Summer Storms
Chapter 2: Out of the Ordinary

It occurred to Velma after ten minutes of picking her way through the city streets that she ought to have coaxed Scooby into joining her. Not because he knew his way around any better than she did. Just because, well... he'd been there. And while technically she and Joe were meeting in the park, she was early, because she had a slight detour to make first. One that Scooby might have found helpful—or might have run away at the thought of.

A pilgrimage, of sorts.

She finally found the park, and was a little surprised at how familiar the surroundings seemed. The visibility hadn't been so great last time she was here, after all. Today though, it was a beautiful summer afternoon and the park was crowded. Noisy, also. That part didn't matter so much, but she skirted the area anyway. Out of the corner of her eye she noted a gas station, the very same one she'd once been admonished not to blow up.

Still not sure how I got such a reputation. We'll see about that this time around.

The alley she was looking for turned out to be in between a video store and a pizza place. That made her just as glad Scooby hadn't come; he'd see the word pizza and that would be the end of it. But as she approached she realized she wasn't alone anyway.

And she probably ought to have expected as much.

There was someone standing there already, tall and athletic, wearing a blue shirt patterned with squares. He was staring at the blank wall as if it were somehow fascinating, and Velma smiled. It was fascinating. Eight months ago that wall hadn't been so blank. Not quite. There had been one poster, reduced to a charred wreck.

Now there was no sign. No sign but the memories, and the one other person—human person—who remembered.

"You had to see too, huh?"

The young man in the alley jumped, turned to her, and let a sheepish grin cross his face. "Yeah."

"Can't blame you." Velma took a few more steps forward but wasn't quite sure what to do next, and they just stared at each other awkwardly for a moment. Joe looked surprised. Maybe it was that she was early. But somehow she got the feeling it was less that, and more that he hadn't expected her to show up at all.

Maybe.

He spoke into the odd silence first. "So uh... how've you been? How's the monster-hunting going?"

"About the usual. A little disappointing lately, though. Do you realize how hard it is to take myself seriously while unmasking the twenty-eighth different variation of Bigfoot?" She shook her head. "Every mystery is different. The crimes are different, the clues are different. Fred even prides himself on how every one of his traps is different! You'd think the crooks could appreciate all that and be more creative, vary the routine a bit..."

Though he'd been wearing a mystified expression for the start of her rant, by the end Joe was grinning, and any tension there had been evaporated. "I can only imagine. Trapping Bigfoot, huh? Get to blow anything up while you were at it?"

Velma glared; Joe giggled. "So where's Blue?"

"At school. She'll be done in an hour or so. Didn't want to miss any more than she had to."

"She likes school that much? She's a puppy after my own heart."

That earned her a smirk as Joe leaned back against the wall. "Hey, Blue's school is awesome. Not like..." And there was the first enigmatic cut-off of the day. She'd almost forgotten his tendency for that, but he covered it quickly. "Scooby didn't come with you?"

Shrug. "I left at lunchtime." No more really needed to be said.

"Aha." Another awkward pause. It looked like they had an hour to kill. "So what do you do when you're not chasing monsters? You know, for fun."

"Mysteries are fun," Velma protested.

Joe gave her a doubtful look, but had the decency (or perhaps wisdom) not to question that. "Okay, but it's just, I don't think we're going to find your twenty-ninth Bigfoot out here at the park." He gestured down the alley in the general direction of the park in question. Plenty of picnics and laughter, thus probably no monsters. "So what about when you have time off?"

Of course she'd known perfectly well that was what he was really asking, but any slight—real or imagined—against the noble business of Mystery Inc. had to be at least countered. As far as actual hobbies went, she shrugged again. "You know... just hang out, read books, watch hockey... laugh at Shaggy and Scooby because trust me, they make it easy..."

He burst into giggles. "I believe you. I definitely believe you. Assuming Shaggy's anything like Scooby, anyway."

"Identical, except bipedal."

"Then I believe you even more."

Velma gave him a sidelong glance. This was where she should be asking what he did for fun, she was pretty certain. But she knew what that would get her—some reference to his very unusual companions in the very unusual world he seemed to live in. And that raised a whole new batch of questions which she'd been curious about from the beginning. That curiosity was quickly getting overwhelming.

And they had an hour to kill.

So what actually came out was, "Do you think I could meet your friends?"

Joe drew back slightly, looking more confused than anything. "Huh?"

