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“The thing about being invisible is, you’d think it would feel light and airy and easy, no pressure, but it doesn’t. It’s the heaviest thing I’ve ever known.”—Kathleen Glasgow
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Star was planning on going swiftly. She figured it would be a moment or two of terror, and then blissful oblivion. The rush of air and wind slapping her in the face as she plummeted down before, perhaps, a burst of pain followed by absolutely nothing. It was kind of nice to think that such a dramatic, lively burst of energy would lead to an eternal silence. Mr. Lancer would have told the class it was almost poetic—before adamantly telling all of his students to not even entertain the idea.
But, well, Mr. Lancer wasn’t here to tell her that. And even if someone managed to drag her off the edge of the building, she had a hidden stash of pills back home that she could use. She preferred this method, though. The idea of the pills not finishing things quickly enough and leaving her to suffer for a while made her queasy and she would very much like to not be forced to try out that way.
Peering down at the faraway ground below, she stared at the people milling about their day, looking like tiny ants from this height. They were all busy, most likely. With lengthy schedules and issues to sort out. Some of them were probably miserable while others were happy with the lives they got. Some rich, some poor. Some stuck up and some hanging their heads low. Some loud and some quiet. And they were all ignorant to the eyes trailing them from above.
Maybe it was selfish of her to ruin their day by falling to her death right before their eyes. There were bound to be children down there. They didn’t deserve to have this image in their heads for the rest of their lives. But the only tall buildings in Amity Park were placed in the middle of town, where most people were. The outskirts’ buildings were too low for her to do this. She wasn’t trying to break her bones and survive here—this would suck even more than the pills.
They’d forgive her, she told herself while clenching her hands by her sides. They’d probably feel too bad for her to blame her. They’d wonder what had led her to this, why she’d chosen to go down this path. They’d feel bad—in this apathetic way strangers did when something bad happened to a person they didn’t know. She would know—she’d felt this way regarding more than half of Casper High. Although it was mixed with guilt a lot too, seeing as she knew she and her friends had caused a lot of this pain and misfortune intentionally.
Well, she will never feel this way ever again.
She took her foot off the edge and went to tip it over the side of the building.
“Oh, wow,” a voice came from behind her. “You’re really going through with this.”
Star shrieked and nearly tumbled off the roof in alarm. Her balance was lost and she flailed around, her heart beating madly in her chest as she thought in distress that she didn’t want her fall to be the cause of an accident. But before she could slip over the edge, a hand shot out and pulled her back onto the roof and away from the dangerous rim. Her knees failed her and she collapsed on the concrete with an oomph! and a groan.
The wind whipped her hair on her face and she shakily pulled it back. Her chest felt like it was about to explode, her pulse impossibly quick and her lungs feeling emptier than ever. There was a moment in which she couldn’t see a thing past her momentary panic, her near-death experience occupying her completely. The loss of control would have been the worst way to go. She couldn’t stop the tremors running through her entire body as she told herself that she was still there and didn’t fall.
Movement in front of her caught her attention once the deafening rush of her pulse in her ears died down. She blinked the haze away and focused on the person standing before her. Or… well, he was floating. With his arms crossed and his spectral tail flickering under him in what almost looked like agitation. His green eyes bored into her, silent judgement very obviously shining in them. His aura wasn’t as strong right here because the sun was beaming down on them from above while descending slowly, but his body was still just a little bit see-through, like all ghosts.
“Phantom?” she croaked.
“You were really going to do this, weren’t you?” he shot back.
Star blinked dumbly up at him. This hadn’t been a part of her plan. Phantom was an elusive ghost who only showed up to, like, fight other ghosts. Ectoplasmic disasters were his forte—not rescuing random people from various other threats. Although he did sometimes show up for more random dangers. Like that school bus he’d caught a while back.
Still, the chances of him showing up on this roof and seeing her had never crossed her mind. It was ludicrous to even entertain the idea. There was no ghost fight nearby, no new spectral threat like the one with that ghost king guy. As far as she was concerned, Phantom was supposed to be chilling wherever the heck he went off to between ghost attacks. He had no reason to be in the middle of Amity Park on a Wednesday afternoon.
Disdain replaced her shock and she impatiently got up and said, “Oh, my gosh. Can you, like, go away?”
