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Ever since I found out Danny’s secret, I’ve been trying to cover for him with our parents and make sure he’s taking care of himself. But he’s not making it easy. I suspect he got his powers in that lab accident a couple months back, but I can’t exactly ask him. It tracks though. Ever since the accident, he’s been acting differently than usual. He’s clumsy, he keeps dropping things and phasing through furniture, and Mom and Dad’s inventions keep targeting him. I honestly don’t know how I didn’t figure it out earlier. He’s not exactly subtle about it.
Recently, though, he’s been looking unhealthy. He’s even skinnier than usual, and his face is starting to look sunken in. I know he’s been eating. I assumed he was avoiding Mom and Dad’s cooking (for obvious reasons), so I started making him breakfast before school, and he’s been scarfing it down every day. So why is he losing so much weight?
I figure it must have something to do with his powers. Did he die in the accident and his body is just now catching up? Are his powers slowly killing him? I really hope not. I hate how much I don’t know about what’s happening to him. I wish I could just talk to him. But I want him to come to me when he’s ready. I’ll just have to do this my way: Research. Lots and lots of research.
So, my research didn’t pan out. I spent the last couple days looking for any information I could find on humans with ghost powers, but you know what I found? Nothing whatsoever. I looked at scientific journals online, I went to the library and looked in the nonfiction section for anything I could find involving ghosts, I even snuck down into the lab and checked my parents’ notes. As far as I can tell, it’s impossible for a human to have ghost powers. But that’s obviously not the case, because I’ve seen Danny’s powers with my own eyes.
Maybe he’s the first one. As I said in my last journal entry, I suspect Danny’s powers came from the ghost portal, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my parents have the only working portal in the world. They did mention that they built their prototype with Vlad Masters, but after his traumatizing accident in college, I doubt he wants anything to have to do with ghosts. I’m not one to speculate about a man I barely know, but considering how he cut my parents off entirely after the accident, that sounds like trauma. The ghost attack at the college reunion must have been so triggering for him. At least he has the money to afford good therapy.
I’m getting off topic. Chances are, there’s nobody else like Danny. Or at least, nobody in recorded history. So I’ve got nothing to go on for why Danny’s been looking so sickly. I suppose it could be a human illness, but we can’t exactly bring him to a doctor, and I can’t ask him questions about his health without him getting suspicious. I don’t think he’d take kindly to me poking into his personal life. So I’m on my own.
But maybe I don’t have to be. No humans would know what’s wrong with him, but what about ghosts? Maybe I could talk to a ghost and see if they know anything. It’s a bold idea, I know, but it might just work. Maybe there’s something about ghost physiology that would explain what’s happening to him. But how do I find a ghost?
I can’t exactly waltz into the Ghost Zone and start questioning the first ghost I see. Who knows what kind of radiation I would be exposing myself to? …Oh no. What if it’s radiation poisoning? I don’t know exactly what happened down in the lab that day, but it must have been bad; Danny barely got out of bed for the next couple days. He could have been exposed to high levels of radiation from the Ghost Zone and it’s slowly killing him!
I’m speculating, and I’m only going to make myself more anxious if I keep going like this. I need to focus. Where can I find a ghost to talk to about this? I know there have been a lot of ghost sightings at the school. There have been rumors for a while that locker 724 is haunted. If the rumors are true, the ghost hasn’t attacked anyone as far as I know. It might not be hostile. It’s worth checking out, at least. Although maybe I should bring one of Mom’s lipstick blasters, just in case. I’ll write more tomorrow and update with how everything went.
I have so much to write about! That went way better than I expected. Turns out there IS a ghost haunting locker 724, and he’s friendly! His name is Sidney and he died in the 1950s. He didn’t say how, but I suspect he was shoved in his locker by a bully and died there. What a tragic way to go.
Sidney has actually met Danny before. I’m not surprised, given how Danny seems to know when there are ghosts around. He knows Danny’s secret, which surprised me. Apparently Danny’s situation is well known in the Ghost Zone! I assumed they all thought he was fully a ghost, but it seems like he doesn’t care that much about keeping his secret from ghosts, only humans. Here’s hoping that doesn’t bite him in the butt later.