"You know, like the singing table."

Confusion flickered, giving way to surprise. "Really?"

"Of course really," she answered, surprised herself now. What was so shocking about that question? How could anyone hear about such a world—singing tables, counting clocks, sentient shovels and pails—and not want to see it? "Is that strange?"

"Yes." He straightened, stretched, and beckoned for her to follow him. "But I think it can be arranged."

It took about ten minutes to reach the library. Velma remembered the library; not because she'd seen it, but she remembered Joe asking directions the night they'd met. Using a library as a landmark had seemed like a good sign, but she wasn't actually expecting them to go into the library.

Is this inside of a picture?

It's complicated...

Joe led her to a door which she had completely failed to notice prior to his opening it—in fact, she'd have sworn it simply wasn't there. And while a few other people in the library passed them, nobody seemed to notice the room they ducked into. For that matter, she was pretty sure once the door was open nobody even saw them.

It was a typical children's room, with fluffy carpet and stuffed animals scattered between the bookshelves. Velma let a wave of nostalgia wash over her as she looked around; rooms like this were where she'd grown up, learned to love reading and learning, long before meeting the gang, still longer before a legion of masked weirdos gave her an outlet for that keen intellect she'd been developing. Lost in a fog of memories for a minute, she almost failed to notice Joe was talking to her.

"...one thing, if we're gonna do this."

She shook herself out of it. "Yeah?"

"Try to act natural, okay?" He looked mildly uncomfortable asking it, as if he were making some great imposition. "They're kids, and they can be shy. Especially Side Table. Just... you know."

As if Velma hadn't seen a thousand stranger things in her life. And she was generally pretty good with kids. "I know. No problem."

Had he pulled her in here just to get that assurance? She didn't know and didn't ask; he was looking around the room, and retrieved a yellow and blue book from a corner of the room, humming softly as he did so and placing the book on a central shelf. Velma blinked—she thought, and it surely had to be her imagination, that something had glittered in the air around them when he placed it. "Brace yourself," he advised as he moved back to the door they'd come in.

"For what?" No answer, or at least, not much of one. She thought he laughed, but wasn't quite sure as he pulled the door open.

Light washed over her and she raised her arms, blinded briefly by the luminance of a place that definitely wasn't a library. Her arms went up reflexively to block the blinding assault, and it took a few long moments for her eyes to adjust enough to look around.

What in the...

The doorway seemed to have vanished, as if the world had invaded the room they'd just been standing in. As a world it was about what could be expected... looking around she noted that they were standing in front of a library, and there was a street with stores and houses, grass and trees and a park—all the things to be expected from a world, right? Yet it was off. The colors were just a little too vivid, the light a little too intense... very much like they'd jumped into a storybook, even though strictly speaking, they hadn't.

Complicated.

"You all right?"

Joe was looking at her, amusement and concern warring in his expression. Velma nodded, still blinking back afterimages. "Yeah, sorry. I'm fine."

"I did warn you," he pointed out with the faintest grin.

"That'll teach me," she agreed.

Starting down the street he suggested, "We may as well go ahead to the house. The neighborhood's pretty quiet until school gets out."

"Might be just as well." For all he'd warned her, for all her prior experience with such things, she had not expected so much. Bizarre inhabitants she'd been prepared for, but not the very fabric of the world being so different. A nice, quiet walk down the street would give her time to refocus. To that end she did her best not to notice, just yet, that all the mailboxes they were passing had faces.

Joe led her to a small house, yellow with a red roof. This house's mailbox was purple, and waved its flag cheerfully as they approached. "Hey Joe, you're back early." It sounded distinctly male and possessed, of all things, a heavy Brooklyn accent. "Is this your friend?"

"Yep," Joe confirmed. "Mailbox, meet Velma."

Mailbox. Of course the mailbox's name was Mailbox. What did that make the other twelve mailboxes they'd passed? Maybe all those mailboxes were named Mailbox too. Just like how you run into lots of people on the outside named Bob or Ashley.

This Mailbox, in any case, leaned forward and raised his flag in a salute. "Hiya!"

"Nice to meet you, Mailbox." Velma hesitated. What was the protocol on being introduced to a mailbox? Should she try to shake his flag? But Joe wasn't waiting around, so she gave Mailbox one last nod of acknowledgment, then followed him up the walk. "He didn't seem so young," she observed, though admittedly her exposure had been low.