“You’re kidding, right?” he huffed flatly. “I’m not that stupid. I’m not going anywhere. I can’t believe you’re actually here…”
“Excuse me? You can’t stay here! This is none of your—wait, what do you mean? How did you know I would be here?” she asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at the ghost boy.
Seeing him from this up close was kind of weird, actually. Star had seen him in passing before—during ghost attacks, of course—but never without all of the stress and anxiety that fueled her. Never without any outside distractions. So she never really got to take a second to look at him—past the light his body exuded that obscured his features—and take stock of what he actually looked like.
It was kind of underwhelming, actually. His face looked very much average. Paulina always went on and on about how handsome and cool he was, but she never got to see what the ghost boy looked like in such a manner. And Star could genuinely say he looked like a random, run-of-the-mill teenager. With a face that hadn’t sharpened fully yet, extremely pale skin and freckles speckling his face. He wasn’t exceptionally pretty or anything—but not unappealing either. Just… normal.
Wow, what a strange thing to realize on her last day on Earth.
Phantom rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Oh, well. Poindexter kind of told me you were planning on doing something like that a couple of days ago. He must have heard you talking about it or he could sense it, maybe. I was so sure he was pulling my leg because why would you try to commit suicide out of all of Casper High. But I am so glad I kept an eye on you anyway.”
“Poindexter?” she said. “You mean, that kid who owned the haunted locker?”
“That’s the one.”
Star pulled a face, appalled. “Ew! You’re telling me that loser’s been watching me? Gross!”
With a deadpan look, Phantom crossed his arms again. “That loser is the reason you’re not dead right now.”
“Did I ask for someone to prevent this from happening? Eh—no!” She pressed a hand against the floor and went to push herself upward. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to get back to my thing, and you can go back to… doing whatever it is you do in your free time. No ghosts for you to fight, ghost boy.”
“Not yet, anyway,” she thought she heard him mutter. Then he cleared his voice and more firmly said, “You realize I’m not about to let you jump, right?”
She groaned and remained seated. Yes, she was kind of unsurprised by that. Phantom fought ghosts, but Star knew he had his entire ‘hero’ image to keep up with, and that meant not allowing teenage girls to fall to their deaths. The Fentons would claim he didn’t really care and was just following his obsession or whatever. She wasn’t sure what compelled him to ‘save’ her right now, but she was annoyed by it.
This entire thing was meant to go smoothly. No hiccups or unplanned saviors popping up. Actually, Star was supposed to already be oblivious to this entire sucky reality. But she was still sitting here in front of a floating ghost because Phantom and that Poindexter guy couldn’t keep their noses out of her business. She could murder them—but that was probably already too late for that, wasn’t it?
“What do you think would happen here?” she demanded. “Say that you keep me alive today—are you planning on sticking around forever to make sure I don’t try it again? You can’t keep an eye on me all the time. I can just wait until there’s a ghost attack and then you’ll be too busy to come here.”
He frowned at her. The judgement in his gaze weighed down on her but she tried to brush it off. She was used to people looking at her like that. She was an A-lister, one of the popular kids. Everyone expected her to act a certain way, and when she did, they still looked at her with a look that bordered on disappointment. Like her actions were expected but they’d been hoping for a different outcome.
Apparently, ghost kids felt the same way.
“I wish I could duplicate,” he grumbled. “Then I would have been able to keep an eye on you all the time. But… no, you’re right. I can’t do that.”
With a dissatisfied groan, his tail shifted into a pair of booted legs. He crossed them easily and then drifted down until he was sitting on the cement roof right across from her, like this was completely normal. His hands unfolded and landed on his knees as he observed her with his eerie green eyes. His ghostly aura—as dim as it was in the light of day—still gave him an ethereal look, which meant that Star felt like he was trying to look right through her skin, muscles and bones and into her soul.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked eventually.
“I don’t owe you an explanation,” she huffed, looking decidedly away.
Unfazed by her words, he pressed on. “Your life is good. You have two parents who, I’m sure, love you very much. Your family doesn’t struggle financially in the least. You’re one of the most popular kids in your school, with an entire group of friends you can hang out with all the time. Nobody bullies you or bothers you or does anything to spite you. And I’m not sure about this, but I think you get good grades too, so you’re smart all right. So what gives?”
Scoffing indignantly, she hissed, “Don’t act like you know me. Or like you actually care. You probably just have to do this.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t have to do anything.”
