It didn’t take long for Danny to
hear his class shuffling behind him, apparently they wanted to get home more
than they wanted to support Dash who, by the sound of heavy footfalls, was at
the back of the pack. They were quickly running out of land on their little
floating island and when they came to the edge the class started murmuring
again.
“how are we-“
“there isn’t any land”
“are we stuck-“
“I knew following Fenton was a bad idea”
Danny
just ignored them and went to step off the edge, screams were heard behind him
until his class mates notice that he was floating in mid-air.
“how?”
Danny smirked enjoying the
bewildered expressions on his classmate’s faces. “Ghost zone rule number one,
in here, humans are the ghost but everyone can fly.” Danny demonstrated this by
making slow loops out in the open space of the ghost zone. Sam and Tucker
joining him with little effort on their part. Some of his classmates started
forward, excitement on their faces at the prospect of flying.
“wait!” Danny said everyone froze.
“everyone may be able to fly but you need to know how or you
will plummet to the lowest reaches of the ghost zone before you can even blink,
and trust me the ghosts that attack our town are nothing compared to the ghost
down there.”
Danny
may have been telling a little lie, sure the ghosts down there were gruesome to
look at but they were actually nice ghosts and wanted to be left alone, more
than they wanted to attack anything. They still would if they were disturbed
but otherwise they stayed out of each other’s way.
“how
are we supposed to fly, Danny?” a small girl, Megan, asked. She looked shy but the
shyness was overcome with the excitement on her face at the prospect of flying
without a machine. Danny smiled, she was a nice girl that loved to bake and
would often pass around her confection to everyone, including the ‘losers’ and
the ‘outcasts’.
“Megan, have you ever seen Peter Pan?”
She nodded excitedly beaming up at
his still floating form.
“well instead to thinking happy thoughts, you need to think
about your desire to fly, imagine the wind rushing through your hair and
pushing you forward. Imagine that you are not bound by gravity and can soar
where ever you want to.”
Danny could see Megan and a few
others concentrate hard on the thought of flight and smiled in satisfaction
when Veronica, Kailey, and Paulina started floating. When the boys saw that it
worked and that Fenton was telling the truth slowly everyone started
concentrating and one by one they all started to float lightly about the
ground. Mikey was the last one in the air but it only took the class about
twenty minutes to start to float.
“Good! Now come out here” Danny said gesturing to the void
of nothingness under his feet. Most of the class immediately fell back to the
ground as their doubts consumed them, no way could they actually fly.
Surprisingly it was Lester who first got up the courage and started floating
out to Danny, when he finally arrived he clung to Danny like a life line but
laughed joyously at the thrill of flight.
Finally
after much prodding and more proof that they could, in fact, fly the entire
class was floating in a group around Danny. Dash, not wanting his authority
challenged since he was the last one up started yelling at Danny.
“now what, Fenton?”
“now we fly, follow me” Danny slowly took off toward the
river. He, Sam and Tucker could all fly well over 80mph in the ghost zone but
they would have to take it slow if they wanted their classmates to keep up.
When
they finally made it to the River Acheron the class was stupefied at both the
length of the river as well as the size. Most rivers in the human world were
long and peaceful. Acheron was a surging horizontal waterfall, more water than
they had ever seen before was being stirred up into white foam in front of
them.
“how are we going to get across that!” Kwan asked, he had
been quiet the whole time but now he looked like he was going to cry.
“anyone got a nickel?” Danny asked, the class turned to
glare at him only for Sam to dig around the pocket of her skirt and hand him
one.
“Here Danny, just call Cheron and get this over with.”
Danny
turned back to the surging river and tossed the coin into its depths. “Cheron,
we ask thee for your service, please bestow us mere mortals with your presence”
no sooner than he said that did a dark chuckle sound over the sound of the
river.
“Now Danny, you know as well as I do that a mere mortal is
what you’re not.” A small row boat pulled up to the side of the river bank (if
you could call empty space a bank) a skeleton figure in a dark cloak sat in the
boat with oars in his hands, the boat tilted dangerously to the side as he
stood up to greet the new students, he slowly bowed low to the class.
“how may I be of service, my dear friends?”
Danny floated forward “Cheron we would like to ask for
passage across the river.”
“Granted young Fenton, as long as you have proper payment.”
“I only have 3 golden sheckles.”
“Then only 3 may pass my river in safety. You know my rules
young one, only those with proper payment may pass the river of pain.”
Danny
grimaced, at this rate he would never get his classmates home. Sam come forward
and said “what about a trial? The hero’s of the myths were given trails to pass
if they needed to ask for a favor. Can we do one of those?”
“A trail? Well I haven’t given one of those if a long time,
such fun they were! Very well! I will give a trial and if one of you pass it I
will carry you all across, no charge!”
Danny smiled about to say ‘deal’
when Dash pushed to the front of the group “Deal!” he yelled “I can pass any
trial easily, I am the football star after all” Danny wanted to face palm to
bad, but he couldn’t because the next second Cheron stepped forward in his boat
and said “good, then the challenge will be, since I am the guardian of the river
of pain, you must be able to stand pain. For the trail you must stand in the
river Acheron a second for every person you want to cross.”
Dash turned around and started
counting heads. Danny could just see this going wrong, and his thoughts were
confirmed when Dash started smiling. “Can I choose which ones can cross?” his
voice raising in question as he stepped closer to Cheron only to quickly
retreat when he saw how close he came to the ghostly skeleton.
“Of course” said Cheron
“Then I choose Kwan, Star, Paulina, Danny and myself. So 5
seconds should be easy.” Danny should not have been surprised that Dash chose
him. First Danny knew the way out, second Danny was his favorite pushing bag so
if he did this Dash thought he could bully Danny all the way back.
“Hey! What about us?” Annie said.
“Now, now” Cheron said “Lets just see if he can stand the
waters of pain for 5 seconds”
Dash glided forward confidently he
had barely stepped his toe in when he started screaming in pain and jerked back
to the class. “5 seconds!” he yelled. It felt like forever to him.
Cheron chuckled darkly “No, dear
boy that was not even one second. And you have to be completely immersed. Now
would you like to try again? Or does someone else want to give it a try?” The
look on Dash’s face was of agony no one stepped forward to take his place.
“I will, for everyone.” Danny said.
“young one, you know that will be 15 seconds in the river of
pain, I add a second for every failure. You sure you want to take the trail?”
Cheron was even doubtful that anyone could stand the river for that long.
“yes.”