"He's not. He's my age. The others... um... it's complicated, but they're different."

"You keep telling me things are complicated."

He gestured expansively. "Aren't they?"

Oh. Well, when you put it like that... "Touche."

The first thing she noticed when he opened the door was that the house was a lot bigger than it seemed on the outside. The second thing was a large, overstuffed red armchair placed prominently against the back wall. And the third thing was a red and orange table, with a single drawer. Arranged on the drawer were two eyes and a mouth surrounding a knob that passed for a nose, and right now those eyes were staring at her, part curious, part surprised.

That must be Side Table. "Hello," she offered.

Side Table gasped at being spoken to, then whirled and attempted to hide behind the chair.

Velma blinked, and gave Joe an uneasy look. "Was it something I said?"

"Nah." He moved up and knelt next to the cowering table. He murmured something she didn't catch, was quiet for a minute, then nodded and moved away.

Side Table turned around again and pitched her drawer to the side; it seemed to be the functional equivalent of cocking her head. Actually, she looked more fascinated with Velma than Velma was with her, if such a thing was possible.

"Hi," she said finally, softly, "I'm Side Table."

Velma knelt too, tired of craning her neck down. Plus it was probably polite. She wasn't sure about the proper etiquette for meeting a table, any more than she had been for Mailbox. "I'm Velma, it's nice to meet you. I hear you like to sing?"

Up until that point, Velma realized, she'd been unconsciously analyzing everything she ran into here—trying to mentally place the wires, the structure. Wondering at the artificial intelligence required and who might have put such a place together.

When Side Table blushed, she gave up on it. A table was blushing. And she was only willing to go so far into denial.

"Um, well, I mean, uh..." Her orange drawer had gone almost as red as the rest of her, and suddenly she burst into, "I just wanna sing! Sing sing sing!" Jumping up and spinning with a grace such a bulky piece of furniture had no right to achieve, she started dancing off into the next room, still going at full volume. "Sing about any old thing, I just wanna sing! Ba da da, siiing, woohoo..." And with that she was gone, leaving Velma staring through the doorway after her in disbelief.

Joe looked like he was desperately trying to stifle his laughter, and was having some marginal success with it. "I think that's what you call a tactical retreat," he explained between giggles. "Told you she was shy."

"What would she do if she wasn't shy?"

Losing his battle for composure, Joe sank back into the chair and shook his head. Velma gave him a minute. He got a hold of himself with surprising abruptness and looked up at her, dark eyes glinting with concern. "Seen enough?"

Before she could answer, a salt shaker came hopping out of the room Side Table had vanished to and waved a spindly arm. "Ah, 'allo Joe, 'allo Joe's friend!"

If she hadn't seen enough prior to that, a French salt shaker did it. She nodded to Joe, who glanced at the shaker. "Hey, Mr. Salt. We were just about to go wait on Blue. Side Table okay?"

"But of course, she seems quite happy actually." The shaker shrugged. Velma had no idea how anything without shoulders could shrug, but he most definitely shrugged. "I think she is flattered that you talked about her singing."

Something unspoken passed between Joe and Mr. Salt—something with definite don't say anything connotations that Velma decided she was better off ignoring—then Joe vaulted out of the chair. "Okay, let's go."

They walked in silence until they reached the park, where Velma commandeered a picnic table and fell into a sitting position. Joe waited. He knew how this could be—this was his world, his peers, and even he had taken some time to readjust after moving back in. Seeing it for the first time? He could only imagine, except he really couldn't. Everything here was normal to him. An odd normal, but normal nonetheless.

Best to let her speak first.

And this was Velma, and Velma didn't waste time. "How is any of this possible?"

Oh. Well then. "Is that all?"

That earned him a briefly unamused look, then she laughed softly and leaned back. "Yeah, I think that ought to do it."

It was a question Joe had considered at some length himself. Long ago—first when trying to explain why talking mailboxes weren't such a strange thing, in those dim days of excessive optimism when he'd assumed people were asking about that in good faith. Later it had become a matter of mere curiosity. Ultimately he'd given up because...

Because it didn't matter? Oh boy.

Something told him Velma wouldn't reach the same conclusions he had, but he decided to try walking her through it anyway. "Okay. You're gonna have to work with me, then."

"What do you mean?"

"Why's the sky blue?"

