in the gradebook (something new remix)
A remix for the @infiniterealms event! This is a remix of @oofouchstovehot's fic here.
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“Dash Baxter?”
“Here,” said the boy, bored.
Well. It wasn’t as if role call was anything special.
“Rebecca DeLise?” That, at least, was a new name, just transferred in from Spengler High. Lancer looked up to make note of who she was.
“Here.”
“Very good,” said Lancer, eyes dropping back to his list. “Daniel…” He trailed off. They hadn’t taken him off the class list. The district had to wait ten days to drop a student from the roster without paperwork from their new school, but surely there was some kind of regulation or exception for when a student had–
“Here.”
Lancer’s head snapped up. There hadn’t been another Daniel on the list, so who could possibly have the poor taste to make that kind of joke?
None of the students were looking at Lancer. All of their faces were turned towards a desk at the very back of the classroom, which was occupied by a transparent and fading figure. In less than a second, it was entirely gone.
“Daniel?” repeated Lancer, weakly.
There was no response.
.
Jack and Maddie Fenton came to the school grim-faced and carrying dozens of devices each. Principal Ishiyama had forbidden anything that even looked like a weapon, even if it was after school hours, but it was probably Jasmine screaming at them on the school steps that actually kept them from bringing anything in.
They waved the machines all around Mr. Lancer’s classroom, then walked up and down the hallways. They didn’t call the… the apparition Daniel, or Danny, or anything like it. They used words like ‘ghost,’ ‘imprint,’ and ‘phantom.’
It put a bad feeling in Lancer’s stomach.
Finally, after hours of searching, Jack sighed. “Nothing,” he said. He gave Lancer a wry smile, nothing like the huge ones he used to throw about before… Daniel’s accident. The word death seemed wrong, somehow, after seeing… Well, it just seemed wrong.
“Probably just a transient echo,” continued Jack. “Amity Park’s got higher than usual levels of ambient ectoplasm, makes stuff like that easier. That’s… That’s why we moved here. You probably won’t see it again. Mads?”
“Just another few minutes,” said Maddie. “We can’t have something like that–” She broke off, and even at this angle Lancer could see her biting her lip.
“Mr. Lancer probably wants to get home,” said Jack.
“It’s fine,” said Lancer. It wasn’t, exactly, but he was having a hard enough time, and he’d only been Daniel’s teacher. If this was part of their grieving process, he wouldn’t begrudge it.
“No, no, we should get back to Jazz,” said Jack.
“Alright,” said Maddie. She pulled her goggles away from her eyes, leaving them perched on top of her head as she rubbed her face.
Lancer watched them go before locking up the school, and for a moment he thought– But that, at least, must have been a trick of the light.
.
Or, perhaps, not.
“Hamlet,” whispered Lancer under his breath, the fresh worksheet copies in his hand drooping as his grip went slack. He barely saved them from dropping, and when he looked back up, the ghost was gone.
He licked his lips, readjusted his grip on his papers, and decided not to tell the Fentons, this time.
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Unfortunately, Mr. Lancer wasn’t the only one at the school who had eyes.
.
“Where did you see the phantom?” asked Fenton’s freak ghost hunting dad, sticking what looked like a tiny satellite dish into Dash’s face.
Dash guessed that the ghost hunters might not be freaks after all, though. They’d been right about ghosts, at least, which was…
It had been weird, hearing that Fenton had died in a freak accident last week, but it had made sense, and it wasn’t like Dash had been buddies with him or anything. He wasn’t taking time off from school, like the freak’s paradoxically hot older sister, or freaks two and three. He wasn’t a wimp.
But it had been weird. Dash had never known anyone dead before.
“Uh, you know, in the locker room.”
“What was it doing there?”
“I dunno,” said Dash, shrugging. He shot a glance at Principal Ishiyama, who looked as uncomfortable as he was. “He looked like he was trying to open his locker?” Fenton had always had trouble memorizing his combinations. It was one of the reasons it was so funny to ‘help’ him.
“There have been more and more sightings of the phantom,” said Fenton’s mom, scowling. “We might need to fumigate the whole building.”
“Absolutely not,” said Ishiyama. “I’ve already given you a lot of leeway with the–” she hesitated, “--situation, but we aren’t doing that.”
“But the longer we let this go on, the more stable the phantom will be,” said Fenton’s mom.
It was weird, hearing them call Fenton that. Phantom. It was almost like one of Dash’s old nicknames for him. Fentina. Fentoenail. Fentertainment Tonight. It was weird, hearing Fenton’s own parents say something like that.
“I don’t understand you,” said Ishiyama, throwing up her hands. “Isn’t that a good thing? Wouldn’t you get to talk to him, then? If it was my son–”
“That’s not our son!”
“Uh,” said Dash. “Can I go now?” He didn’t want to think about Ishiyama’s son, Kwan, his best friend, being… like that.
“Yes, of course, thank you, Dash, for letting us know about the sighting,” said Ishiyama, barely looking at him.
He left as quickly as he could.
.
“Do you think we’ll see him today?” asked Star.
“Hope not,” said Valerie, poking at her lunch. “Ugh, why do I even bother trying with these school lunches?”
“Why not?” asked Star, surprised. Everyone seemed to want to get a glimpse of the Phantom of Casper High. Not many people could say that their school was certifiably haunted.
“Because it’s creepy,” said Valerie. “The way he’s just… There. What’s he even doing here? I wouldn’t be here if I were dead.”
Star shrugged. “Ghosts are supposed to be stuck where they were when they were alive, aren’t they?”
“Then shouldn’t he haunt his house?” Valerie shook her head and put down her fork, crossing her arms. “Also, he was, like, friends with Foley, and Foley was always hanging around outside the locker rooms, asking people to go out with him. Makes my skin crawl.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Star, scrunching up her nose. “He was. I forgot about that.”
.
Jazz stood in the hallway and watched her brother try and fail to pick up a pencil.
It was just as painful as it sounded.
For some reason, Mr. Lancer had put a worksheet on ‘his’ table, and it, well, it looked like Danny was actually trying to do it.
Jazz wanted to run in and help, but she… What could she do? She couldn’t bring her brother back to life. Couldn’t give him the power to pick up that pencil. Couldn’t even make herself go in, to say something to him, before he faded from sight again.
She swallowed and turned away from the door. Mr. Falluca had sent her on an errand, but now she couldn’t even remember what it was.
Nothing important.
.
“He answers questions, sometimes,” said Mr. Falluca, slowly rotating his beer bottle. The teachers rarely went out together after school, and when they did, it wasn’t for drinks, but recent events being what they were…
“He does?” asked Lancer, surprised.
“He does,” said Mr. Falluca. “They’re usually right, too. But that voice.” He tapped his bottle against the table. “Do you think he’ll start turning things in? What are we supposed to do about that?”
There were a few mumbles, but no real answers, as the other teachers either sent significant looks across the table or avoided them.
“Well,” said Lancer, knocking back his own beer. “He’s still in the gradebook.”
.
Lancer noticed the glow before anything else, and looked up sharply, half expecting to find a student playing with their cellphone camera. He didn’t. The light was coming from Phantom’s hand. Or, above Phantom’s hand, from a strange, blue-white ring floating above it.
The ring vanished, and Phantom slowly flexed his fingers, then smiled.
Oh, thought Lancer, and probably all the students in the class, what now?
