“Dude, did you get glitter on your face?”
Danny turned from his book to respond. “Tuck, I’m pretty sure this house is a no-glitter zone. Weren’t you here for The Easter Ham Of ‘03?”
Tucker felt his stomach try to flee at the thought. “…point. Your face is still-”
The sparkles faded before his eyes, Danny’s face taking on a curious expression.
“-uh, never mind?” Tuck finished. “I dunno, man, it really looked like you had some sparkly dust on your cheeks for a hot second there.”
“File it under ‘spooky but harmless’?” Danny grinned.
“File it under 'spooky but harmless’.” Tucker snorted, flopping back onto Danny’s bed and pulling up Galaga on his PDA.
Danny beamed and went back to his book, relishing the rare moment of peace and quiet.
A few seconds passed in amiable silence, and then a light green glow from Danny’s direction caught Tucker’s attention again.
The glitter was back, and this time Tucker could recognize the patterns of it on Danny’s smiling cheekbones.
He glanced at the cover of Danny’s book- “Stars, Planets, and Other Heavenly Bodies.”
Oh, Sam was gonna have a field day! (But not before Tucker had one, first!)
Tucker slowly lifted his PDA, careful not to break the moment until after taking the picture.
The PDA made a sound as if a camera’s shutter had clicked, startling Danny from his book and dimming the glow of his face. “Tucker, what-?”
“I told you there was something on your face!” Tucker cut him off with a sharklike grin, leaning forward and turning his PDA around so Danny could see the picture.
Danny squinted for a moment before processing what his eyes were telling him. “Do…do I have constellation freckles?”
“Glowing constellation freckles.” Tucker corrected. “And, may I just say, if I didn’t know your ability to kick butt, you’d seem so small and protectable when they show up!”
A puff of blue chilled the air, and Danny lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, we’re not done with this.”
“Not by a long shot.” Tucker agreed, sliding off the bed and shoving his PDA in his pocket for safekeeping. “I’ll grab the thermos and see if Sam’s parents are done playing dress-up.”
Danny nodded and jumped through his bedroom wall in a flash of light, the faintest glow still visible on his face.
“Yo, Phantom!” Tucker yelled from the crowd, waving something above his head. “Catch!”
Danny caught the thermos and fired off a sloppy salute before facing the ghostly crocogator-thing. “Alright, playtime’s over!”
It hissed and snapped at him, but a quick flick of the thermos lid had it whirling inside. With a smile (minimal property damage this time!) Danny screwed the cap on and started the “wave and fly off” routine.
Before he could disappear from view, a little girl shouted, “Look, Mommy! Mister Phantom has freckles, too!”
Danny blinked. Freckles? He didn’t have any…freckles…wait. He made a swirl of ecto-ice in his hand, shaping it into a mirror he could hold in one hand.
The glowing glitter on his face that Tucker had noticed, the constellation-shaped sparkles…were still visible.
As if responding to his thoughts of constellations, the freckles pulsed with light, much to the little girl’s joy.
With a wave of his hand, the ice mirror vanished, and he floated down to the ground, by the girl who’d first pointed it out. He grinned, trying to seem more approachable to the starstruck mother and daughter. “These aren’t just normal freckles, either. Y'see these ones?” He gestured to his left cheek. “These look like the constellation of the Big Dipper!”
“Just like in space?” The girl reached up to trace the constellation, almost without realizing it.
“Yeah!” Danny’s eyes lit up, literally. “The stars up there are so big, but we’re so far away that we can nake connect-the-dot pictures with them!”
The mother blinked. “Phantom…”
Danny snapped out of his space-nerd-trance, scratching the back of his neck and chuckling nervously. “Ah, sorry ma'am, I didn’t mean to-”
“…how old are you? Really?”
Danny blinked owlishly up at her (when did he touch down on the ground?) as his mind switched gears. “Uh, well, I mean…I was just starting high school when…this…happened…”
The mother didn’t seem to know what to say. Frankly, neither did Danny, or the rest of the crowd, for that matter.
