Chapter 7

Danny slept soundly through the night. When he woke up, he heard the house stirring. Jazz getting ready for school, his parents chatting over the news, the portal, new inventions. He felt good enough to go to school, and to be quite honest, he could use some amount of normalcy in his life. And as far as he could tell, he was perfectly fine now.

He got ready and went downstairs for a quick breakfast before heading out.

"Danny-boy!" His dad greeted him.

His mom looked concerned when she saw his backpack. "Sweetie, do you really think you should be going to school so soon?"

Danny shrugged. "I feel fine. I think it was just a stomach bug. Really – good as new."

His mom sighed. "You do seem like yourself. Alright."

Jazz drove them both to school. They sat in silence for what seemed to be forever to Jazz. Danny barely noticed as he was so buried in his thoughts.

"You okay?" She pried, opening her window to let some fresh air in.

Danny shifted uncomfortably in his seat. That seemed to be a loaded question these days. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Jazz wasn't convinced. "The portal is working now. That's going to mean some big changes in the house. Mom and Dad are probably going to be more into their work than ever before. But even though they may not be there, you still have me. You know? So if there is anything you need to talk about, you can tell me. I'm all ears."

Danny internally rolled his eyes. Jazz was the ultimate psychoanalyst. She always wanted to know anything and everything he was feeling and thinking. It always got on his nerves, but particularly today he really did not want to talk.

"Thanks," he said shortly.

Jazz frowned. "You know, keeping your feelings locked up inside isn't going to make it any better."

He hated to admit it, but she wasn't wrong. That didn't mean he was going to tell her. She would go straight to their parents if she knew what was going on.

"Yeah," Danny replied dismissively.

And that was that. Jazz wasn't going to pry any more. Not right now anyway.

He breathed in and out slowly as he shoved all his belongings into his locker, except for his book for first period and the Fenton Thermos. He could make it. Just 7 hours is all he would need to make it through the school day. What was the worst that could happen?

His locker was then slammed shut, causing him to jump.

"Looks like Fenton decided to show up today!"

Anger swelled up in Danny as he looked up at Dash's smug face. "Not today, Dash," Danny said, emotions surging.

"I'm sorry. Did I offend you, Fenturd?" Dash sneered while his friends chuckled. He walked intimidatingly toward Danny and pushed him against the lockers. He pulled up Danny's bag and pulled out his thermos. "What's this?" He opened it and laughed. "Looks like Mommy forgot to pack lunch!"

That's when Danny nearly felt himself go. He felt on the brink of...something. He couldn't quite place it. Until he felt a fizzle in his left hand.

He looked down at it and swallowed hard. Green sparks danced across his palm. Did anyone see that? He shoved his arm behind his back and all sense of overwhelming anger turned into insurmountable fear in an instant.

Danny breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Lancer turned the corner. "Catch-22, people! Get to class!"

Dash narrowed his eyes at Danny, as if to say 'this won't be the last time' and then shoved his bag and thermos at him. Danny caught both with little effort. On a normal day, that would've made him topple over. His hand-eye coordination and balance usually sucked. He stuffed the thermos in his bag.

Once in class, he saw Sam and Tucker talking, desks adjacent to each other. Danny plopped his bag on the seat in front of Tucker.

"Oh! Danny!" Tucker said, surprised.

"Hey! We didn't expect you to be back so soon. Sounded like whatever you were sick with was pretty bad," Sam said.

"Stomach bug," Danny said. "Slept it off."

"Good! So...about seeing the portal?" Tucker asked eagerly.

"Sure," he answered. He didn't want to disappoint them. But a large part of him wanted to stay the hell away from that thing… It had almost – or kind of? – killed him.

He got out his notebook for class and slumped down in his seat.

The morning went by pretty uneventful, and Danny was beginning to think that the weird 'ghost sickness' was behind him.

It was only by the time that he got to biology class that he realized quite the opposite.

Tucker, of course, was his lab partner, and today they were doing a DNA lab, looking at their blood under a microscope.

Tucker pricked his finger first, and they examined his blood: it looked like the teacher said it would, reddish pink cells.

