It seemed like only hours had passed, even though it had really been days. Mrs. Lowe had finally put out a missing person's report and it was easily traced to Claudia in the Hartford hospital. When Elizabeth arrived, she was horrified to find out how close her daughter had come to death from that random cobra in their attic. She was just so relieved to see her child alive that she didn't even begin thinking about how or why Claudia had gotten to Hartford in her condition.
Beetlejuice was camped out in the waiting room, reluctant to leave just yet. He had ditched the striped suit for the time being in exchange for something a little less conspicuous; a rumpled brown suit and tie. He soon became uncomfortable in the necktie and just draped it around his shoulders to keep up a bedraggled appearance.
Never did he let either of the Lowes notice him; when Claudia's mother came by on her sparse trips to the bathroom or to the cafeteria, he hid behind a newspaper until she had passed. Claudia was bed-bound, forbidden to get up for the time being while doctors ran some tests and made sure the venom ran its course and finally passed. While she was sleeping and her mother was absent, Beetlejuice stuck his head in the room and got shivers up his spine when he saw all the equipment stuck in her. She had a tube around her nostrils now to ensure she got pure air, one IV in each hand, and a nasty-looking clear cord running under the bedspread that looked like it was keeping her from having an accident while she slept.
Hospitals were disgusting, in his humble opinion.
When the time finally came to move Claudia back home, Mrs. Lowe made a big fuss over her and tried to make the girl comfortable even though she was still comatose. The staff wheeled her out in a wheelchair and put her in the backseat of the car, where they buckled her in and told Mrs. Lowe to have the girl visit their personal doctor in a few days. As Elizabeth pulled out with Claudia in tow, Beetlejuice watched them go with an air of satisfaction. He had screwed the system, all right! Juno could just go whistle for his butt in custody, because that girl was making a stellar recovery!
He was just about to go get his trademark suit out of a cheap locker when he heard his name called three times and felt himself deposited in the caseworker's office, falling rather ungracefully into the worn, under-stuffed leather chair.
"Jeez, Juno. I was just about to come back in here to laugh in your face. Now you've gone and ruined the effect," he grinned.
But something was off with this situation. The elderly ghost was smirking herself!
"What gives, Juno?" he demanded, raising an eyebrow.
"This gives, you little poltergeist," she returned, waving a piece of paper in front of his face. Beetlejuice took it from her and scanned it. As he read, Juno paraphrased.
"I have been waiting for this for decades. The big guys on top noticed your ridiculous and dangerous stunts and have decided to revoke many of your powers for a day!" she said, jubilant.
Beetlejuice laughed in his throat and put the paper down. "A day? If you've been gunning for this for that long, I should think you'd aim for more than just a miserable little day. No problemo; I can take that." He stood up, stretched, and straightened the brown lapels of his borrowed outfit.
Juno smiled wider. "Oh no, Beetlejuice. This means one of our days, which equals precisely one year on earth. And here's the real kicker: that's exactly how long you're banished for!"
"Banished?!" He was stunned.
"Damn straight. They want you out of the Neitherworld for as long as possible. After nearly killing an innocent girl-…"
"Hey, she is not entirely innocent for that accident! She totally…um…well she wouldn't send me back! She was keeping me on earth! And you know how we all do stupid things when we're riled…"
"Save it for the mortals. Have a nice year."
Suddenly Beetlejuice felt himself shoved through realities. Finally falling rear-first on top of the Lowe's house, he was dazed for all of two minutes while he made sure he still had all his limbs attached. When he pulled himself together, he realized his striped suit was back and he was a lot weaker than he used to be.
With a lot of effort, he managed to float down to the attic window, where he saw Claudia sitting on her bed and leaning against the wall, her head nodding and her eyes closed. She was napping.
Beetlejuice eased the window open and slid inside, stepping down on the floorboards as silently as he could. He shut the window again and realized the slight draft had dislodged a few papers from the bureau that had scattered over the floor.
He bent down to pick them up and realized they were get-well cards, well over a week old. He must have been at Juno's for a while earth-time. When he saw the notes were from a few students at her school, he began to leaf through them, reading over the same basic paragraph over and over again.
"Get well soon, hope you feel better, hope to see you soon," he muttered to himself. "It looks like they all copied them off the board. She deserves a halfway-decent card."
Claudia stirred a bit and Beetlejuice froze. When she settled back down again, he breathed easier and drifted around her room, looking for any clue as to what had gone on in his absence. He found a few gift bags and some shiny new CD's that were probably get-well gifts. Some were still unopened, so he figured her return was still fairly recent.
Suddenly he heard her sigh and he summoned his power up to put her back to sleep. Or tried to. When he realized he couldn't get at any of his magic, he panicked and accidentally shrunk himself to hide.
