Hello everyone! I am a newcomer to the realm of Danny Phantom, and, of course, its fan-fiction. A BIG Thank you to Olivia for introducing me!

So... this is my first fan-fiction ever. Please be nice, and don't kill me quite yet. : ) But I would really appreciate some thoughts on the story, just to see how I'm doing...

The sunlight streaked through the window and fell across his notebook. It was open and ready for notes but was mostly empty even though class was more than half over. There were a few circular scribbles here and there to clear up his pen in preparation for taking notes should the need arise, but the closest he had come to it was turning his hand to a quick sketch of the Box Ghost instead.

Even that was only partly done; the head, arms—complete with box to hurl at unsuspecting victim—and a speech bubble saying "BEWARE!" were all fairly detailed, but the ghost's body and legs were just quick outlines.

He couldn't even concentrate on finishing the sketch, so it was impossible to concentrate on Mr. Lancer's lecture.

Glancing out the window, Danny knew exactly why it was so hard to even look like he was paying attention.

The sky was that vibrant shade of blue that looks like someone had painted it above them. The sun was so bright, and it illuminated the gold and red-tinged leaves hanging on the maple trees just outside the classroom. It was one of those perfect days that still felt like summer but already looked like fall.

Resting his chin on his hand, Danny stared out the window, wishing he could be anywhere but behind this silly desk. It was too perfect a day to waste going over the finer nuances of European playwrights in whatever era they were at the moment. He couldn't actually remember where they were now…which wasn't a very good sign.

He knew that they had already gone over Shakespeare because he actually recognized some of those works. But then, who didn't recognize Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet? It would take an idiot of epic proportions to miss the fact that they had covered Shakespeare; and fortunately, Danny was not an idiot of epic proportions. Sometimes Jazz thought that he came pretty close, but he wasn't quite that bad. He knew the lines that Mr. Lancer had spouted most theatrically from the front of the room: "To be or not to be… that is the question"… "Alas! Poor Yorik, I knew him well!"

That had been a while ago now; they must have moved on to some other period. But they could be anywhere right now. He hadn't really been able to pay attention in this class for the past week. The ghosts just refused to leave him alone, and it was a miracle that he hadn't fallen asleep. But forget about note-taking. Danny shrugged it off and then grinned to himself at his next thought. What are friends for but to look at their notes? He glanced over at Sam for a moment, already picturing her reaction if he had been unfortunate enough to have said that out loud. He had already learned enough to know not to say things like that around her, because the edges of her combat boots were just as hard when she knew he was joking as they were when she knew he was being serious.

Seriously, though, he would need to look at their notes. And get a copy of Lancer's handout from one of them. He knew he had had it in his backpack at some point, but he hadn't seen it when he tried to get in a study session a couple nights ago and after half-heartedly looking for it for a few minutes, decided it had been among the papers that were totally trashed when Skulker paid him a nice social call on his way home from school last week. He really needed to get hold of that paper soon. It had the list of every period of history they were studying as well as the authors and works that fell under each category.

Without the time to read all the assigned pages or actually study the works, that paper was the only thing standing between him and an F on the test they were going to have next week, unless by some miracle, the questions were only about Shakespeare. And knowing Mr. Lancer, that was very, very unlikely. He was going to be so screwed on that test…

But even if he had the whole afternoon off, he definitely wouldn't spend it studying. No. He determined that he would hang out with Sam and Tucker for more than an hour without having to worry about ghosts. He realized that it was a completely unrealistic proposition, but he needed something to look forward to.

They would go and grab shakes from the Nasty Burger and then head over to the mall so that he and Tucker could get the new Dumpty Humpty CD. Sam preordered hers and had somehow gotten it a couple weeks ago—the perks of being insanely rich, he guessed. So they had all heard the new songs already, but Danny couldn't rest until he had his own copy of their latest album on his shelf with the rest of their discography. He hadn't missed one yet—they were the only band he followed this closely.

