#phiccs

Robert, for his part, stiffens momentarily, hand stuttering with a fork halfway to his mouth. He tries to smooth out the motion, eating his bite and nudging his glasses back into place with the back of his hand, but William already saw it.

“He may have asked to go to the bathroom towards the end of the period.”

William nods. “I’m only asking because he had such a hard time last year, and I think we could cut him some slack. If you were going to give him detention for missing the end of class—”

“Oh, no! No,” Robert insists. “I agree with you, actually. We never really know what’s going on in a student’s life outside of school. When someone is having as much trouble as that, I think it’s important we give them the support they need.” He takes a bit of his rice, chewing thoughtfully before he continues. “I’m surprised. I think you gave him more detentions than anyone.”

William can’t hold back his wince. It’s true; he was fairly harsh with Danny Fenton the previous year. He regrets that deeply. Very deeply, knowing what he does now. But there’s little he can do to make up for it beyond being a better teacher going forward, and hopefully convincing some of the other teachers to follow his example. Although it’s refreshing that one of his colleagues has reached the same conclusion.

Although he can’t help but wonder how that came about.

“I had a realization or two over the summer and decided he would benefit from a little more leeway. I wouldn’t want to show favourites,” at least no more than he already had last year, “but some cases deserve a little more slack.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Robert says.

William finally takes a bite out of his sandwich, although much of his focus is still on Robert. He can’t help eyeing the man, as if staring hard enough will reveal to William the depths of his colleague’s mind, thoughts unfurling beneath his piercing gaze. Robert watches him in return, inclining his head ever so slightly. William raises his eyebrows, asking a question far too heavy for such a gesture. Robert’s eyes slowly widen.

“Bobby, Billy!” Laraine Tetslaff’s gruff voice startles William enough that he breaks the staring contest first. Many people expect Laraine to be a stomper when they first meet her, but her heavy build is complemented by years of experience across various sports, and she strides across the room with surprising grace. Although it’s offset by the gruff personality that suits her looks just fine. “Just the boys I was looking for.”

Laraine grabs a chair from the neighbouring table, the legs squealing as she drags it across the tile, swings it around, and sits down backwards with her arms folded across the back. “We talking about Fenton? Because I’ve got a question for both of you. Do you also know that he’s Ph—”

“Aaah!” William lurches out of his seat to slap a hand over Laraine’s mouth, Robert doing the same. It’s hardly dignified for a vice principal and draws a few stares, but luckily, when they see who William is assaulting, they nod in understanding and go back to their food. Most teachers cannot go a day without wishing they could cover Laraine’s mouth. She knows it, too, and William can feel her grinning beneath his hand.

“Guess I got my answer!” She tips her head back and laughs.

“Maybe.” Robert glances between Laraine and William. “If you—”

“I might,” William says. “And you?”

“Possibly. Since September.”

William isn’t a prideful man, at least he doesn’t try to flaunt it, not unless it relates to teaching in some way. But he swells when he smiles and says to Robert, “Earlier this summer.”

Laraine slaps her hand on the table. “Spring last year.”

William can’t help it. He gapes at her. How? How could she possibly have known for that long? William himself only discovered Danny’s secret by chance, while out at the mall this past July. When a ghost attacked, he ducked into the nearest store to get to safety, and by happenstance, Danny went that way as well. William had already hidden behind a clothing rack, so he was well and truly out of sight when Danny scoured the room for witnesses, and William had full view when the boy suddenly changed.

He spent the next few days trying to convince himself it had been some kind of illusion, or maybe he hadn’t gotten away from the ghost attack in time and suffered some kind of brain damage. But the more he thought about it, the more things fell into place, until he could no longer deny the truth: Danny Phantom is Danny Fenton.

And somehow, at least two of his colleagues also know.

William’s gaze darts about the room. Could anyone else know and simply not have mentioned it for fear of exposing Danny to harm? William swore himself to secrecy to prevent such a thing. But Laraine had approached them without qualms. What if she had been wrong and William and Robert were not already aware? Could she really be that blasé with a life-threatening secret?

