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The Fentons were always an odd bunch, there was no doubt about that, even before the ghosts started attacking.
The local town goons, everyone knew them. Causing more power outages and daily disturbances than should be physically possible, or legal, for one family alone (Gotta wonder how they've managed to avoid any lawsuits thus far).
The Dr's. Fenton were in a league of their own, what with how many traffic violations they broke, buildings they busted through, and their research on ghosts, but that wasn't to say there wasn't anything weird going on with their children either.
Daniel "James" Fenton, the youngest of the family, had quite the repertoire himself.
A long list of absences, tardiness, missed assignments, skipped classes and detentions, destruction of school property, sleeping in classes, starting fights, interrupting and running out mid lessons, permanently being banned from handling anything fragile on school grounds...
The list could go on.
He was truly an enigma. But his closest friends were just as bad, acquiring a similar, if not worse, track record. They all seemed to riff off each other, and he couldn't tell who influenced who as they all dug themselves deeper.
He had tried in the past to reach out to the trio, but they always seemed to reject his help. And, occasionally, his efforts to extend an olive branch had made things worse. Made the kids double down, freeze up, snap, or even turn tail and flee.
Lancer couldn't fathom what had happened to lead to behavior this bad. He could only hope they would be able to pick themselves up before it was too late.
He still tries his best to offer support where he can, but there's only so much one can do when help goes unwanted.
That said, the youngest Fenton's behavior was not what was currently plaguing him.
This was not the first time Lancer had dealt with delinquent children, nor would it be the last. He'd either get to the root of it eventually, or he wouldn't, and they'd be out of his jurisdiction.
No, he was currently worrying about the eldest of the ghost hunter's children, Jasmine "Summers" Fenton.
In the 3 years she'd been attending Casper High Secondary, Lancer could honestly say she was probably one of the brightest and kindest students he had had the pleasure of teaching. She was always attentive and eager, going above and beyond for all her assignments, and always asking questions and taking initiative.
Maybe she was a bit too eager, if Lancer was being honest.
She always put 115% into her studies, both for school and her own research, and never seemed to take time for herself or to act like an actual kid.
While it didn't always seem entirely healthy in Lancers eyes, he also understood that people were just wired differently, found joy in different things.
He couldn't fault her for that, he'd been quite the busy-body when he was younger himself. So he often let it slide, sprinkling in the occasional recommendation to slow down when they talked.
But recently she'd been... Well, the most professional way he could probably describe it was "different".
She was a lot more distant, and fidgety. She'd jump up at the slightest sound of something being bumped or dropped, and her head was on a constant swivel checking between the windows, the door, the clock, or her phone.
While the other habits could be marked as paranoia or boredom, the phone could not. It had been confiscated on more than one occasion, and every time it was, she would demand it back like her life depended on it.
She had never, not once before all this, spoken out against a teacher's decision, nor had she ever been confrontational.
Traits that were very unlike her normal calm and reserved nature, and had come out of seemingly nowhere.
Her debate skills and psychology knowledge made her a brutal adversary. She would refuse to let up, verbally tearing the poor teacher or T.A. who had crossed her path apart like they were nothing more than a flimsy sheet of paper.
She was extremely vigilant and observant, and was able to pick up on even the smallest tells when her opponent was cracking from the pressure, and knew just what buttons to press.
Sometimes her arguments would last more than half the class until either the teacher relented and gave the phone back, if only to continue their lesson or get her to relent in her tirade and be spared the embarrassment, or until she was sent out of the classroom to "take a walk" and calm down.
Lancer had been on the receiving end of her wrath more times than he'd like to Admit. Unlike his coworkers, who had learned very quickly not to get on her bad side and had stopped taking her phone altogether, Lancer refused to back down. Rules were rules, and if the other students saw Jasmine getting away with it, they would try to follow suit.
These instances were part of the few--and very rare--occurrences he'd ever seen young Jasmine get genuinely angry about something.
