Chapter Text
*
Chapter 2: But Ghosts Don’t Exist
High school started out normal enough. Dash had four classes per semester, totalling eight classes. He was forced to take a foreign language class, so he took Spanish. He also had an English, mathematics, and physical education class this semester. Dash was looking forward to gym class but dreaded the others, especially math class. He had never been good at math, not in the way Danny – well, Dash tried not to think about Danny after the first day of school. It was hard, because they shared three quarters of their classes, but Dash thought he was doing a good job of avoiding the other boy.
Since the first day, when Dash shoved Danny into his locker, the latter hadn’t approached or talked to the former at all. It made Dash feel guilty, but he did what he had to do. Danny made Dash feel things that weren’t okay. They couldn’t be friends anymore.
Dash thought that everything would be fine after.
Until the teasing started again.
“You know, I haven’t seen you rough up Fenton since last week,” Dale observed over lunch. “Are you sure you’re not holding an old flame for him?”
Dash was half tempted to shove Dale into a locker, just like he did with Danny, but knew he couldn’t. Dale was probably the most popular freshman, if freshmen could be popular in high school. His father was a huge donor to Casper High School, and Dale was projected to become the star quarter back. Dash could not make an enemy of Dale, or his whole high school career would be down the toilet.
“I’m not gay!” Dash denied vehemently. “Why do you keep pushing that on me, dude?”
“I’m just saying, you used to spend a lot of time with Fenton. I wouldn’t be surprised if you two did … things together.” Dale made a disgusted face. “You spent so much time with that loser, I’m surprised you aren’t a loser yourself.”
“Danny and I didn’t – we didn’t do anything!” Dash stuttered out. “There’s nothing between us – we’re not even friends anymore! I’ll show you!”
Dash stood from his cafeteria table, where the jocks sat, and stormed over to Danny’s loser table. With him sat Foley and Manson. Dash pretended he didn’t feel the twinge in his chest when he saw how they laughed and talked. He was not jealous over Danny’s friends. He wasn’t. “Fenton!” He yelled. “It’s been a while since I shoved you in that locker, how do you feel about a potato facial?”
“Gene, what are you –”
Dash grabbed the back of Danny’s head and smashed it into his cafeteria lunch, mashed potatoes and gravy and all. “It’s Dash, to you!”
Beside Danny, his ‘friends’ protested. Danny struggled under Dash’s hands. Finally, Dash let go. Danny pulled his head up with a gasp. He looked up at Dash with tearful eyes, and Dash felt his stomach turn itself in knots. “Why?” Is all Danny asked.
“Because you’re a fa – freak, loser!” Dash said, not able to bring himself to say the other word on the tip of his tongue. Then he walked away, bypassing the jock table and going straight to the bathroom, where he wanted to lock himself in a stall and cry.
*
“I thought Dash was your friend?”
Dash looked up from where he had his head in his hands, feet tucked up on the edge of the toilet seat. That voice … that was Foley. Through the gap in the bottom of the bathroom stall, he watched as familiar shoes walked by and headed to the sink. The sink turned on and there was the sound of someone scrubbing mashed potatoes from their hair and face. Under the water, Danny said, “He is!” Then he paused and said mournfully: “He … was.”
“What happened?” Foley asked, sounding baffled. “Better yet: why were you friends with a jock in the first place? You should have known he would turn out like this.”
“Gene wasn’t always like this!” Danny defended.
It only made Dash feel worse. Danny was defending him after what he had done? To his friends? When Dash couldn’t even stand up to his friends and protect Danny?
Danny always was the better of the two.
“Dude, I don’t know how to tell you this, but he’s like this now,” Foley said, matter-of-factly. “And I don’t think you guys are friends anymore. He’s an A-lister; you’ re a nerd. You’re on completely opposite ends of the social hierarchy. Just accept that your friendship is over …”
There was a sniffle. Danny spoke in a wavering voice. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Gene … Dash isn’t my friend anymore. He’s just a bully.”
And Dash’s heart broke.
*
“Gene?” Danny asked, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Eugene said a bit too quickly. Danny was silent for so long that Eugene eventually mumbled, “It’s just … you’re spending an awful amount of time with Foley and Manson.”
