You're So Vain. And Dead.
October 22
Mrs. Belden set a platter with hot waffles in the center of the table. “Trixie, Mart… your father and I have decided to go out to dinner and a show this evening. I’ll need you both to come home straight from school and look after Bobby.”
Trixie opened her mouth to object, but on seeing the hard stare her brother sent her, she exhaled and nodded. “Yes, Moms.”
“I’ll have supper in the fridge for you. You’ll just need to heat it up. Also? Make sure Bobby does his homework. He may need one of you to help him with his language arts assignment.” She sighed as she said this. “I think it might be time to have him… evaluated. He’s getting a little bit too old to blame his… struggles with proper English on age alone. See that he finishes his work and is in bed by 8:30.”
“Yes, Moms,” Trixie said again, her tone distinctly glum.
“Dr. Chang called yesterday while you were at school. All of Clyde’s tests came back fine. He says he won’t need to see him again until next year’s check-up and shots, unless there’s a problem of some kind.”
Trixie’s gaze went to where her cat lay stretched out on the rug by the kitchen door. “Hear that, kitty? You got the clean bill of health.”
Clyde yawned and licked his paw.
“Clearly, this is not news to him,” Mart pointed out dryly. “Moms? Is it all right if Dan comes over for awhile tonight? We have a… uh, project we’re working on and it’s been hard to find time to get to it.”
Helen nodded her permission. “Yes. I’ll make sure there’s enough food for you all to have a nice dinner together. Maybe you can even talk him into spending some time with Bobby before you start your work. I know he’d be thrilled. Oh, and I’m going grocery shopping this morning. Mart? Is there some reason you added rosemary and bay leaves to our list? Are you planning to make something?”
“Oh! Um, that was me, Moms,” Trixie said quickly. “I asked him to do that. It’s…uh, I’m trying to get a jumpstart on Christmas. I’m going to make some little potpourri sachets for my teachers. Honey’s got some extra fabric I can use and I’m going to buy a bag of dried flower petals from the hobby shop.”
Although Mart was eying her skeptically, Mrs. Belden seemed to accept her quickly babbled explanation. She turned to the sink and glanced out the window. “Here comes Dan,” she said. “Hurry up and finish your breakfasts.”
“Potpourri sachets?” Mart said a few minutes later, shaking his head as he and his sister walked across the back patio and stepped onto the drive. “Really?”
“It was the first thing I could come up with! What were you gonna say? You couldn’t very well claim it was to make a meal… otherwise she woulda asked more questions and then you would’ve had to use the herbs to make an actual meal. Potpourri sachets are close enough to your little spell bags, anyway.”
“Morning, Freckles,” Dan said, climbing out of his van and walking around to open the passenger door. He waved her to the seat.
“I notice I’ve been demoted to the back of the van recently,” Mart grumbled acerbically.
“Well, yeah. D’uh.” Dan gave his friend a wide smile. “I’ve decided it’s definitely beauty before age. This is somehow surprising to you?”
“Moms has just informed us that we have to come home right after school to watch Bobby so she and Dad can go on a date,” Trixie told him. “Sorry. I guess that leaves you to office hours on your own. Or… hmmm. I guess maybe, Mart, you could call her at some point today and say you need to go pick up some stuff for this supposed project you and Dan are working on. You two can go to Lisgard House and I can come straight home to watch Bobby.”
“Yeah. I’ll see if that’ll work. She’ll probably agree, as long as I swear you’ll be here.”
“She’s also said you can come over tonight,” Trixie continued as she slid into her seat and reached for the safety belt. “This offer includes Mom’s home-cooked supper. So, you want to have dinner with us and hang out for awhile?”
“A night off with my favorite girl? And her mother’s awesome cooking? Gee… I dunno. Let me think. That, or another night alone in the apartment while Uncle Bill meets up with his ‘lady friend.’ Huh. Yeah. I’ll go with an evening at Crabapple Farm. And I know babysitting Bobby’s not high on your list of Things I Really Love to Do, but a night off? Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to me. We can get through office hours as fast as possible and then spend of the rest of the evening not discussing anything to do with ghosts or witches or curses or any of it. No ghosts allowed. What do you say, Freckles? Not so bad for a Suck Day, right?”
