He wasn't that bad...just a little whacky that's all. Lydia pondered the thought as she marched her way through school, waving at a few of her friendly classmates as they passed by. She wasn't truly that outcasted at school, especially since she meet Barbra and Adam; her anti-social dark demeanor changed slightly and she became a bit more outgoing towards others. But she still didn't have any good friends.
Live ones at least.
She sat down in her seat, taking out her text book for science class when her teacher placed a flipped over paper on her desk.
"I know you can do better than that Mrs. Deetz." The teacher smiled sympathetically down at the young woman before continuing on to pass the quizzes out.
Lydia frowned, turning over the paper to see a big red mark of a "B-"; it wasn't that bad actually, but her teacher was right: she could have done better. Science was one of her favorite classes besides History. However, the topic of aquatic life– which was on the quiz– wasn't really her thing, unlike insects.
Lydia gave a small shrug to herself and put the paper away to open up her text book to page 44. This new chapter was about trees and soil. On the left page was a large illustration of a dark set of woods while on the right page the introduction was stated.
About half way through her readings, the girl was suddenly interrupted by a familiar guttural voice.
"WOAH! Hey Lyds, didn't expect to bump into you here!"
Lydia's eyes widened as she saw Beetlejuice standing right in the illustration on the left page of her book! He was leaning nonchalantly on one of the trees, picking at his dirty, reddened finger nails. He smiled up to her and gave a salute. "I was just walkin' along this good 'ol forest and BOOM, there you where! Lookin' straight up down at me! What a coincidence! Out of all the text-book-forests in the world!" He snorted, shaking his head with that goofy grin.
Frowning at the Beetlejuice-less page, Lydia decided to continue to make an effort to actually do her schoolwork; it was so hard to focus however, with that whacky ghost at the back of her mind.
When the school day came to a close, Lydia made her way through the hallway to reach her locker; unfortunately, someone smoothly tan and blonde stood blocking it.
Claire Brewster.
Lydia did not like that girl one bit. Claire was always a nasty bitch to her and anyone else who wasn't in her stereotypical popular group.
"Excuse me, Claire. You're blocking my locker." Lydia spoke as nicely as possible, giving a small forced smile.
The blonde turned around to face Lydia with a scowl and crossed arms. "Oh, is this your locker? I'm sorry Lydia...but you'll just have to keep on walking. I'm waiting for my boyfriend."
Lydia narrowed her eyes slightly and inwardly sighed. "Please, can't you just move over?"
"Can't you just die?"
"Someday." Lydia murmured, simply giving up and walking past the terrible girl. She didn't feel like dealing with that stupidity. But if anyone could throw her back into depression it was Claire Brewster.
Claire smirked, leaning back onto Lydia's locker with satisfaction.
However, there became a faint tickling feeling on the blonde's shoulders and head in which irritated her. She reached up to scratch the itch away only to meet something cold and hard sitting on her shoulder.
Blue eyes widening, Claire stepped away from the locker as she slowly plucked the thing from her shoulder.
It was a beetle.
And she was covered in them.
"AHH!" The girl shrieked, swatting at her shoulders, head and hair with her hands to try to fling the fowl insects off. Spinning around, she had noticed the swarm that was scattering out from Lydia Deetz locker.
"DEETZ, YOU'RE GOING TO PAY!" Claire screamed; everyone in the hallway simply stared.
Inwardly, they were all laughing.
"Oh Barbra, Claire is such an awful girl." Lydia confessed, leaning against the ghost as they sat on the couch in the living room. Adam was there tinkering with his miniature town set. "I just don't understand how someone could be like that." Lydia frowned.
Barbra shrugged, running her hand through Lydia's black hair. "There are some really evil people in the world, Lydia. You just have to pay no mind to them. She's the miserable one."
Lydia nodded silently, simply letting herself rest against Barbra, before releasing a sigh. "Alright. I'll leave you both alone. I'm going to be in my room."
Waving a small goodbye, Lydia made her way upstairs and into her room. Her nice, dark room.
He was only three calls away.
But should she? Again?
He did invite himself into her textbook today...
And he could show up in her mirror again...
But she didn't want to wait for him to show up again. She wanted to see him now.
It was the terrible truth.
Maybe he could make her laugh again.
"Beetlejuice..." Lydia began hesitantly, but after taking a breath, she continued. "Beetlejuice. ...Beetlejuice."
Just as the last letter left her mouth, he was there in a quick flash, sitting on her bed with his legs crossed in anticipation, as if he had expected to be called.
"Hi, how ya doin'?"
"Not that great." She replied with a somber look. She sighed again and went over to her dresser to peel off her navy blue cardigan.
Beetlejuice frowned, kicking his legs back and forth as they dangled off of the bed like a child. "Yeah, who is that bimbo bitch? Ya know, the one at school?"
"Claire Brewster." She scowled, but then suddenly turned to look at him. "How do you know about her?"
"AW, SO YOU'RE TELLING ME YOU DIDN'T SEE MY LITTLE CHARADE I PLAYED ON HER?! C'MON, LYDS, IT WAS PERFECT!" Beetlejuice instantly groaned, pulling at his face with his dirtied fingers.
Lydia's eyes were wide at his response and she came closer. "No, what charade?"