Danny and Eugene had been stargazing – it was a Friday night, so they could sleep in the next morning – and Danny had finally taken a break from talking about the math side of black holes. Most of it was lost on Eugene, but he let Danny talk, regardless. He loved how passionate Danny got about it, and he wouldn’t dare be the one to take that passion away from him. But Danny must have sensed that Eugene was feeling off – just like he always knew something was wrong. Danny knew Eugene too well.
Danny gave Eugene a weird look, arms still behind his head, pillowing it from the ground. “You say that like I don’t spend an awful amount of time with you, too.”
Eugene felt himself blush and thanked the fact that it was too dark to see his cheeks.
“I know, but we’re best friends. We’re supposed to be together all the time. You just met Manson and Foley, like, this year. Why are you spending so much time with them?”
Danny sighed. “You don’t have a monopoly on my time, Gene.”
“I know that!” Eugene said defensively. “I just … I miss you. I wish you would come over to my house more often, I wish we would sit together at lunch … you know, friend things.”
Danny turned to look back at the sky. “Things happen, we make new friends, and sometimes we won’t have time for each other. It’s not the end of the world, Gene.”
“You’re wrong,” Eugene said stubbornly, “I’ll always make time for you.”
Danny reached out with his hand and grabbed hold of one of Eugene’s. He smiled over at Eugene, and Eugene’s heart skipped a beat. Those butterflies came back in his stomach. “It sounds like you’re jealous, but I’ll be generous and not talk about that. Just know that … Sam and Tucker will never be you. I’m not replacing you with them. You can never be replaced. Please remember that.”
Eugene tried to calm his racing heart. “Okay,” he said weakly. “I’ll remember.”
*
Eugene hated it, but by the end of middle school, Dale’s words had gotten under his skin. So, when he and Danny drifted apart as friends, Eugene let it happen. They celebrated Danny’s birthday at the beginning of the summer before high school, but they didn’t spend any other time together for the rest of the summer. Sometimes they texted, like when Danny wanted to share a new NASA fact with him, but otherwise, they didn’t interact.
And when Danny called him at 3am the last week of summer, Eugene looked at his phone blankly. He remembered Dale’s words and … and he let it ring. He turned over in his bed, ignoring the three consecutive texts he got after the call rang out.
*
Space Nerd
Gene
Space Nerd
Gene plz
Space Nerd
something bda happened
*
Dash never texted Danny back.
*
The bullying only got worse, on both fronts. Dale would not let up with his teasing and, in turn, Dash was forced to up the ante. He kept picking on Danny, specifically; he didn’t care about the other nerds or losers at Casper High. They could mind their own business – all Dash cared about was Danny. He was beginning to hate the boy. He hated how, despite Dash’s bullying, Danny continued to come to school and smile and laugh with his ‘friends.’ He hated how Danny continued to look pretty. He hated how unaffected Danny was by the whole thing, meanwhile it felt like everything was eating Dash up from the inside out.
*
Dash had to hang around the other A-listers as they rode out their power-trips. Slurs and insulting words were slung around like food in a food fight.
“Freak!”
“Slut!”
“Loser!”
“Burnout!”
“Bug-eyes!”
“Faggot!”
But that last one – that last one always made his heart skip a beat.
They couldn’t know. How could they possibly know?
*
Paulina Sanchez was the prettiest girl in school. Not pretty like Danny; then again, no one was as pretty as Danny. Maybe it wasn’t a gay thing – maybe Danny was just otherworldly, and Dash was forever forced to look over and see beauty in the freaky Fenton. But back to Paulina – she was pretty, smart, and also an A-lister. She had long, glossy black hair. She was slender and tan skinned. She had hazel eyes and always wore makeup to accent her long lashes and bright eyes. She was part of the Casper High cheer group, despite being a freshman. She had been cheerleading since she was a kid, just like how Dash’s father registered him in football camps and activities since he was six years old.
To make a long point short: she was the perfect girl to have a crush on. Everyone else already had a crush on her, anyway, so it wouldn’t be unusual for Dash to say he liked her.
It made him uncomfortable, when the other boys talked about which girls they wanted to fuck and kiss, but when asked who he wanted, Dash mumbled out the name, “Paulina Sanchez.” Dale gave him an appraising glance. He nodded, like Dash had made the right choice. The uncomfortableness sat heavy in his chest as the other boys teased him again – but this time, instead of being called gay, they teased him about his chances with the prettiest girl in school.
