After the altercation with the Box Ghost, Danny called Tucker and Sam immediately. The three of them then spent the weekend at Tucker's talking about the crazy fact that not only did ghosts really exist and that Danny's parents were onto something huge, but there was no longer any doubt that Danny himself was a half-ghost.
As Tucker kept saying: there was no other explanation for it.
And so they talked and ate pizza and talked some more before passing out in Tucker's living room at nearly three in the morning. The next day they'd begun the Gothica.
That's what Sam called it.
"The Amity park Gothica," she had said. "It's going to be like our Book of Shadows."
"What's a Book of Shadows?" Danny asked.
"A hippie spellbook," Tucker said dryly and munched a candy bar.
"Rude," Sam grumbled. "But no, it will be like our field guide to ghosts! We'll jot down everything we learn EVER about Danny, his powers, the ghosts we meet, everything. That way, we'll have a reference book."
"Why?" they asked.
"Because this is the greatest discovery of all time that Danny's parents have been working toward their whole lives! You've not only seen a ghost, Danny, but you are one! Or half of one. Obviously, that part is a major secret that we will all take to our graves-"
"Ha-ha," Tucker joked and poked Danny, who was already half-dead.
"-but this guide could help people! What if that ghost had been dangerous? We can publish it to warn people and help them defend themselves based on the knowledge that we collect."
"And everyone will call us insane, and no one will believe it or buy it."
"We'll publish it anonymously! Or under a pseudonym, I don't know! It doesn't matter if people believe. What matters is that we should start writing things down. Then, if something happens and the world finds out about ghosts, they'll be prepared!"
The boys looked at each other. They weren't sure it was the best idea - having physical documentation laying around that talked about ghosts and Danny's strange powers was just asking for trouble - but they also saw how excited she was.
"You're not gonna name me in it, right?" Danny asked.
"No, of course not. We'll classify you as...'Subject Phantom' or something."
"Clever."
"Alright," Tucker finally agreed, "but I'm totally digitizing this as we go. No way am I going to log this stuff the old fashion way."
So they started with everything they knew: the accident, Danny's powers, and the ghostly encounter. It had actually been almost cathartic in a way for Danny, who had felt so terrified and alone in the basement. Now it was like they were taking action: getting ahead of the bizarre and the supernatural in a mundane, human way.
"Oh, one last thing," Sam said, looking up from her notebook that she said was temporary until they bought a real bound book to put their notes in, "why do you think that the Box Ghost flew away into the portal?"
Danny sighed. "Why else? My parents were right about that, too. They literally built a portal to the 'other side'."
It was too much for them all to suddenly consider the possibility of an afterlife, but then Tucker asked a critical question.
"Does that mean… the portal is open?"
They all looked at one another.
"It must be," Danny answered gravely.
.
.
.
"If you thought that being you was hard before..."
Tucker was making a joke, but Danny gulped as he stood before the door to Mr. Lancer's classroom. It wasn't a surprise that he'd been called in for detention. What surprised him was how nervous he was.
"How am I supposed to explain what happened, Tuck?"
"I dunno, dude. I think you've got options, though."
"I'm not going to pretend that falling through the Fenton Portal has given me some kind of permanent brain damage."
"Why not? Everyone thinks you do, especially the way that you gasped, jumped up, and ran out of the room today."
"That's because my body did that thing again where it feels like it is super cold, and then I can see my breath!"
"Which makes no sense, by the way. Why would you be the only one who suddenly feels cold when a ghost is around?"
Danny lowered his voice to a whisper. "We don't know that that's the reason that I'm doing it."
"It is the only explanation I can think of. Like you said, every time you do that, a ghost shows up. Did you get a good look this time?"
"I caught a glimpse of a woman floating down the hallway. She was larger, older, and probably died of natural causes. White hair? Maybe a former librarian?"
"Spooky," Tucker said, jotting Danny's description down in his phone notes. "I'll dig into the school's archives while you serve detention. Maybe we can figure out who it is? Oh, and good luck explaining why you freaked out today."
"Gee, thanks."
Tucker patted him on the shoulder and headed for the library, where he would no doubt hack into the school records. Most kids would use that kind of power to increase their GPA, but Tucker already had pretty good grades (when he wasn't slacking off playing games on his phone during class).
Danny pushed the door open and took a deep breath as he stepped inside Mr. Lancer's English room.
All the desks were empty. The walls were covered in books, both shiny paperbacks, and bound hardcovers. Next to Lancer's faculty computer on the desk was a personal laptop which no doubt held the contents of the never-finished novel he was writing.
Sitting at that desk and grading essays with an intimidating red pen was Mr. Lancer, a bald, goateed, middle-aged English major who had once promised himself this teaching job was a temporary position.
"Fenton. Have a seat."
He suspected that Mr. Lancer got away with calling students only by their last names because he was also the acting vice-principal.
Danny took his seat, which was about four desks away from Lancer's, and waited for the inevitable questions to come up. After the questions would no doubt be a lecture, and after that, he would have to sit here and stew about what he'd done (disrupting class, leaving early, evading questions and teachers) for an hour before he could head home with Tucker.
