Chapter 6

When the final bell rang, the students of Coolsville High hurriedly packed their bags and prepared to enjoy their free time before tomorrow. Among these students were four who had started walking towards the school parking lot, going over what had happened to them earlier that day.

"What I don't get is why a ghost would even bother chasing after us for so long anyway. It doesn't make any sense!"

Velma turned towards the blonde-haired boy who was reaching into his pockets for his keys.

"Ghost or no ghost, something made that thing mad at us. And I'm determined to find out what!"

The others agreed with her and started wading through the small traffic cluster of impatient students trying to get out of the parking lot. Shaggy froze when he saw the vehicle that Fred was currently unlocking with his key, realization hitting him like a brick. The others turned towards the beatnik, each of them confused.

"What's wrong Shag?"

"Like you were the guy that nearly turned me into roadkill this morning!"

Confused, Fred turned towards his light blue panel van trying to think back to this morning.

"Wait, that was you?! I thought that was a deer or something, I couldn't really tell because it was moving so fast it was a blur!"

Opening the passenger door, Shaggy let the two girls go ahead of him before climbing in himself.

"Yeah, like that was me alright- Yow!"

Recoiling in pain, the beatnik rubbed his right buttock as it had sat on something extremely hard. Reaching into his pocket, he found-

"Zoinks! Like, I forgot all about that!"

Velma turned towards the hippy to her right.

"What- wow, look at that!"

In Shaggy's hand was what looked like a gold nugget the size of a potato, glistening in the afternoon sun shining through the windshield. Daphne stared at it in disbelief.

"Hey, that looks like the one Principal Ruby has in his office!"

Fred climbed into the driver's seat and shut the door.

"Principal Ruby? Could he have been behind the ghost's appearance?"

Shaggy groaned, his head hurting more as he wasn't used to this much thinking all in one day.

"Like, I don't know about you guys, but can we grab some food when we're going over all this? All this thinking is making me hungry!"

Starting the ignition, Fred began to pull out of the parking space he had parked in.

"Alright gang, let's head to the Malt Shop and go over this evidence"

…

A couple of malts and a triple decker sandwich with all the works (and then some), Shaggy felt comfortable enough to tell the rest of the gang what he and Scoob had seen last night. Velma was holding the gold nugget, staring intently at it.

"I'm betting that the ghost must have followed you here to school and knew that you might have this with you", Velma said, gesturing to the nugget she was holding.

Daphne stirred the straw in her strawberry malt in wonder.

"What I don't get is why the ghost would want to hide that nugget in the middle of nowhere, where no one would even bother to look for it anyway?"

"Extra-safe safe keeping?", suggested Shaggy, which caused Daphne to hum in thought.

"Well, whatever the case, I think the next thing we should do is check out that mansion Shaggy mentioned. We might find a clue!"

Agreeing with the jock, the headed over to Shaggy's house to investigate the trail that led to the old mansion in the middle of the woods. But not two seconds before entering his house did the beatnik get tackled by a furry brown blur, sending him flat on his back on his walk.

"Like cool it Scoob, down boy, down!"

"Raggy! (slurp, slurp) R'I missed you!"

Shaggy forced the Great Dane off of himself and sat there on the ground wiping off the dog saliva that covered his face.

"Sheesh, I'm gone for an extra twenty minutes and it's like the end of the world!"

Getting on his feet, the hippy could see the shocked expressions on the gang's faces, all of them dumbfounded that this dog had enough energy to knock a six-foot-tall man straight to the ground in one pounce. Fred was the first to snap out of it, and him clearing his throat caused to girls to come back down to reality as well. Shaggy chuckled.

"Welp, like here he is. Introduce yourself pal"

Scooby turned to face the new people, a goofy grin on his furry face.

"Rello, I'm Rooby Doo!"

Author's Notes

And now the gang's all here!