Lydia Deetz sat on her bed. It was too quiet – she could hear her mother sculpting downstairs and the continuous 'tik, tik, tik,' of the chisel was growing irritating. The girl walked across her room and turned on the radio. "Shake, shake, shake, Senora, shake your body line-a! Shake, shake, shake, Senora, shake it all the time-a. Work, work, work, Senora, work your body line-a! Work, work, work, Senora, work it all the time-a! Jump in the line – Shake your body all the time. Okay! I believe you! Jump in the li-"
Lydia clicked the radio off, again. She actually hadn't heard that song since the Maitlands left. Apparently, the fact that they were content with the Deetzs' living in their home was enough reason for them to have to go to the other side. The concern for their home was gone, and Lydia Deetz hadn't seen Barbara or Adam Maitland since. Or that deranged bio-exorcist. What was his name?
"Beetlejuice," she said, answering her own question.
"What was that?" her dad asked, coming into her room.
"Beetlejuice."
"That horrid ghost that tried to sabotage Delia's art deal?" he asked, frowning.
She nodded. "That's the one."
"Her father sighed deeply. "If I ever see another ghost again, it'll be too soon." After Charles Deetz's encounter with the bio-exorcist, he'd become incredibly high stung, and his blood pressure rose through the roof. His doctor had told him to, 'Just relax.' "Okay, sweetie. I'm going for a relaxing walk in the woods. Your mother's downstairs," 'tik, tik, tik,' "just yell if you need her."
"Alright dad. Have a good walk!" she called after her father. She scribbled the ghost's name onto a piece of paper. There was supposed to be an alternative way of spelling it… beetlegoos…. Beetleguese… beetle… betel…
"Betelgeuse." She said, slowly as she wrote it out. There! That looked about right!
POP!
Lydia looked up and screamed. Floating in the middle of her room was the ghost.
Beetlejuice, completely unaware that he was now in the girl's room, got startled and fell to the floor. "Whoa. Rough landing." He muttered, standing.
"MOTHER!"
'Tik, tik, tik…'
Beetlejuice turned. "Lyds!" he beamed; she screamed.
Lydia picked up the old aluminum baseball bat that was sitting in the corner of her room just in case anyone ever tried to break in
"Bats. You know I hate `em." He said, passively.
The small, furry winged animal shrieked in her hands. She let it go, and it flew back over the corner of her room and turned back into the aluminum piece of sports equipment. She did the only other thing she could think of – exactly what the Maitlands did to get rid of the poltergeist the first time. "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!" she shouted.
"He-e-e-e-y!" he shouted, his voice echoing as he was sucked back into the neitherworld.
Lydia opened her eyes – where her spider curtains had been, there was now nothing but a vast stretch of winding, impossibly hilly, orange dirt road.
"Great." she said flatly. "Just fabulous." And she began walking.
At first, things seemed utterly hopeless. Nothing but bare stretches of road… until she came to the first house. It was a bone-bleach white and she immediately saw why: the entire home was one big bull's skull, like the one's that you'd see in the desert in cartoons.
A fence surrounded the property and a dog barked madly. She walked up to it. Upon seeing her, the dog calmed, panting and wagging its tail happily. It looked like something between a poodle, a bulldog, and a pug, save for the HORNS and the giant teeth. The doghouse which it was chained to said "Poopsie."
"Hi, Poopsie," she said. Still, it didn't look REMOTELY like any dog she'd ever seen.
Oh well.
She kept walking, noticing the sign that said, "The Monster across the street." Strange…
There was another, larger building with a bright neon-colored sign up top that said, "BJ's Roadhouse." A roadhouse? Like an apartment complex? Good, maybe she'd be able to get directions back to her home. It was against her better judgement… but it was necessary at the moment. She walked up to the building and rang the doorbell.
DTHUNK, DTHUNK!
Moments later, the door opened and the girl suppressed a scream.
Lydia Deetz found herself staring at an eight foot tall skeleton in a blue shirt red pants and wearing a beret. "Ooh, La-la! You must be Lydia!" it said in a French accent.