For a minute, he was pretty certain she wasn't even going to acknowledge that, as she looked up at the sky as if checking to reassure herself that yes, it really was blue here. Then she looked back at him. "You promise this is actually relevant?"

"Promise."

"Okay." She settled back. "The sky is blue because of how the atmosphere scatters sunlight; the sunlight is made up of all colors, but the blue is scattered most efficiently."

"Why?"

For a moment she frowned, but then shrugged and forged ahead. "Rayleigh scattering. Shorter wavelengths get scattered more so they're more visible, and blue light has a shorter wavelength."

"Why?"

There was no hesitation this time. Very much as if she'd gotten caught up in answering the question and forgotten why she was answering it... which, from what he knew about her, might not be all that far off. "Because the color receptors in your eyes interpret that shorter wavelength as the color blue."

"Why?"

"Because..." A pause. She adjusted her glasses and frowned at him. "This is getting a little unreasonable, isn't it? That's just how it works."

Joe nodded and shot her a bit of a salute. And here he hadn't expected to learn anything today. "Okay, fair enough. So why are plants green?"

"Because they have chlorophyll and oh no you don't," she cut off, perhaps noticing the hint of a smile he hadn't been able to hide. "Chlorophyll is green, alright? It just is."

Now she had it. "And why can mailboxes talk?"

He sat back and watched as Velma's expression flickered from confusion, to surprise, to irritation, and finally settled on a sort of resignation as she realized what had just happened. "Really?"

"Really."

"Really?"

"Really!"

"Phenomenology?"

"...Phenomenal what?"

It hadn't actually been his intention to annoy her, and he felt a little better when she leaned forward and giggled. "Sorry. It's basically when you observe something, and you know how it is, but you can't yet explain why." Her expression became a little more serious. "Seeing is believing. Completely and utterly antithetical to... you know..."

"Someone who's ripped a mask off every stock mythological character in existence?" he volunteered.

"Yes. Precisely." She was quiet for a moment. "But you're satisfied with that?"

"Honestly? Yeah." Of course he was. And of course she wasn't. "I guess I don't see much point in the why. It's here." He knelt and poked at a dandelion, freakishly vibrant by any outside standard. "I guess..." He'd never tried to voice this before. "I mean, look at this. It's a flower. I know how flowers work, more or less. But knowing that doesn't change anything. It's a flower. It's beautiful. I don't need to rip it up and study it." He stood and gestured expansively. "All this is beautiful."

Velma was watching him with dawning comprehension in her eyes, and a slight grin crossed her face. "Dandelions? You know they're weeds."

"I like them," he protested.

"I do too, actually." But before she could say anything else about it, he heard noise from down the street. Quite a bit of noise. Familiar noise. He grinned.

"School's out."

Velma cocked her head, leaned over to look past him, and her eyes went wide. "Oh. ...Oh wow."

Joe couldn't blame her for her surprise; it was a pretty overwhelming array of technicolor animals that came bounding out of Miss Marigold's fine educational institution every day. He glanced over his shoulder and noted with some relief that Periwinkle was following Green down the street in the other direction. He wasn't sure how Velma the eternal skeptic would cope with a kitten doing fake magic tricks.

Blue, on the other hand, noticed them immediately.

"Bowbow! Bowbow!"

A moment later Velma had a puppy on her lap, licking her face enthusiastically. "Blue! Nice to see you again."

"Bow bow bow bow bow!"

While Blue and Velma got reacquainted, Joe noted some motion out of the corner of his eye; Magenta was padding up cautiously, looking thoroughly confused by the whole ordeal. "Hey, Magenta. How was school?"

"Row..."

"Bowbowbow! Bow bow Bowbow!"

Magenta responded to that summons by giving Joe an uneasy look, as if his opinion somehow any bearing on the matter. He shrugged and offered her a smile, and that seemed to be enough; she jumped up on the table and watched the proceedings. "Rowrow. ...Row row row rowrow."

Velma, who'd displayed about half fluency in Blue's barks, gave the pink dog a blank stare for a couple of seconds. "She likes your glasses," Joe translated.

"Oh..." She looked sheepish for a moment, then recovered with, "Yours are really nice too."

Magenta blushed.

So far, so good.

Velma leaned forward on the bench and shook her head. She was still reeling a little bit, though the odd colors around her were starting to seem normal. She wondered if that ought to bother her, but decided it was probably for the best.