Dash let out a sigh of relief.
*
Dash saw Manson holding onto Danny’s arm, following him around the school like a lovesick puppy. Dash tried to not let the rumours of them being girlfriend and boyfriend get under his skin. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t like Danny belonged to him, anyway. Why should he care?
*
Football tryouts for the junior team were in the second week of school. Dash had his father breathing down his back, pressuring him to do well. Dash ran, threw the ball, and tackled like his life depended on it. The coach was impressed with his performance and Dash could tell that he was quickly becoming the favourite. Dale glared at him from across the field. When they had a scrimmage match, Dale tackled Dash so hard that Dash’s head spun. But it was too late: the next day, when the list of who made the team was put up, Dash was one of the first freshmen to have made the team – and he was in the position of quarterback, to study under the senior quarterback from the senior team.
Dash was smiling so hard. He turned to tell Danny that he made the team, then realised … well, he remembered what he had done. He frowned, so upset that he almost didn’t notice Dale whispering under his breath to one of the other boys. When they passed by, Dale hissed into his ear: “faggot.”
Dash blinked back tears.
*
Paulina cornered Dash after his first football practice, still wearing her cheerleader uniform, pompoms in her hands. She stood shorter than Dash, but her presence more than made up for it. She placed her hands on her hips in a power stance.
“Okay, listen up,” she said, assertive and determined, “I’ve heard the rumours – that you have a crush on me. I have no interest in you. I don’t care about any of the boys, really. Boys are gross. But you and I are going to be boyfriend and girlfriend. You’re the quarterback, and I’m going to be the captain of the cheer team by next year. Together, we can be the power couple this school needs. Understood?”
Dash couldn’t believe his luck.
“Y-yeah,” he said. “I mean – yes. Understood.”
Paulina cocked a brow, like she couldn’t believe it was that easy. Then she shrugged. “Good. I’ll be sitting with you at lunch from now on. All my girls will. So, make sure there’s room for us at the table.”
And then she walked away.
*
At lunch, Dash saw Paulina staring at something – or rather, someone. It reminded Dash of how he used to look at Danny. Paulina frequently looked over in one direction, laughed a little bit too hard, and smiled too widely. When Dash looked over, he saw Star Carraway. Star was pretty, but not Paulina pretty, and definitely not Danny pretty. She had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and wore a star clip in her hair to hold back her grown-out bangs. She commonly wore coral and pink colours. But if Paulina was staring at Star in the same way that Dash used to stare at Danny …
Dash tried not to think about what his new girlfriend felt about Star. After all, Dash felt nothing for Danny. A man laying with another man … well, it stood to reason that a woman laying with another woman was also wrong, for the same reasons.
*
Something was wrong with Danny. Dash had heard through the grapevine that Danny had dropped thirty-four beakers in one week in science class – but that was wrong. Danny was great at science and had always stressed the importance of lab safety. He had learned from his parents, after all. And now that Dash was actually looking more closely at Danny, he realised that he often had bags under his eyes, his hair was more mussed than usual, and he was acting shifty. He didn’t look like he had slept well.
Something was going on with Danny.
Dash thought back to the texts he received, that he never answered.
But … Dash wasn’t supposed to care about Danny. So, reluctantly, he let go of his suspicions.
*
Again, high school started out normal enough – classes, football, and the usual drama – but it quickly veered off to the official category of freaky in the third week … Fenton freaky, that is.
The Fenton parents, Jack and Maddie, had always been obsessed with ghosts. Everyone in town knew it because they didn’t hide it. They had moved from Madison, Wisconsin to Amity Park, Illinois, to supposedly study ghosts and the supernatural (something about the veil between the living and the dead being weaker in Amity Park; no one really listened). At the time their daughter, Jasmine, was only two years old; their son, Daniel, was born soon after. The Fentons proved to be geniuses; they created and patented many inventions that they sold to make good money. But they didn’t stop there – they expanded the home they bought, putting an Emergency Ops Centre on top of the building, digging a basement underneath to create a lab, and also putting a pool in the backyard (admittedly, everyone was surprised by that last one – it was too normal for the Fentons). (They later found out that the pool was ecto-contaminated, which seemed much more likely for the Fentons).
The point was that the Fenton family had a reputation: they were obsessed freaks.