“I think we should speak about this after school,” William suggests. Better not to risk it by talking out in the open like this, regardless of if the others might know.

“Agreed.” Robert is already packing his lunch, even though he only ate half of it, and there are still thirty minutes left in the period. He tucks everything into his lunch bag and springs from his chair. “We can meet in my classroom.”

William wants to suggest his office as a meeting place, or his own classroom, but Robert scurries off before William can dispute him. He tries not to let his irritation that Robert beat him to the punch show.

Laraine slaps her hand on the table again. “Guess I’ll see you then, Billy. Enjoy your lunch!” She gets up as well, shoving her chair back toward the correct table, and leaves William alone with his food.

Well, at least this will be interesting.

—

Robert is seated behind his desk when William arrives some time after the final bell. Laraine seems to have brought her own seat, possibly from the class next door, because she sits beside Robert’s desk, swivelling back and forth on the office chair. For a bright, shining moment, William considers doing the same, going to Robert’s other neighbouring classroom to filch that chair for himself. But he closed Robert’s classroom door when he stepped inside, and backtracking now would feel strange. Instead, he settles into one of the desks in the front row. It’s a bit of a squeeze, since William hasn’t been a fit man since well before he hit middle age, and the plastic chair leaves him a couple inches shorter than his compatriots.

He sits up as straight as he can and folds his hands on the desk, but it’s hard to feel dignified.

“So, what’s up?” Laraine asks.

“I should think that’s obvious,” William says.

“Ha, duh. We’re here about Fenton, sure, but I don’t know why. You suggested a private meeting, Billy.”

He grimaces. “Can you not?”

“Sure thing, Willy.”

It takes all his will to hold back a groan.

“I think it would be useful to know how we all know,” Robert says. At least one of them is sensible. “Now that ghost attacks are a more mundane occurrence, and it’s easier not to flee in terror, I noticed Danny’s many absences, visits to the bathroom, and late arrivals coincide with nearby ghost attacks. I’m still not sure how it’s possible, but I quickly concluded that he was either involved with Phantom or somehow Phantom himself. It makes me a little uneasy to think about.”

William hopes his pinched eyebrows read more like understanding than surprise. Robert must have been watching Danny very closely since the start of the school year to put that together.”

Laraine goes next. “Toward the end of school last year, his performance in gym class got way better. That kid’s athletic skills skyrocketed in no time, and I might be a great coach, but he was so hopeless at the start of the year that I didn't expect any improvement. But he’s got this way that he runs where it’s almost like a glide, and I noticed a few clips where Phantom runs the same way. It was pretty obvious after that.”

“Because of the way he runs?” William asks.

Laraine barks out a sharp laugh and rolls her chair over to clap him on the shoulder. Frustratingly, she has an extra two inches on him when they’re seated like this. “Don’t worry about it, Willy. I know you were a cheerleader and all that, but I don’t expect you to notice that kind of nuance in a student’s athleticism. That’s for the experts.”

William scowls and brushes her hand off, frown deepening when he realizes what this means. He's the only one who discovered the truth by accident.

“So, how’d you work it out?” Laraine asks.

William clears his throat and sits up straighter. “Very similar to Robert. I just looked at the activity, and everything seemed to line up.”

“Over the summer?” Robert asks.

“Well, uh, I had a lot of free time to put things together and all that.”

Laraine shakes her head and tsks at him. “We need to get you a life, Willy, if you've got time for that during your vacation.”

William bristles. “I’ll work on that.”

Laraine nods, looking far too satisfied with herself. All of a sudden, William’s free time feels like a precious commodity that she is looking to buy. He would rather not learn what Laraine considers “having a life” and how much bodily assault that involves. William likes having a full mouth of teeth, thank you very much.

“With that out of the way, we should discuss what we’re going to do about this,” William says.

“I don’t know about you chumps, but I’ve for him covered. Dodgeball this week, touch football next week. He’s gonna be moving faster and dodging better than ever,” Laraine says. “And he really needs to get better at dodging.”

