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Danny was oh-so peacefully sleeping during lunch when Sam oh-so rudely threw a book down on the table. It wasn’t actually that violent of an action, but it was enough to drag Danny from his dreams. Evil Sam.
“Hng?..” He made a groggy sound. Danny looked up at her and then immediately regretted that decision as he was struck blind by the fluorescent lights. He buried his face back in his arms and waited for the spots to disappear.
“Watch it!” Shouted Tucker. Danny’s eyes adjusted just in time to see Sam handing Tuck a pen.
“Sign my yearbook, will you?” Sam asks. There was a flipping of pages and Danny finally took note of the book that had been his rude awakening. It had a bright red cover with white text -a bit of a color nightmare if he was being honest- and said something about “Class of 2008.”
“How’d you get yours already?” Asked Tuck, anger forgotten. He started writing something on an empty page. Danny couldn’t clearly see what Tucker was writing with his head still lying on the table. He was still about half-asleep, body heavy and slipping into dreams every other moment. Sam took her seat beside Danny and more conversation passed over his head. Danny drifted in and out, at least until Tucker whacked him on the head with the pen.
Danny’s head shot up and he glared at his now ex-best-friend.
“Your turn.” Tucker just grinned.
Mumbling threats of phasing Tucker’s PDA into a wall under his breath, Danny took the pen. His eyes slid over the page, and he saw that Tucker had drawn three little characters next to his signature. There was a little ghost, vampire, and wolf. Meant to represent their trio no doubt.
Danny glossed over the page and chose a spot right above Tucker’s doodles. He quickly put down his signature, then decided to add a little star next to it just because he could. That task accomplished, Danny pushed the book back to Sam and laid his head back on the table. Hopefully he could resume his nap.
Sam took the book back and looked over the now slightly-less-blank page. Danny had just laid back down when he heard Sam make a noise. He looked up lazily to see her frown. It was then that she turned the book back to him.
“Wha’ sup?” He questioned. Sam just pointed to his signature. Confused, Danny re-read what he’d signed.
“I don’t see-” Oh. Yep, that was… a thing. Instead of ‘Danny,’ he’d written ‘Phantom’ instead. Hm.
“Sign too many autographs recently?” Sam chuckled. It made Danny’s face burn. Because, yeah that was probably why. Public opinions on his ghost half were at an all-time high, and he’d been pulled aside after a fight more than a few times in the last few weeks. He had drawn the line when someone asked him to sign their forehead, though. He even had a (slightly dubious) special pen he’d nabbed from the rejects pile in his parents’ lab. It wrote in bright green and shimmered in the light. It was cool and fit his “brand” perfectly.
But Sam didn’t have to go and point it out like that.
“You wish.” It was a weak reply, they all knew it, but Danny wasn’t in the mood. He looked away and went back to sleep.
However, there was an idea brewing at the edge of his consciousness. He hid his grin and filed it away for later.
Danny’s next class after lunch was physics. It had been the bane of his existence in the past, as neither of his friends were in the class yet somehow all of the A-listers and Wes Weston were. But today, it would be his source of entertainment instead of anguish.
The teacher started off class with their instructions for the day. They had a test in a few days so the block was their chance to catch up on any work they were missing. A free day, basically. And so, Danny started in on last night’s homework and laid in wait for the conversation he knew would soon start.
Danny’s chance came even sooner than he expected. Almost immediately the A-listers left their seats and congregated into a small group at the back of the class. Danny watched Dash walk past with a grin. It got him a weird look from Wes but it was worth it.
“Oh hey, Pauli,” Star began. She pulled a certain book from her oversized purse.
“Would you like to sign?” She asked. Paulina made some sugary sweet response and thus the ball began to roll. Then the teacher stepped out to go to the bathroom, and it truly started. People began swapping yearbooks like Pokemon cards. Danny took the chaos as a chance to walk right up to Star.
“Hey, mind if I sign?” He asked innocently. Danny produced his bright green pen so that Star wouldn’t try to hand him one.
If this were freshman year, Star would have no doubt turned him down with a look of disgust. But she, of all the popular kids, had mellowed quite a bit.
“Uh sure, I guess. I don’t see why not.” Star said, looking a bit confused. She shrugged and turned to her book. She waited for Kwan to finish off his signature then handed it over.