So that would be their first stop. And then they could go to the park to watch the sunset and he could sit on the hill with Sam… well, with Sam and Tucker, of course, he would be there too, but… oh, never mind.

Danny sighed and finally turned back to face the inside of the classroom once more. Gazing at his surroundings, he caught Sam sitting in the desk next to him just as she pulled back a rogue strand of her raven black hair that had blocked her view and distracted her from her studious doodling. At least it looked like she was paying attention. Mr. Lancer was thankful to have at least one person in the room looking like they took down every word he said. And with Sam's grades, that's probably just what Mr. Lancer thought she was doing. Danny tried to imagine his surprise if he ever found out that his highest scoring student hadn't taken a single note from his lectures all year!

Tucker, on the other hand, was fiddling around with his PDA. Granted, it was under his desktop so Lancer probably wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary, but Danny tensed. The last thing he could take was for one of them to get a detention now, in the last fifteen minutes of school. It was just too perfect outside and they could actually spend the afternoon together without having to worry about homework or—he crossed his fingers—ghosts. Grinning, he knew that he could guarantee the former and knew that they could handle the latter easily should any specter be crazy enough to try to mess with the afternoon he had already decided would be ghost-free.

In a quarter of an hour, they would be free. It wouldn't kill Tucker to put his beloved gadget away for a few minutes.

Danny discreetly reached out to get Tucker's attention, but since his friend was so engrossed in whatever was on the tiny screen, he had to jab him several times in the side before Tucker acknowledged him. As he did so, the sunlight streaming through the window caught on his watch-face and threw its reflection on the ceiling. Danny didn't notice, and neither did his two friends, but someone in the back of the classroom did and was quite determined to enjoy the last few minutes of class because of it.

In the back of the room, Kwan had been slouching in his chair, watching the hands on the clock above Lancer's head slowly ticking. In the corner of his eye, he saw the light shoot across the wall and immediately focused his attention upon it. It took him a while to figure out what the small reflection was, but when he saw Danny poking Tucker a couple rows up, he understood. He watched them for a few moments, an almost goofy grin plastered across his face.

Then he nudged Dash, causing him to drop his paper football to the floor just out of reach. He turned an annoyed face to Kwan, who pointed at the shimmering light, exclaiming in a voice that was much too excited for a normal high school football jock, "Look! It's Tinker Bell!"

This caused the already annoyed Dash to swipe his friend on the back of the head- when Mr. Lancer was turning a page of his notes, of course.

"What on earth are you talking about Kwan? Tinker Bell doesn't even exist!"

"But look up there, on the wall. See it?"

Dash squinted, but saw what Kwan was talking about after a moment. He then followed the light to its source and smiled as soon as he saw his favorite kid in the entire school to pick on.

"Fentonia!" he exclaimed under his breath, a plan already formulating in his mind. He could be quite creative quite quickly when the need arose for it. The need never arose for homework, but it did for situations like this one.

"See?" Kwan asked excitedly, "I told you it was Tinker Bell."

"Shut up, Kwan."

Then, turning to his other side, Dash quietly got the attention of the prettiest girl in the class.

Paulina wouldn't have settled for anything less than the official title of prettiest girl in the entire school, and most of the guys at Casper High wouldn't debate that title, but it was definitely uncontested that she was the prettiest student in Mr. Lancer's classroom.

"Hey Paulina" She turned to Dash with a definite pout.

"What is it, Dash?"

"Give me your mirror, will ya?"

She blinked a couple times, and continued to look blankly at him before finally clarifying his question. "My mirror?" Her Hispanic accent made her sound even sweeter when she was clueless.

"Yah, your mirror. You know the one; you keep it with all of your make-up and… girl stuff. You always have it out, hand it over for a sec."

She understood, but still looked confused as she pondered what he would want with her cosmetic compact mirror, but handed it over anyway when Dash gave her puppy dog eyes. He smiled as he started the next stage in his beautiful plan.

