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Beetlejuice and Lydia regarded the large pot and the bottle of oil with trepidation. “You sure about this, babes?” he asked finally. “Shouldn’t we get Babs down here to help us? Or even Adam. They’re better in the kitchen than all of us.”
“Yes, I'm sure,” she said firmly, and turned around to consult the small book laid out on the kitchen island. “This is something I need to learn to do. It’s a legacy of deliciousness. Dead Mom made the best homemade donuts. Every Halloween, she’d hand them out instead of candy, and we were the most popular house on the block. Even the biggest chickens would go through the haunted house section to get to them. If we’re going to win Halloween, we need these donuts.”
He gave her a sidelong look. “Lyds, you do realize it’s summer, right?”
She grinned at him. “Exactly. No one expects a haunted house in the summer. It’s Summerween, Beej.”
“You are a mad genius, Lydia Deetz,” he told her with great solemnity, but then ruined it by grinning. “Nobody expected us in January either, so that tracks. Let’s do this thing!”
He poured the oil into the biggest pot, then went and helped put together the ingredients. They followed the recipe very carefully, or they tried to. Beetlejuice still had trouble reading modern english and the handwritten instructions were hard on his eyes, and Lydia had never put together any recipe this complicated. There were lots of steps, and even more things that required precision and careful attention— and one of those things was the demon who had a tendency to ‘sample’ everything.
“Keep your fingers out of the dough!” she shouted, taxed nearly to her limits as she caught him trying to stick his fingers into the bowl. A sharp rap with a wooden spoon fended him off and allowed her to fit the bowl into the standing mixer and turn it on.
Sighing, she watched the dough swirl around in the bowl for a second, then turned back to the counter to consult the instructions. A yelp, the high pitched whir of straining machinery, and a gagging sound had her whipping back around. “Beetlejuice! Holy shit!”
She lunged across the space to the mixer, slapping at the buttons and finally just grabbing the cord and yanking it out. Beetlejuice whimpered and no wonder: his long tongue was wrapped around the beaters, head bent at an uncomfortable angle.
“You moron,” she said, torn between anger, worry, and laughter. “Hold still.” She unlocked the beaters and pulled them out, unraveling his striped tongue as she did. “You were trying to lick the batter, weren’t you?” she accused, but didn’t put much heat into it. He looked like he’d been punished enough. The demon nodded miserably, tongue still dangling and big amber eyes wet with involuntary tears of pain. “Dumb demon,” she said, anger completely gone and replaced by amusement and concern. “Go get some ice.”
Some humor crept back into his expression and the pale lilac threaded through with green. “I kept my fingers out of the bowl though,” he said, throwing his voice so he didn’t have to move his mouth.
It was so hard not to laugh. “Yes you did. Now get out of the way so I can finish this.”
Made obedient through trauma, he slouched off to get ice. She waited until he was settled at the table with ice water and a bag of frozen peas before she got back to work.
She decided not to remake the dough. It had been a lot of finicky work, and even the thought of starting over made her exhausted. So she finished up mixing the dough, then left it to rise and went to check on her demon.
“How’s the tongue?” He smiled and stuck it out at her, long and stripey. “Looks better,” she confirmed, then pretended to sigh dramatically. “Too bad. I was hoping it might shut you up for awhile.”
“Ha ha, you’re hilarious,” he grumbled. "So now what are we doing?"
"Waiting for the dough to rise."
He stared at her. "What? Like from the dead?"
Now there was an image. "No, like that. There's this thing called yeast that makes bread fluffy, and it takes awhile to work. In an hour, you'll see what I mean."
"Alright, but I think you're full of it. What are we going to do in the meantime?"
"How about we play a game of tongue twisters?" she suggested brightly.
"Oh fuck you!"
"Flattered, but not happening!"
His revenge was swift, what with the flour already out and on the counter, and soon things devolved into serious warfare.
"Hey you two!" Barbara's voice broke through their battle to the undeath. They paused and looked toward the door. The ghost was there, hands propped on her hips, scowling. "I thought you were making secret amazing donuts."
"We are," Lydia said as flour drifted down from the air, making her sneeze.
"It looks like you're making a mess!"
"We are!" Beetlejuice sounded proud.
Barbara ventured cautiously into the kitchen proper. Lydia watched with fascination. None of the floating flour or the flour that coated the floor touched her, or was even disturbed by her passing. Out of curiosity, she grabbed a handful of flour and tossed it at the ghost. Barbara smiled smugly as the flour went right through her "Hah! Nice try, Lydia, but I am immune."
