing green and his appearance began to flicker between visible and invisible. "Nononono stop!" He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his hands on the sink. He opened his eyes, but they remained unchanged. Then he remembered earlier that day when he was completely relaxed, and he turned back into himself. If he just relaxed, maybe he could make his eyes change back. From what he had seen, panicking only made things worse.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, held it in for three seconds, then exhaled. He did this a few more times until his heart stopped racing. He opened them and sure enough his eyes were back to blue, and his body wasn't fading in and out.
What had just happened shook him up a good bit. What did this mean? That his body was rejecting these ghost-like abilities? If that were the case, maybe he really should tell his parents so they could help him.
Danny walked up to his room as quickly as he could, feeling more drained with every step. As soon as he got there, he face-planted into his bed and wrapped his comforter around him then fell fast asleep.
When Danny woke up, he gasped as he quickly realized he was not in his bed but on a lab table, hands and feet locked on each corner.
"What? What is happening?" He stammered, looking around trying to see who was there and where he was. It wasn't long before he realized he was in his parents' lab.
His mother came up to the lab table with a scalpel.
"Wait! This is all a big misunderstanding! Mom, it's me." Tears welled in Danny's eyes as he saw an IV sticking out of his hand.
"I know it's you, sweetie. We just need to figure out why you're this way. Right, Jack?"
He nodded. "It's the most interesting thing to happen since Charles Richet discovered ectoplasm!"
"But please! I'm your son. Not your lab rat!"
"You are the first person to ever be ghost and human at the same time. There's clearly something seriously wrong with you, and we need to get to the bottom of it. Now I just need to take a few biopsies so just hold still," she said, as she moved closer to Danny who started screaming in terror.
"NOOOO!" He yelled, sitting upright fast enough to give himself whiplash. Covered in cold sweat, he slowly realized that it was all just a bad nightmare, and he started crying out of relief. Was all of it - even becoming a ghost - just a terrible nightmare?
He then felt his sheets sliding off of him. His breath caught in his throat as he realized he was floating up to the ceiling. "Guess that answers that question," he muttered, groaning as his head hit the ceiling.
"Danny," he heard his mom's voice.
"Crud," he panicked and suddenly lost the floaty sensation and fell right back into his bed with a big crash. He cursed as pain shot up his back and butt. That's gonna leave a mark, he thought.
Just as he hit his bed, his mother opened the door. "Are you okay, sweetie? I thought I just heard a loud yell and then a crash."
"Y—yeah. I'm fine! Everything is A-okay!"
"Okay, that's good. Let me check your temp," she said, kissing Danny's forehead.
Her eyebrows furrowed as she backed away. "You are freezing cold, Danny. Is it too cold in your room?"
"Um, yeah," he said, nodding.
"Well, no need to check with the thermometer then. Let me go turn up the temperature in the house."
Danny breathed a sigh of relief as she left his room.
His nightmare was far from over, but at least his actual nightmare was just a dream. He needed to do whatever it took to keep it that way and not end up as his parents' next lab experiment.
If he was going to continue to keep up this charade, he couldn't be seen by anyone when his body was...malfunctioning.
He checked his phone and saw that he had more than a couple texts from Sam and Tucker.
Where r u?
Danny?
DANNY?
DUDE R U OK?
Answer us!
Dude we're seriously worried. Text us back ASAP !
Danny typed up a quick response saying he had a cold and that they would have to wait to see the portal another time.
Danny sighed. Things could be worse. As soon as he thought it, he gasped, and a wisp of cold air escaped his mouth. He froze. That could only mean-
His door creaked open, but no one was there. "Hello?" He said, feeling kind of stupid because clearly no one was standing there. And yet...
He stood up slowly from his bed, careful not to make any sudden movements. He felt weak and was in no position to defend himself if there was a ghost, but he couldn't exactly just wish the ghost away. He cleared his throat then spoke again. "Anyone there?"
He could feel chills going up and down his spine. Surely someone - or in this case something - was there.