“Oh, yeah?” She rounded on him again, staring with enough intensity to obviously make him uncomfortable. “I bet you’re what’s left of some kid who killed himself because nobody even knew he existed. It’s the only thing that makes sense. You were so miserable and invisible while you were alive, so when you died you became this loud, fame-hogging, boisterous ghost that demands attention. That’s why you’re actually trying to protect Amity Park—so people would notice you. Not because you care.”
He gawped at her, clearly taken aback by her assessment. And then let out a snort, followed by a guffaw. Suddenly, he was rolling with laughter before her, clutching his belly and wiping tears from the corners of his eyes. But while this was a show of mirth, the bitter edge to his voice made Star feel uncomfortable. Like maybe he wasn’t laughing because this amused him but because he wasn’t sure how else he was supposed to react.
“You think—wow, that’s a lot,” he finally managed to say. “Oh, man. Star, you couldn’t have been more wrong if you tried. Well, except for the invisible during life bit—that’s true. But everything else… where did you even come up with this?”
“It made sense to us,” she said with a shrug, but now she felt apprehensive about it. “My friends and I tried to figure you out a bunch of times. This was the best guess we could come up with. It made sense.”
“Well, you’re wrong.” Phantom ruffled his hair and shook his head to himself. “I’m… I’m not pretending to care. And I’m not helping Amity Park when ghosts show up just because I have to. It’s just the right thing to do. I don’t want people to get hurt, and these ghosts don’t care about the damage they cause when they cross over from the Ghost Zone. So I stop them.”
She looked at him blankly. “But… you crossed over here, too.”
“Uh… right. I—yeah, I totally did that.”
Cocking her head to the side, Star said, “You know, Dash is sure you, like, made the town your haunt and now you defend it. That’s the reason he thinks you protect Amity Park.”
Phantom pondered this for a moment, then muttered, “This is closer to the truth than your theory. I’ll take it. So what’s your story? Why’re you up here? Seriously.”
Star frowned. She clenched her hands, not wanting to answer the question. This was none of Phantom’s business. No matter what his true motive was, he had no right to interfere with her life like that. He already got to live and finish his run on Earth—now it was her turn to make choices. Besides, if he didn’t kill himself, it meant he died some other way. And who was he to lecture her about death when he’d been careless enough to die as a teenager?
“You wouldn’t understand,” she dismissed.
He leaned back on his hands. “Try me.”
With a long-suffering sigh, she mumbled, “You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?”
“Bingo!” he said with a winning smirk. “Now fess up. If it helps, I promise I won’t tell anyone about this. Unless I have to, like, turn to a medical professional since you’re obviously crazy.”
She kicked his foot and glared at him, but couldn’t find it in herself to do anything worse. If anyone told her something like this at school, she would have made sure they would have the worst week of school. But besides the fact that Phantom was a ghost and most likely out of the reach of her influence, she also couldn’t muster up the energy to fight him on this. She was so tired of this entire thing, especially because the plan had been to already get it over with. And now it looked like she was going to have to use the pills anyway.
Ugh, stupid ghost snitches and heroes.
“Fine,” she relented.
Phantom’s smirk eased up as he looked at her patiently. That silent judgement was still there, but it was obvious he was giving her his full attention. Whatever thoughts and opinions he had regarding her, he was at least allowing her to speak up and try to explain herself despite everything. It was honestly more than anyone else in her life had ever done for her, and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
“Look, I’m not stupid. I know I’m lucky for being popular and pretty and rich,” she opened with, trying hard to ignore his small eyeroll. “You’re right that life looks perfect from the outside. I have all of my friends and I have my brain and I guess the school faculty favors me like the rest of the A-listers. And I know my parents do their best to find time to be home and spend time with me. But I’m invisible.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Excuse me? You’re invisible?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Wouldn’t understand what? What being invisible feels like? Erm, hello! You’re talking to a ghost! I can literally turn invisible!”
“I’m not talking about this kind of invisibility! I’m talking about how you can walk around people and they’d look at you and see this person standing in your place, and it’s not you! They see some kind of modified version of who you are—the one they want to see—and you get treated according to it rather than who you actually are!”
Phantom’s lips tugged down. “Oh. Don’t people just see who you present yourself as?”
Pressed her lips together, she shifted a little and asked, “How do you know me?”
Floundering awkwardly, the ghost boy stuttered, “Oh—um—I mean—huh?”
