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“See Daph, I think you just need to relax,” Velma said, her voice broken and robotic. Daphne pulled the phone up closer to her ear, sighing deeply as she sank into bubbles.
“I’m trying, Velma,” she muttered, voice strained, “But my Dad wants his boat to be repaid, and I can’t imagine putting that stress onto Freddie.”
She stared at the white tiles of her bathroom as Velma spoke up on the other end, her eyes tracing the grout between each square.
“Well, it was his idea to take it out while trying to catch the thing,” Velma grumbled, clearly over all of the decision-making that has led them to this point, “Plus he’s already stressed about it.. I think?”
Daphne shot up from the slope of the bathtub, the bubbles clinging to her skin in their slow descent, she gripped her phone tighter careful to keep it well above the water, “Imagine my stress trying to find an excuse as to why his boat is mangled, without mentioning that my friends and I are trying to catch the lake monster the mayor is trying to capitalize off of.”
The water sloshed as Daphne sank back into the warmth of the bath, sighing again, “If I don’t do it, Dad is going to send the bill to Mayor Jones himself. He was waving the envelope around this morning while telling me off.”
Velma responded between the clacks of her keyboard, “You’re being too hard on yourself. He was the one with this idea. I think it’s fair he meets the consequences of his actions.”
He meets the consequences of his actions? Daphne couldn’t have been more torn between her feelings about that proposition. Elation, at the thought that maybe seeing him deal with heavy consequences, just as she has with her unreciprocated feelings for him, would make her feel better. And guilt, that swirled in her gut and argued for his innocence, about how he didn’t know he was hurting her. So why should she hurt him? Ugh. Was love always this difficult?
Velma took the long silence as an invitation to continue, “I really don’t get it, Daph. Is it always so difficult with you and boys?”
Daphne’s lips parted to say something, the pressure of words built up in her throat, ready to put down any doubt Velma had, but nothing came out. She felt the deep grooves of worry lines etching into her forehead, her brows pinched together as she thought of what to say. “Is it not for you?”
Velma stopped typing on the other end of the phone, now probably thinking herself, “No, not really. Well, I don’t think so? Freddy and I work well together. You know, him making the traps while I put two and two together. And Shaggy is.. Shaggy. They are just who they are, to me.”
Daphne waited to talk a few beats after Velma finished her sentence, “Yeah, but what about other boys?”
“The only other boy I know is Jason, and he’s just a weirdo I had to keep at arm's length during a robotics competition,” Velma grumbled, clearly unhappy with the memory. Daphne remembered it well, how that Wyatt boy stumbled over every word Velma had to say. It made Daphne jealous at the time, because no boy had ever been that infatuated with her.
Sure, she had her supplements: boys who gave her impersonal bouquets of roses, those who spent rolls of money on her at the Bloody Stake or The Tiki Tub, or who took her on rides that only ever ended in headaches, but they were all easy to compel.
Fred was the only outlier.
Daphne tilted her head up to stare at the ceiling, soaking in the quiet that Velma gave her, thinking of a way to explain her realization. But a sharp knock on her bathroom door threw her back into reality, and her mother slipped in as she scrambled to end the call with Velma.
“Mom?” Daphne asked, certainly puzzled and maybe a little embarrassed for once. SHe sat her phone down on the flat lip of the tub. “Could it have waited till I was done?”
Her mother slowly pulled herself down to sit on the toilet seat, throwing one leg over the other as her capris pulled up to unveil her most recent tan. Daphne stirred the water with a pruning finger, glancing at her mother’s face that already told her she was in for a bit of a spiel. One she’s definitely heard before.
“Mom, if this is about Fred and the gang, I’ve already told you guys they’re just misunderstood,” she argued. She was met with her mother’s raised palm. Be quiet, and listen. Her mother’s voice came out steady, her usual sweet rhythm replaced with firm statements.
“I would’ve been more susceptible to your amusing reasons had you told those kids they couldn’t use my pontoon for your unfortunately timed outing,” her mother reiterated, “Now your father has been very patient with you in these following days, I, not so much. I want that Jones boy and his father to fork up the difference from the money we received from insurance.”
Daphne nodded, because oh boy did she already know. Walking out for breakfast was met with stabbing silence. That’s why she was in the bathroom, to hide from it.
Daphne humored the idea of looking twice her age by the end of the day, given how long she’d held a worried look all morning. Those wrinkles would definitely take forever to massage out later that night.
. . .