"Look, I could really use some sleep so maybe you can go and haunt some other unsuspecting person."
Suddenly, a floating man in overalls popped out of nowhere right in front of Danny. His heart jumped.
"BEWARE! I AM THE BOX GHOST. MASTER OF ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND SQUARE!" He yelled.
"Um," Danny said. "There's boxes down in the lab."
"Oh...um, THANK YOU! I SHALL NOW WREAK HAVOC IN...THE LAB!" He said, phasing through the ground.
"I can't believe that actually worked!" Danny exclaimed. Then he realized he needed to make sure this Box Ghost went back into the portal.
He tried to muster up the little strength he had to become his ghost half, but his efforts were fruitless. "Come on," he told himself. "Come on, think ghostly thoughts Danny," he muttered, closing his eyes tightly. "Go ghost!" He put his hands into fists and fixed his stance to be straighter and stronger. A calm cold welled in his core, and a ring formed in the center of his body and traveled up and down to reveal his alter ego.
He opened his eyes and realized that he had done it. "Yes!" He jumped in his victory, but when he didn't hit the floor, he flailed in the air.
He struggled to get upright and balanced, but eventually managed to steady himself enough, hovering just above the ground.
"Okay, enough fooling around. You've got a ghost to catch," he told himself.
He closed his eyes, thinking phase phase phase phase. Nothing happened. Then he had an idea. Relax. Breathe in. Breathe out. Focus. He imagined feeling cold and numb all over - the feeling when he changed - and it worked. He was intangible now! He opened his eyes, and they glowed a brighter green as he descended.
Sure enough, the Box Ghost was still there even though it had taken Danny about 10 minutes to figure out how to use his powers properly. Danny was amazed to see that he was moving the boxes around the room with little effort. This ghost was far more powerful than those octopus-glob creatures! Danny wondered what other ghosts there were and the extent of what they could do. He was scared to find out.
"Hey, I don't want to intrude but seeing as this is my house, I'd really rather you not touch those," Danny said as he floated down, his balance giving out a couple times before he reached the floor.
"But I am the Box Ghost! Master of all things car-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, you told me."
All the boxes dropped to the floor as the ghost dropped his arms to his sides. "But I've never met you before!" He said, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
"What are you talking about? We just met upstairs in my room."
When he was met with an even more confused expression, it occurred to him. He didn't recognize him because he was his ghost-half now. And he had a strong feeling that it wasn't every day a ghost met someone who was both a human and a ghost.
The Box Ghost squinted at Danny trying to make out how Danny and that other kid could be one in the same. "So you are a ghost and a human?"
Suddenly, Danny felt a pit in his stomach. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to go and give away his true identity to some random ghost.
"Um no...I was -"
"Oh! You overshadowed the boy."
"Uh yeah! Yeah…I did that," Danny was going to pretend he knew what that meant. "So anyway," he said, inching toward the portal. He scanned the floor for any object he could throw at the ghost in order to distract him. He spotted a spare thermos on the ground. It looked similar to the one Vlad had stolen. He picked it up and threw it at the Box Ghost's head, but the ghost caught it. "What is this container?" He said as he took off the cap and peered inside. Suddenly, he accidentally pressed a button on the side and blue light lit up all around him. His body was sucked inside with a whoosh sound as he screamed, and the thermos dropped to the ground.
Danny gawked in disbelief at what had just happened. He slowly walked over and carefully picked up the thermos which was spewing off some sort of blue steam or smoke. He didn't want to have some sort of mishap and get stuck inside that thing. "This could come in handy," he said to himself. "But where do I -" he looked around then saw a round indent on the Ghost Portal. He walked up to it and saw a button that said "RELEASE." Placing the thermos end on the indent, he clicked the button and heard a whoosh sound. "Huh…cool!"
He couldn't will himself to fly after a couple of attempts so instead he walked back up to his room, careful not to be seen.
