A / N : Okay, so this may be the most nonsensical thing I have ever written, and I completely understand if everyone reading this is left utterly bewildered. The idea for this little piece came from a random Corpse Bride reference Jacalyn Hyde inserted into one of her fics, which got me thinking about a) how odd it was that the hero and heroine of that film were called Victor and Victoria, and b) what they might call their hypothetical child. Couple that with a Tim Burton movie marathon, and the result, I have learned, looks something like this. Cookies to anyone who can spot the many Tim Burton references scattered throughout the story. As well as the very vague reference to The Secret Garden. Also, if you do read this, please leave me a little review to let me know what you thought, because I'm not expecting a lot of readers, so every little counts! Dedicated to Jacalyn Hyde, because she inspired this, in a twisted way – well, she set my thoughts on a road they would almost certainly never have wandered down otherwise – so, credit where it's due!

This piece was written entirely for fun, so don't take it too seriously.

Disclaimer – I do not own Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, Beetlejuice or anything else you recognize. I do own Viola Van Dort, and Victor II , but that's it.

Third Time's The Charm

It was a universally accepted fact that nine year old Viola van Dort was an unusual child. Viola was a plain child, who had inherited both her mother's mousy brown locks and her father's pallor. She was thin, though all four of her grandparents agreed that 'spindly' was a more appropriate term. She also had a penchant for black, a colour all four of her grandparents agreed was most unbecoming on a child. The other unusual thing about Viola van Dort was her morbid fascination with the dead. Dead birds, dead rabbits, dead rats . . . to Viola, they were all an equal source of fascination. Their open, glassy eyes, their stiff little frames, the odd sense of emptiness that presided over all . . . .

Viola was fascinated by death. Something she didn't find nearly as fascinating was her two year old brother, Victor van Dort II. As far as she was concerned, her brother was nothing more than a nuisance. All he ever did was cry, and break things. Nothing had gone right for her, ever since that fatal day when his piping screams first shattered the silence. Nowadays, she spent most of her time plotting to send him back to wherever he had come from in the first place (she was a little unsure on this point). These plans had never really solidified into a definite strategy. But one day, shortly before Christmas, Viola reached her tipping point.

She was sitting by the window, watching the snow fall and talking to her pet, when little Victor toddled into the room. Viola's pet was a tiny, perfect blue butterfly kept in a jam jar. She adored this miniature creature more than anything and so when clumsy little Victor jumped up in excitement and knocked the jar to the ground, smashing it and killing her delicate pet in the process, she realized that something had to give."That's it!" she cried, scowling at her brother. His plump cheeks had turned pink and his bottom lip was wobbling, threatening tears. As he broke into fresh wails of "Flutterby dead! Flutterby dead!" she picked him up and dropped him in the hall, slamming the door in his face. She had decided. She was going to get rid of Victor, for once and for all. The only problem was how to do it.

Over the next few weeks, Viola exhausted all her cunning to get rid of Victor. She asked her mother a great many leading questions about where, exactly, he had come from, only to find the answers suspiciously lacking in detail. A stork dropped him down the chimney? Well it wasn't as if she could simply stuff him back up there. She had already tried bundling him into the fireplace, but that simply left him sooty and squealing. Locking him in a wardrobe had no effect either, as he was still there, hammering on the door, half-suffocated by furs, when her father let him out twenty minutes later. The flaw in that plan had been obvious, in retrospect. After all, it wasn't as if he could wander off into another realm and get abducted by an witch. It was a wardrobe. No. Clearly, if she was going to get rid of Victor, she would need outside help.

The first of the Betelguese incidents occured on December 22nd, as she was shopping with her mother in town. The shop bell tinkled as they stepped into Mrs Lovett's Meat Pie Emporium. The proprietor, a cheery, red-headed woman, was singing softly to herself, stacking the shelves with pies.

"C'mere little kitty,

It'll be over in a jiffy . . . oh! Customers!"

She hurried to the front of the shop, dusting off her apron. "What can I do for you, Mrs van D?"

Viola's mother smiled shyly at her. "Three meat pies, please."

A cat yowled and streaked past Viola just as her mother placed her order. She had never seen a cat move so fast. Mrs Lovett, however, didn't seem too bothered. "No pie for the little girl?" she said cheerily. "Skinny little thing, 'ent she? Looks like she could do with a bit of meat on 'er bones."

