Disclamer: I don't own Beetlejuice sadly. But on the bright side, THE CRAZY FAN GIRLS don't ether!
Author's Quick Note:
COME ON GUYS! READ THIS CHAPTER! IT'S BETTER THEN THE PROLOGE! PROMISS!
End Note
The Chronicles of Life and Death
Chapter 1: "New Kids"
"No one ever won a war by getting stuck in a ditch; you win the war by makin the OTHER poor dopes get stuck in a ditch!"
Beetlejuice (Cartoon) "Driven Crazy"
Hi, I'm Lance Dell. I'm 16 years old, my hobbies include writing and reading, I've been a straight A student all my life, I have a 4.0 GPA and I just moved to Peaceful Pines Connecticut this week with my Dad and little sister Jessica. Oh but she's not THAT little, she's actually only 17 months younger then me. So she's just the right age for both of us to attend the same school together.
The moment we arrived in this town. I instantly got the impression that this was the kind of town where ONE person's cold is EVERYONE'S cold. There's only 1 store of everything here, it's practically a village. There's a town similar to this just over the Winter Bridge called Winter River…
Don't get me started on the names of the towns. My sister is NOTHING like me (Aside from the grades); while I reject all superstitious nonsense my sister EMBRACES it.
Especially ghosts
I've tried to tell her GHOST DON'T EXIST, but she continues to believe that they do. As a scientist-to-be, I know that no such thing as "life beyond the grave" (Heaven and Hell not included, but that religion we're getting into.). It's physically IMPOSSIBLE for someone's "soul" to have an alternate life in an alternate world with MaGiC. It's always been a trick of the mind. During the Black Plague (Years 1497 to 1502) people believed that their were OTHER things at work that made people become ill and die, when all along it was JUST health issues that they didn't know about.
BUT Jessica doesn't believe that. She sticks to her own ideas. One such idea involves around that committing suicide makes you work in an office for 125 years all thanks to her favorite movie.
I'm not even going to say it.
I hate that movie.
When we arrived in this town that Dad got stationed in (He's a military trainer for the Army) we didn't know ANYTHING about it, we didn't know the history, the name, heck we didn't even know the location (and got lost several times on the way from WASHINGTON STATE to CONNETICUT, that's a week long drive with all this stuff we got.). All that we knew was that Dad was stationed there and the only school was a boarding school with UnIfOrMs. We didn't need the dorms though; the house was really close by, in fact a 12 minute BIKE RIDE away from it.
Yesterday when we arrived and were enrolled at the school, on the way back to the house Jessica flipped and pointed to a house on a hill.
It looked like the house in her favorite movie.
I kept telling her that the director probably used the exterior shots of a house for the movie but she didn't listen.
I only hope she doesn't make me embarrass on OUR FIRST DAY
Or does anything stupid.
AGAIN
"HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Jessica yelled from her unfortunate location. She had woken up early to go to Winter River and check out the Maitland house, to check if she wasn't seeing things.
She didn't make it that far.
On the way through, what looked like, a short cut through the woods she had fallen in a ReAlLy deep ditch. About 15 to 20 feet deep ditch. Her bike hadn't even made the gap but some how stayed on the opposite side and she could see the back wheel from her position.
"Oh GrEEEEEAAAAAAAAt" she said to herself "My first day and not ONLY do I not get to see the Maitland house, I ALSO get stuck in a ditch and NOW I'm going to be late for school!"
She pushed her black hair out of her eyes and looked at her glasses, as she picked them off her nose, one of the lenses fell out.
"I wish I was "Late" right now." She sat back down on the dirt and put the lens in her uniform pocket.
This was not a good start on the first day.
She looked in her bag for her cell phone. She never used it, she never had any friends to talk to and the only person who had her number was her brother Lance, who she didn't really like to hang out with.
She pulled out the phone and turned it on, the platinum razor vibrated and a background of a picture of the B-man and Lyds that she took (with permission) from DeviantART was the only thing that didn't make her go crazy that she had no signal.
