Hey, just a quick note. I honestly sort of came up with Rachel's cover as the art exhibition thing on the spot. I honestly have no idea how an art exhibition works, so...don't kill me?

(and, by the way, thank you to Guest and morethanarepairboy for their reviews!)

Rachel liked Danny.

He reminded her a lot of Percy – his easygoing, laidback nature, his friendly grin, his complete idiocy and thickheadedness. It had only been a day, but after spending the day with him, Sam and Tucker at the Nasty Burger, it had been enough.

Tucker was hilarious, and Sam was fantastic. The goth girl had obviously had some reservations about her, but it was easy to talk to her, and Sam had seemed to relax the more Rachel had blabbered on endlessly. (Sam actually reminded Rachel vaguely of Annabeth, when Rachel had first met her with Percy in Times Square. She had also seemed to brighten up considerably after Rachel had told her about her no-dating rule - she was still the Oracle, after all, even if she was getting nothing from the spirit of Delphi.) Danny had complained a lot – about the world, about his parents, about the stupid ghosts that infested the town, about their dismal popularity status.

Rachel had scoffed, at that last one. Sam had scoffed along with her.

And she had also met – or rather, seen – Paulina. The apparently oh-so-flawless girl that Danny and Tucker both hadn't been able to take their eyes off. She reminded Rachel of one of the Aphrodite girls, very much like Drew Tanaka and her gang of cronies, before Piper had come along and radically changed the way things were run in the Aphrodite cabin.

And today, she was heading to Casper High with Danny.

"You got everything with you, Rachel?" asked Maddie, once Rachel had clattered her way downstairs, a bright blue hairbrush sticking out of her pocket.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "Everything I need. Besides, I'm just going to be doing the art exhibition stuff, and then, you know, I'll see how it goes on tomorrow and everything, so it'll be fine."

"Do you want some breakfast, Rachel?" Jack boomed out.

"No," a voice whispered into her ear, and Danny appeared next to her, hair ruffled, shadows under his eyes. He sent her a frantic glance: "Say no."

"It's okay," said Rachel, grinning. "Not hungry."

"Good choice," Danny muttered.

"You okay?" Rachel asked him, as she followed him along the streets. "You look exhausted."

Danny shrugged, and flashed her a tired grin. "Was trying to finish up my homework?"

Rachel frowned. She knew that tone. It was the same kind of tone that Percy used when he was trying to hide something from her, like that summer he'd turned sixteen, the few times she'd asked him about camp and he'd tried to hide the truth from her as much as possible and come up with some lousy excuse for a truth. (Not like she'd asked him very often – after all, he'd mainly spent time with her because he had to get away from camp. She could respect that.)

But there was definitely no doubt about it. Danny was hiding something. What he said had totally been an excuse.

She tried to dismiss it. It was probably nothing. Maybe he'd just snuck out to see Sam and Tucker, or something. But there was something in the way he shifted his feet nervously as he walked, and the way his eyes flickered to her and to the front again, that reminded her, again, of Percy, and the other demigods around camp.

There was definitely something more.

"And who are you?"

Rachel blinked at the old, bald teacher standing in front of her, a clipboard over his pot belly. He was looking at her with something that looked very much like contempt. Perhaps it was something to do with her ratty shirt, or her jeans that were covered with paint and marker drawings, which included a rather violent drawing of Tyson.

"Um, Mr Lancer, this is Rachel," said Danny, hurriedly. "She's supposed to be helping out with the art exhibition, or something. Like that."

"Really." Mr Lancer raised his eyebrows.

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare," Rachel said. "I think I emailed you – "

"Ah! Ms Dare!" Lancer's face brightened up considerably as the name registered in his head, and for the moment he could ignore her rather disturbing outfit. "From Clarion Academy, yes?"

Rachel squirmed uncomfortably. "Yes."

"I've heard wonderful things about you and your artwork – "

"Really?" said Rachel. "Because my art teachers think I'm nuts."

"Nonetheless, your artwork seems to be a huge topic and very well regarded," said Lancer. "We've set aside the gym for the exhibition – "

"Wait," said Danny. "Does that mean there's no gym class?"

"Yes, Mr Fenton," sighed Lancer, "it does."

"All right!"

When Danny wandered into the gym after school – it had been a wonderfully ghost-free day, with only some stupid glowing green frog halfway during lunch, which had been easily tackled – with Tucker and Sam, it was to find Rachel having taken over the entire gym.

