Paranelope, a ghost hunter who's been cancelled for faking evidence, must discover the truth behind a local cryptid in order to clear her name.
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Penelope, better known as the ghost hunter PARANELOPE to her millions of followers, has only ever want...
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The quiet little town was no more. Tonight, Ridgestone was loud and busy. The sidewalks were packed with people, the roads with cars, and there were somehow even more purple banners hanging in every available space. Even the streetlights were purple, their bulbs swapped for black lights, their poles striped with neon green and purple ribbon.
"This place is crazy," her dad said, letting out a low whistle as their truck crawled down one of the side streets. His knuckles were white against the steering wheel. People had been dashing out into the street and he had to be ready to brake.
"Yeah. So much for nothing big," Penelope muttered from the passenger seat.
Her dad didn't hear her. "Guess all the publicity they got from the news has been good for business."
Penelope frowned. If only these people knew just what they were celebrating...
"You gonna be okay?" her dad asked, turning to look at her as he came to a stop at a red light. "I mean, getting up there, in front of them all?" He nodded out the windshield to the stream of people flowing over the crosswalk.
Penelope could only shrug. For the first time in a while, it wasn't the crowd she was worried about.
And anyway, even if it was... Well, it wasn't like she had much of a choice.
"Really? You're not nervous?" her dad prodded.
Penelope shrugged again.
Her weak response made her dad scrunch up his nose. He hadnoticed something was off, but he hadn't yet sussed out just what it was. But that didn't mean he wasn't trying. Of course, tonight was the one time Penelope wished he hadn't noticed anything. Tonight she wished she had one of those clueless parents from the movies, the ones who barely paid attention while their kids ran off to defeat some great evil.
"Well, you look nice, at least," her dad continued when she didn't answer. Ahead of them, the light turned green and the truck began to crawl forward again.
"You already said that," Penelope sighed. She had been forced to shed her shredded hoodie and put on her one nice sweater, the same one she had worn for her interview with Henry. Her hair was freshly-dyed and straightened smooth and she even had makeup on, though that was more to cover all the scratches her blind run through the forest had left on her face.