"Oh no," Victoria shook her head, "Viola doesn't eat meat."

Viola raised her head imperiously, setting her jaw. "I don't eat anything dead," she declared.

Mrs Lovett raised an eyebrow. "If you say so love . . ."

It happened just as the baker passed her mother the pies. For an instant – just an instant – she saw not the plain brown paper bag, but a strange picture. An advertisment. A man wearing a pinstriped suit and a madcap grin was leering at her from beneath a headline with the following words on show - "Troubled by the living? You need a bio-exorcist! Call Betelgeuse for help. Betelguese! Betelguese! Betelguese! Remember – three time's the charm!"

Viola blinked, and the image vanished, so quickly she wondered if she had imagined it. But that was the first of the Betelguese incidents.

The second occurred the next night, the night before Christmas Eve. Her father had just left the room to tend to her baby brother, when the pages of the astronomy book they had been poring over ruffled in a sudden breeze, flying open and landing on the section describing the constellation of Orion, on a page entitled 'Betelgeuse'. As she stared at the picture, the pinpoint stars seemed to rearrange themselves, twisting into the form of a small, bandy-legged man with a demonicly determined smile. And beneath his dancing feet, the same words - "Troubled by the living? You need a bio-exorcist! Call Betelgeuse for help. Betelguese! Betelguese! Betelguese! Remember – three times' the charm!"

Viola blinked, bemused. Then she threw the book across the room and buried her head under her pillow.

The next morning, she pulled on her boots and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, stealing out of the house and stepping into the street. Christmas Eve, and this early in the morning, the town was still and silent. A shop sign creaked in a blast of icy wind, a flurry of snowflakes swirled around her hair, and the thick, solid blanket of snow beneath her feet swallowed the sound of her footsteps. She swallowed. The wind, howling in her ears, sounded like a child lost and crying on a moor. It was as she pushed open the iron gate of the graveyard that she felt something more than snow nipping at her ankles. Hard little teeth, belonging to an animal, if she guessed right. She spun round, but the animal, whatever it was, was apparently shy. It was hiding. Hmm. Viola frowned. There came a strange skittering sound, like bone on stone. Like rats scurrying in an attic. Perhaps it was a rat? Curious and entirely unafraid, she held out a hand.

"I won't hurt you," she said softly. "I promise."

A strange whine, another strange skittering sound . . . . and then a little dog emerged from behind the gravestone of William Wonka. At one stage, it must have been a rather sweet dog, but something quite unusual had happened to it. Though it trotted forwards, its head cocked curiously to one side, just like any other dog, and though the soft whine that emerged from its throat was just like that of any other dog . . . . it was unlike any dog Viola had ever seen. Because it was certainly and most unmistakeably dead. What held it together, was impossible to say, because it was nothing but bone. The skeleton of a dog. Viola liked it instantly.

"It isn't your fault you're dead, after all," she said reasonably. "If you want, you can be my new pet."

It wasn't as nice as her butterfly had been, but it was sweet, in its own way. Her words seemed to be music to the dog's ears (Viola realized a moment after thinking this that the dog did not, in fact, have any ears. She might have to rethink her list of metaphors. ) The hound let out a delighted whine (the lack of vocal chords didn't seem to impact upon it at all) and barrelled into her. It promptly fell apart, bones scattering across the path like bowling pins, only to spring back into shape again.

Viola blinked, astounded, and then she stood up. "Come, dog," she said grandly, "We're going for a walk."

They set off, winding their way through the graveyard. What she was searching for, Viola didn't know, but she had the strange feeling the matter would resolve itself for her. It did.

She stopped, and her mouth fell open. The tombstone she was staring at now was not small and humble like those around it – it was a hulking, towering thing, and engraved upon its surface, in foot-high capital letters – the words HERE LIES BETELGUESE.

The words of the strange advertisement came back to her in an instant, and Viola had a thought, which, it must be said, was not very nice. Her brother was living, wasn't he? And he was certainly troubling her. She frowned, considering. And then she thought of her butterfly, and made up her mind. She was going to exorcise Victor. But how to do it? At that moment, her eye fell upon the gravedigger's spade, leaning against the side of the tombstone, somewhere it had certainly not been just a minute ago. And it occurred to her that in order to ask Betelguese for his help, she might first have to dig him up.

"Oh."

