Viewer beware! All spoilers below are unmarked!
The Goosebumps about a kid befriending a ghost.
All of Hannah's friends have gone to summer camp, but she has to stay home; the best she can do is to make her own campfires in the back garden. But then things get weird. A boy named Danny has just moved in next door; surely Hannah would have noticed him arriving. Danny is the same age as Hannah, and says he's in the same class at school, yet they don't know any of the same people. Worse, she's being stalked by a sinister, shadowy figure that he can't even see. Could Danny be... a ghost?
This book was adapted into episodes 3 and 4 of the fourth season of the 1995 TV series.
It was later reissued in the Classic Goosebumps line in 2015 as a companion to the first movie. There's a good reason for that.
The book provides examples of:
- Angry Fist-Shake: Mr. Chesney, a mean-tempered neighbor who hates children, does this to a dog who kept trespassing on his property.
- Badass Adorable: Hannah saves a boy from a fire despite being only 12 years old and also dead.
- Big "NO!": Hannah lets out two when the shadow creature that keeps stalking her corners her near her house.
- She also lets out a few when the figure tries to prevent her from saving Danny in the burning home.
- Bittersweet Ending: It's revealed that Danny isn't the ghost, but Hannah is, having been dead for years because a fire ''she didn't fully put out'' killed her entire family. Hannah manages to save Danny from a similar fate and the book ends with her joining her family in the afterlife.
- Bowdlerise: The reprint removes the scene where Mr. Chesney threatens the children with a shotgun.
- Child Hater: A postman threatens children with a shotgun!
- City Mouse: Hannah was upset that she couldn't go to summer camp with her friend Janey, and her brothers similarly were bummed. To cheer them up, she lit a campfire in their suburban backyard and they spent the night telling ghost stories, enjoying each other's company. A neighbor who's a realtor reveals after Hannah learns she is a ghost, that Hannah failed to put out the fire properly, due to not knowing any better as a city kid. The fire spread and burned down the house, while the parents and kids were sleeping. There is a reason why campers are generally taught safety rules before starting campfires. Hannah goes My God, What Have I Done? and blacks out for a few hours.
- Dead All Along: Yes, the neighbour is actually a ghost, who died five years ago. Specifically, Hannah is the ghost "living" next door to Danny.
- Death of a Child: Hannah finds out that she and her family died in a freak fire that she forgot to put out properly in the backyard. The opening chapter wasn't a dream; it was real!
- Didn't Think This Through: The mysterious shadow stalking Hannah turns out to be quite the Smug Snake; their overconfidence causes them to not think of the possibility that Hannah, as a ghost, can just walk right through them to save Danny from the fire they want him to die in. This mistake causes their own death because they needed Danny to die in order to be incarnated.
- Died Happily Ever After: The book ends with Hannah moving on to the afterlife with her family after she rescues Danny from a fiery death, allowing Shadow Danny to die.
- Disappears into Light: As she is watching Danny being treated by his mother and a neighbor, Hannah can feel the room fading around her as she enters the afterlife with her family.
- A Dog Named "Dog": One of the stores in Hannah's town is a diner called Diner.
- Dreadful Musician: Hannah at one point hears someone in a nearby house practicing classical music on a piano, playing the wrong note over and over, then starting the piece again. Hannah thinks to herself that she's glad they're not her neighbors.
- Enemy Without: The shadow that is stalking Hannah claims to be the future ghost of her neighbor.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: More like "Ghost-Detecting Dog." While riding on her bike, a dog excitedly starts following Hannah around town for a bit. Considering that no else but Danny could see and hear her, this trope was in play.
- Fell Asleep Crying: Hannah does this after realizing she's dead and all alone.
- Foreshadowing: There are plenty of points that foreshadow the reveal that Hannah is a ghost.
- Hannah keeps thinking that the days come and go, like time floated in and out. That's because she's a ghost, since she can't feel time like a mortal.
- Hannah says that she keeps feeling cold.
- People are constantly bumping into her and knocking her on the ground, and she is left frustrated on why they didn't see her nor apologize to her.
- When trying to talk to her neighbor, Mrs. Quilty, she doesn't respond at all.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: This book has an incredibly somber, dirge-like tone and where the main twist is slowly revealed rather than delivered suddenly for the series' usual "Gotcha!" effect (and for once it doesn't even end up serving as the book's main climactic plot crux).
- Friendly Ghost: The neighbour ghost is genuinely friendly.
- Hates Baths: Hannah's younger twin brothers, Bill and Herb, have this problem and fight over who gets to take one first when their parents force them to.
- I Never Got Any Letters: Hannah is confused and upset when she realizes that none of her friends have bothered to write to her over the summer. It turns out this is because she is the eponymous ghost and died years ago.
- Kid Hero: Hannah, who would risk her life—if she was alive—to save the new boy in town from a ghost.
- Living Shadow: The villain, who is stalking Hannah. Turns out he's the future spirit of Danny, and wants to keep Hannah from preventing his death.
- Mood Whiplash: Hannah is shown writing a letter to her friend Janey Price, who was off at summer camp, and expresses her outrage at her for not responding to any of her letters. She evens adds insults such as hoping she gets poison ivy. But at the end of each letter, she ends it with "Love, Hannah."
- Our Ghosts Are Different: As well as the spirits of the deceased, we have a shadow-phantom who is the ghost of a living kid.
- Small Town Boredom: Hannah has grown bored with the town she lives in, as it is too local and hardly anything changes. This causes her to not realize that five years have passed for a while.
- Smug Snake: The villain is this in spades. They are so sure that Danny will die in the fire he started as a prank that Went Horribly Wrong, that they don't consider the idea that since Hannah is a ghost, she can just walk right through them to save Danny.
- That Was Not a Dream: The book opens with Hannah having a horrible nightmare about her bedroom being on fire. The climax reveals that this scene wasn't a dream, and she actually died from the fire.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Danny isn't a ghost. Hannah is.
- Too Dumb to Live: The shadow's overconfidence plays just as much of a role in his downfall as Hannah does. He tries to stop Hannah from saving Danny from a fire so that he can take his living counterpart's place... while forgetting that Hannah is intangible. To add to the shadow's stupidity, he's a phantom himself, so he really has no excuse.
- Trickster Twins: Bill and Herb. They constantly tease their family, make lots of horse play, and pick on Hannah constantly.
- Troubled Fetal Position: As Hannah now knows she's a ghost and is going through her now-empty house, she tearfully goes into this position. She stays like this until night falls.
- What You Are in the Dark: Hannah finds out she is the ghost, not her new neighbor, and Danny realized it as well. As the strange shadow tells her, she has no obligations to the living world, and not to someone who's been trolling her. Even so, when Hannah finds out Danny is trapped in a burning house, she runs in and uses all her strength to become solid enough to drag him out. This ends up being part of a Secret Test of Character, where she's allowed to reunite with her family in the afterlife.