That’s not really what William had in mind, but it works. If it works.

“I think it’s obvious Danny’s grades have been suffering because of his activities,” William says. “I’d like to give him an easier time at school, however we can.”

“Do you think…” Robert takes a fortifying breath. “Do you think his parents know?”

The question gives William pause. At the time of discovery, he had been so caught up in his shock, his confusion, that he hadn’t sunk into his thoughts on the matter. He might have wondered, “How did this happen?” sometime soon after, but since he had no answers, there was no use looking deeper. His mind had shifted to accommodate the new truth, that Phantom is a human child he knows, but did he ever consider the flip side of that?

Phantom is actually a human. Or Fenton is actually a ghost.

“The Turn of the Screw,” William curses. “Is our student dead?”

Whether or not the others have already considered that, they both look uncomfortable at the question, even Laraine.

“Should we do something about that?” Robert asks.

“What would we do about that? Last I checked, he still eats in the cafeteria. He’s definitely taller than last year. I don’t think we need to worry about that.” Laraine’s words carry a lot more confidence than her tone. “Just focus on what you can do.”

Saying that is all well and good, but it doesn’t stop the question from lingering in the back of William’s mind as he goes on with his days. It’s obvious that Danny’s parents don’t know the truth, otherwise they wouldn’t go after Phantom with such vigour. At least William hopes so; he doesn’t want to consider the alternative. Unfortunately him, Laraine, and Robert knowing the truth only does so much.

Perhaps if they tell him they know, they can do more? Every once in a while, the idea floats through his mind, but William brushes it off. It sounds nice in theory, but how would he react if he had such a huge secret and found out three people puzzled it out on their own—or accidentally, in William’s case. He might go mad wondering how many other people know the truth and simply aren’t saying anything.

No, better to keep things quiet and help Danny in whatever way they can.

Laraine, at least, is confident in her efforts. One afternoon while walking by the gym, William pauses at the sound of shouts and squeaking shoes. If he remembers right, Laraine has Danny in her current class. They haven’t discussed Danny in private since that first meeting, although Laraine has followed through on her promise to “give William a life.” Luckily, that hasn’t involved anything too sporting, but rather her dragging William and Robert out to a dive bar on Friday nights. A place she frequents, and somewhere William would only have gone in his earliest days as a young adult. It’s been…okay.

But remembering Laraine’s goal to improve Danny physically, William opens the gym door and peeks inside to see how her efforts are going.

Danny is alone on one side of the gym while all the footballers in his class stand on the other, dodgeballs in hand. That must be the rest of Danny’s team slumped on the bench against the wall.

“Come on, Fenton! You'd better move it if you don’t want to get out!” Laraine shouts from the sidelines.

Dash reels back and whips his arm forward. The ball flies across the court, and Danny ducks at the last possible moment, barely avoiding a hit to the face.

Laraine blows her whistle. “Baxter! No head shots! Bench, now.”

Dash gapes at her. “But coach—!”

“I said what I said! Move along.”

Dash sputters, completely baffled, but does as told and trudges off the court. The remaining jocks unleash their barrage all at once, which Danny dodges with surprising fluidity, and he even catches one of them.

“Foley, you’re back in,” Laraine says.

Tucker Foley scampers back onto the court, fist-bumping Danny when he reaches his friend’s side.

“Good work, Fenton,” Laraine adds. To William’s surprise, Danny grins at her, then focuses back on the game. As Laraine paces along the boundary line, she glances William’s way and catches him watching. She winks and gives him a thumbs-up under her crossed arms.

William will readily admit that he doubts Laraine’s usefulness in their efforts. After all, gym class has very little bearing on his overall academics. But perhaps she is helping him in other ways.

Another time, while waiting to use the copier in the staff room, William idly watches Robert at the printer, who gathers a handful of papers, hole-punches them, and clips them into a duotang. It looks like a workbook of math problems, but he only has the one.

“Accidentally printed one short?” William asks.