"I dumped a bunch of beetles on her! She made you a little bugged, so I wanted to return the favor!" He snickered, placing his hands on his knees as he laughed.
Slapping a hand over her mouth, Lydia tried not to laugh as well; picturing the image of Claire swarmed with beetles crawling all over her. "Beetlejuice!"
"Whaaaaat?!" He raised his hands up innocently. Then he shot up, and appeared right in front of the girl.
He was so close that his stench burned her nose again.
With a mischievous smile, he asked lowly, "Wanna go to the Neitherworld with me? I'll take you. Right now."
"Really?" Lydia stepped back in shock. Her heart skipped a beat. She was so excited but yet again, her nerves were on fire. "...Are you sure? Can you bring me back as well?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm the ghost with the most, babe, I can do it all. Now cmon, cmon, cmon; lets go!" He practically whined.
Lydia was hesitant, but she ended up smiling. "Alright, alright."
"Yeahhhhh!" Beetlejuice excitedly cheered and picked Lydia right up off of the ground bridal style. "You're gonna have so much fun, babes. Now do me a favor and say those B words."
Lydia blushed as she was literally swooped off of her feet. "Ah...okay."
Upon saying those three words, there was a sudden green flash and a gust of wind. Lydia had her eyes squeezed tight and she gripped onto Beetlejuice's striped suit.
But the travel only lasted for five long seconds.
"We're heeeeeere!"
With a cackle, he put the girl down on the dirt ground and grinned.
When she opened her eyes, she was astounded; the sky was a deep reddish orange with tinges of pink, and the ground was filled with sunken pot holes and cliffs in which shone a glowing green; the houses were stacked closely together like how they would be in a city, but each was painted the color black— besides from the wacky colors of the sky and below the ground, the only other vibrant colors emanated from the flashing signs, lights, and billboards over head. The lights reminded Lydia of Time Square in New York City— except it wasn't as busy.
There was wispy fog and the air smelt like dead corpse.
But it was all very cool to Lydia.
"How do you like it, Lyds?" Beetlejuice's face suddenly appeared before her eyes; he was floating upside down over her with his hands in his pockets.
"It's wicked." She replied with an awed smile. Walking around him, she continued to let her eyes explore this wondrous place. There was a man and a woman quickly passing by; the man had one eyeball hanging out of it's socket while the woman had the crown of her head ripped off, her blonde hair drooping from the torn skin.
On the other side of the street, there were a pair of children playing hop scotch; their skin had an decaying shade of yellow with purpled veins wiggling through.
Lydia grinned. "Oh Beetlejuice, it's so sick!"
The ghoul floated up behind her before dropping back down on the ground. "Yeah, you could say that." He replied with a shrug, but then smiled excitedly. "C'mon Lydia, let me take you to my house!"
Beetlejuice took her hand and pulled her along the road.
"You mean you have a house?" Lydia asked, actually surprised for some odd reason. She'd always suspected him to be a vagabond of sorts– not someone whom owned a home!
Beetlejuice snorted. "Of course I do, babes! I mean...I'm never really in it 'cuz I'm doin' a whole bunch of stuff...but in the Neitherworld, it's mandatory that each being gets somewhere to stay. Especially if they didn't die in a residence."
Lydia nodded, and continued to follow him closely.
As they passed through streets and skinny dark alleyways, she'd want anything but to get lost here.
Then after a few more twists and turns, they stopped to a halt. "Ta da!"
Beetlejuice grinned; in front of them stood a two story, black apartment building which was tightly sandwiched between two others.
"This is it!" He exclaimed, pulling Lydia up the front concrete, uneven stairs to fling open the front door.
Lydia noticed that his door mat read: GET OUT.
With a giggle, she followed him inside.
"Wow, what a palace you got here." Lydia said, glancing around the dirty apartment; it was very disorganized, with a cluttered mess all over the floor.
He wasn't a hoarder— at least most of his trash scraps were thrown out— but he did have newspapers, books, clothes, and all of those knickknacks scattered about the floor as if he simply discarded the things to the floor once he was done with them.
There was a lonesome sofa in the living room along with a small box tv, and the room opened up into the kitchen area in the back. That was nothing special as well, with a skinny fridge and a grimy countertop and crusty stove.
Lydia assumed that his bedroom was upstairs from the dark wooden staircase that was in the front of the house.
"Well, home's home!" He announced, hopping onto his springy sofa to stretch out.
"It's...very dirty." Lydia replied with a small smile, not sure if she should go a head and sit somewhere or continue to stand.
Beetlejuice sat up and scooted over, patting the space next to him, inviting her to sit; which she greatly accepted.
"Thank you babes!" He beamed. "I've been trying so hard to keep it that way."
Suddenly, there was a slam, as his hand hit the wooden floor in crushing a run away beetle. He swiped the squashed bug up and popped it in his mouth, crunching it with his yellowed teeth.
Lydia stuck out her tongue in disgust but ended up laughing as he looked back at her innocently, as if he did nothing wrong.
"Well babes, I'm glad you like it down here!" He went on to say, sitting up more. "I bet you were simply dying to come here." With a chuckle, the ghost bopped the girl's nose, then suddenly stood from the sofa. "Wanna scare the shit outta some freaks? C'mon, c'mon, lets do it."