Outside of that, if she wasn't perpetually checking the room like a hawk, she was tapping her pencil on her desk idly, acting attentive while being mentally checked out miles away.
It was harder to get her attention when she was called upon, she wouldn't raise her hand to answer questions, she didn't stay after classes to ask about the assignments that were handed out, she pulled out of her extracurriculars, and her grades had even begun to drop ever so slightly.
Not by much, mind you, she was still an exemplary student, but the Jasmine of the past wouldn't have settled for anything less than "perfect". Now though…
Her hair was messier and more unkempt, thrown into a haphazard ponytail with stray wisps poking out from all sides.
She’d occasionally walk into class with mildly puffy red eyes.
There were the faintest hints of perpetual dark circles underneath her eyes.
She held herself differently. Less purposeful and lax, and more rigid and stiff, like she was ready to bolt at any given moment.
Whenever Lancer tried to bring up any of his concerns, she would wave him off with some excuse about allergies or staying up too late while studying for some big test in another class or some secret project she was working on that fell through. Dismissing it as nothing to worry about, followed by empty promises to fix her habits and behavior for the future.
But Lancer could see it, despite her insistence to the contrary, the way she seemed to be walking on glass. How she was falling apart at the seams.
This rapid shift in demeanor was what was currently eating away at him.
He couldn’t piece together what had triggered the sudden change. She had become as skittish and disconnected as a cat, and as stubborn as a bull.
It was almost like she was anticipating, preparing for the worst, scared of something no one could see.
He couldn't really blame her, the ghost attacks had become so frequent. They interfered with every aspect of any Amity Parker's life. Lancer himself had found he was afraid to go out more often than not.
The calm was always followed by a storm, and a moment of peace always held apprehension in anticipation for the moment it all came crashing down. It was a matter of "when" the next attack would come, not "if".
But whatever was bugging Miss Jasmine seemed to stretch beyond that. Seemed to go deeper.
He couldn't help but wonder if all the praise from her peers and the stress to constantly maintain being the "perfect" student was finally catching up to her.
Perhaps she was burnt out? There was a very real possibility she'd stacked her plate too high and couldn't handle all the responsibility like she previously thought she could, and the pressure from everything was starting to become too much.
Maybe she'd been forced to grow up too quickly. She was generally the one who the faculty deferred to when it came to matters regarding her brother's antics, and she seemed like the most mentally mature and level-headed one out of her whole family.
She didn't seem like she had many friends or people she could talk to at school, so Lancer could only assume her emotional support system at home wasn't much better, either.
The Fenton parents were kind and outgoing, but had a bad habit of being unobservant and jumping the gun for a lot of things, making their own conclusions without sticking around to listen to the rest of a story if they thought they knew what was going on.
You know, now that he thought about it, maybe... maybe something had happened at home. It was no secret the Dr's. Fenton had hurt people in the past, no matter how unintentionally. Perhaps there had been an accident, something that left her traumatized.
He didn't want to think the ghost hunters would intentionally hurt their children, but the path to hell was paved with good intentions.
With everything they'd done to bystanders during ghost attacks, mindlessly chasing after their target with no regard for the safety of the people or things surrounding them, It wasn't a far stretch to assume something worse could have happened behind closed doors. There always seemed to be some sort of explosion or fire erupting from deep within that house.
He'd have to launch an investigation, in that case.
Perhaps this could also solve the mystery of why young Daniel lashed out as he did.
If this was affecting not one, but both of the children, then perhaps this had been a long standing issue he'd neglected to acknowledge for years. He should have paid closer attention to the signs, seen Jasmine’s insistence and intense focus on work for what it was.
He had failed them as a teacher, and had potentially made matters worse in assuming it was just standard "teenage rebellion" and punishing them for it. No wonder they had both refused his help, they didn't trust him to actually listen.
Lancer would get to the bottom of this, he'd make sure of it. He would set things right.