“You called me Star, you know who I am,” she pointed out wryly. “How do you know who I am? I’ve never introduced myself to you before. It was Paulina, right? She mentioned me while talking to you.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed, nodding vigorously with a smile. “Yes, absolutely. That’s how—Paulina told me. You’re her friend. And I… know her friends… apparently. And somehow it’s not weird or questionable.”
She wasn’t sure what he was talking about, so she just pushed through.
“See? That’s how everyone knows me!” Star said bitterly. “The only reason people are even aware of my existence is because I’m Paulina’s friend. And she’s a good friend until she decides to ditch me just because it’s convenient for her at the moment. The only one who still knew I existed when I wasn’t popular anymore was Foley, and he only turned to me because he wanted to date me. He wasn’t very subtle about it, calling me ‘Satellite’ to my face.”
“Weren’t you waiting for him to finally hit on you?” the ghost boy said bemusedly. “I—I mean, that’s what I heard, at least.”
“He was the first person to acknowledge me back then,” she said. “I was desperate.”
“Hey, you could do a lot worse than Tucker—erm, I mean…” Phantom blinked, catching himself and shaking his head. “We’re, um, getting off topic here. You’re saying that you feel like nobody sees who you are past this popular, bratty girl you display, right?”
Her eyes narrowed at him. “I didn’t say bratty.”
Unbothered, he said, “I’m interpreting. Go on.”
Displeased, Star huffed but kept on going. “My point is that I’m only somebody people know because of other people. I’m an A-lister, I’m a cheerleader, I have money. But people only look at me because Paulina is always nearby. I know for a fact that I’m pretty, but it gets ignored because I hang out with someone who steals the show all the time. And I’m smarter than her for sure, but no one cares about that. Even my parents bother being at home when she comes to visit me because they want her to tell her dad good things about them—they work together. But where’s all this effort when it’s just me, huh?
“If I walk around by myself, nobody even tells me hello. I’m invisible. To everyone in the school, in this town, on this entire planet! You know that after that ghost pirate ship tried to steal all of the adults, my parents didn’t even acknowledge the fact that I helped save them? Do you remember me helping out back then?”
Phantom seemed to be too shocked by her rant to respond for a moment. But then he hesitantly bobbed his head up and down, and she could see the sincerity in his eyes so she figured he wasn’t lying to her about it.
Shoulders slumping, she muttered, “Great. At least one person noticed me. But you’re dead, so that’s worth about as much as a goldfish noticing my existence.”
“Star,” the ghost boy said cautiously, “I’m sure people know you exist. And I’m sure some of them would jump at the opportunity to be around you.”
“Well, duh. ‘Cause I’m popular.”
“No. I mean that some kids at Casper High are bound to be nicer than the friends you have right now. There must be at least one person in that school who would be able to see you for who you are—if you let them. You can’t expect a person to see you for who you are without allowing them a glimpse at the true you. If you keep on putting up walls all around you, then of course you’ll feel invisible.”
She looked down at her hands and chuckled mirthlessly. “What, like Danny Fenton and Valerie? I haven’t talked to Val in forever but I can see her. I know she and Fenton became friends. And she actually did look calmer around him… but I don’t have that.”
Phantom averted his eyes for a moment, looking off at the sun as it began to set over the horizon, the sky growing darker as evening began to warm over Amity Park. There was an unreadable expression on the ghost’s face as he seemed to ponder her words. Maybe he was trying to recall who Star was talking about. He probably knew Fenton since the guy was the son of ghosts hunters. But Valerie was most likely a random face in the crowd in his eyes.
Wetting his lips, Phantom slowly said, “I… guess so, yes. Find someone you feel comfortable opening up to. Someone who would actually like who you are and not the act you put around everyone else. Bet you’ll find a person like that if you didn’t go around, making people’s lives miserable all the time…”
“Hey, I don’t go after people without a reason,” she said indignantly.
“If you say so,” he said, hands raised in surrender for a moment. “Either way, this is better than tossing yourself off a skyscraper, Star. Give people a chance before you do something irreversible. Trust me, dying isn’t all that it’s cranked up to be.”
“No one ever claimed otherwise,” she said flatly. Then she sighed and muttered, “This isn’t going to work, anyway. People ignore Paulina when she’s mean to them because she’s so perfectly flawless. But no one would want to come near me because, like, I’m not pretty enough to compensate for that. It’s too late for this at this point. I just want to put it all behind me and be done with it. So if you don’t mind—”
Phantom spluttered. “Of course I mind!”
