SCOOBY DOO AND THE HAUNTED MANSION
Chapter one
"Can't You Just Give It A Rest, Velma?"
"Like, this place is from nowheresville, Scoob!" Shaggy said as he and his best buddy entered the local hangout. He waved at Velma, who was in a corner, reading a very thick book. Shaggy didn't know what it was about, but it looked boring. Of course, anything that wasn't a comic book or a food catalogue was boring to Shaggy. Velma was either angry at him, or completely caught up in her book, as she completely ignored him.
Shaggy sauntered over to the jukebox. He looked through the selections, and then put on a Beatles song. He'd collected all their records, and seriously hoped that the rumors he'd heard about them breaking up were fake.
"Like, let's cut a rug, Velma!" Shaggy cried, grabbing the chubby, bespectacled girl and pulling her from her booth.
"Shaggy! What are you…?" Her book clattered to the floor. "Now you've made me lose my place!"
"Like, what do you want with a stale old book when you've got Mister Cool?" Shaggy said, spinning her around.
"It's a collection of ghostly sightings in this state," Velma explained as she let Shaggy dip her. "Did you know that there's an old mansion that's supposed to be haunted right down the road not three miles from your house?"
"Ghosts?!" Shaggy cried. "Don't we run into enough creeps by accident, without you going looking for trouble?"
"Aren't you the slightest bit curious?" Velma demanded. "We have never encountered a real ghost. Wouldn't you like to see just one that was legitimate?"
"Like, the phony ghosts are scary enough!" Shaggy said. "Remember that magician, Bluestone? He was smiling when they took him off to jail, but I've heard he's been saying he wants a rematch if he ever gets out of stir! He can go anyplace! Locked doors won't keep out a magician!"
"Oh, Shaggy!" Velma said. "If you had your way, you and Scooby would just eat and eat and eat until you burst!"
"Speaking of bursting," Shaggy said, suddenly letting go of Velma. She fell to the floor.
"Hey!" Velma yelled. "Chivalry is dead!"
Shaggy ordered enough food for six people. Then he turned to Scooby Doo. "And what would you like, Scoob?"
"Wive we the wame!" Scooby said.
"You heard him, my good man," Shaggy said, "give him the same. How 'bout you, Velma?"
"Oh brother!" Velma said, rolling her eyes. "After listening to all you're ordering, I've lost my appetite! I'll just wait until Fred and Daphne arrive."
Just out of school, the four friends, and Scooby Doo, had started a ghost busting club. Shaggy had assumed that it was just for fun at first, and had been flabbergasted when Velma had actually gotten them to go out on a mystery. Since then, they'd caught about a dozen crooks pretending to be ghosts to scam people. Shaggy, who believed in ghosts, was always afraid that the next one would be for real. And now Velma was looking up books full of hauntings!
Fred and Daphne appeared just as Shaggy and Scooby were getting their food. Fred had been captain of the high school football team, and Daphne had been head cheerleader. Exactly how they had become friends with super bookworm Velma and laid back hippy Shaggy was a mystery that probably no one would ever be able to solve.
"Hey, guys!" Daphne called.
"Got any new mysteries to solve?" Fred asked. Fred was clearly much more interested in ghost chasing than Daphne, who seemed to just be following her boyfriend around.
"Well," Velma said, digging through her book, "I had found something interesting, but Shaggy made me lose my page! Just a second…"
"Let's get in some dancing while she looks," Daphne suggested.
"You got it, doll!" Fred said.
"Yeah, you guys dance while Scooby and I eat!" Shaggy said. He looked down at his plate. It was nearly empty. He pulled it away from Scooby. "Hey! Like, eat your own food!"
"Heeheeheeheehee!" Scooby laughed.
"Some man's best friend!" Shaggy said.
"Okay, here it is!" Velma said. She looked around. "Where did Daphne and Fred go?"
"Like, they're trippin' the light fantastic!" Shaggy said, as a new song just came on. "Let's join 'em, Velma!"
"What? No!" Velma cried as Shaggy dragged her out to the dance floor again. "Page one hundred and fifty-two! Page one hundred and fifty-two!"
