Thanks to Nylah, naquam-tenshi, Shay Durrow, Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, Invader Johnny, Nano Phantom, Echoheart, Amazing Bluie, and Luiz4200 for the reviews.
Family
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria
…this is the 100 drabble challenge of a connected variety that will go in an order that resembles chapters so this collection of singular one-shots will kind of look a lot like a full-fledged fiction…
Drabble 25: Trouble Lurking
Danielle Masters peeked out from behind a bush, her blue eyes wide as she watched the huge truck backing up to the building. The strange beeps and gushes of air and creaking of tires had her fascinated. She'd never seen anything so big move before. Her bedroom could probably fit inside that truck!
Her father stepped out of the building and walked across the lawn, forcing Danielle to shrink farther down into her hiding spot. Her brothers had gotten a furious lecture this morning about remaining unseen – she hadn't, due to the fact that Genie had been trying to teach her to read at the time – but she was smart enough to realize the lecture had been for her as well. Being outside wouldn't make her father happy.
"Don't run over my flowers," her father growled, his arms crossing and glaring at the truck slowly making its way off the pavement and across the grass. "They are worth more than you'll make in your lives."
When the truck moved enough to hide her father from view, Danielle risked sitting up and getting a better view of the happenings. Men were walking beside the truck, clearly directing its movements. At one point, the truck hid the entire house from view. "Wow," she whispered.
With a huge hiss of air, the truck came to a stop. "Open the back," her father demanded, appearing from around the back of the trailer. "I want to check it to make sure you idiots didn't damage it during transit."
"We took the best of care, sir-" one of the men said, jumping from cab.
"And yet I'm check it anyway," Vlad said, overriding the man's words. "Open it."
Danielle flinched when the men shot each other glances and rolled their eyes. Nobody rolled their eyes at Vlad Masters! She knew from experience what kind of punishment that earned.
She watched, confused, as Vlad ignored the men. Why wasn't he punishing them? But the bewilderment vanished when the huge trailer doors opened and she caught a glimpse of the inside, her mouth dropping open in astonishment. It was a cavernous space full of boxes and crates, forcing Danielle to instantly revise her earlier thought: not one but two of her bedrooms could fit inside of that truck!
"Where is it?" Vlad ordered.
"That big one," one of the men said, looking at a clipboard. "You want us to open it?"
"Of course," her father snapped. "You won't be able to move it inside that stupid crate anyways."
People vanished into the shadows of the trailer, reappearing on top of a crate taller than they were. They crawled around for a few minutes, pulling at things and twisting things and yanking on things. Danielle squinted, trying to see better, but she was simply too far away to see well.
Her eyes slipped over to her father, who was clearly preoccupied with what was going on, then towards the men trying to open the wooden box. The faintest thought of how much trouble she was going to get into if she was caught crossed her mind – a thought that was completely drowned in her curiosity about what was in the box.
A breath slipped out of her mouth as she turned invisible and, crouching and slinking from bush to bush, she made her way closer and closer to the truck. With every step, the truck loomed higher to the slight five-year-old.
When she got into a better position much closer to the truck, an unconscious smile crept onto face. Nobody had seen her. She'd done it!
Crash!
"You idiots! If you broke it you'll be buying me a new one!"
The loud sound and her father's furious yells caught Danielle's attention and she peered around her new hiding bush. The front of the crate had fallen to the floor, one of the men sitting next to it looking dazed, a bit of blood on his face.
"Get that fool out of here," Vlad snarled.
She watched the hurt man for a second, feeling a small bit of fear that he was seriously hurt, but her focus was dragged to the contents of the crate. Whatever was inside glittered of metal and glass, shining buttons and computer screens.
"Get me a light."
"Yes, sir," one of the men said, hitting some sort of switch and the inside of the trailer blossomed with light.
Danielle's heart stuttered at the sight. A glass tube took up most of the device, tubes and computers and wires circling around it like some sort of crazy octopus. She could see the grin that was growing on her father's face and the looks of confusion on the moving men when they caught a glimpse of their precious cargo. But she wasn't confused; she knew exactly what it was.
She'd seen the pictures of it before, in her father's lab.
Vlad Masters was about to make her another brother.
Family is not who you have or what they can do...
it's the love that grows despite everything that can come between you.