Fred stood in front of the foggy mirror, staring at himself through his badly drawn “8==D” that had cleared out some condensation. He had taken his long, morning maintenance shower that always started with a nice lather under some hot water, and was staring hard at a growing pimple that wasn’t quite ready to pop. Maybe the girls were right about the whole pimple stress thing?
He shrugged at the thought, rubbing down his damp hair with the center of his towel before wrapping it around his waist. He gave his cheeks a quick pat and stretched out his arms above his head for a quick wake-up. He had to get the ball rolling today.
Fred was normally a great morning person, but with such long nights in the shed these past few days, he had to fight himself to get out of bed this time. He stepped out into his bedroom, sighing at the sight of an unmade bed, a basket of laundry he had been putting off, and the pillows he had thrown onto the floor to make it harder to fall back asleep earlier that morning.
“It never ends,” he groans, walking over to his dresser and rummaging for a clean pair of boxers and shorts to go over top. He figured he’d.. mm, call Shaggy and ask him if he wanted to hang out at the Bloody Stake? Maybe teach Shaggy how to make architecturally sound sand castles if he was craving the Clam Cabin instead? He didn’t really know yet; he just wanted out of the house on his dad’s day off.
After a quick change, he slipped out of his room into the long stretch of hallway to the stairs. He crept past the first few doors of other vacant rooms the gang would normally use if staying over, a closet door that held all the linen, and his father’s occupied office to head downstairs.
“—don’t care that it’s there,” he heard his father’s voice drop from halfway past the door, “A lakeside resort would do wonders for tourism. We upcharge them on the sales of merchandise and food to pay off the difference from the lower-than-market property sale, and we’re all happy.”
Huh? Fred paused his next step forward, stopping carefully on the runner rug. There was a bit of silence, presumably from Fred Sr. listening to the person on the other end. After a moment, he spoke again.
“No one needs to know,” he spoke cooly, “We don’t need to bring up old.. business.”
Fred barely realized he had been holding his breath the whole time, letting it out slowly and controlled. His father’s chair creaked at the loss of weight, and footsteps grew louder as he walked closer to the door. Fred stiffened, thinking of how to proceed from this blatant act of eavesdropping. His father would be beyond pissed. Maybe even more disappointed than already.
His eyes scanned the hallway: the stairs he was trying to get to in front of him, the window at the end of the hall where he came from, and the closet door closest to him. He made quiet steps over to it, listening to his father continue his supposedly private conversation.
“No no, don’t worry about it,” he heard him say with a sigh, “We can head to the Tiki Tub for a drink tomorrow and cheers on your new shiny badge.”
Fred hovered his hand over the doorknob before committing to opening it as normal, the door making its obvious creaking sound. Fred reached for any random piece of cloth, grabbing a bedsheet. Just look normal, just look normal, just look—
“Fred? Is that you?” his father’s voice called out, the door of his office opening all the way to his father standing in his silk, red-striped sleepwear set. Awkward. “Hopping steamed clams, Fred. Don’t startle your old man like that. I didn’t know you’d be up so early.”
Fred turned with a feigned smile, “Oh, hi Dad. Yeah, I’m just getting my bedsheets out before I leave for the day.” He felt his heart beat into his ears. Which was maybe an exaggeration when his father looked at him for a moment before shrugging.
“Have at it,” Fred Sr. said, already on his way to closing the door, “Oh, don’t forget to call up that businessman eventually.”
Ugh. Mr. Billder and his business card for that resort. He’d almost forgotten.
“Okay Dad, thanks,” Fred called out just as the door latched closed, leaving him standing there holding a folded bedsheet. Staring at the door, a part of his chest twinged.
Maybe it was his own fault for pushing away first, Fred thought.
. . .
Shaggy stood where the sand of the beach met the asphalt of the parking lot, Scooby in his service dog harness beside him. It had been a while since their last beach day, which was in the last few weeks of summer before school started, when he had walked away with a pretty formidable sunburn on his face after declining Daphne’s offer to put sunscreen on.
He had learned his lesson since then, even with the autumn sun being a little more relenting, and applied sunscreen before getting there. Which, thank god, since he had already been standing there for about 10 minutes now.
It was a couple of minutes later that Fred pulled up in the Mystery Machine, stepping out dressed in beige shorts, a light blue button-up, and sunglasses. Definitely different, especially without the ascot.
“Like, whoa, Freddie,” Shaggy admired, “Look at you!”
Fred arched an eyebrow as he opened up the back door for Scooby to find his water and food bowl. He kept moving as he asked, “What are you talking about?”
