Prologue:

Betelgeuse tried his best not to annoy the receptionist in the waiting room of Juno’s office, but it was proving to be quite difficult.

It was just too easy.

He didn’t even have to pull anything hard with her. Just a funny face pointed in her direction and she would go off in a rant about how it was people like him who drove her off the edge.

It was hard to keep himself entertained while he had watched people go in and out of that waiting room for God knows how long. He was getting drowsy. He didn’t want to be here.

He really, really, really, didn’t want to be here. He had already been stuck in the godforsaken reception area for at least fifteen earth years, and all that was waiting for him on the other side of those doors was another “clean up your act, you bloody sleaze-ball” speech from Juno and (most likely) a banishment to purgatory for a hundred years; another thing he didn’t want to go through again.

All the spirits you ran in to there were:

1. Complainers, who griped about how the system had screwed them over again and again and that they were really good people who had been caught in the wrong place and at the wrong time.

2. The J.D.s of the Netherworld, who believed they were invincible spooking machines, and that they could easily escape the world of Purgs.

3. The Creepy Ones, who stared at the walls for their entire sentences in silence

4. Or, the occasional seasoned spook like him, who happened to be caught on an unlucky break.

Seeing that the only laughs were to come with conversations with number fours and the escape attempts of number twos, it was going to be a boring century; especially since fours were a rarity in Purgs.

He looked up as soon as the “serving now” monitor ‘dinged’. Time to face the music. The bluish secretary nodded at him, and he walked through the doors.

He knocked at the entrance to Juno’s office, and it swung open. The old woman sat at her desk, observing the be-striped man leaning against the door frame, while he observed his rather neglected fingernails.

“I understand that you got eaten by a…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just had to rub it in, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know how to take insult: in the fact that I picked such a stupid apprentice, or in the fact I am obviously a horrible teacher.”

“Not my problem, babes. Let’s just get it over with.” He looked up at her with an eyebrow cocked, incredibly bored. “The verdict, if you please? Or are you going to make me wait another millennia?”

“As much as I hate to say it…” she tapped her ashing cigarette against her desk. “You’re off the hook. The Council said something about you “bringing family unity to the Maitland house”. Bullshit, if you ask me.”

“What?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Your terrorizing of the Deetzes has made them “see the light”, so to speak. They’re all living in harmony with the Maitlands. Their creepy daughter is becoming a straight-A student with a better taste in clothing, and the mother is actually creating art that resembles something more than a four-year-olds finger painting.”

“You have got to be kidding me, Junes. This ain’t funny. I’m about ready to lose my lunch over here.”

“I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true. You’re home free…except for one…minor technicality,”

Betelgeuse cocked an eyebrow. “And what would that be?”

“You now have a mandatory haunting scheduled for the next 200 years in the old Maitland house. They want you to work your magic on another ‘problem family’.”

“But what about the…”

“The Deetzes and the Maitlands have moved. Adam and Barbara are checking in to the Pearlies right about now—and a thirty-year-old Lydia is checking her parents in to a costly retirement home.”

“I’ve been here for that long!”

“Time flies when you’re having fun, Mr. B.” The Death Department employee smiled grimly and sent him whirling back to the one place he had hoped he’d never have to see again…