But she did scream.
However, she looked at the picture and suddenly started humming "Day-O" for some strange reason.
She stopped humming for a moment to realize that someone ELSE was singing the exact same song!
Jessica realized someone was coming she looked up just in time to see SOMEONE on a red bike LEAP over the gap.
"HEY! WAIT!" She yelled to the biker "COME BACK!"
A few moments of silence passed before she gave up and looked to the ground Anime style.
"You're not Make Up Kit!" a girl's voice suddenly said
Jessica suddenly looked up
Thankfully the biker had noticed her and had come back and was now peering over the edge of the hole.
"Make-u-what?" Jessica asked
"Never mind" the girl responded, "You're obviously NEW here." With a tone that said "Oh a new kid, better tell her what's up."
Jessica raised an eyebrow "how can you tell?"
The girl disappeared from sight and didn't respond
"HEY! WAIT!" Jessica yelled to the girl.
"Don't sweat it dude!" the girl reassured Jessica "I put a rope near by for just such an occasion! But it really isn't used in the middle of February!"
Suddenly a long rope with a wooden board attached to the end started to fall.
"LOOK OUT BELOW!" she yelled
Jessica moved out of the way just in time for the board to land right in front of her.
"You could have WARNED me first!" Jessica yelled at who-ever it was
"Hey, you want to get out or not? Stand on the plank and hold on!"
Jessica wondered how she was going to pull her out. She didn't weigh much but it would be a problem to pull her out from this long a ways. She put her backpack back on and put her feet on the plank. As soon as she held on to the rope and gave the word, she was suddenly, and surprisingly, pulled up at an extremely fast speed. She barley blinked as she was in the pit one moment and the next was falling on the grass out of the hole.
She looked up as saw exactly WHAT this girl had done to accomplish that. She had attached the other end of the rope to her bike and had used the speed of her bike to literally DRAG her up.
Jessica stood up and looked at her uniform.
What was once a light blue color with a black tie and buttons was now black as the earth. Or the DIRT in this case. Her white skirt was stained forever, and the only thing that wasn't bothered by dirt was the black shoes.
"Oops, sorry about that." Jessica looked up to face her rescuer and was in for a shock.
The girl was about her age and wearing the same uniform, but she was wearing white PANTS instead. She had shoulder-length-light-brown-verging-on-dirty-blond hair with a jade green headband placed on top of her head and she had a blue sweatband on her left wrist. Her pointy nose was small and her eyes seemed a bit far apart. But the color of her eyes looked almost unnatural.
They were a blue-green. Viridian colored eyes.
Not just that dull green color and a dull blue ether.
SOLID and colorful Sapphire and Emerald
And for a moment Jessica thought that there was another color surrounding the eyes.
Jessica looked at this kid and compared
Was it just her, or did she look like-
Wait
"2 things, how did you know I'm new here and why are you able to wear pants and not a skirt?" Jessica responded
"For the pants, didn't you know that you have a choice?" Jessica shook her head. The girl whispered something that Jessica didn't catch before turning back to her.
"Well, before you go home, get to the office and ask for pants because you didn't receive any to go with your uniform. You got that?" Jessica nodded
"And as for how I knew you're knew here, it's not hard to figure out." She said as she went over and started to coil up the rope.
"1: Everyone knows not to go through here because of the hole, 2: I'm the only one who can make the jump and people have DIED trying. No joke 3: Considering that YOU didn't react as OTHERS do when they meet me in the town, you obviously don't know me." She put the rope in her bookbag on her bike and looked at Jessica with a raised eyebrow.
"Who are you?"
The girl sighed and looked sharply at Jessica's bike before turning back to the question
"Sorry, My name's Heather" she out stretched her hand "Heather M Jaimes, 10th grader at Peaceful Pines Boarding School. And you are?"
"Jessica Dell, I'm a 10th grader too. Nice ta meet cha'."
Jessica shook her hand and they both began to bike towards the school.