She sighed. The spade was half as tall as she was, and Viola had privately never felt quite so spindly as she did in that moment. But she wanted to get rid of Victor, didn't she? So she picked up the spade, and clumsily stabbed it into the earth. The little dog whined, scurrying behind a nearby tombstone. "Coward," Viola murmured. And then she began to dig.

It took her hours to get six feet down, and by the time she struck wood at last, she was uncomfortably hot and covered in earth, and there were stones in her shoes. She was aching all over, and the hollow sound as her spade struck the coffin lid sounded as welcome to her as the dinner bell after a day of fasting. She threw the spade aside and wiped the earth from the coffin lid with her bare hands. Then she realized she had another problem. How to open the coffin?

A small bronze plaque had been screwed to the surface of the coffin, and as she bent closer, she found she could make out the words inscribed upon it.

Betelguese! Betelguese! Betelguese! (Remember – the third time's the charm!)

Viola stared. Then she swallowed. Her mouth felt suddenly dry. But it was too late to turn back now.

"Betelguise!"

Nothing happened. Perhaps she was mispronouncing it?

"Bettleguise!"

"Betelgoose!"

No response.

"Erm . . . beetle . . . juice?"

It was a long shot, but to her surprise, the earth beneath her feet began to tremble, just a little.

"Beetlejuice?" she repeated, incredulous. The coffin began to shake, as though someone inside were tapping their foot, impatiently. Viola scrambled out of the open grave and shrank back against the headstone, suddenly nervous. She couldn't see the little dog anymore. It seemed to have run away in fright. She closed her eyes.

"Beetlejuice!"

Bang. The coffin lid flew open, and there was a blast of wind like a hurricane. Viola screamed and toppled over as a foul-smelling wind whirled around her ears. It smelled like rot and decay, laced with a pungent whiff of alcohol. As suddenly as it had started, it stopped, and silence fell over the graveyard once more. The only sound was her own hammering heart. Slowly, still shaking, she raised her head.

"Boo!"

Viola screamed in shock, and the man in front of her laughed. Laughed and laughed, as though frightening a little girl was the funniest thing in the world. Bandy-legged, with yellow teeth and a horrible, leering smile, he wore a black and white pinstriped suit. An earthworm poked its head through a hole in his collar, and he tugged it out and popped it in his mouth, grinning at her.

"Are you . . ." Viola was having difficulty finding her voice.

The strange man winked at her. "Sure am, kiddo. So – what's the job? Grandparents giving you hassle? Yuppie couple ruining your afterlife? Haunting proving a headache? C'mon, gimme something to work with here . . . ."

"Er . . . you – you just ate a worm." Viola felt obliged to point this out.

"So? Nothin' wrong with a nice earthworm, kid. Very nutritious. Good for your, er, bones. You should try one sometime." He cackled madly again.

"I . . . I . . ."

A pirate eye-patch appeared from nowhere, plastering itself over her right eye. A stuffed parrot popped into existence on the poltergeist's left shoulder. "Aye – aye, cap'n!" he cackled, mocking her. Viola ripped the eye-patch off and flung it onto the snowy ground. She decided to try again.

"Beetlejui – mph!" She had got halfway through his name when he suddenly clamped one putrid-smelling hand over her mouth.

"Nuh – uh, kiddo!" He wagged a finger at her. "Three times to summon and three times to dismiss, and I'm not going nowhere!"

A small part of her yearned to point out that this was bad grammar, but then again – she didn't understand half of what came out of Beetlejuice's mouth, and he never stopped talking long enough to let her ask, so what was the point? He was at it again already.

"So c'mon! A helping hand! Be a good Samaritan, throw a dog a bone! Why'd you summon me? A live 'un too-" he pulled out a comb, the teeth of which were rather unevenly arranged, and dragged it through his hair, spritzing the contents of a little bottle into his throat at the same time. He flashed her a sleazy smile. "Occult, but still alive . . . I'm just a- burnin' up with curiosity here, kid."

Viola suppressed a shudder. "It's – it's my little brother," she said at last. "I wanted to exorcise him. But -" she watched Beetlejuice scratch his stubbly chin - "I think I changed my mind."

He froze instantly. "Changed your mind? Oh no you don't. This -" he waved a hand over himself in an expansive gesture - "comes with a no-return policy! You got it, you're stuck with it! The baby brother on the other hand -" a crafty smile spread itself across his features - "now that could be arranged."

"That's not true," Viola said haughtily. "You said it yourself – three times to summon and three times to dismiss! What's to stop me from just saying Beetle – mph!"

