"You're a ghost?"

Danny turned so white that Coraline felt the obvious comparison would be too cliche. "W-what? That's – that's totally ridiculous." He forced a laugh, but it came out sounding weak and slightly scared.

"You are, aren't you?" Coraline continued, growing more convinced with every passing second. Things were starting to slot into place. "That's why my stone shocked you, and that's why you're so weird around me, and that's why you have a ghost sense – not that I know what that is – and -"

"Tucker!"

Danny's door opened a crack, and Tucker looked around it. "Okay, I don't want to keep fighting with you over – Coraline!" Suddenly, he was all smiles, although Coraline noticed that his grin looked a little strained. "Uh, how long have you been standing there?"

"What did you tell her, Tucker?" Danny demanded.

"What? I didn't tell her anything!"

"Then why does she know all this stuff? And don't pretend you weren't listening."

"Um," Coraline said, but the boys didn't seem to hear her.

"I told you, I didn't tell her anything! Believe it or not, I don't spend all my free time talking to cute girls about you."

"Um," Coraline repeated, feeling a blush starting to creep its way up her neck.

"Tucker, we talked about this -"

"No, dude, you talked about this. You already ruined my shot at Valerie with that stupid overshadowing stunt -"

"Not now! And Sam really wanted to go -"

"So why couldn't you have taken her?"

"Um," Coraline tried again, a little more decisively. Both boys ignored her.

"Tucker, you know I had a date with Paulina!"

"And I had a date with Valerie. But you didn't care about that, did you? You just used me -"

"Hel-lo? I'm still here!" Thankfully, this time Coraline actually got their attention. "So…wait, you actually are a ghost?"

There was a moment of absolute silence, then Tucker muttered, "Dude, you are so lucky your parents aren't home."

Danny gave Tucker the best dirty look Coraline had ever seen. "Why would you think I'm a ghost?" he asked Coraline, with a laugh that sounded much more natural than the first one, but Coraline still wasn't buying it. "I mean, that's not possible."

Coraline rolled her eyes. "You two just all but told me I'm right, so don't try and pretend I'm not."

Danny scowled, and Tucker put on a look of wounded innocence. "Hey, don't look at me."

"So. Ghost?"

Danny winced. "No. Not really." Coraline barely heard the mumbled sentence that came afterwards. "I'm only half."

"Half? How can you be half a ghost?"

Danny shrugged. "My parents are the scientists, not me. All I know is that I got zapped by their portal and now I'm telling all my secrets to somebody I barely know and definitely don't trust."

Coraline was bursting with questions, but after that last pointed remark she figured it might be a good idea to keep them to herself. So she satisfied her curiosity on only one count. "Portal?"

"Ghost portal. It was supposed to be a door into the ghost dimension. And unfortunately for me, it actually worked." The look on his face said clearly that he wasn't going to be answering any more questions. "How did you find out, anyway?"

Coraline shrugged. "I pay attention. And you glow."

"What?"

Coraline held up the stone with a hole in it. "Things look a little different through this. Ghosts glow green. And so do you."

"Let me see that?" Tucker reached over and took the stone from Coraline, holding it up to his eye like a monocle. "Whoa dude, she's right. You look like the Toxic Avenger or something." He gazed around the hall, before turning back to Coraline. "Where'd you get this?"

"It was a gift. From the old ladies who lived downstairs in my old apartment."

"So why were you looking at ghosts with it?" Danny asked.

"There's one in my house. And he keeps waking me up in the middle of the night and getting me in trouble."

"Gee, I have no idea what that feels like," Danny grumbled. Coraline decided that this probably wasn't the best time to ask.

"Anyway, it's getting really annoying and I was gonna come ask your parents if they'd take care of it for me." She left out the part where she'd been hoping they'd actually catch her resident specter, and then she'd have solid (well, semi-solid) proof that strange and otherworldly things did exist. Given that she'd just accused Danny of being a ghost and turned out to be at least half-right, she suddenly didn't think that convincing him and his friends that monsters existed would be too much of a stretch.

"Wait. You have a ghost in your house?"

"Yeah. He keeps getting into all my stuff that's still packed up and trying to steal the boxes."

Coraline wasn't sure what was so funny.

"You're being haunted by the Box Ghost?" Tucker managed between gasps.

"Yeah, that's what he -" Coraline paused. "Wait, you guys know him?"

"Not so much 'know' as 'throw back into the Ghost Zone at least once a day'," Danny answered, "but yeah."

" 'Throw back into the Ghost Zone?' "

"Yeah, we catch the ghosts that come out of the portal and put them back," Tucker volunteered.

"Tucker!"

"What? She's interested, and she might as well know everything."

"Okay, so have I got this right?" Coraline asked, feeling like her head was spinning. "So you are half a ghost, because of an accident with your parents' portal, and now it lets ghosts out into town all the time, so you guys go around catching them again?"

Danny sounded both exasperated and exhausted when he said, "Close enough."

"And nobody else knows about this?"

"Well, Sam does, but she's the only one."

Now that Tucker'd mentioned it, Sam's absence was glaringly obvious. Coraline hoped that the sudden sinking feeling in her stomach didn't show in her voice when she asked, "Where is Sam, anyway?"

Tucker shrugged."She had some goth thing she wanted to go to. And we're playing Doomed. Sam isn't into that kind of stuff."

Coraline exhaled.

She was about to ask another question, but just as she opened her mouth, the redheaded girl she assumed was Danny's sister called up the stairs. "Danny? Are you guys all right up there?"

"Fine, Jazz!" Danny shouted back, and Coraline turned around to see the redhead, standing at the foot of the stairs, cross her arms and frown.

"I heard you shouting something about ghosts. I hope Mom and Dad's unhealthy obsessions isn't interfering with your socialization -"

"Jazz!"

"We're just trying to figure out how to beat the haunted tiki room level," Tucker interjected innocently. "The ghost guardians keep kicking us back a level."

The redhead – Jazz – raised an eyebrow, but didn't argue. "Well, could you do it a little more quietly? I'm trying to read, and if Mom and Dad come home and hear you shouting about ghosts they'll barge in shooting first and maybe ask questions later."

"Sure," Danny sighed. "Come on, guys, let's go to my room."