“Why?” she inquired hotly. “What’s it to you? Are you afraid I’ll become another ghost you’ll have to fight? Because I don’t plan on that. I have nothing left here to do. I won’t develop an obsession, so I won’t become some maniac who’d terrorize the town! So just stop worrying and let me make my own choices!”
He grabbed her hand before she could get up, keeping her firmly in place. It earned him a seething glare from her, but he met it with a desperate, unrelenting gaze of his own. With the world slowly darkening around them, it made the aura around him glow brighter, and his luminescent eyes seemed to emit enough power to crack her resolve.
“I can’t let you do that!” he argued steadily. “Everyone feels invisible sometimes, Star. It’s a part of life, I think. We put on masks and we pretend to be something we’re not, and people react to it. Maybe it’s true that people don’t really see you—maybe you’re right about being invisible. But so is everyone else!”
“That’s not exactly comforting,” she told him. “And anyway, you can’t lecture me! You’re already dead! You did something stupid that ended your life—who are you to tell me I shouldn’t do this? Besides, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Not everyone hides and not everyone has secrets. You don’t. Everyone knows who you are and what you do and when you’re around. You’re a ghost and you’re still less invisible than me!”
Shaking his head at her, Phantom looked at her with genuine pain shining in his eyes. He finally let go of her in favor of wringing his hands in his lap. But instead of turning around and heading toward the edge of the building, Star remained seated, transfixed by the deep sense of hurt that rolled off the ghost facing her. She must have hit a nerve, and she wasn’t sure how to fix it.
“You think you’re more invisible than I am?” he murmured eventually, head shaking minutely. “That’s funny. That’s actually really funny.”
Before she could ask what the heck he was talking about, a bright flash of light blinded her and she brought a hand up to cover her eyes. It took a couple of seconds for the light to subside, and Star blinked to get rid of the imprints it’d left in her vision. And then her eyes cleared and she lowered her hand to see what in the world Phantom just did beside trying to permanently blind her.
But instead of seeing the ghost boy sitting there, she found herself facing Danny Fenton. His posture was the same, but his black hair was unmistakable and his icy eyes stared at her intensely—in that same way Phantom did a moment ago. One of his scruffy red shoes was untied, and his white shirt was wrinkled—which he made no move to fix. Yes, this was definitely her nerdy classmate and not the ghost boy. But how…
“Why don’t you tell me again how you’re invisible and I’m not, huh?” he challenged.
Her mouth fell open. “What—where did—”
She cut herself off abruptly. His words rolled around her brain, their meaning not computing. But his voice did. It was the familiar, awkward intonation he always had at school, if a lot more irritated. But when she thought about it a little harder she realized it matched Phantom’s voice to a tee if she took away the strange echo that accompanied it.
Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom had the same voice.
Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom. Star repeated the names in her head, feeling stupider and stupider the more indistinguishable they became. It was laughable, really, how long it took her to realize those two names were similar after spending hours gushing about Phantom with Paulina. It was barely even a secret identity—if one would call it that. Danny would have had to put an effort into hiding this if it were. No, these names were like a big neon sign the entire town has been ignoring purposefully.
“How is this possible?” she said faintly. “You were just dead! And now you’re… alive? I think? Are you alive?”
“Yes, I’m alive.” He slapped her hand away when she went to pinch him. “Partially, at least. I had an accident and… well, I didn’t die all the way. I’m half ghost and half human. And you’ve never noticed that, huh?”
“Of course not!” she shrieked. “I don’t even understand how this is possible!”
He shrugged. “You should probably just accept the fact that it is. It’s sort of complicated and you’ll only get more confused if you think about it too hard. Trust me, I would know.”
She bit her lip. A part of her wanted to ask him why he was showing this to her. Phantom’s been around for almost two years now. So Danny must have been hiding this facet of himself from everyone for this entire time. Yet now he was suddenly sharing this tidbit of information with her? Out of all people, he was showing her who the ghostly hero of Amity Park truly was? It wasn’t really something she’d expected. She always assumed that if anyone ever got close to Phantom, it would be Paulina—as usual.
But the answer came to her before she could blurt out the dumb question. He’d told her exactly why he was showing her this—to show that she wasn’t the only one invisible. Because here he was, hiding this entire life from the rest o the world, and everyone was none the wiser. And there must have been clues along the way—like his continuous absences, his tendency to drop stuff, his incredible skill when it came to fighting those pirate ghosts a while back—yet they were all ignored.