“Ah, no.” Robert shakes his head. “It’s a little extra credit, for…” He trails off, but he doesn’t need to finish the sentence.

“I’ve been offering the class some short reading assignments on top of their usual homework as a small grade boost. It’s optional, and not many have taken it, but Danny has been one of them,” William says.

“It’s astounding how much we can miss,” Robert says. “Before, I thought he was a slacker who didn’t care about school since he rarely finished his assignments or did poorly on his tests. But”—he glances around the room and lowers his voice—“knowing what’s really happening has changed things.”

William understands. His stomach twists whenever he realizes how much he misjudged Danny the previous year. “He's bright when he has the time to read and understand the material.”

He recalls the big English test last year that Danny had failed the first time around. When William forced him to sit down, study, and think about the material, he seemed genuinely interested in the topic. Of course, William did need to nudge him along with that fake story about his sister. It’s not so surprising that Danny’s identity has stayed hidden for so long, not when putting on a dress and a wig convinces so many students that William is a completely different person. It’s not even a very good wig.

Maybe William needs to work on their critical thinking skills.

A month into their endeavour to improve Danny’s schooling, Principal Ishiyama calls a meeting with William, Robert, and Laraine. It happens before school on a Tuesday morning, before the first buses can arrive, so the teachers don’t need to be out watching the halls quite yet.

Robert and Laraine had arrived first and claimed the two visitor’s chairs in the office, leaving William to stand.

“Good morning, June. I assume this will be a quick meeting?” William asks. Usually, if a meeting will go longer than a few minutes, June will schedule it for after school.

“It is.” She opens her desk and pulls out some papers. Printed off emails, from the looks of it. “I’ve received a handful of complaints about favouritism from you three.”

William’s shoulders droop. He thinks he’s been doing a good job of curbing any favouritism he showed the jocks last year, in his efforts to help Danny, but perhaps it hasn’t been enough. Changing your behaviour like that can be hard. Maybe he’s still doing some things subconsciously.

June passes the papers to Robert, who flicks through them, then hands them off to Laraine. Laraine barely glances at them before holding them up for William to take. To his surprise, the bottom of the email isn’t signed Fenton, but Baxter.

“Apparently, Dash Baxter shared some complaints with his father, who shared them with me, and now I’m passing them on to you,” June says.

William skims the emails. “And?”

“That’s it. I assured Mr. Baxter I would share his concerns, and I have.”

William glances up, surprised at her flippant attitude. They had a one-on-one meeting about this last year, after Danny’s parents sent in an email. June spent quite a few minutes talking about how she agrees that the Fentons are strange, and it’s frustrating when a student obviously isn’t putting effort in, but as teachers, they can’t let that affect how they treat their students, outside reasonable punishments.

“I did notice that Danny has been marked late or absent fewer times in your classes, although I’ve heard from other teachers that his behaviour hasn’t changed much from last year.” June narrows her eyes, fixing her gaze on each of them for a few seconds.

“Ah, that must be some kind of mistake in the attendance,” Robert says. “Oh, well. We’ll have to pay a bit more attention in the future.”

June leans back and grabs a stress ball from her desk, rolling it between her hands. “I think it’s a minor issue, actually.” She tosses the ball up and catches it. “I was only curious about the reasoning behind it.”

William grips the back of Robert’s chair as he leans closer, searching June’s face. Her expression is carefully controlled, flat and almost uninterested, but her eyes keep darting toward them. Like she wants to say something.

Laraine breaks the silence first. “Ha! This kid sucks at keeping secrets.”

“I don’t think I know what you mean,” June lies.

Robert shifts uneasily. “So…you do know?”

June purses her lips and doesn’t respond. William thinks she, like them, doesn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing in case they’re reading too much into this. But the chances of that are getting lower by the second.

“Ah. Did you, maybe, see something by accident? A…transformation,” William asks.

“Is that how it happens? I’ve been curious about that. But no. I’ve had to speak privately to him and his parents a few times due to his past behaviour. Some of the things he said tipped me off. While it sounds impossible, it feels obvious once you know what’s going on.”