Jessica was curious about Heather; she wasn't like the other kids she had seen so far. She didn't have that "village" stamp on her. She looked like she belonged in a city, not the suburbs.
"So you live in the dorms?" Jessica asked
"Yep, I was at Ms. Shannon's School for Girls too back in Jr High. That's a boarding school too. I've been here 4 years and hate every moment of it."
Jessica turned away from the trees and looked at Heather
"Why?"
"Because it's just so…boring…" She rolled her eyes "I mean, everyone in the world LEARNS the same thing and there's nothing special about any of it. The world and its history, being NORMAL? Who would want to be NORMAL?"
Jessica stopped for a sec and Heather followed and looked back
"You watch "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya,"" She said in surprise
Heather mouth formed a smile in a corner
"You're from the Westside."
"Westside?" Jessica asked as they both started to bike again through the woods.
"West side of the U.S"
"Yeah…Wait" Jessica pieced what Heather was saying together "You mean to tell me these people don't know ANIME?"
"Not in this town" Heather formed a pout look on her face "I'm from the Westside too."
"Really? From where?"
"Seattle Washington"
"No kidding! I'm from Washington too! A small town just across the water from Seattle called Silverdale."
"Sweet! That's the art capital of the Pacific North West"
"Yeah, it was dark and cloudy and gray everywhere but INSIDE the buildings was warmth and art EVERYWHERE, almost like-"
"Riva in "The Belgariad" series." Heather turned to Jessica as the last of the trees disappeared and they started to bike on a dirt road
"You are SO from the North West. It's nice to see a friendly face, you have an artful air about you." She said in a laughing matter that caused Jessica to laugh
"You're right actually" Jessica said, "I draw lots of anime. I'm not AS good as what I've seen others do but I'm pretty good."
"You're probably the BEST in the town right now. They didn't even know what "Sailor Moon" was when I got up here and they STILL don't."
"WHAT?"
"Something you outta know: This town is small, they rarely get imports from other countries; the only thing that's saved me so far is Youtube and my DVDs. This town doesn't even get non-mass-produced movies, the ones that don't get any awards."
"Supply and demand huh?"
"More like "The needs of the many out weigh-"
"The needs of the few or the one" Jessica finished again smiling at Heather
"You watch "Star Trek" too?" Heather said in "a mater of fact" tone
"Yeah. Hey if you have a dorm, what were you doing way out here?" Jessica asked as they finally made it to the road and saw the campus in their sight
She sighed and rolled her viridian eyes as they passed a boy and a girl making out. "GET A ROOM YOU TWO!" She yelled at them, the couple instantly stopped kissing and glared at her. "Sorry what were you saying?"
"I said if you have a dorm room what were you doing all the way out here?" Jessica repeated
"I'm a delivery girl for the grocery store and a family in Winter River needs some special things from time to time. Last night I didn't get the chance, I was studying for the semester finals and I fell asleep before I could get the chance to run it down."
Jessica didn't bother to ask what "Special Things" the family needed, she knew it would probably be personal.
"Now here's a question for YOU" Heather turned to the dark haired girl "What were YOU doing, going in the opposite direction of the school to Winter River at 6:35 in the morning in the dark?"
Jessica thought for a second. Should she tell her about the house? About the movie? The movie wasn't really THAT well known and she had been here for 4 years. Would she believe her?
"I got lost." She lied
Heather looked at Jessica with a smirk
"Well you're lucky that someone found you." She said as they entered the courtyard full of students and moved towards the bike racks.
Jessica looked around, the courtyard reminded her of Hogwarts or a college campus she had visited once, only the buildings were no more then 3 stories and they were new brick and concrete, not old stone and wood. There was even a fountain in the center that was, of course, frozen.
Jessica then suddenly remembered something that she needed to know. "Hey Heather" she asked as she locked her bike in place "Is there a video store in the town?"
"Yeah, right next to the grocery store. Why?" She looked at Jessica, her bookbag slung around her shoulder.
