This story is dedicated to Daphine. 
DisclaimerThis is a work of fanfiction. The character Scooby Doo belongs to Warner Bros. Entertainment (former Hanna-Barbera). I do not claim any ownership over him.
All the other characters in this story were created by me.
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Cherish smiled at her friend, the large Great Dane who walked beside her, following her two brothers on the hiking trail. Scooby Doo was a special dog – he could think and talk like a human, and could even use his front paws like hands. Through long and patient speech training, Scooby Doo had even improved his pronunciation and didn’t start every word with an “r” anymore.
Cherish was a twenty-two-year-old student of sport science, slim and athletic, her strawberry blonde hair bouncing down her back in a long ponytail. Her two older brothers, Bill and Freddy, liked hiking in the mountains as much as she did, so they had planned a big tour for this weekend. The two brothers almost looked like twins with their bright red hair and freckles. To make the trip even more fun, they had invited Scooby Doo to come along with them – the Great Dane was the pet of their good friend Shaggy Rogers. Scooby was thrilled about joining his human friends.
“Hey, we’re almost there!” Bill called out, pointing at the picturesque old summer cottage awaiting them on the top of a hill. They had rented the place for the weekend. It was getting dark, and they were all glad to get inside.
“Phew!... Nobody has been in here for ages!” Cherish frowned when they entered the house. Dust and spiderwebs everywhere…
“Well, if we all roll up our sleeves, we’ll get it cleaned up in no time!” Freddy talked big, waving his long arms about, and didn’t notice he bumped against a curtain. A thick cloud of dust trickled down – right onto Scooby’s large black nose.
“Pfffhhhnnhhh!” the tall dog snorted hastily, rubbing his nose, but too late – the big amount of dust had already entered his wide, sensitive nostrils. “Ughhh… aaaahhhhh…” Scooby gasped, his face contorting, nostrils flaring madly. “Duhhh… dust… haahhh…. haaaaaTTCCCHHHEEEOOOH!... RrrrhhhaaaaCCKKSSHHEEEWW!... HiiiAATTTCCHHOOOah!” he sneezed, holding his front paw to his itchy nose.
“Sorry, dude!” Freddy said sheepishly.
“Freddy, be more careful with all the dust here! You know that dogs have really sensitive noses, and Scooby’s nose is extremely sensitive!” Cherish chided.
“HeeeAAATTCCHHHUUH!... RRAAATTCCHHHOOOH!... HyyyAAACCKKKSSHHHOOH! Ugh…” Scooby sniffled wetly, rubbing his large twitching nose. “I thinggk I deed to blow mby ndosehh… haaaAAACCKKSSSHHHUUH!”
“Bless you, Scooby!” Cherish handed him a package of tissues.
“Thangksss… RRRRUUUSSHHHagh!” With one more forceful sneeze caught in a tissue, Scooby blew his nose to clear it off the irritating dust.
“Hey, guys!” Bill, the oldest of the siblings, called out to them through the connecting door of the next room. “Look what I’ve found!” He held up a crinkled piece of paper that looked like old parchment.
“What’s that?” Freddy frowned, and Cherish and Scooby looked up curiously.
“It’s an old map of this house – a very old one! It looks like a treasure’s hidden here somewhere!”
“Ahhh dude, you’ve watched too many adventure movies!” Freddy waved him off, and started carrying the luggage upstairs.
“I’ll get dinner ready!” Cherish said, busying herself in the old-fashioned kitchen. “Bill, you could make yourself useful and look for a vacuum cleaner, or poor Scooby will sneeze all night long!”
Bill grumbled something about the map he had found, but obediently shuffled off to do the cleaning.
“No signal!” Freddy held up his mobile phone, coming back downstairs. “We’re truly in the middle of nowhere.”
“Hey, I like that!” Bill remarked, carrying a big vacuum cleaner into the hall. “Nobody’s going to disturb us!”
After dinner, the four of them were relaxing in the dimly lit living room and telling each other ghost stories when a sudden noise startled them. Somebody was trying to break into the house!
Freddy cautiosly peeked through the door he had opened a bit. “It’s two men and a woman, and they’ve got a gun!” he hissed, panic in his eyes.
“Okay!” Bill took control. “Cherish, you and Scooby hide in that little store room under the stairs. It’s big enough for you two. Freddy and I will sneak out the backdoor to call the police from the next village. Hang in there!”
“Come on, Scooby!” Cherish whispered, and the two of them huddled together in the store room. Luckily, it was bigger than it looked from outside, so they would have enough air in there for some time.
“They must be somewhere in here!” A man’s voice growled. “We’ll find them!”
“All the rooms are empty!” A shrill woman’s voice sounded. “They ran away with the treasure!”
“But maybe somebody’s still here. Let’s search the rooms again! All the rooms!”
In their hiding place, Cherish began to shiver with fear.
