Danny Phantom - Gender Bender (Discontinued)

Chapter One

"Danny, hurry up!" Sam called from the street up to her window. He tapped his foot and grunted, while Tucker fiddled about on her tablet. "Why has she begun to be so unorganised and late?" It was the first day of term two, after a rough break filled with ghost fighting.

"Like she wasn't before," Tucker said with a smile, not looking from her device. "Besides, the ghost activity in Amity Park, and Sydney, has sky rocketed in the last month! Look." She showed the tablet screen to Sam to reveal the ecto-energy readings from around the city from the past few months.

"So she's started up her all-nighter's again, is that what you think?" Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

"It would explain her (quicker) temper and moodiness." She looked up at the window and heard Danny's room door slam shut.

"I guess so, Tuck. But, after what happened when she did that last time..." His voice faded out as he remembered the awful state which his best friend was in but 11 months ago. Her eyes had sunken almost halfway into her skull, she would snap at teachers and be late to almost every class, spoiling her good record, and have frequent breakdowns - in public, in private. The ghost fighting had taken its toll on her. They had found a way to constrict the flow of ghosts from the Ghost Zone to Earth (by destroying Vlad's machine and recoding the Fenton's portal). "If that appears to be the case," Sam said with a firm stomp, "then we are going to have a word with her!"

As Danny shut the front door of her house and walked down the steps, she paused and frowned. "Uh, hi?" She gave an awkward smirk. Her two friends were standing with their arms crossed, looking very sternly at her. Sam spoke up. "All- nighter?"

"Yup," was Danny's immediate reply. She shrugged and smiled, trying to laugh it off. Her friends looked quite unimpressed, and gave each other a sideways glance. Her uniform wasn't ironed like it usually was, and her hair was not brushed. "Look, it was a one off thing, I swear!" Her pitch rose as she spoke.

"Your voice gets squeaky when you lie," Tucker said with a smirk. "Anyway, c'mon, we can't be too late." And with that the trio set off to Casper High.

***

The school bell had rung and the students were limping to class on that fresh Autumn Monday morning. They all had English together with Mr. Lancer and they sure did NOT want to fall into the routine of the "three late musketeers" again. Luckily they slipped in just before Lancer entered the classroom. As they hurried to their seats and Lancer closed the door he said, "Close call, musketeers." He gave them a stern look, but the trio just smiled like angles. As he turned away, Danny leant heavily back into her seat and yawned deeply. Lancer placed his books onto the his desk and began explaining the lesson plan.

"Now Shakespeare! Gotta love Shakspeare, eh? Our new play today is Macbeth, which is about... Anyone? Anyone? Yes you, Miss Fenton."

"It is about a guy called Macbeth who wanted to have all of this power and status, and to do so, he committed terrible crimes and murders, and in the end went insane and was killed. It's one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies - a tragedy being where the protagonist instills his own downfall. It's basically a 'be careful what you wish for' and 'power corrupts' story. That's a very simple summary, but you get the gist."

Tucker and Sam looked at each other. How had she found the time to read it?

Lancer looked taken a-back as well. "Well done, Danny. You've done the reading then?" She nodded firmly. "Good girl! Has anyone else finished reading Macbeth? Uh-huh, good, good. One, three...eight...fifteen. Oh c'mon guys! Ah yes, thank you Valentino, Paulina get onto it, you too Dash. So to give those who have read the play a quick sum up, and to give those naughty kids who didn't some context, we will watch a short animation of the story." And with that the Smartboard lit up and the movie began.