Beetlejuice vanished from Lydia's side and reappeared behind Barbara, holding the bag of flour. His smile was pure mischief. "B-Town, who the hell do you think I am?" He dumped the entire bag over her head. Barbara squacked as flour turned her white. "You look like a real ghost now!" Beetlejuice crowed.
“Oh, you—” Barbara broke off before she cursed, but only so she could devote all her attention to flinging flour back at him. When a demon and a ghost really get into it, there’s not much the human can do except duck and cover. Lydia did so, hiding behind the island and laughing.
Poking her head up, she noticed that towel she’d put over the bowl had poofed up. “Guys!” she shouted excitedly. “The dough has risen!”
“It’s alive?!” Beetlejuice yelped, totally forgetting her explanation of yeast. Oh well, time for that later. Time now to reenact one of her favorite childhood memories: punching the dough. She glanced at Beetlejuice, who was eyeing the bowl warily, and decided to share the love.
“Come over here, Beej. You can punch it first.”
He blinked, now more intrigued than wary, and came over to inspect the risen dough. “Punch it?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Lydia! Wait!” Barbara cried, stretching out her hand in a vain attempt to stop what was happening.
Lydia caught on a second too late, but managed to shout, “Not hard! Gently, Beej!”
In her excitement, she had forgotten that her demonic friend could flip a car without too much effort. Breaking an entire kitchen island would not be a problem for him.
Beetlejuice heard their shouts and managed to pull his punch at the last second, only cracking the counter and splitting the bowl, instead of demolishing everything. He pulled his hand back, shaking free of the sticky dough. “I killed it!” he proclaimed gleefully.
“Yes, you did,” Lydia sighed, then let Barbara help her salvage what was left of the dough. She was too tired for pride and ready to accept some help. They rolled it out, cut it into donut shapes, and waited for it to rise again.
Beetlejuice snorted. “This is taking forever. I just killed them, why are you letting it get up again? You said we’d boil them in oil.”
“That comes after,” Lydia said.
“That’s stupid. Let’s just toss them in now!”
“Or,” Barbara cut in tactfully, “we could use this time to clean up the kitchen!” They paused and looked around them. Their battle zone was clearly marked by splashes of white flour on cabinets and walls, and the floor was covered by a fine layer of powder.
Lydia turned to Beetlejuice and gave him her best puppy eyes. He groaned. “I am not a vacuum, Lyds!”
“Oh come on. I’ll let you toss the first donuts into the oil!”
He was tempted, she could tell. "Deal was I only have to clean up after myself," he mumbled, looking anywhere but her.
"You helped make this mess," Lydia coaxed. "In fact, you started it."
That got her an affronted glare. "You were being mean! You deserved it!"
"Doesn't matter!" she said in a sing-song voice.
He grumbled, then snapped his fingers. A whirlwind sprang up in front of him and began to dance around the kitchen collecting flour dust. It was not what she had expected, but that was Beetlejuice. Just when she thought she had him figured out, he'd pull a new gag. "Hey," Beetlejuice said casually as he directed the whirlwind, "remind me again when Chuck's supposed to be home?"
"Don't you dare!" Lydia scolded, stifling her laughter as she pictured her father covered in a kitchen's worth of flour. "He'd throttle you."
"Oh I hope so," he replied with a salacious wiggle and wink. How he could make a wink seem like a lewd gesture she didn’t know. It was a horrifying talent.
Lydia screwed her face up in disgust. "Ew!" She needed brain bleach so bad before that image got stuck in her head.
He cackled, then banished the whirlwind outside, where it happily sped away, growing in size. Lydia and Barbara watched out the window as it sucked all the leaves off a bush, then took out a small sapling on its way down the hill.
“Should we warn the neighbors?” Barbara wondered aloud.
“What would we say? Watch out, a miniature twister with a mischievous streak is headed your way?” Lydia shook her head. "P eople already think I’m nuts. Let’s not add fuel to that fire.”
Barbara sighed and nodded.
Lydia, resigned to the neighborhood’s future weather problems, turned back to the donuts. She could always eat away her case of minor guilt when this was done. The dough was well on its way to rising, so she turned on the burner under the pot of oil.
“Boiled in oil,” Beetlejuice mused as the oil began to bubble. “Shitty way to go.”
“It’s not alive, Beej,” she reassured him. “It’s only dough.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Why would I care? Just making an observation.”