Danny did the same and looked at his but was confused by what he saw. He had the red blood cells, but there was something else in there too. Neon green circlets were mixed in among them. He jolted back in his chair, hair standing up on end. Tucker raised a brow. "What?"

As Tucker leaned forward to look, Danny exclaimed. "Wait!"

"Inside voices," the teacher warned.

"Um, sorry."

"Bro, you good?"

"I, um, just forgot the water."

Tucker shrugged. He could tell something else was up, but he just wasn't sure what. Danny had been off all day.

Danny took the slide out and glanced around the room, trying to figure out what to do. Maybe he should just face it and tell Tucker what was going on.

The slide slipped from Danny's fingers and clattered to the ground. He knelt down to pick it up, but then realized the reason it slipped out. Intangible. He cursed under his breath. Then panic ensued. Not only was his slide carrying some groundbreaking evidence that he was some sort of unhuman freak, but he couldn't even destroy the stupid slide if he wanted to because he couldn't pick it up!

"You okay down there?" Tucker said.

"Yeah, just cleaning up!"

He came back up, holding his breath.

"Where's the slide?"

"Couldn't find it."

Tucker chuckled. "Okay dude. Not sure what's up with you, but you are acting really weird. And I pride myself on my weirdness, but this is next level!"

"Guess I'm still kind of recovering…" Danny said, then quickly changed the subject. "So have you made your move? You know, on Valerie?"

"Oh man. I thought you forgot about that… Do you really think I should go for it? She kinda scares me."

"If you like her, why not?"

"Says the guy that's been pining over Paulina since we were in pre-school."

Danny chuckled. "Touché."

"See? This is the Danny that I missed! That stomach bug must've really done a number on you!"

"You have no idea."

When the bell finally rang, Danny was relieved. Tucker had left quickly to go to the bathroom before next period, so Danny decided to grab the slide from under the table. He couldn't exactly let it fall into the wrong—

"Danny?" Sam said from behind him, causing him to jump and deck his head on the table.

"Ow," he moaned, getting the rest of the way up.

Sam grimaced. "Sorry."

"I'll be fine. What's up?" Danny said, stuffing the slide in his backpack with the rest of his stuff.

"Just wanted to make sure you're doing okay. You've been kind of acting strange today."

"Oh?" He swung his bag onto his arm, and they walked out the classroom to next period. "No…I'm all good. All good. Still recovering, I guess."

Sam nodded. "I can't stop thinking about what happened the other day at the Nasty Burger. I still can't believe it happened. And that ghost boy...he was pretty cool. I don't know what we would've done if he hadn't saved us."

Danny glanced at her and smiled slightly. She kind of sounded like she admired him. And seeing the twinkle in her amethyst eyes, he felt some kind of twinge within him. Not a ghost thing - more of a butterflies-in-stomach sensation. He looked away, blushing.

"Ghost boy. Right," Danny said.

"With your parents being ghost hunters and all, I would've thought you might know what to do in that situation."

Danny chuckled. "You'd think."

"Maybe they can train us a little when we come over later! That would be really cool."

Danny pondered this. Training. That's what he needed if he was going to control—

"Um, Danny?" Sam looked down awkwardly at Danny's pants or lack thereof. His boxers with hearts on them were visible to everyone in the hallway who stared and burst out laughing.

His heart sank as he realized what had happened.

"Pants on, Mr. Fenton," Mr. Lancer said, walking past. "And might I suggest a belt."

Danny cursed as he quickly leaned down to pull his pants up. Better than sinking through the floor, he thought to himself.

No more weird slip-ups, Danny, he thought to himself. Just pull yourself together.

And luckily for Danny, he didn't have any accidents for the rest of the school day.

Danny breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he stuffed everything into his backpack then jumped when he saw Sam and Tucker waiting behind his locker door when he slammed it shut. "Oh! What's up, guys?"

"Dude, the portal! Remember?" Tucker said.

"Oh…oh yeah." Danny was filled with dread yet again. More time for more mistakes. He wished he had an on-off button with these new abilities. At least today at school he hadn't had too many incidents. But he was worried he couldn't contain himself much longer.