“The outfit, man, you look good,” Shaggy pointed out, gesturing to all of him. Shaggy had forgotten how involved Fred was in the school sports teams. His arms filled out the sleeves from football, and his calves looked toned from volleyball. He looked really good and was flaunting it, for once. “Did you ask Daph for pointers or something?”
“No way, Shaggy,” Fred shrugged, pulling out a canvas bag that held sand castle molds, a bucket, and a spade. He hoisted it onto his shoulder. Shaggy watched as Fred came back around to the driver’s side, tucking his phone away in the door while trying to find his words, “I’m too.. scared to ask her. I just haven’t finished my laundry.”
Shaggy nodded, “Like, me too.”
Mm, not quite. Shaggy stood dressed in rubber duck-patterned swim trunks, inflated arm floaties, and a Hawaiian button-up that probably stayed buried in his closet, but it was close enough. He followed Fred as they trudged out towards the small shed near the water, The Clam Cabin.
Through the heat of the day and into the late afternoon, the boys hung around the shore of the Clam Cabin, Fred building his sand castles with the help of Scooby digging out the moat, and Shaggy lounging around on the weathered picnic tables with Skipper Shelton for the “all-you-can-eat” deal for clams and shrimp.
“Aye, twas a story told fer the longest time,” Skipper Shelton finished his monologue, “The ship returned empty, ‘cept fer a ledger half-full. ‘Tis been a mystery fer ages, yer friends and that wolf be stuck solving it till yer dying breath!”
His laugh bellowed with the salty wind, but Shaggy found little amusing in that tale, “Like, Zoinks man. You couldn’t pay me to figure that out. Me and Scoob will just stick to eating these delicious popcorn shrimp poppers and, like, hanging out on the dry side of the sea.”
He popped the last of the fried shrimp in his mouth and looked over to where Fred was crawling around, “Like, Fred, can I have another order?”
It felt right to ask, since he was paying after all. With a thumbs up from a half-distracted Fred, Skipper Shelton left to fry up another scaling wall of popcorn shrimp for Shaggy to chow down on. The bottomless pit of a stomach turned his attention to Fred, who stayed half hidden behind a pile of sand slowly taking shape into the right turret of a castle.
“Fred?’
“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you invite the girls?” Shaggy asked.
Fred peeked out from the top of the sand mound, nose slightly red from a lack of sunscreen. Shaggy rummaged through his small drawstring bag to find the bottle as Fred eventually answered.
“I figured they were busy,” he shrugged, eyeing Shaggy like he was being unfairly interrogated.
“Yeah, but you didn’t check with them?” Shaggy argued, eventually wrapping his greasy fingers around the bottle and pulling it out. He gave it a quick shake and, in his attempt to throw it over to Fred, aimed miserably, threw miserably, and sent Fred diving to his left to catch it before it got coated in sand.
“Ouch, like— sorry Freddy,” Shaggy apologized, scratching nervously at the back of his neck.
The bottle ended up clean, even though it left Fred the one coated in sand.
“I don’t know, Shaggy,” Fred answered, his hands busy squirting out a dollop of sunscreen and applying it over his face, “I didn’t think they’d want to go to the beach with me, and have to deal with.. this.”
The this in question? His sandcastle building.
“Like, are you kidding?” Shaggy confirmed, disbelieving of Fred’s reasoning, “The girls would’ve loved tanning, Daphne for sure. And you could’ve just asked Velma to bring a book.”
Shaggy watched as Fred’s gaze dropped down to the sand he had been forming, disengaged or lost in thought, although he couldn’t tell from so far. Fred’s thoughts wandered for a while, but he eventually went back to patting down the sand with the bottom of his spade. A knot formed in Shaggy’s gut, probably the only time he ever feels this way. Should he apologize? Even if it was the truth? He reaccounted what he said, and yeah, Daphne liked sunbathing, and Velma loved her books. What did he say wrong?
Fred couldn’t help but shut down just a little. Shaggy had made good points, great points actually, very blatant, great points. Why hadn’t he thought of them? He was always the one who was on top of things, and yet these past few days.. he’d been fumbling. He could see Shaggy in his peripheral, staring and obviously confused. How could he explain? ‘Oh, sorry Shaggy, I just haven’t felt like myself these past few days, and I’ve been doubting parts of who I thought I was now.’ Yeah, cause that would go over well.
He’d at least make an attempt at soothing Shaggy’s building anxiety.
“Sorry Shaggy, I’ve been busy in the shed these past few nights, welding the new cage together,” Fred choked out, “I guess I just haven’t been all there.”