Oh, and a red and plaid—PLAID!—bird had come by, waved cheerfully at her while still flying, and said hello. Physics? Who needs physics?

She was waiting now; Joe and Blue had gone back to their house to pick up their luggage. Of course he'd invited her to come along, but a few moments to just stop and catch her breath seemed like an excellent idea right now.

Was this world everything she'd imagined? Heh. No. She hadn't imagined this at all.

But it surely did explain a lot about Joe.

Movement on the horizon. He was coming back with a backpack slung over his shoulders, walking slowly, occasionally casting worried glances at the suitcase that seemed to be rolling beside him of its own volition. Which, in this world, wouldn't have been at all surprising. But on further observation, Velma could see a pair of floppy blue ears sticking out from behind the moving luggage, and chuckled.

"Blue, are you sure you don't want help with that?" Joe was asking as they got within earshot. By his tone, she was reasonably sure it wasn't the first time he'd asked it.

"Bow bow! Bow bow bow." No thanks! I've got it.

A dog who actually wanted to help with the suitcases. Bizarre.

Joe caught Velma's eye and gave her an exasperated look, which she answered with a grin. "Looks like you're all set."

"I suppose you could call it that. Blue, are you absolutely—"

"Bowbowbowbow!"

Giggle. "I don't think you're going to win that argument, Joe."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

They started back up the road. Velma didn't remember any door that might lead back to the outside—in fact, she specifically remembered looking around and not seeing one—but she held back from asking. Obviously Joe knew where he was going. Blue probably did too, but she seemed completely intent on keeping the suitcase rolling straight.

Much like getting in, it was probably perfectly simple if you knew what to look for. She wondered if that was really all there was to it.

As they made their way up the road, Joe stopped a couple of times, frowning for a moment before shrugging it off—whatever it was.

"Forget something?"

"No, just..." He stopped again, eyes narrowed. "One second. Think I somehow managed to fail at efficient packing," he let the backpack slide off his shoulders, "despite the fact that there's hardly anything in here... something keeps moving ar—GYAH!"

Joe recoiled as something pink sprang out of the bag, accompanied by an excessively loud ringing sound. Then a voice, very young, most likely female. "Are we there?" The pink thing turned in a circle and Velma realized it was an alarm clock—an old-fashioned one, complete with a wind-up key in back and two large silver bells. Except in this particular alarm clock, the face and the hands were literal. "Oh..." The clock's hands drooped with disappointment, an odd effect. "It's not time yet?"

"Tickety!" Joe sounded exasperated, maybe frightened. Maybe even angry. "What are you doing?"

"I wanted to come with you," she explained, turning to face him and ringing her bells again for emphasis. "I want to see what it's like on the outside."

"You can't just stow away in my backpack!" he admonished. "Did you tell anyone else you were coming?"

"No." Velma had circled around so she could see the clock's face and hands still, and saw the entire face shift side to side. Well, obviously she can't just shake her head. "But—but I left a note, so they'll find it and won't be worried."

"But you didn't..." Joe seemed to abruptly clamp down on the wild panic of his initial reaction, though it was still in his eyes. Seething. From what she knew of Joe, and from the confused look Blue was giving him, Velma was certain this wasn't typical. "Okay... look, stay here. I'll be back in a minute." He was gone before anyone could respond to that.

The clock—Tickety—shuffled her feet nervously. "I think I made him mad. I didn't need to make him mad..."

Blue gave a series of comforting barks that came much too quickly for Velma to interpret, and they were left in very awkward silence for about two minutes. Then Joe came jogging up, showing a lot less urgency than when he left.

"I talked to Mr. Salt. He says it's not a problem." Was that all? He'd freaked out about her not asking permission from a salt shaker? It didn't mesh, but... "Tickety, don't ever do anything like this again. Just ask, okay?"

The clock's eyes dropped to focus on the sidewalk. "Okay." Her voice was small. "I'm sorry..."

Joe's expression softened within moments. "Oh, Tickety..." He knelt beside her and touched one of her bells gently. "I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just that, clocks out there aren't alive, you know? I didn't know if you'd stay... you... when we cross the boundary." His tone was affectionate now. "You scared me."

Oh. Yeah... yeah. That'll do it. Velma watched them, certain she'd been forgotten in the moment, but doubting it would have been any different if she hadn't been. She was suddenly beginning to understand. Maybe it was all fun and games, but he took his duties here seriously. And more than that... they were his friends, and he loved them dearly.