“Dude.” Mart blew out a breath and raked his fingers through his hair. “Seriously. Why do you keep saying things that just beg for something to go all wrong?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Please. Shut. Up.” Trixie hissed under her breath. “I’m actually trying to pay attention to the teacher.”
“Ms. Callahan? Please. She’s an idiot. And what is up with that awful outfit? And the hair? Seriously. She looks like she cuts it with a pair of kitchen shears herself. If you’re worried about missing anything, don’t. She gives the exact same lectures and homework and quizzes every year. Nothing ever changes. She could not possibly be more boring. Raise your hand and tell her you need to go to the restroom so we can get out of here.”
Gritting her teeth, Trixie did as she was commanded. She collected the bathroom pass on the way out the door. “You have five minutes to tell me exactly what you need,” she said to the tall girl strolling along at her side. “That’s it.”
“Whatever. We’re going downstairs to the admin hall. You need to… fix something in the trophy cabinet.”
“Excuse me?”
“When I attended Sleepyside High, I was student council president, co-captain of the cheerleading squad, and the homecoming and prom queen my senior year. I was also the only student representative to the model UN in New York City to ever receive a special recognition award. And do you know where that award is now? In the back of the cabinet behind some stupid baseball trophy! As if!”
“Stupid baseball trophy?” Trixie echoed, one brow raised. “I can see you took your job as a cheerleader seriously. You do know that cabinet is locked, right? And what am I supposed to do if someone comes along and finds me trying to break in to it?”
“I don’t know,” the girl said with a wave of her hand. “Figure something out.”
“Yeah. Right. Of course.” Trixie rolled her eyes and picked up her pace. “Listen. Go wait at the cabinet. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
The main office was almost deserted as she let herself through the door. Trixie approached the counter and offered the receptionist a smile. “Hi! I was wondering if you could help me with something?”
“Yes, dear?”
“I’m working on a story for the yearbook. I thought it would be cool if I could do a sorta ‘then and now’ thing. Anyway, I know how with the trophy cabinet out in the hall, we put the new stuff up front and the older stuff in back, but would it be possible for me to rearrange it and then send a photographer to get some pictures later this afternoon? It would be for the ‘then’ part, you know? I’d like to move some of the older things up so they’ll show up in the pictures.”
The receptionist considered this for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. I’m sure that will be fine. As long as you put everything back after.”
“Oh, I will, Ma’am.”
“I’ll have to come unlock the cabinet for you, but then I’ll need to return to my desk. If you shut the doors when you’re done, I imagine it will be safe enough for today. Make sure you stop by this afternoon after you’ve got your pictures and reset everything, so I’ll know it’s okay to relock it, though.”
“You bet.”
Trixie followed the older woman out into the hall and waited for her to open the cabinet’s two broad, glass-fronted doors. “There you are, dear.”
“Thank you!” She stepped forward and began fidgeting with a row of framed photos. As soon as the receptionist turned and walked away, she stepped back and scanned the shelves. “Where is it?”
The girl was regarding her curiously. “How did you get her to unlock it for you?”
“I lied,” Trixie replied shortly. “Where is it?”
“Right here. You know, you could move it up here, so people can see it better. Really. So few truly outstanding students come through this school. You’d think they’d do everything possible to remember and honor those of us who did.”
Trixie grabbed the trophy and shifted some things around so that it was front and center. “Happy?” she asked.
“I suppose it will have to do.”
“Can I just… make a brief observation here?”
“What?”
“For someone who won a ‘prestigious’ award for, uh… ‘excellent diplomacy in presentation before the UN Council’? Your general people skills really kinda suck. This would be there part where you’re supposed to say, ‘Thanks, Trixie, for skipping out of class and risking a detention just so you could make the school’s trophy cabinet all about me.’”
The last thing Trixie saw before the girl faded from view was her narrow-eyed scowl. “Yeah. Not gonna be missing you at all,” she muttered.
The school was quiet as she returned to class. Not that there really needed to be anyone in the halls in the middle of a period, but it occurred to her that usually she would pass someone at some point. A student on the way to a restroom or the media center. A teacher on his or her off period heading to the lounge. It wasn’t typically this empty and silent. The sound of her sneakers lightly slapping the floor as she walked seemed almost magnified in the otherwise unnatural stillness.