Fortunately (or not), the unmistakable sound of the Fenton Assault Vehicle gave Danny an excuse to get out of the increasingly-strange situation. “Oh, uh, that’s my cue! Have a good day, everybody!”
And with that, he vanished, invisibly doing a few loops around town to throw off his parents before flying back home.
Danny groaned and stuck a piece of scrap paper into his book, setting it aside and turning to face Tucker. “Look, I’m not even entirely sure what happened there, okay?”
Sam chuckled from her spot on Danny’s bed. “Well, from the footage, it looked like you went from hero mode to space mode, and you turned the adorable up to 11, to boot!”
“What?” Sam retorted, a blush rising to her cheeks.
Tucker sighed and flipped upside-down, letting his legs reclaim a little of Danny’s mattress, even if he himself had been booted to the floor. “Anyway, while we’ve filed that under 'spooky but harmless,’ the rest of Amity doesn’t know that.”
“Which means they could be making all sorts of wild theories.” Danny groaned. “Just my luck.”
“Hey, just be glad nobody’s noticed the glowing freckles in your human form yet.” Sam countered. “If anything, I bet this could just be the final piece of evidence to prove you’re a friendly ghost! Seriously, a hero who also has a childlike wonder for the stars?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be the pessimistic one?” Danny pointed out with a grin.
“Of course, it comes with the goth territory. Lately, you’ve been hogging all the pessimism, though, so somebody’s gotta balance it out!” Sam smirked. “Believe me, it’s just as weird for me as it is for you!”
“Well, I hope you’re right.” Tucker let his head drop back against the floor. “The less people try to shoot at Danny, the better.”
That night, Danny found himself under clear skies, so he flipped onto his back and started picking out constellations, hoping to lull himself into a sleepy state so he could go right to sleep when he got home.
The Big and Little Dippers, Hercules, Bootes…the sight of the stars made him feel serene. Even if he never got to be an astronaut, he could just fly above the skies whenever he wanted.
Something pricked at the edges of his hearing, and he flipped back over and scanned the streets for whatever it may have been.
Was someone calling for him?
He finally caught sight of a couple people in the park, trying to flag him down.
Danny shrugged to himself and dove, slowing down as he approached them. “What seems to be the problem?”
The one who’d flagged him down seemed shocked it had worked, so his friend answered for him. “Well, there’s no problem, it’s just…”
Danny blinked, landing as he waited for them to sort out their thoughts. “It’s just…?”
The third of the group picked up for her friends. “It’s just, we saw how much you enjoyed talking about stars earlier today, so I guess, when we saw you flying up there, we kinda got the idea to ask if you’d wanna stargaze with us?”
Though Danny didn’t know it, the starry freckles dotting his face flared up, casting a warm green glow over the three stargazers and-
Danny’s eyes went wide. “Is that a Stellatron Nova 7BH telescope?!”
“Also known as the best birthday present ever!” The second of the three crowed, throwing an arm over each of their friends. “This baby can get enough zoom to see the flag on the moon, easy!”
Danny’s hand reached forward before he pulled back. “Ah, may I?”
“Go right ahead.” The second nodded, their friends grinning with them.
Danny lit up and shot forward, carefully inspecting each of the components before pressing his eye to the eyepiece. “Woah, are those Alcor and Mizar?”
The first chuckled, walking over and carefully placing his hand on Danny’s shoulder. (It just felt like the right thing to do when showing someone so small their telescope.) “Yeah, we were testing this thing out and figured a binary system would probably be a good benchmark.”
“Yeah…” Danny trailed off, staring through the telescope and, quite literally, into space.
Across town, the clock tower rang out its 1-bell song, and Danny jolted, snapping his head up from the telescope. “Aw, crap, is that the time? Sorry, guys, I gotta get going!”
“Hey, no prob, Phantom.” The third of the group waved him off. “Not everybody’s a night person.”
“Yeah, no sweat!” Added the first.
“I’m down to stargaze if you are.” The second joined in. “Being a ghost probably has a whole bunch of strings attached, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re cool.”
Danny blinked, swallowed back the lump in his throat, and grinned. “Thanks. I might just take you up on that.”
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