It wasn't hard to understand. She'd do the same thing if Shaggy or Scooby pulled a prank she thought might get them killed, wouldn't she?

Tickety was looking at Joe, wide-eyed. "Ohh..." She jumped up and rang her bells cheerfully. All forgotten. All forgiven. "So can I go?"

That got her a laugh. "Well, it's fine with me, but this is Velma's show, so..."

Velma decided that meant she'd better pay attention, as the little alarm clock trotted up to her and stared at the ground for a moment before looking up again. "Um, Miss Velma, can I please go on your trip with you?"

Joe's expression had gone from amused, to bemused, now he was barely keeping his composure again as he looked at Velma, who was certain the look on her face must be something else. She recovered as quickly as she could because Tickety was staring at her as earnestly as any preschooler in the world. "Of course you can. But promise me you'll just call me Velma, okay?"

Tickety jumped and rang her bells again. "Okay!"

Blue and Tickety darted ahead, leaving the two humans to exchange smirks. "I want to be there when she meets Shaggy and Scooby," Velma declared in a low voice.

"I think we can arrange that... Miss Velma." Joe bolted after the kids before she could respond.

Tickety had never seen him angry before.

Joe kept shooting guilty looks down at Tickety, half of him glad she wasn't looking at him, half of him wishing she would. He'd apologize more thoroughly later... but what else could he have done but panic? There was so much about the boundary between magic and reality that he didn't understand. He wondered if anyone truly understood it.

But at least he knew the shakers understood it enough. So he'd darted back to the house, not to ask permission, but just to ask. To be sure. And he'd really only been comfortable when Mrs. Pepper assured him that she'd been on the outside several times herself with no ill effects.

Finally, the numbness completely fading, he let himself chuckle. Clever, really, Tickety's hiding out in his backpack like that. He had no idea how she'd found space in there—sure, there was nothing in the bag but a duck and a notebook, but Boris was pretty big.

Leaving the magical world was not difficult, in theory. In an alley by the library, his eyes darted over the bricks, seeking... an exit sign materialized in front of them, one that hadn't been there a moment ago. It had an arrow. Follow the arrow. The arrow always pointed a different direction, yet following it always led to the same place.

Another alley, by another library. It wasn't like a skidoo. There was no jolt of new awareness. The colors simply shifted, light and magic vanishing around them. Tickety rang her bells, startled, and sprang up onto Joe's shoulder.

"Whoa... is this the outside?"

"Bow," Blue answered, taking a break from pushing the suitcase and looking around. "Bowbow bow, bowbow bow?" Pretty cool, isn't it?

"It is!"

The kids never changed. He wished he could share their optimism out here, as easily as he did in their world...

Joe stared down the street, trying to grasp for a moment that he was going to be out here for a whole week. Away from the magic—well. He looked at Blue, glanced back at Tickety. Away from some of the magic.

Moving to the front of the group, Velma motioned for them to follow. "The gang ought to be waiting—well, Fred and Daphne anyway, Shaggy and Scooby are probably still eating. I think Fred said something about rearranging the van."

"Rearranging?"

"Got to make sure there's room for everyone. Without having to throw too many of Daphne's suitcases out."

"Aha." He snickered.

They'd barely gone a block when he felt shuffling on his shoulder, and glanced at the nearest window to see Tickety's reflection trying to get into his reflection's backpack again. "Um, Tickety? What're you doing?"

"It's comfortable in here," she explained. "I can still see if it's not closed all the way."

On one hand, he wasn't sure about her idea of comfortable. (Though Boris was soft and fluffy.) On the other, it might be just as well if he weren't wandering the streets with a talking alarm clock sitting on his shoulder... he didn't argue.

Velma led them on a ten minute trek to a hotel parking lot, and at the outskirts Joe froze. It didn't take much to pick out the vehicle they were looking for. First, because there were indeed about twenty suitcases piled around the back. But more to the point, it was the first thing anyone would have seen in the lot. A full-sized van, painted in chartreuse and light blue, ornamented with several bright orange flowers.

And in case there'd been any real question, there were also orange words along the side: The Mystery Machine.

"That's your van?"

"Yep."

"Excuse me. You ride around in that and you think my world's strange and overly colorful?"

She burst into laughter, and Joe couldn't help laughing too. Suddenly everything about this trip felt just a little less alien...