She was about to exit the stairwell when she got the distinct feeling that she was being watched. She turned quickly, expecting to see either another student or spirit behind her, and instead saw nothing at all. She waited for a long moment, making no move or sound, but finally resumed her walk. Telling herself it was only nerves and to be expected after the past several weeks and all that had unfolded, she decided to dismiss the creepy incident. She could only hope that she wasn’t making some sort of big mistake by doing so.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trixie was just placing the casserole in the center of the kitchen table when Mart and Dan arrived. Bobby greeted the boys with great enthusiasm. “You’re finally here! Trixie is a big meanie! She made me do homework all afternoon!”
“Yes, Bobby. I did,” she said, struggling to hold back an angry snap. “Remember what I told you? At least five times? If you got your homework finished before Dan got here, then your evening would be free to watch a movie or play a game with him.”
“Hey, Bobby,” Dan said easily. “C’mere.”
“Yeah?”
“I need to clean up before dinner and I’m betting you still need to, too, yeah?”
Bobby made a face, but nodded.
“Good. Because I think you and I need to have a little talk. Man to man. No sisters or brothers allowed. Okay?”
Wide-eyed, Bobby followed Dan out of the kitchen and across the den to the small half-bath nestled under the staircase.
Trixie watched Mart as he used the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “How’d office hours go?” she asked quietly. “Did the teacher show up?”
“No. And maybe I’m overthinking it, but somehow that worries me. I’m wondering if she decided not to wait for us to find anything out and she’s haunting her boyfriend already. I think we might want to look into it.”
“Perfect.”
“Otherwise? Things were as insane as always. Oh… but your boyfriend? Picked up an admirer who didn’t want to go. She was a lovely lady. At least forty, if not older.” Mart grinned widely as he spoke.
Trixie felt her cheeks color. “I’m not sure ‘boyfriend’ is-“
“C’mon, Sis. He’s crazy about you. Always has been, which of course calls to question his mental health, in my humble opinion.”
“Really?” she asked uncertainly.
Mart saw both the hope and anxiety in her eyes and he dropped his teasing smirk. “Yeah, Sis. Really,” he said gently. “He adores you. You know right after he moved here and there was that whole mess with his gang and everybody thought he was still involved? That afternoon when he helped you when Bobby was trapped? He once told me that you stood in front of Regan with your hands on your hips and yelled at him about how Dan was a hero and… that kinda did him in. He said back then he was still terrified of his uncle and his size and his temper, and there you were, this ‘tiny girl’ chewing out a grown man like nobody’s business. Anyway, I guess ever since then, you’ve sorta been his hero. He really is nuts about you.”
Trixie knew her blush had grown considerably. She wasn’t at all sure how to respond to her brother’s story, and so she turned away to grab knives and forks from the silverware drawer.
Dan and Bobby returned to the kitchen and Bobby walked up to his older siblings, his expression solemn. “I’m sorry for saying something rude about you when you were only trying to help me, Trix,” he said, carefully pronouncing each word as if he’d rehearsed them ahead of time and was determined to get them right. “And I want to thank you for staying home with me so that Moms and Dad could go out.”
Trixie stared at her brother in no small amount of surprise as Mart turned to Dan and mouthed the words, “You are a miracle worker.”
“Well, you’re welcome, Bobby,” his sister said kindly. “And let’s just forget about what happened earlier, all right? Your work is done. We can enjoy dinner and then we’ll decide what to do after before you need to take your shower and get to bed.”
“Uh, we’ve apparently already decided,” Dan said slowly. “He’s pretty adamant. I told him it was up to you two.”
“We’re gonna watch a movie,” Bobby informed them excitedly. “’Cause it’s getting closer and closer to Halloween. So my favorite!”
“Uh, huh, Sprout. And which is your favorite this week?” Mart asked him, fondly ruffling the boy’s hair.
Bobby batted Mart’s hand away, but it was obvious he wasn’t nearly as annoyed with the show of affection as he was pretending.
Dan held up a DVD case. “Yeah. Sorry guys.”
“Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost!” Bobby crowed.
Trixie felt the strong urge to bang her head against one of the kitchen cabinets. “Oh, Bobby. Really?”
“Yeah! The best part? Is the end, where the witch gets sucked back in the book and it catches on fire! It’s awesome! She was barbecued, Trix!”