Danny had managed his way into the furvor of signatures, and before he knew it he had signed at least ten of them. All in his eye-burning green pen. There should be the first person noticing sometime soon…
The teacher chose that moment to come back, and Mikey, who’d been stationed at the door, alerted them all to her presence. Cue the frantic scrambling of 20-odd teenagers as they all retook their seats. When the teacher re-entered she had a look of suspicion on her face, but did nothing about it. Most of the class passed by in the quiet scratching of pencils and hushed whispers. Luckily for Danny, he had hearing that was better than the average person. Thus he caught the spread of a confused sentiment in the back of the room. He just hoped one of them would put the dots together.
As he had approached Star, she was the first to confront him. With Paulina at her side and the rest of their posse behind her, of course. Their presence also caught the attention of the rest of the class, and soon Danny was the center of attention. Surprisingly the teacher made no comment on the whole situation.
“What, exactly, is this?” Questioned Star. They all held up their yearbooks to show him. All of them had matching neon-green scribbles.
“You’re the only one with a green pen!”
“It’s just my signature. What’s up with that?” Danny said as though bored. But it was a front. Inside he was almost giddy. Deep down he knew they probably weren’t going to connect the dots, who would ever begin to think that a ghost had a (not-so) secret identity? But it couldn’t hurt to hope.
“But it is not yours,” Paulina shouted. She produced a very familiar picture.
Last month, Paulina had showed up at the end of every single ghost fight for a solid week, begging for an autograph. Danny had managed to evade her for a while, but she was quite persistent. He’d been so reluctant because what she wanted him to sign was a very obviously photoshopped picture of himself, carrying an equally photoshopped Paulina in his arms. In it, ‘his’ jaw looked like it could slice through steel, and also for some reason it gave him black stubble? But yeah, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. It wasn’t until Paulina started throwing herself into danger for his attention that he gave in. Also, Technus called her his girlfriend and he was having none of that.
“You forged Phantom’s signature!” Oh, she looked furious. Heh.
“What are you talking about?” Danny feigned innocence.
“Of course that’s mine. Look, it’s even got a star next to it.” Danny was having quite a bit of fun with the ordeal. He may only be half ghost, but he could still partake in a bit of mischief. Or maybe that was the teenager in him? Who knew. But unfortunately a certain Wes Weston had to come along and spoil his fun.
“He is literally admitting it! Danny is Phantom!” Wes popped up out of nowhere.
“I don’t know why you all think I’m crazy when he is literally saying it himself!” Ah, sweet innocent Wes. Now they would never figure it out themselves. Danny sighed, mentally of course because on the outside he was still the perfect figure of innocence. Hm. Maybe he could twist this to his advantage. They already lost the chance of figuring it out, so why not reinforce it?
“He’s dead right, you know.” Danny said, stopping Wes in the middle of his tirade. He’d been preparing for this for all of his half-life.
“It’s pretty un- boo -lievable that he’s the only one to ever stand a ghost of a chance in figuring me out. The rest of you only know the halfa it. It truly haunts me how i nvisible I am to you all.” Danny tried his best to sound both completely honest and like a complete troll.
It earned him a series of blank stares. That slowly turned to frowns as the series of puns began to register. He had about half expected laughter, but it would seem that either he or Wes were uncool enough for them to react so negatively.
“Ugh, really?”
“Ghost jokes are so old.”
“That’s just lazy comedy.”
“Did he really go there?”
“Such a loser.”
Wow, tough crowd.
After that disaster the A-listers stomped off, having lost interest and not wanting to be subject to his puns. Though not before Dash promised to beat him up for being so lame. Someone in the group produced a bottle of white nail polish and they painted over his signatures. Little did they know, the ecto-ink would just burn through it before too long. A small bit of revenge, but revenge nonetheless.
The bell rang and Danny went to gather his things. He made for the door when suddenly Wes blocked his path.
“I hate you.” Wes said flatly.
“Hey, I tried, okay? If they didn’t believe it back there they never will. Some people just don’t want to see what’s right in front of them.” Danny shrugged.
“Well I’m not gonna give it up.” Said Wes, determined. He went off to get his own stuff.
“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down~” Danny sang after him. Wes just ignored him and stomped off. Dang, try to lighten the mood and that’s all ya get.
They were clueless. Utterly clueless. Even when Danny started adding the star to the end when asked for autographs in ghost form, the school’s rumor mill just chalked it up to coincidence and didn’t even talk about it for a whole day before people lost interest. Though Danny’s attempt had largely failed, it did have one success. He could say whatever questionable ghostly stuff he wanted, and people barely batted an eye. They just thought it was an elaborate ruse to make fun of Wes. Which, poor Wes, but the guy did kinda bring it upon himself. Despite having the exact opposite effect of what he wanted to do, Danny was happy with the development.
Plus, it would only make for an even better reveal when his secret finally, inevitably came out.