Just a little.

He watched the two milling around the van, making and pointedly discarding his initial observations. Fred struck him as the type of person he'd spent most of school avoiding. Admittedly, he'd avoided most people, but tall blond and handsome was a deadly trifecta. The usual deadliness was being undermined right now by the way that Fred was cheerfully losing a battle with a pile of luggage.

Moving in and out of the van, steadying and handing off suitcases as necessary, was a girl with red hair, purple clothes, and an air of mildly exasperated competence. Daphne, presumably. She seemed to be mostly focused on making sure Fred didn't end up with a pile of suitcases falling on his head... which seemed like a full time job.

Blue watched for a few moments as well, then nudged their own suitcase forward while Fred was calling for another. He took the handle without really looking. "Oh, thanks!"

"Bow bowbow."

Pause. Double take. While Fred was blinking, Daphne stuck her head out of the van and smiled. "Oh, you must be Blue! I'm Daphne, it's nice to meet you. Here, I'll take that." She'd never missed a beat. Good sign.

Daphne's intervention gave Fred enough time to figure out what had just happened. "And I'm Fred. Glad you could make it." He looked up, caught sight of Joe and Velma, and waved, then went right back to loading the van.

Velma crossed her arms. "Don't be fooled," she murmured, "Fred can make a trap that's complex enough to impress even me, and clever enough to catch the monster even when it doesn't work properly. Not your everyday form of genius, but a genius nonetheless."

A nod. Joe knew something about odd forms of genius; he'd grown up with Steve, hadn't he? But that was another story for another time.

Especially when footsteps came up behind them, and Blue gave a cheerful storm of barks and sprinted past Joe and Velma to tackle Scooby. "Bowbow!"

"Rue!" Scooby planted a wet lick on her cheek, then reared up and licked Joe too. "Roe! Ri've rissed rou!"

Joe chuckled, scratching the big dog's ears. "We missed you too, Scoob. How've you been?"

"Rokay! Rexcept the ronsters." He whimpered, then brightened. "Roh! Roe, rhis is Raggy!" He nodded to the human who'd come up beside him.

Shaggy was tall, rail-thin, very much lived up to his name, and had such a laid-back air about him that Joe liked him immediately. And Joe's reactions to humans didn't work that way at all. He took that as a good sign as they shook hands. "Like, hey man, how's it going?" His voice was high-pitched and cheerful.

"Pretty well."

"Bow!" Great! Blue's bark drew Shaggy's attention, and he knelt and offered her a hand. She shook it with her ear.

Daphne and Fred were approaching, which was good timing as Joe felt some wriggling in his backpack, felt a momentary pang of confused panic, then remembered his passenger. This arrangement was going to have to end—Tickety might find it comfortable, but it was going to drive him crazy. Either way, best to get the introductions over with. Velma was so looking forward to it, after all. "Tickety, you listening? You might want to introduce yourself too."

"Oh, it's time?" A jolt as the clock vaulted out of his backpack and took up a perch on his shoulder again, looking around at the gathering and waving one hand cheerfully. "Hi everyone!"

The reaction from two quarters was pretty much as expected; Daphne and Fred halted and just gawked for several moments, though they both recovered reasonably quickly. Shaggy and Scooby, though...

Shaggy eyed the clock, glanced at his dog, and proceeded to look thoroughly undisturbed. "Huh. Dig that, Scoob, a talking clock... like, tick tock, tick tock, tick talk! Get it?" Scooby nodded sagely and giggled.

"I'm Tickety Tock!" Tickety corrected good-naturedly. "But everyone just calls me Tickety."

"Well like, welcome aboard, Tickety!" Shaggy winked. "I guess with you around it's always a good time, huh?"

Tickety rang her bells. "Yeah!"

Oh no. Joe glanced uneasily between the two of them, considered Tickety's penchant for time puns as it was, and decided this next week was going to be absolutely unbearable. And yet, it was a good kind of unbearable, and when Scooby groaned he couldn't help laughing.

As they trooped into the van he shot an apologetic glance at Velma, who looked profoundly disappointed. "Was that supposed to go differently?"

"They're terrified of ghosts, monsters, snakes, and their own shadows, but a talking clock is just fine..." She shook her head. "I'll never understand those two. Ever!"

Joe decided to keep his opinion to himself on that, because she probably already knew what he would say.

Some things just weren't meant to be understood.