Shaggy seemed to pull back out from the pit of anxiousness that had been swallowing him. He was glad the situation wasn’t his fault, like most things were nowadays, and he was glad that Fred had a probable cause for his— Wait. Wait, wait, wait.
Shaggy straightened out his back as his mouth fell open, and just as Skipper Shelton returned with a new basket of steaming hot popcorn shrimp, Shaggy finally got the words out of his mouth.
“You’re building a new cage to trap that lake monster?!”
Fred’s eyebrow crawled up into an arch. The wind blew, playing with their hair.
“Yeah?”
Shaggy groaned, throwing his head down between his crossed arms on the picnic table. He should’ve let Fred get that sunburn.
“Like dude, I thought we gave up on that mystery,” Shaggy mumbled. Fred dusted himself off and stepped through the sand to sit beside him, snatching a few pieces of fried shrimp for himself from the basket Skipper Shelton set down.
“Aye, ‘nother mystery you batch ‘ave roped yerselves into?” he asked as he managed himself back onto the bench. The weathered wood creaked under his weight, bowing in to stay together. A gust of wind threatened to knock the food over, if not for the Skipper reaching out and holding it down as he listened on.
“Shaggy, we haven’t even caught the thing,” Fred tried reasoning, “Why would we give up now?”
“'Cause like, that thing tore up Daphne’s boat, Freddy!” Shaggy yelped, finally sitting up to animate his frustration with flailing arms, “It sank! With us on it!”
Fred considered for a brief moment, his eyes glazed over and unfocused as he reaccounted the events from a few weeks ago, “Yeah, but we made it back onto the shore.”
“Because we were wearing our life vests.”
“So.. we just wear them again.”
Shaggy pressed his forehead against the rough wood of the table, trying to figure out what to say and how to say it, “I’m.. tired of putting me and Scoob’s life on the line, Fred. It’s always us who end up bait, and I.. don’t want to do that anymore.”
The words clawed at the walls of his throat as he forced each one out. He held his eyes shut tight, listening for a response that only the wind gave. It whispered past his ears, the salt and sand peppering his toasted skin. Was that too much to ask of Fred and the gang? Maybe even too much to ask of himself, to not do the one thing everyone needed him for?
Skipper Shelton’s voice echoed out first, “Aye, you ‘nd Wolfie be needin’ a break, there ain’t no harm in knowin’ that.”
The sardiner’s supportive words reminded Shaggy of the other brute of a fisherman he had met at the otherwise lackluster Crystal Cove Lake Dridirt Monster Festival, who spoke to him about his time at sea, what made him who he was, and what he saw in Shaggy. Shaggy had sat there eating the fish he served, listening to his silken voice, watching the veins pulse against his calloused skin, drinking up the moment with every sense he had.
“For all my life, the waters, they beat against my boat, against the man I was, and eroded me into who I am now. I once gave in, like a sandy shore. But I grew strong, a wall to break the waves. I am certain that you, Norville, will understand that, too.”
Fred’s mellowed voice pulled him back from the reminiscing, “Then.. how about we make it a camping trip? We can use the campgrounds around the lake, you can grill us some hot dogs and s'mores, and maybe we can look around for clues.”
Tempting. Shaggy opened an eye, gauging the sincerity of Fred’s face. He was met with an unwavering stare, Fred’s blue eyes piercing through with the innocence he was known to have. The same look Scooby Doo gives him when he wants a Scooby Snack.
“You look like a dog,” Shaggy jabbed, splitting the tension, “But, me and Scoob are on board with that idea, right old pal?”
Scooby’s ear twitched from where he lay sunbathing in the sand. He had been most of the day.
“Great, I’ll just tell the girls about it, and we can plan the stakeout— or uh, the trip. It’s a trip, for you, I promise,” Fred assured, dragging his hands over his shorts to find his phone. A lightbulb went off when he was met with no protrusion from his pockets.
“Damn, I left my phone in the van. I’ll be back,” he said with a smile, already jogging past his sandcastle to the parking lot far off. Skipper Shelton called out to him as he stood up, leaving Shaggy the only one to occupy the table.
“Oi! Sky’s gettin’ dark, better bring the canopy fer yerselves!” He pointed up at the swirling greys and blues of clouds rumbling closer from the sea. The wind had been picking up.
Something churned in Shaggy’s stomach at the sound of the far-off thunder. He couldn’t tell if it was for the rain, the conversation, or the camping plans he had agreed upon. Maybe it was all three.