"Hey, Sam."
She turned around to see her best friend coming up to her. She smiled a little as she walked up to where they met on the way to school.
"Hey," she as she stopped at the corner of the street that connected this one with the one to the school. Casper High, the only high school in Amity Park. As far as the sign outside said, it was nice, but with the occasional ghost threat, it wasn't all that great. Too bad the greatest chance the town had was now missing. They were walking to school together and passed a house with a 'Fenton Works' sign on it.
"It's been a year now, hasn't it?" Sam asked.
"Yeah," Tucker said sighing as he looked over to his friend sadly. A year now, ever since that day. She'd looked at the house every day, and it never got any better. Her eyes had lost all hope, but he already knew that. Jazz knew too, hence the hope that they held for her too.
Flashback To A Year Ago...In Freshman Year...
"Hey, Danny!"
"What do you want Sam?" Danny said in a deadpan voice.
"Woah, whatever happened to you?" Tucker asked.
"-and hello's," Sam couldn't help but add.
"Nothing," he grumbled as he slammed his locker closed.
"Sure, you don't-?"
"Yes," he said dephly turning his back on his friends as he headed away from his locker to his first period.
"What's his problem?" Sam asked.
"I don't know, but it's been going on ever since last week. He's getting really moody and-"
"Emo?"
"Well, that's another way to put it," he replied shrugging.
"Well, we'd better find out."
As it turned out Danny had avoided them the rest of the day. They didn't see him anywhere. Later they went to the Fenton house to see if he was there, but he wasn't. The family said that he was missing and that they were going to go out to ghost hunt and bring Danny back.
"He's not coming back is he?"
"What?" Tucker said coming out of his thoughts.
"He's not coming back and I'll never get to tell him...," she said, looking down.
"We'll see him-"
"Tucker? How can you have hope?" Sam yelled before running the rest of the way to school, leaving Tucker, once again, feeling sorry for her as he sighed and walked the rest of the way to school.
"Class, we have a new student from...Mashton, Tennessee. His name is James Martin," Mr. Lancer said, as he was the new principal.
"What kind of name is James?" Dash said, being heard, from the back of the class.
"Really, what's your name? Dash?" James said glaring at him.
Dash cowered as he tried to figure out how the new kid knew his name. James looked away with a grin as Sam watched him. The rest of the class was shocked as the teacher took the chance to read the paper with James's wasn't until minutes later that the class started to chatter. With the jumble of the class's excitement was Tucker.
"Wow, how did he know that? Sam? Sam?" Tucker said as he waved a hand in her face. Following her gaze, he found the attention magnet. The new kid...of course! He looked the part of the 'bad influence' a black shirt with dark green edgings and a chain with a 'D' on it, it was no wonder. Sam seemed to prefer the rebellious ones.
"Mr. Baxter, you will get a detention for that remark. He's starting off new and I don't want you to start off by bullying kids like before," Lancer said.
"James, you can sit next to Mrs. Manson," the teacher said.
He made no acknowledgement that he heard him as he headed to the seat. Sitting down, he paid no notice as the classes eyes followed before the teacher called attention. Jamed wore a lot of black and his eyes were blue, but the preps were already thinking of how he would look in colors. The jocks thought more the same but only two specifics came to mind. (Well, they are dumb.) Sam kept an eye on him, until the teacher called her attention and she found herself blushing.
"Wow, Sam. you were all over that boy, weren't you," Tucker said as they sat down to lunch.
"NO! I mean, of course not."
"Real-l-l-l-y?"
"Tucker Adam Foley, if you-"
"Hey," came a voice to their side. They both looked up to see that James was standing there,"Can I sit here?"
"Sure," Sam said, without hesitation as he smirked and sat down to his meal of a hamburger and an apple.
"Don't eat much, do you man?" Tucker said looking at his plate.
"Not really. I don't have much money," he replied, taking a bite out of his burger.
"You have a job? What about your family?"
"I have a job...I left"
"Your family?" Sam asked as something clicked. He had the same problem as Danny did.
"Yeah," he said as he kept eating.
"I wish Danny could hear that. He probably would have come back and started anew...or at least kept contact," Sam said looking down as she poked her salad.
"Who's Danny?" James asked, concealing a snarl.
"One of our best friends," Tucker said as James stopped eating and, abruptly, got up to threw away the rest of his food before walking away.
"What's his problem?"
Suddenly there was a crash as parts of the ceiling fell and crumbled. In the midst of the dust gathered was a young ghostly form. He had black and white hair with a red, black, white, and green was running, as was usual for Amity, and most people were out of the building. In the midst of the dust were four shadows.
"PHANTOM'S BACK!" the people yelled as they ran away.