Boxes lay scattered on the ground, sculptures and paintings and drawings carefully being placed up around the gym. Students were racing from one project to the next – he could see two kids putting up a painting on the wall, another pair setting up a sculpture, another three trying to unroll and put up a drawing – and in the middle of it was Rachel, directing, her hair in a tangled mess, pawing through an open box and lifting up strange-looking ornaments.

"Well," said Sam, "she looks like she's completely in her element."

"No, that goes over there! Oh, jeez, no, you've got to put that up carefully, this way – hey! You in the green shirt! What do you think you're doing? Don't you dare drop that! Hey, wow, this is amazing, this is so cool – hey, where do you think this should go? No, I meant that! Here? I was planning on putting that over here, though – "

"She doesn't stop talking, does she?" Tucker asked.

"Nope," said Danny, remembering dinner the previous night. Jack had talked endlessly about ghosts – but once Maddie had asked Rachel about her artwork, and about New York, there had been no stopping her. She was like a monster truck – barrelling everything down in her way. Danny had probably heard more about a guy called Percy Jackson and a girl called Annabeth Chase and yet another guy called Grover Underwood more than he'd ever wanted to.

"Hey! Are you here to help?"

Rachel had popped up in front of them, dragging her blue plastic hairbrush through her frizzy hair, trying to get it into a manageable shape. She beamed at them.

"Actually," said Sam, hurriedly, taking in the gym around her, "I've got, like, loads of stuff to do, you know. Gotta go – sorry, Rachel!"

She beat a hasty retreat, leaving the two boys standing in front of the girl from New York.

"Uh, yeah, me too," said Tucker, sending Danny a look that read sorry, man, you're on your own. "Lots of techno-geek stuff to do, you know? Bye!"

He was out of the gym in seconds.

Danny swallowed and turned to Rachel, who was now frowning, and had stuffed her hairbrush back into her jeans pocket. She turned to look at him pleadingly.

Well, he thought, there haven't been any ghost attacks. And Sam and Tucker can call if anything happens.

"I guess I'm here to stay," he grinned at her, sheepishly.

A smile split across her face. "Fantastic!"

"Hey, FEN-TINA!"

Danny winced, and raised his head from the box he'd been looking through, sorting through tiny sculpture-stuff that looked almost exactly the same to him. Next to him, Rachel raised her head as well, from a stack of papers she'd been sorting through. Danny could see a familiar, bulky blond hair make his way through the gym, pushing aside a skinny, geeky-looking boy who had accidentally stepped in his path.

"Oh, shit," he muttered.

Rachel scowled as she saw the poor geek get tossed to the side.

Dash Baxter came to a stop in front of the raven-haired boy, a frown on his face. "Hey, Fen-turd, you think – "

And then he caught sight of the redhead getting to her feet next to Danny.

His eyes widened. "Whoa."

Almost instantly, his face smoothened out, a large smile replacing his scowl. "And who are you?" he asked her. "I don't think I'd forget such a beautiful face."

Danny found himself scowling as Dash smiled at Rachel. Stupid Dash Baxter –

Rachel raised her eyebrows at him.

"Are you trying to flirt with me?" she asked, bluntly.

"Will you tell me your name?" Dash drawled, now attempting to show off his arm muscles. Danny had to fight back the snarky sentences rising up in his throat. He did not want to get beaten up into a pulp or stuffed into a locker, not when Dash was now ignoring him completely. And especially not in front of Rachel.

"Rachel," she said. "Rachel Elizabeth Dare." She turned to Danny. "Who is this joker?"

Dash blinked at her, as if he wasn't really sure what he was seeing, and hearing. Danny wasn't sure himself, either.

"Um," Danny said. "This is Dash Baxter. Most popular guy at Casper High."

"That's right," said Dash, drawing himself up. "I am." He grinned at Rachel again.

"Are you here to help?" she asked.

Dash blinked again. "Huh?"

"The art exhibition," said Rachel. "You are, right? I mean, that's why you're here, isn't it? To help with the exhibition? Because we really need loads of help, and you definitely can help with the heavy stuff – "

"I can do that!" Dash said. "I can totally lift up all the heavy stuff. You wanna see me carry them?"

"No, not really," said Rachel. "I just need you to do it. And listen to Danny, because he's, like, helping me out here."

Dash turned to glare at Danny, who grinned at him and shrugged. He could see the jock fighting the temptation to smash him into a pulp. It reminded him of the time Dash had been forced to invite Danny to his party, because of Jazz.

"Okay," he grunted. "I'll listen to Fen-turd."