Danny was looking out the window again, trying to decide whether he could best enjoy the afternoon if he walked or flew to the Nasty Burger, when something caught his attention. It almost sounded like a sneeze, but it definitely wasn't. He turned around to look for the cause of it to see some students trying to stifle their snickering behind their hands. He understood why when a ball of light started dancing across the top of Mr. Lancer's shining bald head.

The students began to pay more attention to their teacher than they had all class period. Mr. Lancer took it as a good sign, and became more enthusiastic as he read from the book in his hands. Some of the students began to snicker a little more loudly and openly, some of them at the light on their teacher's head, and some of them at his antics.

This was quickly growing into just the situation that would land somebody in detention and Danny knew that as Dash's scapegoat, he would be the one to stay after school. There were just ten more minutes left in class. Just ten. Couldn't Dash have found another way to make it through the last ten minutes?

Dash's hold on the compact mirror was growing shakier; the light took on a strange glow as it danced wildly about the teacher's head.

Danny quickly realized that he needed to do something right away; in another minute, he would not be able to extricate himself from a detention sentence, and… oh. great.

His ghost sense? Really? He felt like slamming his head down on his desk. The only thing that stopped him was the fact that Mr. Lancer was still going strong with his recitation, and if he could be kept in that state, maybe, just maybe, this could still be worked out.

"Really?" Danny lamented under his breath. "Could you have waited just ten more measly minutes, Skulker? It would make things so much easier for both of us if you waited until I was out of class. Is that really too much to ask?"

Tucker and Sam both noticed the blue wisp and stiffened to attention. Sam slowly unzipped her backpack and put her hand on the thermos she always carried for just such an occasion, ready for action.

Tucker reached into his pocket and pulled out… the ecto-lipstick? Danny did a double take. What on earth was Tucker doing with anti-ectoplasmic cosmetics? That didn't make sense at all. Shouldn't Sam be the one with the lipstick?

Danny quickly pulled his thoughts away from that problem to the more pressing one at hand. There was a ghost coming and he had no way of getting out of there without attracting attention that would land him in detention.

For a tense moment, they waited for a scream down the hall or a streak of green coming through the classroom window. But nothing happened.

"I didn't actually expect you to listen to me, Skulker… or whoever you are. You never have before. What are you playing at?" Each second seemed to last several and the wait began to grate on his already highly frayed nerves. "Come on…"

The Box Ghost would have screamed 'Beware!' long before this and Technus would even have finished announcing his new and improved title.

What was going on?

It couldn't be a false alarm… but where was the ghost?

Meanwhile, in the back of the room, Star and Paulina were only encouraging Dash. He wasn't able to control himself very well now; he was starting to lose it. As the wildly flashing light settled nicely on Mr. Lancer's nose, Dash started laughing out loud, the rest of the class shortly following suit.

Lancer abruptly stopped, looking for the reason for the outbreak. The fingers pointed at him in between choked fits of laughter assured him that he was- yet again- the brunt of someone's practical joke. This was getting to be too much. The light flashed into his eyes and he put his hands up to shield them. "Peter Pan, people! That is enough!" He swatted at the light a couple more times to the class's amusement before yelling, "I said that is enough!"

The light fled to the ceiling and the laughter stopped.

Lancer was silently fuming.

Some unlucky soul would be in detention for a very long time and everyone knew it.

Dash, not wanting to be caught by his irate teacher red-handed, threw the mirror back over to Paulina, but she didn't catch it and it slid underneath Danny's desk with a clattering loud enough to make every head turn to stare at him.

Danny had been oblivious to the whole thing, but was instead looking around wildly for the ghost he knew was coming. He needed to think of some way to get out of there. He needed to transform… and fast.