"During the move my favorite movie was broken, I kind of want it back, maybe even get it on DVD."
"Depends, what's it called?"
Jessica bit her lip, should she ask her?
The girl looked around and back at Jessica "What?"
Jessica made up her mind
"Sorry, it's called Beetle-"
Without any warning, Heather reached over both of their bikes and placed her hand over Jessica's mouth before she could finish with a look of panic over her face. Wide-eyed and clenched teeth.
Jessica's eyes widened too. In surprise though. "What is up with her?" She thought to herself. A random thought entered her mind "Maybe the reason she didn't want me to finish is because she's-"
"Listen" She whispered to the new kid "When I mentioned that movie's title, people started acting weird. Apparently it's the local legend. I don't know what up with them, and in 4 years I SILL haven't found out but I can guarantee you 2 things 1:You're not gonna find the movie ANYWHERE in this state and 2:You mention it, be prepared, saying it 3 times isn't going to work ether, once is enough to freak them out and THEN you're going to be in trouble, know what I mean? So, clean up your act." Jessica nodded; Heather removed her hand and started to walk towards the science wing.
"I'll see ya around sometime?" Jessica yelled
"Not likely! I've got all advanced classes!" She yelled and disappeared behind the door.
Jessica stood there as the 7:00 AM bell rang and more kids started to arrive. Heather was…Heck she was going to say it…Cool, but when she thought about how she acted a little more she was weird too; when you compare her to all the village kids.
She was weird yet normal, nerdy yet talkative, like a balance of two opposite things.
"Yo! Jess!" Jessica woke from her thoughts and saw a hand waving back and forth in front of her eyes.
"I've been waiting here for half an hour what happened?" Lance asked his younger sister with all ears.
"I fell into a ditch and this girl helped me out of it." she decided to give him the quick summary of it.
"Oh" he replied as he put his Advanced Biology book in his hands "Well it's a good thing you didn't get your uniform dirty."
Jessica's eyes widened, she looked down at her uniform and saw that there wasn't a single dirt stain on her, not even on her shoes! She even check her glasses, both lenses were in tacked.
"But" She fumbled for the words "but…but I-"
"Hey, we're gonna be late if we don't get a move on so I'll hear what's wrong later. Ok?" he looked at his sister with concern "if you think you fell a little too hard, maybe you should go see the nurse." And with that he walked to Biology.
Lance entered the Advanced Biology classroom; the walls were plastered with colors and graphs that explained all sorts of information. He felt good about this school; at the last one everyone hated him. Not because of the stereotypical reasons of man kind, hating those in middle class, or hating him because of his skin color, but because he cared about school. HERE he would be treated with respect!
Lance looked at the seating chart at the front of the room. He found his name in the front row, middle table. He sat down, opened up "Sherlock Holmes" and waited for his new Biology partner to come.
"Who are you?"
Lance looked up from his book to face an ice-cold glare that sent chills up his spine. The girl had her eyes half raised and her red book bag griped tightly by her hands. Her fingernails weren't painted, but they looked purplish. Kind of like they were as cold as ice. He looked back at her face
Her light brown hair brought out the green headband and her blue eyes. Or were they green? Yellow? No that can't be right. Lance's glasses fell further up his nose as he glanced at the girl that gave him the glare to end all glares.
"I'm Lance Dell, I just moved here." He stood up and offered his hand.
She stood there, glaring at him, but at the mention of his name, he could have sworn he saw her ears perk.
Lance slowly withdrew his hand. "Well, it was nice meeting you, but I'm waiting for my partner. He should be here any seco-" he was cut short as the girl stomped around the table and sat RIGHT NEXT to him with crossed arms and teeth clenched.
Lance sat there opened mouth for a few seconds before he peered over to the other side of the table and saw the name card "H. Jaimes" taped to it with drawings of anime eyes and what looked like the sign for alpha all over it with a small message "THE G.W.M RULES!" in the corner.