That reputation chased the Fenton kids around their entire lives. Dash would know – Danny was shunned by Dash’s parents because of it. Jazz seemed to have escaped the reputation, being genius and obsessed enough with psychology to make a name for herself elsewhere.
If only Danny had done the same.
Neither Danny nor Jazz believed in their parents’ work. They might have, once upon a time – Dash still remembered Danny talking about the Ghost Zone with bright eyes – but after years of no proof, that belief had withered away. Except, while Jazz became her own person, Danny was forever doomed to be the freaky, nerdy son of Jack and Maddie Fenton, no matter his own obsession with space.
All of this was to say that when the first ghost attacked Casper High (and wasn’t that ironic, ghosts at Casper High?), no one was prepared.
*
“FENTON!” Dash yelled.
This time, he was genuinely angry. Dale and the other A-listers had been on Dash’s ass about the change to the cafeteria menu, as if it was his fault. But with Danny as his personal punching bag (no one else dared to wail on Danny, after another jock tried to, and later got tackled so hard on the field by Dash that he got a concussion), and Manson supposedly being Danny’s girlfriend (and didn’t that make Dash fume, oh boy), they thought it was Dash’s responsibility to take out their collective anger on the other. He stormed over to Danny’s table, plate of mud in his hands. He threw a clump of it at Danny, hitting him square in the back of the head.
Perfect aim, like a true quarterback.
Dash growled out, “I ordered three mud pies, and do you know what they gave me? Three mud pies! With mud! From the ground! All because of your girlfriend!” Dash sneered the last part.
“She’s not my girlfriend?” Danny said, looking confused.
“I’m not his girlfriend!” Manson said, looking incensed.
Dash’s heart skipped a beat. They weren’t dating. Why did that make him feel relieved?
Ignoring the relief, Dash grabbed hold of Danny’s shirt, pulling him off the ground. “How am I supposed to enjoy my lunch when I’m eating mud?!”
“Actually, it’s topsoil,” Manson said, arms crossed, and hip cocked, like the bitch she was.
“Whatever!” Danny and Dash said at the same time.
Dash threw Danny onto the bench of one of the cafeteria tables. He grabbed his plate of mud and set it in front of Danny. With one glance behind him, and seeing the encouraging nods and looks from the A-listers, Dash turned back to Danny. “Eat it,” he demanded. “All of it.”
Danny looked like he was actually going to do it, before a strange whisp escaped his mouth, like a puff of air on a cold day. Dash squinted. Before he could ask what that was about, Danny’s eyes went wide and he yelled: “uh, MUD FIGHT!” He picked up the plate of mud and threw it directly in Dash’s face, making mud get all over his hair and jacket. Dash was so stunned, he didn’t move for several seconds. Then there was chaos across the cafeteria; everyone got up and started throwing their own mud pies and topsoil around the room, slinging mud like it was a fight for their lives.
“You’re going to pay for this!” Dash promised, before he was hit with mud straight to the eyes. He turned to start a fight with the next person who threw something at him, allowing Danny to get away.
*
One moment, Dash was throwing mud and trying to avoid getting a mud pie to the face, and the next, plates and cups were being whisked around the room almost like they were flying and – wait, no, they really were flying through the air like telekinesis. All the kids, including Dash, turned around in shock. Standing – or rather, floating – in the air, in front of the cafeteria servery, was what looked like a grandma, but … wrong. She had a cafeteria lunch lady uniform, a hair net, and looked like an older lady; but her hair was like white flames, her skin was green with rot, and her eyes glowed red.
And in front of her was Samantha Manson, hip cocked to the side, and arms crossed.
“YOU CHANGED THE MENU?!” The decidedly not-human lunch lady screamed, being consumed by green flames, “The menu has been the same for fifty years!”
She howled like a banshee; the whole room was consumed by her green glow. She flew higher in the air. The colours around Dash became inverted. Manson didn’t look so confident anymore; in fact, she turned tail and ran. That seemed like the smart option, and most of the other kids started to run, too; Dash was frozen with fear. The lunch lady started to levitate the plates and cups again, but then something flew through the wall and rushed to meet her. It was another not-human thing – this time, it looked like a young boy, about Dash’s age. He was pretty, too – almost as pretty as Danny. But it was a different kind of pretty – an eerie kind of pretty. He had pale, almost blue skin, glowing green eyes, and white hair that defied gravity. He was also wearing a black and white hazmat suit, with gloves and boots. Whatever he was – whatever the lunch lady was – they were the same thing. Both had a faint glow about them, and both made the hair on the back of Dash’s neck stand on end.
