Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

2. An Excess of Personality

Sal here.  The structure of this story will be a little different from ITYOTC.  Only Danny's viewpoint is told in the present voice, while the adults speak in the past.  Danny's a child, so he's going to only see as far as now, whereas adults are technically more adept at retelling events from memory.  I say this to avoid any possible confusion, and to assure you the difference is intentional.  Now, onward!

Danny

"And so then, subtract the blabbity blah blah, carry the one, some more boring stuff about stupid dumb numbers and then you get da derp da derp da derpidy derp."

At least, that's what it sounds like Ms. Rydinger is saying as she scribbles ugly numbers on the whiteboard with a squeaky green marker.  I'm not really listening.  I'm staring down at my activity sheet, doodling in the margins, coloring in the triangles of the fours and the two closed circles of the eights, humming a song I heard someone listening to in the hall.

I am so bored.  I mean, REALLY bored.  If I could, I'd take out my yo-yo right now and just sit here watching it bounce up and down on the string.  But Ms. Rydinger is no fun. She lets people play on their phones and watch videos while she's talking, but once she took my yo-yo away and kept it in her desk until class was over, saying I was being distracting.  How can you be distracting when you're sitting in the back row?  It's not fair.

I hate math.  Uncle John always is telling me that it's actually a lot of fun, and Mom says it's really important that I do well in it now if I want to go to college later, but I still hate it.  In fact, I hate it so much that I decide to write "I hate math" on my homework.  But Ms. Rydinger won't know that's what it says.  She can't read Japanese.  Only one person I know can read and speak it, and that's my art teacher, Ms. Yamaguchi- and she's actually from Japan.  She teaches me a new word in Japanese every day. 

With a yawn, I reach down into my backpack; I just heard my phone buzz.  Ms. Rydinger doesn't like us to mess with our phones while she's teaching, but she never does catch me looking.  After all, I am Danny Phantom.

It's a message from my mom's Cousin Roxie.  I roll my eyes, and push my glasses further up my nose so I can see better.  It says, "Is your mom picking you up today?"

I send back, "Let me C."  So I text Mom really quick, see what she says.  Hopefully, she is.  Picking me up, I mean.  Roxie is really nice, but she's also really weird.  All she listens to is old country music.  I'd much rather get picked up by Mom; she's weird too, but I'm used to it- and she lets me listen to my music all the way home. 

I ride home with Cousin Roxie almost every day, and our neighbor, Mr. Adams, is the one who drives me in the morning.  I will never take the bus again as long as I live.  I rode one once last year.  Buses are trashed and smell awful- and anyway, when I told Mom about the weird-shaped drawing I saw on the seat in front of me, something that kind of looked like a dog's bone, her eyes got really big and scary, and she said quietly, "Okay, yeah, we're going to have to figure something else out."

She still hasn't told me what that picture was.  I asked, but all she said was, "Tell you when you're older."  And that always means, "Never."

My phone buzzes again; quickly I flip it open, and grin.  "Yes, I am!  Love you, see you in a bit!" she sent.  So I type in "YAY" and an open-mouthed smiley face, and I'm just about to let Cousin Roxie know when...

"Danny?"

I jump a little, and look up.  All the kids are staring at me, and so is Ms. Rydinger.

"We're waiting."

Aw, man.  I've been spotted.  "For what?"

A couple of kids laugh.  Ms. Rydinger looks like she's getting mad.  "You, to come up and solve this problem on the board."