Any ghost that hadn't done anything yet was going to be a problem. When he stopped to think about that last sentence, it didn't make much sense to him, but he quickly pushed that aside and continued to wrack his brain for ideas. He was all on edge. He just knew that there was a ghost coming and he needed to be in a position to do something about it. And sitting at his desk in the middle of the classroom was not one of those positions.

The clattering of the mirror under his desk made him jump out of his seat.

The ghost! But he still didn't see anything. Blast you, ghost! He really needed to get out of there…

"Mr. Lancer! I need… to… um…"

Mr. Lancer stared at him.

Danny was still oblivious to the scene he had just become the focus of.

"I need to go… um…"

"To detention," His teacher finished for him.

"But… No! Not to detention... I didn't… I mean, I need to…"

"You may go now, Mr. Fenton."

Danny stared at his teacher in disbelief. He hadn't done anything! He hadn't been a part of the whole let's-put-a-light-on-Lancer's-head-and-then-laugh-at-him thing. That was Dash and crowd with the mirror. He tried to point over to the blonde football player and explain, but he fumbled over all of his words. He stopped his pathetic defence as Mr. Lancer lifted up his eyebrows, clearly not willing to listen to any excuse he could come up with today, valid or otherwise.

"Now, if you please…"

Danny stared first at his teacher, then at Sam and Tucker. They looked as sympathetic as they felt they could without also earning a detention, but they still grimaced as they saw their teacher's expression.

Tucker gave a nervous chuckle. "You better go, dude. We'll be fine."

He held up the ecto-lipstick a little higher and tried to emphasize his words to let Danny know that they could handle whatever was coming their way until he could take advantage of the distraction and get back to them.

Danny pulled himself out of his stupor, quickly nodded, grabbed his backpack, and ran out the door.

Man, this was the end! He was sent to detention in the last five minutes of school for something he didn't even do wrong and now he was going to miss a perfect day outside with Sam and Tucker and there was a ghost loose somewhere close by that hadn't attacked yet and he didn't know where it was or who it was and he couldn't even do anything about it because he was stuck in detention. Gah! Life was so unfair sometimes that it wasn't even funny.

He had just sat down in the library, which doubled as their detention room, still on edge for whenever a scream echoed throughout Casper High, when the bell rang and the students flowed out the doors into the perfect sunshine as quick as their legs could carry them.

Only a few kids trickled through the door to join Danny in detention; everyone had been on their best behavior so that they could enjoy the afternoon and the last of the daylight for as long as possible.

Sam and Tucker stayed on their guard against any ghost until all the students had left the building. If the ghost decided to attack people, it would have attacked the full school hallway. But nothing occurred of note. The two figured that either the ghost was after Danny specifically, in which case they would wait for him at the picnic table outside school doors until he called for help, or they weren't needed at all, in which case they would wait for him at the picnic table until he was done with detention.

They waved at Danny through the open door as they made their way outside, letting him know that they were still on hand for when this stupid ghost decided to finally show up.

Speaking of… Danny was wondering about that right now. All of the ghosts he could think of would have showed up, fought him, and been sucked into the thermos by now. Well, all except for maybe Vlad, but he wouldn't come to Casper High anyway. So, either it was a new ghost who liked to take its sweet time announcing itself, or it was someone whose desire today was not to terrorize the school or hang his pelt on the wall but rather annoy him and get him into detention- and he recognized here that that was a very distinct possibility- or his ghost sense could be malfunctioning, or the ghost decided to run away, or…

And that was how Danny spent the next hour in detention.

Sam and Tucker figured after about twenty minutes that they could relax and enjoy the glorious weather.

Mr. Lancer, after silently fuming for a couple minutes in his chair, picked up his stack of papers and left for home.

Back in the silent classroom, a very strange thing happened. The small, bright light that had been twinkling first on Lancer's head and then on the ceiling began to dance with glee. There was a light, tingling sound that could almost have been called laughter. After another couple minutes, Tinker Bell flew down and bounced across every desktop before swirling out through the hallways of the school and far, far away.