"That guy's a total jerk, isn't he?"

Rachel was watching Dash lift up a large, heavy sculpture.

Danny blinked at her. "Yeah. Yeah, he is, actually. His favourite hobby is probably stuffing me into a locker and beating me up, or something. Or maybe beating me up, and then stuffing me into a locker. It depends on his mood."

Rachel shook her head, a disgusted expression twisting her face. "I hate idiots like that."

"Well, you're going to have fun chasing him off," said Danny. "Last time, he was interested in my sister, Jazz. He was even willing to invite me to his super-popular party to get on her good side."

"What d'you mean, even willing?"

Danny shrugged, diving his head back down into the box and lifting up another tiny sculpture thingamabob. "You know. Sam, and Tucker, and me. We're not exactly popular in Casper High. We're, like, considered the complete losers."

"So what?"

He tore his eyes away from the thingamabob to look at Rachel, who was looking at him with her bright green eyes, her legs crossed, the papers she'd been looking through spread on the floor in front of her.

For a moment, he thought that she was joking, but she was looking at him very seriously.

"So what?" she repeated. "Whether you're popular or considered a loser? I mean, you've got Tucker and Sam, right?"

"Yeah." Danny smiled. "Yeah, they're amazing."

"See?" Rachel shrugged. "You've got a family who loves you – " Danny thought he heard her voice catch slightly, as if family was a touchy subject for her " – and amazing friends who are always by your side." She swallowed, slightly. "You're a lucky kid, Danny."

Danny took a long look at this strange, frizzy-haired girl, who was now rummaging through the papers again. He thought of his sleepless nights, his ridiculous parents, his many injuries and enemies he'd gained.

"Lucky," he said. "Maybe."

"I saw a ghost today," Rachel said, conversationally, the way someone would say something like I went to the mall today. Danny frowned. For a girl who had come to Amity Park for the first time, she seemed awfully at ease with the fact that there were ghosts around.

"Yeah?" Danny asked. "Which one?"

"I was kind of hoping you could tell me that," Rachel admitted. She thought of Nico, sitting across her, asking her for help. She thought of the ghost she'd seen sailing through the hallways earlier that day, chasing some glowing green frog who'd been wrecking the school. He'd been a blur as he whizzed past her, but she could remember some details clearly enough. "He had these really bright green eyes, and white hair, and he was wearing this black-and-white jumpsuit thing – "

"Danny Phantom," said Danny.

She blinked. "Danny – Danny Phantom?" She stared at him. "Isn't that a lot like your name?"

He chuckled. "Well, yeah, it is, actually. He's the ghost boy, kind of a regular hero around here."

"But I read something about him, somewhere," said Rachel. "Didn't they think he was a bad guy?"

Danny frowned, his face darknening. "Well, yeah. He's been framed a lot of times for stuff he didn't do, because the other ghosts are usually out to get them, 'cause he's always stopping their plans for world domination and all that."

Rachel could hear the passion, the ferocity in his voice.

"You sound like you know him well," she told him.

At that, his face changed abruptly, and he let out a nervous laugh: "Hey, when your parents are ghost hunters and you spend your whole life living in this town, you get to know a thing or two."

Rachel turned her face away, but there was a frown on her face. She knew it, clear as day, that Danny was definitely hiding something. He was really very bad at keeping a secret. And this secret had something to do with Danny Phantom – a ghost that Nico had asked her to watch out for especially, going into an endless rant about the amount of paperwork the ghost boy had caused him.

But if this was Danny's secret, did she really have to pry? Yeah, she was curious, of course it was. She'd grown even more curious about the world since the voice of the spirit of Delphi had abruptly shut down on her. But she liked Danny, even after only a day of knowing him. She didn't want to come bursting in on his secret.

Idly, she wondered if she should have trusted Danny with that box of tiny sculptures. He had mentioned that he was a complete klutz –

All at once, the box next to her began glowing brightly, and then began to float.

Rachel let out a yelp and scrambled backwards.

All around the gym, boxes full of artwork were glowing, flying up into the air, spinning round and round and round.

Next to her, Danny let out a sigh, and his face held an annoyed expression.

"I'll be right back," he said to Rachel, who whipped her head around as the scrawny boy stumbled up onto his feet and raced behind a particularly large canvas painting.

Where was he going?

But more importantly, what was happening to the boxes? The boxes that held so much precious artwork? The boxes that she'd spent so much time arranging around, moving here and there, and sorting through?

Her answer came soon enough.

"BEWARE! I AM THE BOX GHOST!"