Mrs. Belden set a platter with hot waffles in the center of the table. “Trixie, Mart… your father and I have decided to go out to dinner and a show this evening. I’ll need you both to come home straight from school and look after Bobby.”
Trixie opened her mouth to object, but on seeing the hard stare her brother sent her, she exhaled and nodded. “Yes, Moms.”
“I’ll have supper in the fridge for you. You’ll just need to heat it up. Also? Make sure Bobby does his homework. He may need one of you to help him with his language arts assignment.” She sighed as she said this. “I think it might be time to have him… evaluated. He’s getting a little bit too old to blame his… struggles with proper English on age alone. See that he finishes his work and is in bed by 8:30.”
“Yes, Moms,” Trixie said again, her tone distinctly glum.
“Dr. Chang called yesterday while you were at school. All of Clyde’s tests came back fine. He says he won’t need to see him again until next year’s check-up and shots, unless there’s a problem of some kind.”
Trixie’s gaze went to where her cat lay stretched out on the rug by the kitchen door. “Hear that, kitty? You got the clean bill of health.”
Clyde yawned and licked his paw.
“Clearly, this is not news to him,” Mart pointed out dryly. “Moms? Is it all right if Dan comes over for awhile tonight? We have a… uh, project we’re working on and it’s been hard to find time to get to it.”
Helen nodded her permission. “Yes. I’ll make sure there’s enough food for you all to have a nice dinner together. Maybe you can even talk him into spending some time with Bobby before you start your work. I know he’d be thrilled. Oh, and I’m going grocery shopping this morning. Mart? Is there some reason you added rosemary and bay leaves to our list? Are you planning to make something?”
“Oh! Um, that was me, Moms,” Trixie said quickly. “I asked him to do that. It’s…uh, I’m trying to get a jumpstart on Christmas. I’m going to make some little potpourri sachets for my teachers. Honey’s got some extra fabric I can use and I’m going to buy a bag of dried flower petals from the hobby shop.”
Although Mart was eying her skeptically, Mrs. Belden seemed to accept her quickly babbled explanation. She turned to the sink and glanced out the window. “Here comes Dan,” she said. “Hurry up and finish your breakfasts.”
“Potpourri sachets?” Mart said a few minutes later, shaking his head as he and his sister walked across the back patio and stepped onto the drive. “Really?”
“It was the first thing I could come up with! What were you gonna say? You couldn’t very well claim it was to make a meal… otherwise she woulda asked more questions and then you would’ve had to use the herbs to make an actual meal. Potpourri sachets are close enough to your little spell bags, anyway.”
“Morning, Freckles,” Dan said, climbing out of his van and walking around to open the passenger door. He waved her to the seat.
“I notice I’ve been demoted to the back of the van recently,” Mart grumbled acerbically.
“Well, yeah. D’uh.” Dan gave his friend a wide smile. “I’ve decided it’s definitely beauty before age. This is somehow surprising to you?”
“Moms has just informed us that we have to come home right after school to watch Bobby so she and Dad can go on a date,” Trixie told him. “Sorry. I guess that leaves you to office hours on your own. Or… hmmm. I guess maybe, Mart, you could call her at some point today and say you need to go pick up some stuff for this supposed project you and Dan are working on. You two can go to Lisgard House and I can come straight home to watch Bobby.”
“Yeah. I’ll see if that’ll work. She’ll probably agree, as long as I swear you’ll be here.”
“She’s also said you can come over tonight,” Trixie continued as she slid into her seat and reached for the safety belt. “This offer includes Mom’s home-cooked supper. So, you want to have dinner with us and hang out for awhile?”
“A night off with my favorite girl? And her mother’s awesome cooking? Gee… I dunno. Let me think. That, or another night alone in the apartment while Uncle Bill meets up with his ‘lady friend.’ Huh. Yeah. I’ll go with an evening at Crabapple Farm. And I know babysitting Bobby’s not high on your list of Things I Really Love to Do, but a night off? Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to me. We can get through office hours as fast as possible and then spend of the rest of the evening not discussing anything to do with ghosts or witches or curses or any of it. No ghosts allowed. What do you say, Freckles? Not so bad for a Suck Day, right?”