When they finished dancing, Velma opened her book again. "Okay," she said, "page five hundred and…" She glared at Shaggy. The book didn't have five hundred pages! She'd gotten the numbers mixed up some time during the last three songs.
"You two make a really cute couple!" Daphne said, stealing French fries from Fred's plate.
"Like, we're just friends!" Shaggy said. Velma was kind of cute when she wore contacts, which she almost never did because she had sensitive eyes, but Shaggy was no where near ready to settle down.
"Are you sure you don't want me to order you your own fries?" Fred asked as Daphne stole a few more.
"Oh, no, Freddy," Daphne assured him, taking a couple more, "I have to watch my figure!"
"Oh brother," Velma muttered.
"What was that?" Daphne asked.
"I said, oh bother, I can't find it!" Velma said. Daphne was either spacey or a little hard of hearing.
"Like, we don't need to go ghost hunting anyway, right gang?" Shaggy asked.
"Wight, Waggy!" Scooby-Doo agreed.
"Here we go!" Velma said. "Page one hundred and fifty-two! The old Dartmoor house. It says here that it was built in 1792 by Tories fleeing from George Washington's army after the American Revolution."
"Like, don't tell me we're gonna run into the Headless Horseman!" Shaggy said.
"Quiet, you!" Velma said. "The builder, Cornelius Dartmoor, was afraid that the spirits of the men he'd killed in the war would come seeking revenge, so he built his house full of tunnels and secret rooms."
"Like the Winchester Mystery House!" Fred said. "So is Cornelius haunting the old house, or his victims?"
"Cornelius died the day he was supposed to move into the house," Velma said. "Supposedly, he was thrown from his horse."
"Like, that's why I don't ride horses," Shaggy said. "Merry-go-rounds make are more my style. They can't throw you, and no matter how long you ride, you don't have to take the long way home."
"Will you be quiet, dimwit?" Velma said. Sometimes Shaggy got on her last nerve. "As he was dying, he sword that the ghost of his last victim, a huge, red-headed, giant of a man, had appeared, spooking his horse. Since then, the giant has been seen many times, as well as a sad-faced woman in a large bonnet, supposedly Cornelius' wife, Prudence. She apparently never got over Cornelius' death."
"Oh, Fred," Daphne said, grabbing Fred's arm. "Isn't that the most sadly romantic thing you've ever heard? I need a tissue!" She started dabbing at her eyes.
"And this haunted house is only a few miles from where Shaggy lives?" Fred said. "Why didn't we ever explore it before?"
"Hoonnnkk!"
"Well, that was certainly lady-like!" Velma said, rolling her eyes at Daphne. "Anyway, to answer your question, Fred, this book was just published last month by a Professor Ralph Bellows. And apparently, the old house is covered with vines and creepers."
"Feed me, Seymour!" Shaggy said.
"I think you've had enough, already," Velma said. "So, what do you cats think? Shall we go explore it?"
"Nuh-uh!" Shaggy said, shaking his head. "Count me out! It looked like it was gonna rain when we came in here! I'm not going to any old spook house in the rain!"
"Wuh-uh, we neither!" Scooby said.
"Will you do it for a Scooby snack each?" Fred asked. Boy, he really did want to go. Shaggy wondered what an otherwise popular guy like Fred wanted with spook houses and crypts.
"No way, no how!" Shaggy insisted, getting up. "Let's go, Scooby, before they talk us into something we'll both regret!"
"WI'm with you!"
"Three Scooby snacks each?" Velma offered.
Shaggy sighed. "Look, let's cut to the chase, okay? Four each, and we're yours."
"Okay, four it is!" Fred said, tossing eight Scooby snacks in the air.
Shaggy and Scooby fought over the flying Scooby snacks. Since Shaggy never bothered to really chew anything, he was never sure if he got two or three. Scooby got the rest.
"Wooby-Wooby-Woo!" Scooby cried.
And just like that, they were off on their latest ghost hunt. As Shaggy would later put it, "Man, I shoulda just stayed in bed!"
To be continued…