Because who in the world would look at nerdy, loser Danny Fenton and make the connection between him and Danny Phantom—the protector of Amity Park?
Her shoulders slouched as she grimaced. “Oh…”
“Look,” he said tiredly, rubbing his hand down his face. “I’m sure you feel unseen for a reason—and it’s a validated feeling to have. At least, that’s what Jazz would have told me. But that doesn’t mean you should throw your life away. Talk to your parents or your friends. And if they aren’t helping, find someone who would. Someone out there is bound to listen to you. You’ve just got to… to keep going. Look for that one person who’d see you for real and stick to them.”
“Do you have that person?” she asked timidly, already expecting his reply.
And, indeed, he said, “Sam and Tucker. And Jazz too ever since she figured it out.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised…”
“Just try it,” Danny pleaded. “I’m not even telling you to go see a psychologist—although you probably should. Just talk to someone. It doesn’t matter who. I just—you can’t kill yourself, and I’m not gonna let you. And if I have to follow you around to make sure you don’t do anything stupid, you bet I’m gonna do it.”
“I ever find you lurking around when I go to the bathroom, and I’ll kill you off all the way, Danny,” she threatened, although she was relatively secure in the knowledge that he wouldn’t go that far.
“Of course I wouldn’t!” he spluttered, face earning a pink hue. “Jeez. I know what people say about me, but I’m not actually a creep.”
Star shrugged flippantly.
Silence enveloped them as the last rays of sun disappeared behind Amity Park’s skyline. The town’s lights made the evening sky brighter than it was probably meant to be, but Danny still tilted his head back to take in the view. A voice in the back of her head reminded Star that the geek was obsessed with space, so searching the few visible stars in the sky would obviously appeal to him. But the way his freckles seemed to glow and twinkle like the celestial bodies above was new.
He could probably feel her eyes on him because he tore his gaze away from the sky in favor of looking at her. His freckles dimmed until they returned to normal, but she was certain it hadn’t been in her head. His face really did just sparkle, like someone had sprinkled glitter all over it.
“I have a space obsession,” he said by way of explaining.
She crossed her arms over her chest, looked away and muttered, “Whatever.”
“You can’t tell anyone,” he added, a note of desperation slipping into his voice.
“About your stupid obsession?”
“That’s I’m Phantom.”
Star looked back at him. “Oh, puh-lease. Who would even believe me? If I so much as suggested that you could be him, Paulina would have clawed my eyes out. And that’s without even touching the whole ghost-human hybrid mess you’ve got going on. I’ll pass on looking like a crazy person around everyone.”
He smiled, unbothered by her rude delivery. “Thanks.”
Pointing at him with her sharp nail, she sharply said, “But just to be clear—this does not make us friends.”
“Yeah, um… I don’t know how to say this without coming off as insanely rude, but…” Danny paused for a moment, screwing up his face in thought. And then he blandly said, “Star, I care about you and don’t want you to drop dead all of a sudden. But we must have exchanged no more than five words in the past in total. So… I don’t really want us to be friends.”
She nodded. “Good.”
“So are you gonna talk to anyone or—”
“Yes!” she exclaimed, groaning in frustration. “Are you happy now? I’ll talk to someone! I’ll put off this suicide thing and I’ll give a try to your talking thing. Just don’t follow me around like a stalker or I’ll buy a ghost weapon from your freaky parents. I know how to use some of their stuff, you know.”
He leveled her with a deadpan look. “They’re not freaks, but yeah, I know. I saw you on the pirate ship. You were kind of awesome. Anyway, deal. I’ll leave you alone as long as you try to help yourself.”
They didn’t shake on it, but the verbal agreement was enough, in her opinion. Although he still insisted on walking her back to the street level rather than ditching her on the rooftop, like he was worried she would still take back her word and jump once he turned his back. But she’d promised she wouldn’t—for now, anyway—and she was going to keep her word.
And hey, maybe she could talk to Valerie and rekindle their friendship. That would be nice. And it would give her old friend someone to talk to who wasn’t as much of a loser as Danny Fenton was. Ghost powers or not—the guy was still a nobody nerd who got stuffed in his own locker every other day.
Still, she guessed she kind of owed him.