“Dude.” Mart blew out a breath and raked his fingers through his hair. “Seriously. Why do you keep saying things that just beg for something to go all wrong?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Please. Shut. Up.” Trixie hissed under her breath. “I’m actually trying to pay attention to the teacher.”
“Ms. Callahan? Please. She’s an idiot. And what is up with that awful outfit? And the hair? Seriously. She looks like she cuts it with a pair of kitchen shears herself. If you’re worried about missing anything, don’t. She gives the exact same lectures and homework and quizzes every year. Nothing ever changes. She could not possibly be more boring. Raise your hand and tell her you need to go to the restroom so we can get out of here.”
Gritting her teeth, Trixie did as she was commanded. She collected the bathroom pass on the way out the door. “You have five minutes to tell me exactly what you need,” she said to the tall girl strolling along at her side. “That’s it.”
“Whatever. We’re going downstairs to the admin hall. You need to… fix something in the trophy cabinet.”
“Excuse me?”
“When I attended Sleepyside High, I was student council president, co-captain of the cheerleading squad, and the homecoming and prom queen my senior year. I was also the only student representative to the model UN in New York City to ever receive a special recognition award. And do you know where that award is now? In the back of the cabinet behind some stupid baseball trophy! As if!”
“Stupid baseball trophy?” Trixie echoed, one brow raised. “I can see you took your job as a cheerleader seriously. You do know that cabinet is locked, right? And what am I supposed to do if someone comes along and finds me trying to break in to it?”
“I don’t know,” the girl said with a wave of her hand. “Figure something out.”
“Yeah. Right. Of course.” Trixie rolled her eyes and picked up her pace. “Listen. Go wait at the cabinet. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
The main office was almost deserted as she let herself through the door. Trixie approached the counter and offered the receptionist a smile. “Hi! I was wondering if you could help me with something?”
“Yes, dear?”
“I’m working on a story for the yearbook. I thought it would be cool if I could do a sorta ‘then and now’ thing. Anyway, I know how with the trophy cabinet out in the hall, we put the new stuff up front and the older stuff in back, but would it be possible for me to rearrange it and then send a photographer to get some pictures later this afternoon? It would be for the ‘then’ part, you know? I’d like to move some of the older things up so they’ll show up in the pictures.”
The receptionist considered this for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. I’m sure that will be fine. As long as you put everything back after.”
“Oh, I will, Ma’am.”
“I’ll have to come unlock the cabinet for you, but then I’ll need to return to my desk. If you shut the doors when you’re done, I imagine it will be safe enough for today. Make sure you stop by this afternoon after you’ve got your pictures and reset everything, so I’ll know it’s okay to relock it, though.”
“You bet.”
Trixie followed the older woman out into the hall and waited for her to open the cabinet’s two broad, glass-fronted doors. “There you are, dear.”
“Thank you!” She stepped forward and began fidgeting with a row of framed photos. As soon as the receptionist turned and walked away, she stepped back and scanned the shelves. “Where is it?”
The girl was regarding her curiously. “How did you get her to unlock it for you?”
“I lied,” Trixie replied shortly. “Where is it?”
“Right here. You know, you could move it up here, so people can see it better. Really. So few truly outstanding students come through this school. You’d think they’d do everything possible to remember and honor those of us who did.”
Trixie grabbed the trophy and shifted some things around so that it was front and center. “Happy?” she asked.
“I suppose it will have to do.”
“Can I just… make a brief observation here?”
“What?”
“For someone who won a ‘prestigious’ award for, uh… ‘excellent diplomacy in presentation before the UN Council’? Your general people skills really kinda suck. This would be there part where you’re supposed to say, ‘Thanks, Trixie, for skipping out of class and risking a detention just so you could make the school’s trophy cabinet all about me.’”
The last thing Trixie saw before the girl faded from view was her narrow-eyed scowl. “Yeah. Not gonna be missing you at all,” she muttered.
The school was quiet as she returned to class. Not that there really needed to be anyone in the halls in the middle of a period, but it occurred to her that usually she would pass someone at some point. A student on the way to a restroom or the media center. A teacher on his or her off period heading to the lounge. It wasn’t typically this empty and silent. The sound of her sneakers lightly slapping the floor as she walked seemed almost magnified in the otherwise unnatural stillness.