When Danny got back up to his room, he realized something. As his ghost half, he didn't feel sick. He even felt kind of energized. Once he got back up, he managed to turn back into his human self on his tenth try and was disappointed when he felt ill again. He ran for his garbage can and threw up more green stuff.
Internally, he felt torn between telling someone or…Nothing about this was normal. He was worried he might be slowly dying somehow and that's why he was vomiting that glowing green stuff which had to be ectoplasm. Was his body rejecting the ghost-half?
He would've looked it up online as he did with pretty much everything, but he had a strong feeling he was the only person this had ever happened to.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he answered. "Hello?"
"Daniel? It's Uncle Vlad."
Danny felt more nauseated, but he didn't think it was from his ghost sickness. "Oh hey."
"About last night. I felt that I came off as standoffish and I want you to know, while I do like to keep certain things about my life private, I didn't mean to upset you in any way. I hope you know that."
Is this supposed to be an apology?
"Yeah," Danny said. After all these years, he had trusted Vlad with so much. It sucked because now more than ever he needed someone to confide in. But even after last night's events, he felt like he could trust him. "I'm sorry I invaded your privacy. I just - I saw something that confused me."
"What did you see?" Vlad's tone seemed level, but something about it felt threatening. Danny couldn't quite put his finger on it.
He swallowed hard. "Well, I saw –" he hesitated but ultimately wanted to clear the air. "I saw one of my parents' gadgets. A Fenton Thermos."
"Mmm...oh yes, well, of course. They, um, gave me one in the case that I needed it."
Right. That makes more sense than the alternative…
Maybe he should tell him...he's the only other person besides his parents who would know what to do! And he had a gut feeling he wouldn't jump to dissect or study him like he felt his parents might.
"Uncle Vlad, there's something I want to talk about. Really talk about." His heart began to race as he thought about what he was about to reveal to Vlad. What would he say?
"Yes?"
"I think I did somethi—" Danny faltered, looking at the thermos in his hand and remembering what he had seen the day before.
That duffle bag...It was the same one. He couldn't pretend it wasn't. The coincidence couldn't have been just a coincidence. Vlad had employed a ghost to steal from his family. Danny had to stick with the facts and not his emotions this time around. It didn't matter if he needed someone to talk to or if he had confided in Vlad for so much for so long. Everything revolving around this incident made it far too risky. He was clearly hiding something.
There was a quick knock at the door. "Danny, sweetie," his mother said softly. Saved by the bell.
"Daniel?"
"You know, it's really nothing. Talk to you later, okay?" Danny hung up before Vlad could get so much as a breath in and tossed the thermos into his backpack as his mom came in.
"How are you feeling? I made you a grilled cheese sandwich."
"Thanks Mom. I'm feeling okay. Still a bit unsettled. Could I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Uncle Vlad...does he hunt ghosts like you and Dad?"
She shook her head. "No. He left that life a while back. And he never actually hunted ghosts. He was more interested in the scientific aspect of it. And anyway, he's busy with all his other work as you know."
"Right," he said as she handed him his plate. He looked down at his food when he asked the next question. "What would you do if you caught a ghost?"
"Oh!" His mom's eyes lit up. "Well, we'd probably study it some- run tests and such. But we have a ways to go before we can actually trap one effectively! Although, now that the portal is up and running, we might actually have a better shot at it!"
Danny nodded. He swallowed hard, hesitating before asking the next question. He looked up at her. "Is it possible for a ghost to also be a human?"
His mom chuckled. "What are all of these questions? I think you need some sleep, Danny."
"Is it possible though? Theoretically speaking, of course," he said.
"Well, I've never given it much thought. The two species are completely different on a molecular level. For someone to be both, they would be a different species altogether. But I think it's safe to say, no. That's not possible."
Danny nodded slowly. "Right," he chuckled a little. "Yeah…that's crazy to even think. Not sure why I even thought of it. Um, anyway, thanks for the lunch."
"Of course!" She said cheerily,
Danny sat down in his bed, placing his plate on his nightstand as the chills kicked back in.