He called Danny a “halfa”: half human, half ghost. The accident didn’t kill him, probably, at least not all the way. Apparently all ghosts need to feed on ectoplasm in order to stay stable. They normally absorb the ambient energy from the ghost zone, but since Danny doesn’t live there, he’s not getting the ectoplasm he needs for his ghost form to stay stable. But as far as I can tell, his ghost form is fine; it’s his human form I’m worried about.
My hypothesis is that being half ghost means his ghost form can pull energy from his human half to fuel his powers. So I may not have been entirely wrong about his powers killing him, but I don’t think I was entirely right either. The situation is not as dire as I feared.
It seems like all that needs to be done is to get Danny the ectoplasm he needs. Sidney said that ghosts who stay on the human plane can take stores of ectoplasm with them and eat it. That sounds disgusting to me, but it might be the best way for Danny to get it into his system. But how do I get him to eat ectoplasm without telling him I know his secret? And where will I get the ectoplasm in the first place? Once I figure that out, I’ll decide on a plan.
I figured out a plan and it went off without a hitch! I’ve been really into smoothies lately, and Danny has been hesitant to try them. I haven’t been pushing, but I realized this might be the best way to get him to eat ectoplasm. So I snuck down to the lab and stole some clean ectoplasm samples. Mom and Dad have plenty, so I doubt they’ll miss it. I wasn’t sure how to dose it so I started small and added half a tube to a smoothie.
And he absolutely loved it! He drained it immediately and asked for another. I added the rest of the tube and one more to a second smoothie, and he said that one tasted even better than the last. His ghost half must be craving the ectoplasm so badly that it tastes delicious to him. That definitely makes my job easier.
After he drank the second smoothie, he asked me what I put in it, other than fruit. I panicked. I told him I put vitamins and protein powder in it; that’s what I’m putting in mine anyway, so it should be believable. (Maybe I should put some in his too. It certainly couldn’t hurt.) I hope he doesn’t catch on that I’m putting ectoplasm in his smoothies, because that will raise a lot of questions I don’t want to answer.
At breakfast today, Danny asked me to make him a smoothie. He said he borrowed my smoothie ingredients after school last night and tried to make himself one, but that mine tasted way better. He doesn’t seem suspicious, though. I made him a smoothie with 2 tubes of ectoplasm and he loved it. That seems like a good dose for now.
He doesn’t look any different today, but he seems to have more energy. Recently he’s been falling asleep at the table during breakfast, but today he looked much more awake. I know he’s been losing sleep, so maybe he just got a good night’s rest. I can’t make any conclusions after just one day. I’ll have to give it some more time and see how he responds to the smoothies. I’ll keep making them at breakfast and see if things continue to get better over time.
It’s been a few more days and he’s definitely looking healthier. I can see his cheeks starting to fill back in. It’s been so little time that it can’t have been the protein powder, the ectoplasm must be having an effect! He’s visibly gaining weight and he seems happier and more energetic than he’s been since before the accident. I’m so glad this is working. I was really worried about him. I’m glad I don’t have to worry so much anymore.
I went back to Sidney’s locker and thanked him for the information. I told him Danny is looking much healthier now. He said that Danny’s been standing up to his bullies more the last few days. I didn’t know he was being bullied, and I feel so bad that I didn’t notice. But if he’s standing up for himself, that’s a good thing. I’ll take partial credit for that.
I’m proud of myself for figuring out how to help Danny like this. Mom and Dad noticed that the ectoplasm samples are going faster than usual, but they shrugged it off and assumed that they’ve been using more for their experiments. That works for me. As long as they continue being clueless, Danny isn’t in any danger from them. And I’m not in any danger of him figuring out that I’ve been giving him ectoplasm. Maybe one day I can tell him I know his secret and he can make his own smoothies. We’ll see what happens when that day comes.