Scurrying under the model and clambering up so he could see properly, he hid behind a particularly large gravestone in the toy cemetery while Claudia got up, stretched, and breathed deep. She was wearing a white tank top and worn, torn, bleached blue jeans, and her hair was pulled back in a mussed-up ponytail. As she stood, she redid the hairstyle and pulled her black socks up.
Claudia moved around the room slowly, still under some of the dizzying effects of the poison. He noticed her eyes were a more vibrant shade of brown, if that was possible; they were more focused and narrower. Another effect of the snakebite, no doubt; he remembered her eyes had been twitching slightly when he had first discovered her.
Her skin wasn't as peachy as it used to be either. She was just half a shade paler, not the tanned teenager she used to be but an olive-skinned young woman who had more experience in life than anyone else her age. She looked older now, that was the word. Like she grew up overnight and he had just noticed it.
Not that Beetlejuice was thinking anything out of the ordinary. He was that "lecherous, egotistic pervert" Barbara had pinned him as so many weeks ago, but this was a different kind of revelation. Sometime that he felt a sort of pride in, like it couldn't have happened without him.
Claudia, meanwhile, was drinking some water from a glass at her bedside. She took small sips and took a breath in between each one. So she was still a little weak after her ordeal; who wouldn't be? She had looked Death in the eye and had managed to give him the royal smackdown when push came to shove. She hadn't been ready to die yet.
All of a sudden, Beetlejuice felt the electricity in the room change. Claudia's movements froze, mid-sip, and her eyes fell on the model. He ducked down behind the tombstone again, nowhere near ready to let her know he was there. But what he wanted didn't matter. She knew.
"I know you're there, you stupid jerk. Stop hiding in the cemetery and come out where I can see you."
He shuffled out and leaned against a plastic tree. "Yeah, babes? What's eatin' you?" he asked nonchalantly, inspecting his mistreated fingernails.
"You," she replied coldly.
"I could turn that comment into a morally disgusting innuendo, but I won't, cause I'm such a nice guy. Now you wanna tell me what's really bugging you?"
"You're obnoxious. And no, I don't. I just wanna get out of this house and hang with someone my age, because all these grownups are driving me crazy. 'You have to lie down' and 'you can't go back to school yet'. It's so boring, just waiting for my two weeks to be up!" she sighed, collapsing back onto her bed which squeaked softly at her weight.
"Someone your age, huh? Well who's that dud pulling up the drive?" Beetlejuice asked, half-interested, glancing out the window.
"Huh?" She got up and made for the window. Beetlejuice, disgusted at her reaction, disappeared.
Claudia threw up the glass pane and searched the driveway, and mentally squealed with delight when she saw the car. Yup, it was the Mustang, complete with Ben behind the wheel. He got out, slammed the door shut and glanced up at the attic window.
"Hey, new girl!" he called up, grinning.
"Hi, Ben. I got bad news; the Mom Patrol won't let me out or anyone in. I'm under quarantine," she said, upset.
"Well who says she has to know? She's at that town meeting, isn't she? Something about the PRA, or the Prevention of Reptile Attack. Lame, huh? Anyway, just come down."
"No, she's downstairs sleeping. There's no way I can walk past her room without waking her up."
"So pull a Mission Impossible and climb down from there! You've got a rope, right? Jeez, work with me! Here I am, trying to get you out on a date and you're playing hard-to-get!"
She laughed and looked around the storage closet. Luckily finding a coil of garden hose, she tied systematic knots in it until she finally wound the end around the bottom of her bed and threw the rest out the window.
Throwing a light jacket on over her tank top, she slipped into a pair of flat-soled white sneakers and began to climb down. As she neared the bottom, Ben reached up and pulled her the rest of the way down, grabbing her waist and frightening her enough to cause her to let go and fall on him. They rolled over the grass for a few moments, laughing hysterically, then finally got up and got in the car.
"You think she'll notice the long brown like coming out of your bedroom window?" he asked, still jovial as they pulled out.
"Nah. She's out till past dinnertime, I'll bet. And this way, I'll be able to climb back up again."
"Cute and smart. Be still my heart."
"Is that your take on poetry? I'll have you know that I did that trick all the time in New Jersey, back before we lived in San Diego. She's so used to me sneaking out, all she asks when I get back is if I'm still a virgin," Claudia giggled, afraid she said too much.
Ben gave her a weird look and snickered. "And do you tell the truth?"
"More or less, yeah."
"Well, now that I've assisted in a prison break, where does the convict want to go? We have a new muffler at our disposal, so we won't get driven out of town by an angry mob if we decide to cruise around."
"I saw a Cantonese restaurant on the edge of town when we first moved here. Wanna go get something to eat?"
"Actually, I haven't eaten decent food in awhile. Let's do it."
