Epilogue
We were getting accustomed to the drill. The deputies separated us and began asking questions. The Sheriff showed up and started giving interviews to the handful of reporters who had caught the late-night squeal over the police radio of something interesting happening. Then our parents showed up and the questioning stopped. They had learned some lessons from the last time they had arrested us all. And finally, the Blake legal and security team arrived and the deputies all became very busy with other things.
We were free to go and the Sunday morning sun was peaking over the horizon.
Sunday provided nothing to write about. It was filled with painkillers and sleep.
On Monday morning, I found myself once again to be the focus of the attention of my fellow students. I had forgotten how much I hated that. Actually, I had not forgotten but I hated it just as much the second time around.
During homeroom, the four of us were individually bombarded by questions from gossip-hounds. And it continued through the morning until finally seeming to taper off by lunchtime. I entered the lunchroom, made my way through the line, and winced when I picked my tray up from the rails and its small but cantilevered weight hit my side.
Shaggy appeared beside me. "Can I help with your tray?"
I looked up. He appeared surprisingly lucid. Normally, I would take umbrage at an offer of assistance since I am an empowered modern woman. But the morning's painkiller was wearing off and my side really hurt. I handed him the tray.
"Thank you."
I was leading Shaggy toward my normal table with Marcie and the other nerds when I heard Fred's voice. "Velma. Shaggy. Over here."
I looked over to see Fred and Daphne sitting alone together at a table. I looked at Shaggy to find him looking at me. This was uncharted territory. Fred and Daphne recognizing our existence in the school and in front of everyone. I glanced over at Marcie who was looking at me questioningly. As many times as I had been snubbed or insulated by Daphne Blake and her minions, I really wanted to keep walking and snub her for a change. But my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up again at Shaggy and tilted my head in their direction.
Shaggy placed our trays on their table but neither of us sat down, not wanting to blunder into a social trap of thinking we were being invited to sit at the table and then being publicly shunned. But Daphne spoke and gestured fluidly at two open chairs as if she were at a formal dance. "Please. Have a seat."
We sat and I tentatively took a bite from my hamburger. The fact that I was eating at their table didn't seem to faze either of the popular pair.
Fred started. "Daph and I have been talking."
I glanced over at Daphne who did not react to the abbreviation of her name.
Fred was apparently the designated speaker for this discussion. "It's about the podcasts you did and the YouTube channel you're doing now."
Here it was. They were going to refuse to let me use their names. And, if I didn't have real names, then the authenticity would be lost. Maybe they were even going to sue me. I pictured an army of Blake lawyers destroying my life and the lives of my entire family.
"What about them?"
Fred looked over at Daphne and back at me. "We want to do more of them."
"Say what?"
Daphne jumped in. "They're not boring. They're even, maybe, fun. And you two are certainly different. It's a change of pace."
Fred took over again. "You have to have noticed that your 'likes', 'favorites' and 'follows' went way up when you changed from talking about the legends of Crystal Cove and switched to real-time on-the-ground mystery solving."
I swallowed a larger than average bite of my burger without chewing. "Of course I noticed, but how did you?"
"I listen to your podcast every week and I saw the first upload on your YouTube channel last night. You had over a thousand subscribers by this morning."
I hadn't checked. "I did?"
"I don't know if you noticed but I spent a lot of time last summer in your parent's museum."
Of course I had noticed. He was the only one there most of the time.
He continued. "I was thinking. What if, instead of you just talking about all the old legends and stories and logically debunking them, we physically investigate each one and actually debunk them."
Shaggy spoke up. "The four of us… go looking for ghosts?"
Fred smiled. "Exactly!" There went that finger up into the air again. He did that a lot.
Shaggy leaned forward and whispered fervently. "Why would any sane person do that!"
Daphne sighed. "We've been over that. It's not boring."
Shaggy waxed poetic. "A warm bed on a cold morning is boring. A fresh, hot homemade pizza and a Vincent Van Ghoul All-Night Movie Marathon is boring. A night when my dad is out of town is boring. A bicycle ride in the woods with Scooby Doo is boring. Boring is good. 'Boring' is my friend.
Fred looked directly into Shaggy's eyes. "Are you in or out?"
Shaggy slumped. "The trouble with being a coward is that you always cave to peer pressure. I'm in."
Daphne looked to me. "Velma, are you in or out?"
I had questions. "Do I have to hang out with Sarah Handler and the mean girls."
"No. They're leaches who are only interested in my social status."
That was blunt. I could match it. "This would mean you having to publicly associate with Shaggy and me."
This one caused a pause and Daphne and Fred looked at each other and then around the room. It was only then that they noticed all of the stares and the pointing coming our way. I had been aware of it since before sitting down.
Daphne turned back to me. "I can deal with that."
Which was the nicest thing she had ever said to me.
"I'm in, too."
All of my questions but one were answered. And that last question would just have to be answered by time. My unasked question was:
What's the catch?
