Dannies, Death, and Dates

Chapter 1

"Still stuck in your head too?" Danny asked, collapsing onto the sofa next to Dani. Only then did she realize she'd been humming Ember's new pop song. 

"I need some hardcore punk rock to clear this synthetic sludge out," she groaned. 

"Or the Fenton Ecto Eraser!" Mr. Fenton's voice bellowed from the kitchen. He leapt through to the living room with what looked like a metal colander in his huge hands. 

"It clears ghostly energy from the mind! Sounds like just the thing." He began to lower it onto Dani's head. She sprang off the couch  with hands clamped over her head.

"No! Remember the rule?" she said reproachfully. 

Mr. Fenton hung his head as he remembered.

"Ask before putting any ghost technology on you two," he sighed rejectedly. He looked like an enormous orange suited puppy that had been caught in wrongdoing. 

"It's been 4 years and I still forget," 

Dani laughed and gave him a quick hug. 

"It's okay. I've been here for 4 years and I still forget to clean my room."

She sprang away before he could tell her to get up there and do it. She ducked behind the kitchen wall and stifled her laughter as she heard Mr. Fenton turn on Danny and say,

"Speaking of cleaning young man..."

...........................................................................

Dani's room was Jazz's old one. They had shared for a couple years until Jazz had gone to college. The posters of scientists and shelves of alphabetized thesis papers had long been replaced by a wall painting of the galaxy and stacks of unorganized books. Grabbing the speaker remote from her overflowing chair, she cranked up the punk rock.

"Get Ember out of here," she muttered, bobbing her head to the beat.

A Fenton thermos lay on her rumpled bed, reminding Dani that she hadn't gotten rid of the ghost from last night. She shrugged and set it on her crowded nightstand so she could lay down. 

"Ah homework homework homework. The bane of my existence," she groaned, heaving her math book onto her chest. "I save the world every other night, and I still have to graph freakin' parabolas. If it doesn't save my life someday, I'm going to sue the school."

She set to work. It wasn't that the math was hard. She was a true Danny clone after all, and not stupid. But focusing on it... that was hard. She pushed through, comforted by the thought that she could get out of here after that. 

Since Danny and Dani had been falling behind in school, the Fentons had begun enforcing a strict, no-ghost-patrolling-until-homework-is-done rule. They even went as far as to turn the house ghost shield on until Danny and Dani could show them they were finished. It was a pain, but their grades were looking better.

Finally, she snapped the book shut. Stopping only to grab the thermos, Dani vaulted down the stairs. 

"I'm done!" she announced to the house, throwing the thermos to Danny, who still lay on the couch. 

"See you out there," she called to Danny. "Throw that sucker in the zone for me willya?"

She tossed her assignment to Mrs. Fenton and raced out the door and into the cooling evening. A gorgeous night for ghost hunting.