Back Home: A Beetlejuice Story

Chapter 11

Lydia

Dr. Scott allowed me to sit quietly and doodle on some scratch paper. I get that she's trying to analyze me based on whatever I end up drawing, but it's better than staring at the wall in silence for fifty minutes.

"That's cute, who are they?" Dr. Scott asks, looking over my shoulder at what I've been drawing. It was a doodle of Betelgeuse trying to befriend a stray cat in town, something he does every time we go into town. Unfortunately, the cat is very stupid and falls for it every time and Betelgeuse scares it off each time. He says he likes cats more than dogs, but he doesn't like either particularly much.

"Just a guy I saw on Halloween," I lie. It was the only reasonable way to explain a man in a striped suit with crazy hair and weird green stuff on his face.

"Is he someone you know?"

"Not at all," I put the pencil down and cover the paper with my hands.

"What stood out to you about this person on Halloween that they stuck in your memory like this?" Dr. Scott goes back to her desk and smiles at me.

"The cat's an idiot. It goes up to everyone."

"Has the cat ever gone up to you?" I stare at Dr. Scott. I can't really answer that because every time the cat is around it's getting scared off. "Ms. Deetz?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I don't go into town too often."

"Why is that?"

"It's Winter River. You can go into town once a month and be set," I laugh.

"Do you not like Winter River? Is that why you ran away?" Dr. Scott leans forward.

I sigh and shake my head. I glance at the clock to see how much time is left in the session. There's only ten minutes left, no point in sitting here for it. "I love Winter River. I ran away because I felt like my dad was moving on from my mom's death way too fast and I didn't want to be sucked up into it." I stand up and grab my bag. "Great session, see you later. Bye," I rush out the door, Dr. Scott insisting that there's more time.

BJ

"Fore!" I shout, whacking the golf ball. Lydia has been studying practically non-stop for her GED test, even though it isn't for another month yet. I've been spending more time getting along with the rest of the Deetzes and the Maitlands to fill the stretches of time when Lydia's busy. Today I decided to alter Adam's model of the town to include a golf course. He freaked out at first, worried that the model would take ages to fix. I showed him that I could easily fix it with some magic and then teleported us into the model to play. Barbara is actually incredible at golf, apparently, she played it in high school. I think golf is for yuppies, which explains a lot about why Barbara is good at it.

"That was only a couple thousand feet off," Adam laughs.

"I could make it closer if you two hadn't banned me from juicing stuff around," I roll my eyes. "But, I guess we had to make the game fair for you."

Barbara tees off and makes it into the green easily. "Oh yea, Adam wouldn't have stood a chance against me and you if you were cheating," She smiles, giving Adam an affectionate jab on the side. We set off to find where our golf balls had landed to begin the next round, which isn't an easy task when you're playing in the midst of town. Adam's golf ball was on top of a sewer grate and it's lucky for him he didn't try to make the actual sewer system under the town or he'd be screwed. He makes another pitiful shot which makes it closer to the green by about ten feet. Me and Barbara snigger amongst ourselves. I teleport back over to where I had found my golf ball and give it a whack. As far as I can tell, it made it into the green. Before Barbara can make her second shot, which we're all sure is going to make it into the hole, Lydia calls for all three of us.