She was about to exit the stairwell when she got the distinct feeling that she was being watched. She turned quickly, expecting to see either another student or spirit behind her, and instead saw nothing at all. She waited for a long moment, making no move or sound, but finally resumed her walk. Telling herself it was only nerves and to be expected after the past several weeks and all that had unfolded, she decided to dismiss the creepy incident. She could only hope that she wasn’t making some sort of big mistake by doing so.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trixie was just placing the casserole in the center of the kitchen table when Mart and Dan arrived. Bobby greeted the boys with great enthusiasm. “You’re finally here! Trixie is a big meanie! She made me do homework all afternoon!”
“Yes, Bobby. I did,” she said, struggling to hold back an angry snap. “Remember what I told you? At least five times? If you got your homework finished before Dan got here, then your evening would be free to watch a movie or play a game with him.”
“Hey, Bobby,” Dan said easily. “C’mere.”
“Yeah?”
“I need to clean up before dinner and I’m betting you still need to, too, yeah?”
Bobby made a face, but nodded.
“Good. Because I think you and I need to have a little talk. Man to man. No sisters or brothers allowed. Okay?”
Wide-eyed, Bobby followed Dan out of the kitchen and across the den to the small half-bath nestled under the staircase.
Trixie watched Mart as he used the kitchen sink to wash his hands. “How’d office hours go?” she asked quietly. “Did the teacher show up?”
“No. And maybe I’m overthinking it, but somehow that worries me. I’m wondering if she decided not to wait for us to find anything out and she’s haunting her boyfriend already. I think we might want to look into it.”
“Perfect.”
“Otherwise? Things were as insane as always. Oh… but your boyfriend? Picked up an admirer who didn’t want to go. She was a lovely lady. At least forty, if not older.” Mart grinned widely as he spoke.
Trixie felt her cheeks color. “I’m not sure ‘boyfriend’ is-“
“C’mon, Sis. He’s crazy about you. Always has been, which of course calls to question his mental health, in my humble opinion.”
“Really?” she asked uncertainly.
Mart saw both the hope and anxiety in her eyes and he dropped his teasing smirk. “Yeah, Sis. Really,” he said gently. “He adores you. You know right after he moved here and there was that whole mess with his gang and everybody thought he was still involved? That afternoon when he helped you when Bobby was trapped? He once told me that you stood in front of Regan with your hands on your hips and yelled at him about how Dan was a hero and… that kinda did him in. He said back then he was still terrified of his uncle and his size and his temper, and there you were, this ‘tiny girl’ chewing out a grown man like nobody’s business. Anyway, I guess ever since then, you’ve sorta been his hero. He really is nuts about you.”
Trixie knew her blush had grown considerably. She wasn’t at all sure how to respond to her brother’s story, and so she turned away to grab knives and forks from the silverware drawer.
Dan and Bobby returned to the kitchen and Bobby walked up to his older siblings, his expression solemn. “I’m sorry for saying something rude about you when you were only trying to help me, Trix,” he said, carefully pronouncing each word as if he’d rehearsed them ahead of time and was determined to get them right. “And I want to thank you for staying home with me so that Moms and Dad could go out.”
Trixie stared at her brother in no small amount of surprise as Mart turned to Dan and mouthed the words, “You are a miracle worker.”
“Well, you’re welcome, Bobby,” his sister said kindly. “And let’s just forget about what happened earlier, all right? Your work is done. We can enjoy dinner and then we’ll decide what to do after before you need to take your shower and get to bed.”
“Uh, we’ve apparently already decided,” Dan said slowly. “He’s pretty adamant. I told him it was up to you two.”
“We’re gonna watch a movie,” Bobby informed them excitedly. “’Cause it’s getting closer and closer to Halloween. So my favorite!”
“Uh, huh, Sprout. And which is your favorite this week?” Mart asked him, fondly ruffling the boy’s hair.
Bobby batted Mart’s hand away, but it was obvious he wasn’t nearly as annoyed with the show of affection as he was pretending.
Dan held up a DVD case. “Yeah. Sorry guys.”
“Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost!” Bobby crowed.
Trixie felt the strong urge to bang her head against one of the kitchen cabinets. “Oh, Bobby. Really?”
“Yeah! The best part? Is the end, where the witch gets sucked back in the book and it catches on fire! It’s awesome! She was barbecued, Trix!”