The stuffed parrot flew from Beetlejuice's shoulder and hit her in the mouth. She toppled over backwards, his laughter ringing in her ears. As she scrambled to her feet again, she realized he had gone. She was all alone in the graveyard. Which did not bode well for her, seeing as she had yet to say his name three times.

Viola didn't stop to think. She ran all the way home.

"Mother! Father! Victor!"

Silence met her words. Panic flooded through her like icy water. They had to be here somewhere, didn't they? After all, it was Christmas Eve. But the house was quiet as the grave. The parlour window was wide open, and a freezing wind shot through it, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. A scrap of paper, ghostly white, fluttered on the mantelpiece. Viola picked it up with a sinking heart. Scrawled upon the page, in handwriting that most certainly did not belong to either of her parents, were the words Gone To Church.

Viola had left the house before she even finished reading the words.

The church was freezing, and her footsteps echoed, disconcertingly loudly, in the funereal silence.

"M – Mother? Father? Victor?" Her teeth were chattering.

"Viola!"

Her mother's shout seemed to come from high above her. She looked up, and gasped. Her parents were hanging, suspended in nets, from the ceiling. They kicked and struggled, but couldn't seem to get free.

"Catch of the Day!"

Beetlejuice popped out from behind a pillar. In his arms, wriggling and kicking like a little savage, was Victor. As she watched, he sank his teeth into Beetlejuice's hand, and for the first time in her life, Viola felt a surge of affection for him. But she didn't have time to think about it.

She looked up at her parents, a lump forming in her throat. "I'm really sorry!" she cried. "I didn't mean to, I really didn't! But he said he'd make Victor go away, and I just wanted . . ."

She was interrupted by a loud, theatrical sniff. Beetlejuice was wiping his eyes with a six-foot long string of multi-coloured handkerchieves. As she turned to him, he began to clap. "Bravo! And the Oscar goes to . . . . . is it? No, really? Surely not? Well who am I to argue with the Academy? Viiii – ooollllaa!"

Viola scowled at him. She might not have understood a word he'd just said, but the mocking tone behind the words was impossible to mistake.

"Beetlejuice!" she spat, just to spite him, while he was busy wiping his eyes and congratulating himself on his own brilliance.

"Oh no you don't!"

He snapped his fingers, and the marble angel in the corner of the church leapt from its pedestal. It knocked her to the floor in an instant, and she saw stars. But her parents seemed to have realized what she was trying to do.

"Beetlejuice!" her mother shouted, surprising her. The man himself spun round, appalled, and snapped his fingers at her. Viola screamed as the rope connecting her mother's net to the ceiling snapped, and she plummeted to earth. Thankfully, a hefty stack of hymn books broke her fall. Her father stared, aghast, and then he nervously opened his mouth.

"Beetle – agh!"

Beetlejuice snapped the rope holding her father up with a savage scowl. Her father, unfortunately, wasn't as lucky as her mother. He hit the flagstones and there was a sickening crack, as his leg broke.

"Papa!" she gasped.

Beetlejuice laughed at her. She struggled to her feet, and started towards her father, but the poltergeist snapped his fingers once more, and the flagstones beneath her feet surged up like a tidal wave, knocking her back onto the pews, in a sitting position. She had no sooner opened her mouth than the pews did something that was even stranger – they leapt up and began to dance the can-can, knocking her flat on her face.

Furious, she wrenched her mouth open and screamed the word at the top of her voice.

"Beetlejuice!"

BANG. There was a blast of foul-smelling wind, and an anguished scream, and Beetlejuice disappeared. Viola stood up, shaking a little. Everything seemed to be in working order. The doors of the church had been blasted open, and snow swirled inwards as she watched, melting into her stockings. Her mother was helping her father to his feet, but neither of them seemed particularly angry. She crossed to the door, watching the snow fall. And then she felt a tug on her arm. Victor was staring at her, his eyes as wide as silver coins.

"P'esent," he lisped.

Viola frowned. "Victor!" she said irritably. "I just saved your life. Don't you think it's rude to call me a peasant?"

Victor frowned at her in turn, his face turning an ominous shade of red. His bottom lip had begun to wobble again. "No!" he said obstinantly "P'esent!"

And he held out his hand.

Viola gasped. Sitting on Victor's forefinger, quivering in a winter breeze, was a single, perfect blue butterfly.