He suddenly realized just how quiet the classroom had gotten, they still had 10 minutes left and it was like class had begun. Lance looked around and saw everyone was staring at him with faces that said "oh S(&" all bug-eye too.
Miss. Jaimes seemed to realize that too and gave the class that ice-glare before yelling "WELL?!" and everyone started to get back to their own conversation.
Lance realized his error in his last sentence. "Sorry, I um…" he started to say, "Just forget it." Jaimes voice was laced with anger being held back so Lance didn't push the matter.
"What does the H stand for?" He asked
"Heather" She said quickly not even looking at him as she dug through her bookbag giving Lance a shock as she slammed her Biology book on the table. She sighed as she looked up at the clock.
Lance wanted to apologize properly and start on the right foot. It was bad of him to assume that it would be a MALE and not a FEMALE he'd give her that.
He turned back to her and was surprised to find her reading her OWN copy of "Sherlock Holmes", and by the look of it she was REALLY far into the book.
"Hey" he noticed "Sherlock Holmes."
She looked at him though the corner of her eye, with a gaze that at least wasn't as cold as a glacier. "Yeah" her voice had thawed out by several levels and was now level headed as well.
"How far are you?"
"I've already read it about 7 times now from cover to cover." She answered, "I'm just re-reading my favorites"
"Oh" Lance was amazed. He hadn't even FINISHED the book in a year and he had JUST turned 17. He had only JUST got to "The Dying Detective" and here comes Miss.Jaimes, who's read it 7 times.
"What grade are you in?" he asked
"10th" she coolly replied, Lance didn't notice her voice grow colder again. Heather seemed to know what this was leading up to.
Lance raised an eyebrow. "You're in Advance Biology and ONLY in 10th grade?" he said amazed. Heather's eyes started to glow more yellow around her viridian pupils. Lance still didn't notice what eminent danger he was in.
Then he put the final nail in his coffin.
"You're pretty smart for a girl."
The whole room went silent. Everyone froze and didn't dare to move a muscle. Even the heater seemed to stop working as the words left his mouth.
Heather stood still. It was at least 2 minutes (But it felt like an hour) before Lance noticed the feeling around him. He looked at Heather and for the first time noticed her eyes.
That was the chill that sent his heart racing.
It wasn't his imagination, so was he seeing thing? Was he seeing those eyes of a particular ghost that Jessica knew so well?
Those eyes of emerald and yellow.
He glanced at her name card and realized the initials "G.W.M".
"It can't be…" he thought in his mind.
However, that was the last thought that he had for a while.
For after a loud WHAM and a STABBING pain in his skull after being hit with a Biology book at a speed of (what had to be) at least Mach 6, all he could think of before passing out was "OW!!"
"SEXIST BA#!" Lance heard the angry girl yell.
"JAIMES!" an adult voice sounded
"I KNOW I KNOW! OFFICE! BUT YOU MIGHT WANT TO GET HIM TO THE NURSE BEFORE HE NEEDS REAL MEDICAL ATTENTION! I WENT EASY ON HIM!"
And THAT is the last thing Lance Dell heard.
Jessica Dell and several other classmates in Astrology looked into the hall to see the source of the yelling. Several people went inside as soon as they saw the source, Jessica stood in the door as she saw Heather stomp down the hall, her bookbag over her shoulder. She stopped for a second as she noticed Jessica and wiped her head to face her
"I feel sorry for you Dell, you have SUCH a stupid brother." And continued her march.
Jessica gaped. What had Lance done THIS time? Say something stupid? Insult her? And he kept saying SHE was the one that caused all the problems.
"I'll text him and see what he did" she thought, this was worth texting. She felt around her pockets for her cell phone. She stopped as she felt something smooth and round in her pocket, she took it out and her mind went blank.
It was a lens to a pair of glasses.
REVIEW! CLICK THE BUTTON! I COMAND YOU!...Ok, not really, but STILL! CLICK THE BUTTON! SAY SOMETHING! ANYTHING! EVEN A FLAME WOULD BE NICE! HELLO? ANYONE?
