What does 逃げっこなしにしよう mean?

Question

So, I was reading a children's story and came across this sentence: 「いいか、この最後のローソクが消えたら、本当のお化けが出るかもしれん。だが、どんなお化けが出ようと、お互いに逃げっこなしにしよう」 What I'm having trouble understanding and dictionaries haven't been able to help is decoding the 逃げっこなしにしよう part. What exactly is happening there? If more context is needed, the full text can be seen here (it's only about one page long, very short): http://hukumusume.com/douwa/pc/100monogatari/001.htm

Answer 1

Hello! If we start by looking at the context of the sentence, we see that just before "逃げっこなしにしよう" are the words "どんな化けが出ようと". Before overanalyzing the meaning of the phrase in question, we can look at the context clues and see that the speaker is saying, "No matter what kind of monster comes out...". Keeping that in mind, we move on to the next part and first see the word "逃げっこなし". The kanji tells you that this word has something to do with running away or escaping, and then if you look at the final two characters, you'll see that it is a negator, "なし" meaning, "without". The final word is "にしよう", which I'm sure you know means, "let's". The "っこ" is just an extra stylistic word turning the verb "逃げる" into more of a noun.

So all in all, by looking first at the context clues, then breaking down the phrase in question into bite-sized pieces, we're able to put together the meaning, "No matter what monster comes out, let's (be brave and) not run away!"

Hope this helped!

Never stop learning~☆