He still wasn't sure how to explain anything. It wasn't like he could say that he had possibly sensed a ghost and had run out of the room for fear of turning into one himself in self-defense as he had with the Box Ghost. Not to mention he didn't want to use his accident as a crutch as Tucker had suggested.
But as time ticked on and the red pen made its marks on page after page, the questions never came. Danny wasn't foolish enough to bring it up if Lancer wasn't going to, so he ended up pulling out some homework and reading his World History textbook for tomorrow's test.
After a half-hour had passed in complete silence, Lancer finally set down his pen.
"So. Any plans for the weekend?"
The weekend? Danny hoped that this wasn't a set-up to send him to Saturday detention, too.
"Um, family stuff. Y'know, card games, Jackbox. We bond a lot these days." It was an honest answer for once.
Lancer logged into his laptop. "I'm sure you do. That happens after these kinds of things."
Danny frowned. "What kinds of things?"
Lancer wasn't the teacher to mince words or dance around students' feelings. "Family accidents."
Oh, Danny thought. He's coddling me.
Somehow that rubbed Danny the wrong way. He'd rather that Lancer ran him through the motions of grilling him about what had happened, lectured him, and then offered up stony silence for the remainder of detention than be handled with care.
Then again, Lancer could have not given Danny detention in the first place. Maybe because he'd done it anyway, it was proof that Lancer hadn't gone totally soft.
Danny didn't respond and Lancer didn't expect him to. Instead, the room filled with the quiet sounds of laptop keys slowly building up a decade-long novel that still wouldn't be finished by summer as Lancer intended every year.
.
.
.
When detention was over, Danny raced out of the room and met Tucker in the library. He arrived and saw that Tucker was suavely chatting up a girl with red hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Danny, not wanting to interrupt and make things potentially awkward, swerved and headed for a bookshelf. It was in the YA section that he ran into Sam.
"Sam?"
"Danny?"
"What are you still doing at school?" he asked.
"I got roped into helping late in P.E. with Tetslaff and saw Tucker in here on my way out. He filled me in. I was helping him look in the archives when one of the girls from the esports club showed up, and now he won't stop flirting with her."
"So you're hiding in the stacks looking for...?"
"Nothing really. I doubt I'll find anything real on ghosts, and YA isn't really my style since I found dark fantasy back in ninth grade. Not to mention this school doesn't have a single poetry book, so…"
Sam shrugged and Danny laughed a little. He liked how disappointed she always seemed to be with Casper High.
Grey Griffin, the girl that Tucker wouldn't stop flirting with, heard Danny's laugh and smiled.
"They're cute together," she said offhand. Tucker frowned in confusion and turned to follow her gaze.
Danny and Sam were pressed close behind a couple of shelves and whispering about something, which only made Danny laugh again but harder.
"Are they dating?"
Tucker turned to Grey with a shocked expression.
"No! I mean, no, we're all just friends."
"Hm. Shame, they're really cute.
"Yeah, you said that… listen, I gotta finish this before I leave tonight, so I'll see you Saturday for esports, okay?"
Grey looked disappointed but agreed. On her way out the door, her fingers trailed for a brief moment over Tucker's shoulder, but he didn't even notice.
He was focused on Danny and Sam.
"Ahem, hello? Ghost research over here?" he called once Grey had left.
Danny and Sam turned to face him.
"We were waiting for you to stop fawning over the esports girl, Tucker," Sam countered. "Did you even remember I was here or see Danny come in?"
He looked between the two of them.
"Of course I did. Nothing gets past me."
"Good, find me that ghost," Danny said, sitting down at the neighboring computer.
Tucker pulled up the tabs he had minimized when Grey had walked up and showed them his current research.
"So there was this faculty member who worked here in the nineteen-fifties named Patty Heath. She was a lunch lady who apparently invented the Sloppy Joe sauce we still use today. She got an award for it, I guess. Well, anyway, she is the only faculty member who died on-site, and I found a photo..."
Tucker pulled up a photo of a woman in her mid-fifties in a nice dress accepting an award that looked like a trophy made from a large metal spoon with a ribbon around it. She was round, older-looking, and had short white hair that fell near to her shoulders.
"That's gotta be her."
"You sure?"
"Positive."
"What happened to her?" Sam asked, her voice low.
Tucker pulled back up his records. "I found a newspaper clipping from the day after she died back in the late fifties. Apparently, she was just nearing retirement when she died of a heart attack during lunch. I guess it was pretty traumatic, and a lot of kids went home that day."
"That's horrible." Sam's expression fell.
Tucker paused. "Oh... well, yeah, but it's okay, Sam." He reached up to touch her for a second, to offer comfort, but he thought better of it.
"What do we do now?" Danny asked.
"Um, well," Sam said, collecting herself, "basically the Gothica is meant to help people if ghosts ever attacked them, but maybe we can help ghosts move on, too."
"You mean if we can successfully send ghosts back to the… 'other side,' then we can teach other people how to do it?" Tucker asked.
"I mean, I guess."
"Well then," Danny said, standing up and crossing his arms. "I never thought I'd say this, but…"
They looked up at him and waited.
"We're hunting ghosts tonight."