Title: "Ribbit"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: G
Summary: Lydia's tired of the rumors at school, and she's not the only one.
Warnings: Mild Het, Drabblish
Word Count: 500
Date Written: 10 March, 2012
Challenge: This was intended to be for a Gen-drabble LJ comm's weekly challenge but ended up being way too long.
Disclaimer: Beetlejuice and Lydia are ﾩ & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. No one can own the Source of All Evil, but this particular representation of him is ﾩ & TM his respective owners, also not the author, and is used without permission. Everything else is ﾩ & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Whispers followed her every day everywhere she went, but they were the worst at school. There, the other girls didn't bother to whisper and laugh low enough that she couldn't hear them.

"She's Goth."

"She doesn't believe in Jesus."

"She doesn't believe in anything."

"Yeah, she does. She believes in ghosts."

"She practices black magic."

"She's going to Hell!"

The rumors never stopped, but one day, when Lydia'd had enough, she turned to face them. "Ghosts are real, and you can keep your God! But you'd better be glad I don't practice black magic, because if I did, you'd all be frogs!"

The girls looked at each other in surprise. Then the head cheerleader grinned and spoke, "Ribbit!" Instantly, the others took her cue, and all the girls started ribbiting. Lydia rolled her eyes, turned away, and rushed home in what they mistook to be a fit of tears. She wasn't sad. She was just angry that she had to contend with such idiots every day of her life. She'd far rather live with the dead for they didn't judge nearly as much as the living.

Yet one did judge. He watched the girls from the puddles on the sidewalk, and late that night, as the cheerleaders were brushing their teeth and preparing for bed, he appeared again in their mirrors, reflecting their own images back to themselves and twisting and turning their reflections until they all screamed.

The frightened girls felt of their faces, then rushed out of their bathrooms to check their images in their bedrooms. They looked in every mirror that they had, but Beetlejuice was there in each one, ribbiting back at them. They screamed until their parents came to reassure them, and only then did Beetlejuice leave. In his absence, they looked again in their mirrors and saw only their own faces.

Still trembling, they felt of their lovely features, no longer feeling the monsters they had thought they were becoming. They were still human, and they wept in relief. What they didn't realize, but that Beetlejuice and Lydia knew well, was that humans can be the greatest monsters of them all.

Lydia didn't know why the other girls left her alone after that day. They gave her a wide berth, but the whispered accusations had finally stopped. They dared not speak or even look at her, and though she still hated having to go to school, her days at last went by far more peacefully. She asked Beetlejuice about it one day, but he only smiled, shrugged, and said, "Maybe they finally realized we all have a little monster in us and had a change of heart."

Lydia knew he had done something but couldn't guess at the truth. Whatever it was, she was thankful to him, but it took weeks before she could thank him as he wouldn't admit to what he'd done. She came home once and hugged him tightly. He knew then that she knew. "Ribbit," he spoke, and, laughing, she squeezed him even harder.

The End