The boy bared his sharp teeth at the lunch lady.
“You don’t belong here,” the boy shouted, “You need to go back to the Ghost Zone before anyone here gets hurt!”
“I’m not leaving until everyone here knows never to change the menu ever again!”
The lunch lady’s hands glowed a sickly green, like her skin, and the silverware started to glow in tandem. The knives and forks all raised into the air and shot toward the boy, glinting sharp and dangerous. To Dash’s surprise, right before he thought he was about to see a boy shish kebab, the boy turned translucent and the objects passed through his body, like he was intangible. No, not like he was intangible – he actually was intangible, like a ghost!
The lunch lady then turned on the students and proclaimed, eyes flashing red and white hair flaming, “I control lunch. Lunch is sacred. Lunch has rules!”
She raised her hands again.
Through the servery window, Dash saw how the ovens shook and glowed. The oven doors opened, showing green flames and sharp teeth. The oven dials turned into red eyes. The ovens started to hop and drag from their spots against the wall, clunking and roaring, phasing through the wall and toward the students … and it was at that point that Dash realised he was alone in the cafeteria, having been the only one who didn’t immediately run.
He started to back away, not wanting to turn his back to the possessed (haunted? Transformed?) ovens.
Stupidly, belatedly, Dash hoped that Danny made it out of the cafeteria without getting hurt. The last Dash had seen of Danny was the boy rushing through the crowd like his life depended on it … almost as if he had known they would be attacked. But that was stupid. How could Danny have possibly predicted this? ‘This’ being the non-human lunch lady and possessed ovens. Dash gasped as the ovens roared and shot bright hot green flames toward him. Just when he thought he would be cooked alive, the pretty non-human boy dove toward him and grabbed hold of his arms from behind. It took a split second – where he felt the heat of the fire, where his vision went white – but then there was the feeling of ice crawling up his spine, and suddenly, he was turning intangible, and the fire was going through him.
The pretty boy flew upward, taking Dash with him (just how strong was this guy to deadlift almost two hundred pounds?!), his hold tight on Dash’s arms. They flew through several walls and lockers, Dash’s vision going dark, before they appeared in a hallway. Dash recognised it as the same hallway his English class was in.
The pretty boy gently put Dash down on the ground, also dropping the intangibility at the same time. Warmth returned to Dash’s extremities.
“Are you okay?” Pretty boy asked, brows drawn together in concern.
Dash was too busy staring to answer.
Pretty boy was, well … pretty. He had shocked white hair that floated over an eerily beautiful face, with glowing freckles (Dash even thought he spotted some constellations among the freckles, his past stargazing with Danny suddenly coming back to him), radioactive green eyes, and pointed ears. He had an upturned nose and plush lips that revealed shark-sharp teeth. He was wearing a relatively fitted black hazmat suit with white accents, including a white collar, gloves, and boots.
“Who are you?” Dash asked, still stunned from the attack and the pretty boy saving him. Then he blinked, confused. “What are you?”
Pretty boy seemed to war with himself before answering: “The name’s Phantom and I’m … a ghost.”
“But ghosts don’t exist,” Dash said stupidly. He remembered his parents shunning the Fenton parents and their obsession with ghosts. He remembered his pastor at church saying there were no paranormal creatures or magic, only God. And he recalled Danny – innocent, frustrated with his parents Danny – talking about the lack of proof over the years.
Phantom smiled sardonically.
“Tell that to Death,” Phantom said. He said ‘death’ like it had a capital ‘D.’ As if Death was a concept personified, like God. But that couldn’t be true, because … because ghosts didn’t exist, and Death wasn’t a god, and God was the only true God. “But that’s not –”
There was a sudden crashing sound, another banshee scream, and then the lights fizzled out. The lockers shook and rocked. Suddenly, the staff lunchroom door slammed open, and plates of ribs and sausages, and bowls of curry and chili, flew through the air toward the other end of the hallway. Dash turned, eyes wide, and saw what stood – or rather, floated – at the end of the hallway to greet the floating meats. It was the lunch lady – the supposed ghost, just like Phantom – who had the meat swirling around her. The meat amalgamated and swarmed, sticking to the lunch lady’s rotting skin, until she was nothing but a giant mountain of ground beef. Only a mouth and red eyes were discernable.
