Rose got to punching Dash before I could the next day, which was both awesome and terrible. It was awesome because Rose gave Dash such a wrath-filled beating that Dash couldn't move for the next few minutes, but it was terrible because it landed both of us in detention (I had insisted that I had goaded Rose into punching Dash) and I had really wanted to hit Dash myself.

There was more good news, though. The school would be having a big talent show, something that Rose was really hyped for. Rose told me he was going to find out if he was allowed to enter the competition as Shadow, even though Shadow was a ghost and didn't go to Casper High. Rose, in Shadow form, had actually been allowed to enter, which was a win in itself. A bunch of rules had been made up on the spot to accommodate the fact that a ghost had entered, such as "No weapons allowed" and "Using ecto-blasts is only permitted when in danger". Silly stuff like that.

Rose had tried to convince me to sign up as Phantom, but I flat-out refused. I didn't feel like showing up to school in Phantom form just to get mobbed. It was nearly the end of the school year anyway; next year Rose and I would be juniors and in a few weeks we would have our two-year-anniversary. Though, new problems were popping up.

Rose's eye began to flash turquoise more often as he got frustrated more often with all the school and Mr. Lancer noticed. He even pulled Rose aside after class one day to talk to Shadow. I had, of course, listened in while invisible.

"Mr. Shadow," Mr. Lancer had said, "please give me warning next time you wish to join a classroom discussion and decide to overshadow one of my students."

"W-What?" Rose stuttered.

"Yes, I saw Rose Forrest's eye flash turquoise, Mr. Shadow. I know the signs of an overshadowing when I see it."

"Er, I-I'll do that, Mr. Lancer."

Rose's eye had flashed turquoise once more in nervousness before he skittered off out of the classroom, and I followed. We would have to be more careful from now on if we wanted to keep our secrets intact.

***line break***

Rose floated near me, bored out of his mind but unwilling to bail out on the talent show. It was the last day of school and we had pretended that Rose had gotten sick. Instead, Shadow had come by to disrupt everyone.

"Mr. Shadow," Lancer finally snapped, "would you please stop disrupting my class?"

"Eh," Rose sighed, shrugging. "I don't have much to do. It's my deathday, you know. The other ghosts can't attack me on my deathday. Laws and such." The class was silent, and Rose seemed to notice that he'd stunned the class. "What? You can't really expect a ghost to remember his birthday from when he was alive, do you? No," he sighed softly, "after you die, you forget a lot about your human life. Your birthday is replaced by your deathday, and I died on the last day of school of my sophomore year."

The day was relatively quiet after that and Mr. Lancer stopped looking frustrated every time Rose make little distractions. Instead, he now seemed to almost pity Rose's ghost form. It was like no one had ever considered that maybe their ghost heroes had been alive at one point.

Paulina tried to ask him how he'd died, but he'd refused to answer and her A-lister friends had made her stop in fear of making Rose angry. Rose seemed pretty relaxed the entire day, even receiving a few presents from other ghosts for his deathday. A deathday really did seem like a birthday for ghosts; then again, I supposed it was. A deathday was celebrated every two years, apparently, instead of annually. Not that Rose seemed to mind it; instead, he seemed to relax more.

Skulker had given Rose a bit of technology to mess around with, which Rose delighted in electrocuting to see the pretty little red-and-blue sparks that it made. Ember had given Rose a new headset (and Rose had, in return, forced a hug upon the pop singer ghost). Kitty had dropped by with two presents, one from her and one from Johnny. Kitty's present was a make-up set that always had whatever makeup you wanted in it; Rose adored it to no end and a few girls had even managed to convince Rose to let them give him a make-over. Johnny's present was a communicator, something that let Rose always contact Johnny whenever he wanted. And Rose probably loved that more than anything.

Though, the longer Rose stayed in his ghost form, the more often he slipped into the ghost language. He didn't really seem to realize it when he slid into it until someone pointed it out, though he did slide back into English on his own after a bit. After it was brought to his attention that he was slipping into ghost, he made a better effort to speak English and stopped speaking in a language that no one in the school except for me could understand.

***line break***

Rose did such a good job at the talent show that I didn't know what to think. He got Ember and Kitty to join him in singing, and they did so well that it would be a wonder if they didn't win.

"Oh whoa ho, oh whoa," the three sang together. "You didn't know that you fell~... oh whoa ho, oh whoa..."

"Now that you're under our spell," Ember chuckled.

"Blindsided by the beat," Rose sang, "clapping your hand, stomping your feet...~ You didn't know that you fell...~"

"Oh whoa ho, whoa..~" Kitty and Ember sang together.

Their song got the entire school into a sort of trace, though I noticed that Rose wasn't letting Ember or Kitty do anything destructive.

"Listen to the sound of my voice~," Rose purred into his microphone, the two girls still humming in the background. "Soon you'll find you don't have a choice~..."

***line break***

Rose mysteriously vanished right before the prizes were given out, forcing the second-place winner to receive first-place. It was a humble thing to do, even though I was pretty sure it was just because the trophy couldn't be seen in the Fenton household or else people would get suspicious. After the talent show, Rose shifted into his dog form and decided to give Jazz and I a surprise ride home, picking us up by the backs of our shirts and happily running off to FentonWorks with us dangling from his mouth.

He dropped us off safely at the door and then vanished, probably back to my room where he was supposed to be in human form. Sure enough, when I went to my room he tackled me in his human form. Everything was okay, and hopefully the summer wouldn't completely suck. Then again, getting breaks didn't happen very often. Only on deathdays, apparently.