“Do we want to know if you’ve seen someone boiled in oil?” Barbara asked. She probably meant it rhetorically, but he answered anyway.
“Probably not. It was pretty nasty, and you told me no gross stories while cooking or eating.”
“Yes I did.” The ghost patted his arm. “Thank you for remembering.”
“I also remember that Lyds said I could be the first one to toss our victims in!” He let out a maniacal chuckle straight out of a classic horror movie and grabbed three donuts, tossing them in with carefree abandon.
The glorious smell in the air took Lydia back to their garage in New York, where Emily would fry the donuts in order to entice victims into their haunted house. It was amazing how well it had worked. Maybe Emily had really been a witch, or the recipe itself had some subtle magic, but people had actually been drawn to the Summerween haunting. It was one of her best memories.
Sniffling a little, she went to the kitchen window to compose herself. This was supposed to be a fun day, she didn’t want to ruin it with tears. She felt Barbara next to her and gave the ghost a smile. “I’m fine. Just remembering.”
“I guessed.” Barbara handed her a paper towel and put an arm around her. “I’m sure your mom is very happy you’re continuing the tradition you two started together.”
“Yeah." Lydia gave her ghost mom a small smile. "And with help from a ghost and a demon too. She’d be tickled pink.”
“HOLY SHIT! LYDIA!”
They whipped around to see the pot of oil had caught fire. The fire alarm began to shriek, adding to the confusion. Beetlejuice, eyes wide as dinner plates, summoned a bucket. Barbara’s own eyes bugged out. “No BJ! Not water!”
Too late.
The fire exploded upward in a column of flame that scorched the stove hood and the surrounding wall. Barbara yelled and Lydia dodged behind the island again. “What do I do?! What do I do?!” Beetlejuice shouted, just as terrified as they were.
Adam dropped down through the ceiling. “What's going on— HOLY SMOKES!”
“Yeah Adam! We can see that! What do we do?!” Beetlejuice had backed away, his hair almost completely white.
Adam used his ghost telekinesis to fling open the cabinet under the kitchen sink and call the fire extinguisher to him. Within seconds, the fire was out, leaving only the scream of the alarm and the sizzle of hot metal rapidly being cooled. The air was thick with smoke and residue from the fire extinguisher, the sweet scent of frying dough now replaced by acrid, burnt smell.
Everyone stared at the blackened kitchen wall and stove, then they all looked at Beetlejuice. He held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t look at me. I just put another few donuts in there and it blew up!”
“That happens sometimes with grease fires,” Adam said calmly, floating up to turn off the fire alarm. “The oil can get too hot and things just flare up. It’s fine.”
“It’s not!” Lydia cried, the numbness of shock wearing away, turning to anger and frustration. “What are we supposed to do now? Dad and Delia are gonna kill me!”
“We’ll clean everything up, don’t worry,” Barbara soothed, coming over to put an arm around her, but Lydia pushed her away. She didn’t want to be soothed, not right then. It wasn’t really the mess. She had a powerful demon who could snap even the worst messes away if given enough incentive. It was the failure that was eating her up inside. This was her mother’s legacy, or part of it, at least. A special memory meant to be passed down and shared, and Lydia had failed.
There was a crunching sound. Once again, they all turned to Beetlejuice just in time to see him take another bite of charred donut. His face lit up and he fished around in the pot for another. “This is awesome, Lyds!”
“What?”
“They taste great!”
She narrowed her eyes. “Did you breathe in fumes or something?”
“Uh, no . I just know what I like.” He eyed the rest of the unfried donuts that still waited on the counter. “Can we cook the rest of them now?”
Lydia hesitated. She wasn’t too sure about the quality of dough that had extinguisher dust and smoke all over them, and the oil was a lost cause. Barbara caught her eye and smiled. “We might as well,” she said.
Lydia shrugged, laughed despite herself, and together they got a new pot and new oil (despite Beetlejuice’s protests that the old oil was “Just fine! What’s the problem?!”), and fried the rest of the donuts. When Lydia tried one, they didn’t taste exactly like she remembered, but they weren’t too bad.
“Well, that went horribly,” she said, watching as the damaged kitchen repaired itself under Beetlejuice's supervision. “But it could’ve been a lot worse.”
The front door opened and her father and Delia appeared in the kitchen. Both of them were coughing, covered in white dust, and Delia had leaves and sticks stuck in her hair. “You’ll never believe what happened!” she gasped, her hands fluttering as she tried to dust herself off. “We got hit by a tornado on our way into the house!”