“Prepare to learn why meat is the most powerful food group!” She roared. “Now perish!”
Before Dash could book it down the hallway (and would he even be fast enough to outrun the ghost? Lord, forgive him for taking His name in vain, but God, he didn’t think so), Phantom flew in front of Dash in a protective stance. His fists lit up with a sickly green glow, almost like the green fire from before. It looked like those green samples Danny’s parents always had in the fridge, the ones filled with – what was it called, again? Oh, right. Ectoplasm.
“Forget it!” Phantom snapped. “The only thing with an expiration date here is you!”
Dash blinked. Did … did Phantom just make a joke in the face of mortal peril?
Regardless of the joke, the fight commenced. Phantom shot several blasts of ectoplasm at the meat monster, then followed it up with a round-house kick which sent her flying down the hallway and into a wall of lockers. The meat dispersed, falling off her body; but she was quick to get back up, calling the meat back to her side. The meat glowed and formed what looked like a canon, which then shot a volley of meatballs flying at Phantom. They were more like bullets than meatballs, though, because they put holes in the wall. One managed to puncture Phantom’s suit. Sickly green liquid – ectoplasm – leaked from the hole. Dash felt like he wanted to vomit; meanwhile, Phantom barely flinched at the wound.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Phantom taunted, still leaking green on the floor. “I guess you’re more meat-headed than all-powerful as you claimed.”
Dash wanted to tell Phantom to shut up and stop taunting the dangerous meat monster, but it was too late.
“You want more meat?” The lunch lady said, then howled. “I’ll show you meat!”
The meat monster created three meat monster minions, all almost the size of Dash. They made to move forward. Phantom pulled something from his side. It was a … soup thermos? Phantom looked over his shoulder, one fist blazing, the other holding the thermos. “Now would be a good time to run!”
And Dash didn’t look back.
*
Dash felt bad for leaving Phantom alone to face the meat monster lunch lady, but what was he supposed to do? He didn’t have ghostly powers, he wasn’t super strong or smart, and he didn’t know how to fight. He could only hope that Phantom did know how to fight; based off what he witnessed, Phantom would be able to hold his own or run away if needed.
By the time he made it outside, the whole school had evacuated.
Teachers were doing headcounts, and Mr. Lancer looked relieved when he spotted Dash.
“The Great Gatsby!” Mr. Lancer swore, “where were you, Mr. Baxter? I almost went back into the school to find you. You could have gotten seriously hurt by the intruder!”
“Intruder?” Dash heard himself say, confused.
“Yes, the lunch lady,” Mr. Lancer said. “Multiple witnesses said that she was using forks and knives to attack students.”
“She wasn’t just a lunch lady,” Dash said, shaking his head. “She was a –”
“A monster!” Paulina shrieked.
“She glowed green and was flying!” Kwan said, chewing his fingernails in a nervous manner.
“She howled like a banshee!” Said Star.
Dale scoffed, his arms crossed. “Pfft, you guys are all a bunch of pussies.”
“Language, Mr. Brown,” Mr. Lancer scolded. “But I must say: you all have quite active imaginations. There’s no such thing as –”
Before Mr. Lancer could finish his sentence, there was a loud howling sound, and through the front doors of the school, two ghosts phased through and toppled onto the front lawn. Dash gasped. It was Phantom and the lunch lady, wrestling in midair. Phantom gave a couple of good punches, the lunch lady socked Phantom with a fist of meat, and finally, Phantom got out of the headlock that the lunch lady was holding him in, managing to pile-drive the lunch lady into the ground (and creating a massive crater in the process). Phantom grabbed the thermos from before with both hands. His entire body lit up with a blue glow, enveloping the thermos as well, and a bright blue light shot out of one end of the thermos and toward the lunch lady.
When the light hit her, she was sucked into the thermos, like dust particles being sucked into a vacuum. Phantom slammed the lid closed as soon as she was gone with a sharp grin. But then he turned and saw the entire student body, plus staff, staring at him.
In seconds, he disappeared into thin air, almost like he had turned invisible … like a ghost.
*