Turn Back Time - The Ghost and Molly McGee Story

Chapter 4

I... may or may not have completely forgot that the first bit to this story is on Wattpad. So... umm... enjoy five-ish chapters that I didn't post XD

Molly knew something was wrong with Scratch. He had ignored her for most of Saturday, and now claimed he was "too busy" to hang out. Scratch was never busy, which was a red flag on its own. Even her family was starting to wonder what was wrong.

"Where's Scratch?" Pete asked when Molly walked into the kitchen. Him and Darryl were playing a card game on the kitchen table as Sharon was making lunch. "I haven't seen him all day. Didn't see him yesterday, too."

Molly shrugged. "He doesn't seem like he's in the mood for anything. He says he's busy with 'ghost work stuff', but I don't think that's the case."

"Have you talked to him?"

She nodded. "I tried, but you know Scratch, he doesn't like to say what's on his mind until he has to." She sighed, leaning against the wall and shaking her head. "I wish he wouldn't do that."

"Hmm." Pete stood up, setting his cards down on the table. "I'll be back."

He headed up the stairs and climbed up the ladder to the attic, then softly knocked on the door. "Scratch?"

There was no response.

He gently opened the door, then pulled himself up. "Scratch? You in here?"

He soon saw the ghost phase out of his dollhouse and grow back to his normal size, looking annoyed. "Molly, for the last time, I--" He stopped mid-sentence, then went quiet. "Oh, hi, umm, Mr. McGee. What- what are you doing in here?"

"Molly said you were having a bad day." He stated. That made Scratch hesitant; Molly was catching on to him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm... fine." He replied, forcing a smile on his face. "I've just been... caught up with work, that's all. It's kinda stressful sometimes."

"Tell me about it." Pete agreed. "Work can be hard. Do you need help with anything?"

Help would be amazing, Scratch thought, but definitely not from any of the McGees. "Nope." He said. "I'm all good. Just gotta... uhh... figure out this one problem. Once I do that, everything will be fine."

"Well, if you need help with anything, just come talk to me - or anyone in this family, really. 'Kay?"

"'Kay."

Pete gave him an affectionate pat on the back, then stood up and left the room.

Scratch let out a sigh of relief, sitting down on Molly's bed. He knew that, if any of the McGees found out about what he had to do to Molly, they would kick him out of the house on the spot. They called him a McGee, but he was starting to doubt it. They were probably just being nice to him but secretly wanted nothing else but to get rid of him. Molly was the only reason they cared to keep him around.

Sharon walked into the room about an hour later. Scratch hardly even noticed her enter. She sat down next to him on Molly's bed and handed him a stack of sandwiches on a plate. "This was lunch, you didn't come for breakfast this morning so here you are."

Scratch took the plate and set it down on Molly's nightstand to eat later. "Thank you."

The room went silent, and Sharon hadn't left yet, leaving the ghoul even more confused. "So you've got a bunch of work stuff going on?" She finally spoke up, turning to look at him.

Scratch nodded slowly. "It's... kinda complicated to explain."

"Do you need help with anything?"

Help? Again? Why do these people want to help me when they don't even like me? "No." He replied.

"Oh. Well, if you ever need help, just come get us, okay?" She stood up. "And don't miss dinner, got it?"

"Mmhmm."

Scratch quietly nibbled on the sandwiches Sharon left him afterward. Eating always got his mind off of things. But, once he finished eating the last sandwich in the stack, he became overwhelmed with fear again. He sighed, covering his face in his hands and moaning. He felt sick and awful, but didn't want to tell anyone about it. He couldn't tell anyone about it.

He listened around a bit until he was confident that none of the McGees were near by, and for the second time that day, he broke down into tears and cried.

* * *

The first thing Molly did when she arrived at school on Monday was try to find her best human friend, Libby. Scratch was acting too weird for comfort. The moment she woke up that morning, she had heard a portal to the Ghost World opening and closing seconds after. Scratch was nowhere to be seen once the portal closed. It was like he was avoiding her, and Molly feared for the worst. She needed to tell someone about it. 

She walked into her first class of the day: English. She sat down in her spot in the back of the classroom and pulled out her notebook she needed for the class. She started to doodle on it, like she did every day before the bell rang. She usually drew unicorns and rainbows and stuff like that, but before she could even think about what to draw, she immediately started drawing little pictures of her ghost friend on the paper.

"Drawing, like usual?" A voice said from behind her. Molly yelped, quickly hiding her notebook with her hands from instinct. She was so used to hiding Scratch from the world that it became a reflex to her. Hide everything you have that's related to Scratch, keep him a secret or else he'll be taken away. She had learned her lesson from when they celebrated Sart Duan Sib a few months ago.

It took her a moment to notice who called out to her. It was a girl around her age. She was tall, had long dark-brown hair, and was wearing a green turtleneck. "Oh, hi, Libby." Molly slowly took her hands off the notebook. It was just Libby, and she knew who Scratch was. Least it wasn't someone else.

Libby took her seat right next to Molly, setting down her backpack. "Where's Scratch?"

"He left this morning. I think he's ignoring me." Molly said softly. "Ever since Saturday he's been avoiding me and I don't know why. He keeps saying he's busy with 'ghost work stuff', but he's never been really busy with work before. I don't get it."

"Huh."

The bell rang soon after. Libby watched as kids quickly began to file into the classroom, all conversing with one another, then looked back at her friend, who was clearly upset.

"Libby... do you think Scratch doesn't want to be my friend anymore?"

"What do you mean?" Libby questioned back. "Of course he does. Scratch loves you more than anything in the world."

"But he's ignoring me." She pestered. "I don't think he wants to be my friend anymore."

Libby looked over at Molly's notebook. The borders of the page were filled to the brim with sketches of the ghost. Each pictured him with a sad look on his face. At the top, Molly had written 'not friends?' with a picture of a broken heart next to it. Libby put her hand on Molly's shoulder, smiling at her reassuringly. "Scratch isn't ignoring you. If he's busy, he's busy. Don't worry. I bet that business will clear up soon and you guys can go back to being the friends that you were. I promise?"

"Okay..." Molly said softly. She was doubtful, but at least Libby was there to comfort her.

She could only hope that Scratch was really just busy, and he wasn't ignoring her for a reason other than that. They were still friends, right? He wasn't trying to stop their friendship, right...?

She took a deep breath as the bell rang again and class began to start.

We're still friends, she told herself over and over again. We're still friends. There's no way we can't.

Scratch is still my friend, and nothing will change that.