Hand in Hand
by
Owlcroft
Beetlejuice was lounging in the mirror, waiting, when Lydia got home. The instant he heard her close her bedroom door, he leapt up and beamed at her. "Hey!" Then he noticed her expression and the bandage on her right hand. "Oh! Lyds!" He banged on the mirror surface with his hands. "What happened?! Let me through! Are you okay?"
She sighed and said his name three times and out he came, to stand before her, arms surrounding her carefully but not touching her, hands fluttering nervously in the air.
"What happened? Are you hurt? What can I do?" His expression was half anxiety and half concern.
"I dropped some scissors and caught the blade with my thumb. The cut's not deep, but it's fairly long and it hurts." Lydia stepped toward him and lifted her arms. "BJ, I need a hug."
He obliged at once, cradling her gently. "What can I do, babes, to make things better?"
"This. What you're doing right now." She snuggled her face against his shirt and sighed again. "I'll be fine. It's just . . ."
Beetlejuice stood uncertainly, holding her as if she were made of the most fragile crystal. "You'll be okay? It's not serious?" He winced a little then said, "But it hurts. A lot."
"It's not so bad. Not now." Lydia finally peeled back from him and looked at her hand. "I'm just so mad and so disappointed and so . . . unhappy." She scowled at the bandage, then walked over to her school satchel on the floor and kicked it savagely. "It won't be healed for days and days and I was going to make the costumes for the town float in the Christmas parade."
He joined her in front of her desk and took her hand, holding it ever so delicately. "Oh, yeah. You were going to do 'The Elves' Workshop', right?"
"Now I can't, with this stupid hand!" She breathed heavily for a minute. "Stupid hand!" She jerked her hand from his tentative grasp and glared at it.
"Come on, Lyds, maybe it'll heal up faster than you think." Beetlejuice smiled at her hopefully. "The parade's not for three weeks, right?" He pulled out her desk chair and ushered her toward it. "And I can help. If you design the stuff, I can just juice it up for you."
She closed her eyes and her shoulders drooped. "BJ, thank you for offering, but . . . then I wouldn't really have made the costumes, would I? And that's kind of the point."
"But if they're your designs, and you picked the stuff they're made with, then it's the same thing. Isn't it?" He looked at her with a tentative smile.
Lydia considered that for a moment then said slowly. "Maybe. I'll have to think about it. And maybe this stupid thumb will heal in time. Really, Beej, thank you for offering to help. Just having you around makes me feel better."
He preened himself a little at that, beaming in pleasure, then abruptly looked serious. "Wait a minute. Don't you usually put something on your thumb when you sew? You told me what it was once but I can't remember the name."
"A thimble, sure. But that wouldn't be enough of a . . . a cushion for my thumb. It would still hurt too much to sew." Lydia glared at her thumb and made a growling noise.
"Yeah; but, babes," Beetlejuice waved his hands at her, grinning and nodding, "I can juice you something like . . . this." He waved a hand and produced an out-sized thimble heavily padded with soft cotton and fur. "Try this. It should work," he said looking suddenly uncertain.
She took the thimble but frowned at him in doubt. "Fur, BJ?"
"It's fake fur! I know how you are about animals, especially those ridiculous 'cute' ones." He assumed an expression of distaste without taking his gaze from her hand.
"You know," Lydia said while gently pushing the thimble over her bandage, "this just might work." She cautiously prodded her thumb encased in the walnut-sized thimble, then looked at Beetlejuice with a glowing smile. "It works! Oh, Beej, it works! Thank you so much!" She threw her arms around him again.
He basked in the hug for as long as it lasted, smiling at the top of her head softly, sighing just as softly when she released him.
"I can't thank you enough for this. I should've known you'd come up with something. You always do!"
Beetlejuice half-closed his eyes, shrugging with nonchalance. "Well, maybe not always." He peeked at her from under his lids. "Just usually!" and cackled with pleasure.
Lydia laughed with him. "Meanwhile, my history essay is due and I can't write. Even with a thimble!" She glanced at her new sewing accessory with a grin. "I hate to ask you this, but could I just dictate to you from my notes? At least we'd spend some time together and if I ask Mother to do it, she'll want to edit what I tell her to write and Father's handwriting is just awful."
He grumbled a little, but secretly Beetlejuice was glad she'd asked him to help. So Lydia managed to get her notes out of the much-abused satchel and, with many stops and starts, dictated her essay to him. The topic was Ada Lovelace and her pioneering work in computer science – which he found boring so, during the pauses, he unconsciously doodled in the margins and at the tops and bottoms of the sheets of paper.
When they were finished, Beetlejuice exclaimed, "At last!" as he handed her the four pages and Lydia looked them over casually before preparing to pack them for the next day. "Oh!" she said in surprise, then held the essay to her heart, thinking frantically. "Thank you so much, BJ. I know this was really boring for you."
"Anything for you, babes, right?" He shrugged casually. "Anyway, you forgot about your thumb for a while. Anything else I can do? You want to have some fun in the Neitherworld, or just relax, watch a movie? Whatever you want, just tell me." He paused for just a moment, then said, "Or you could start your elf designs and maybe I could help with that, too."
Lydia smiled at him. "I guess I should get the designs ready to work on. It's awfully sweet of you to ask." She laughed at his expression, then said, "But it's nearly dinner time. And before I start the designs, maybe you could help me with my geometry homework?"
He stared at her in disbelief while cautiously placing his palm on her forehead. "I didn't realize a cut on your thumb would make you delirious!"
She laughed again. "It's just studying for a quiz. Mother's going to call me for dinner any second now. Meet me back here in half an hour?"
"You got it, babes. I'll just go prowl around the basement looking for snacks." He grinned, gave her a wink, then disappeared.
Lydia looked again at her history essay and decided she'd explain that her neighbors' son had written it down for her and he was only ten years old. There was no other way to explain why her name was repeated all down the margins and there were little hearts and spiders and beetles in every spare space. But she would definitely get it back after it was graded. She had a special box for things she treasured.