“Right? I mean, who else throws a ball like that?” Laraine snorts and shakes her head.

William’s eyebrow twitches. At this point, he wonders if the entire faculty knows. And if he’s the only one who couldn’t put things together for himself. Maybe he needs to work on his own critical thinking skills. Forget the students.

But this is good. While William, as vice principal, does have some administrative sway, June can help even further. Such as now, when she’s blatantly ignoring parent complaints in favour of Danny. William spends the rest of the day pondering how they can combine their efforts even more.

“Uh, Mr. Lancer?” Danny’s voice, full of hesitation, draws William out of his musings.

“How can I help you, Mr. Fenton?” William asks. The final bell went not long ago, so the classroom is empty besides them, although he can see Sam and Tucker lingering just outside the door.

“About that essay we handed in today…” Danny tilts his head toward the in-box on William’s desk. He had the students come up and submit their work at the start of class, but Danny hadn’t moved from his seat. There have been quite a few ghost attacks this week. If William isn’t mistaken, Danny has a few bruises hidden under his sleeves, although the ones under his eyes from lack of sleep are bad enough.

“Yes, thank you for submitting on time,” William says with a nod. “I look forward to reading it.”

“Um, but, I didn’t—”

William grabs the essays from his in-box and shuffles through them. “No, no, I’m sure you did. I have it right here.” When he reaches the bottom of the stack without finding Danny’s name, he forces his eyes to widen. “Oh, my. It looks like I lost your essay.”

He sets the papers down on his desk and folds his hands atop them, meeting Danny’s confused stare. “I’m so sorry for that, Mr. Fenton. Since it’s my mistake, I suppose I’ll have to give you an A. It wouldn’t be fair to make you redo the assignment.”

“Uh, if you’re sure?” Danny says.

“I’m very sure. I can tell you must have stayed up very late working on it, so you deserve a break. Have a good rest tonight.”

“Okay…” Danny heads for the door, but keeps glancing back as if expecting William to say, “Gotcha! Ten pages by tomorrow, please!” But William only smiles and nods. When Danny finally realizes he’s off the hook, he hurries outside.

William swears that he’s limping. Nothing he and the others do will ever be enough if Danny is out there getting hurt every day, but that’s an issue to tackle later. For now, he just has to hope their efforts are doing something for the boy.

—

Danny speeds down the hall, only slowing when the front doors come into view. Sam and Tucker have to jog to catch up to him.

“So, how bad was it? Did he ream you? Or did you have a good enough excuse that he’s giving you a couple days to work on it?” Tucker asks.

“He didn’t,” Danny says.

Sam huffs. “Jerk.”

“No, he didn’t do any of that. I couldn’t even mention that I didn’t finish the assignment. He looked through the essays and said he must have lost it when he didn’t see my name.” Danny stops as he reaches the front door, one hand resting on the push bar. “He gave me an A.”

“Dude, you should go ghost, sneak in there, and take my essay out. Maybe I’ll get an A, too,” Tucker says.

Sam bumps his shoulder with her fist. “Suck it up and take the C you deserve. At least Danny has a real excuse, even if he can’t tell it to anyone.”

“Yeah.” Danny glances back over his shoulder. Lancer’s classroom is well out of sight by now, but he can’t stop picturing that smile the teacher gave as he told Danny to rest. It was soft. Encouraging. The kind of look Lancer gives the good students. A teacher hasn’t looked at Danny like that since middle school.

But things like that have been happening a lot lately, haven’t they? Ms. Tetslaff called Dash out for targeting Danny in gym class. Mr. Falluca has been giving Danny worksheets and study guides with the math problems broken down, so they’re easier to understand; he’s never been better with numbers. Even Principal Ishiyama. He was late to school three times last week, and on the third time, the secretary sent him into Ishiyama’s office, but she just told him to get to class quickly so he wouldn’t miss anything else.

It’s been a good year, so far.