“Don’t be afraid, Cherish!” Scooby Doo whispered bravely. “I’ll protect you!” He moved a little to peek through a crack in the door when his head brushed against a pile of cleaning rags – and a full load of dust rose up in the air. Freddy and Bill had done a good job cleaning the house! Only, instead of shaking the dust off outside, they had piled up the rags in the store room, full with the dust of generations.
In horror, Cherish saw Scooby’s big black nose turn snow-white as the dust covered it all over. She saw him scrunch up his nose, his face contorting more and more. “Oh no, Scooby!” she whispered.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh… my nosehhh…” Scooby gasped, rubbing his nose which only made it worse since his front paws were powdered in dust. “I gohhh… gottahhh…”
“No, don’t sneeze, Scooby! Please! They’ll find us!” Cherish hissed hectically.
“I cahhh… can’t hold it baaahhhh…”
Cherish lurched forward and pressed her finger to the Great Dane’s terribly tickly nose, pushing gently against the flaring, twitchy nostrils. “All right, I’ve got you!” she whispered. “I’ll help you hold it back!”
“Haahhh… ngyaahhhhhh… tickles… huunnnghhhhh…” Desperately hitching, he pressed his massively irritated nose to the girl’s finger.
“Sshhhh! I know!” She clammed her fingers around his ready-to-explode-nose, trying to pinch his widened nostrils shut, but it was too late… The tickle in his sensitive nose was too strong.
“Haaaahhhh… haaaTTTCCCHHHnnghh!... YYYAATTTCCHHOOGH!... RRRRAAAACCCKKKSSSHHHOOH!” Scooby sneezed violently as his nose was still nestled in Cherish’s fingers. No matter how hard she pressed and pinched his large, itchy nose, she could not stop the Great Dane’s urge to sneeze again, and again, and again…
“Hah! In there!” the triumphant voice of one of the male intruders pierced their ears when the door of the store room was torn open. “Gesundheit, little ankle-biter!”
Then, two things happened at the same time: The moment Scooby was pulled out of the store room, Cherish’s right foot touched one of the old wooden boards the floor was covered with – and the next second she found herself sitting on the carpet of a small office room. A trap door had brought her to a secret basement!
While Cherish looked around trying to find a safe way out, upstairs Scooby found himself tied up, and the gun pointed at him.
“Now, doggy!” the tallest man snarled. “Where’s the treasure?”
“We know you can talk!” the woman squealed; her hair, dyed in black and blue, stood up in all directions so she looked like an evil witch. “We’ve been watching you!”
“I don’t know where the treasure is!” Scooby replied truthfully.
The smaller man fiddled with the gun, apparently quite nervous. “Where are your buddies? They must know!” he croaked.
“I don’t know! And if you shoot me, I can’t tell you anything at all anymoohhh….. hehhhh… haaaAASSHHEEW!” Scooby sneezed unrestrained as the dust still tickled his nose.
“You know what? He’s got a point there!” the woman said to her two partners in crime who didn’t seem to be the brightest bulbs. “We’ll have to find a different way to make him talk… Ooooohh! Look at his nose! So sensitive and itchy!” She stretched out her index finger with a long manicured nail and placed her fingertip right between Scooby’s twitching, flaring nostrils.
The touch felt exactly like those many times when a butterfly or some other insect had landed on Scooby’s nose, tickling it with their tiny feet and wings… Scooby Doo’s large sensitive nose seemed to attract irritants like a magnet! He scrunched up his nose as the tickle grew stronger…
Smiling maliciously, the woman ran her fingernail lightly around Scooby’s nostrils, tickling and teasing them with soft, feathery movements.
“Waaaahhh… I gottaaaahhh…. waaahhhhhSSSHHHOOOAAH! HaaaAAASSSHHHOOOH!” Scooby sneezed snortingly, feeling the tickle build up in his nose again immediately after that. “Nyehhh… hennghhh… heeeeEEEAAATTTCCHHOOH!... RrrrrAAATTTCCHHHAAAHH!... Please stohhh… haaaAAACCKKKSSSHHHOO!”
“Oh, but I’ve only just begun!” the woman grinned. “Tell me, my friend, where’s the treasure? And where are your buddies?” She let her fingertips slide into his widely opened nostrils, tickling the sensitive inside.
“Hyyeeeeehh!!” Scooby yelped as the tickle got overwhelming. “HeeeAAARRRSSSHHHHOOHH!... HaaaaAAARRSSSHHHOOOH!... Haa—haaa---haaaaAAASSSHHH!”
“Where??!” The criminal lady grabbed one of the cleaning rags from the store room, inhaled deeply, and blew a cloud of dust right onto Scooby’s nose.
“Haaahhh!!… Haa---AAASSSHHHOOH!... HaaaaEEESSSHHHOOH!... I dohhh… haaaAAASSSHHOOH!... Don’t know anythiiiiiiiIIIISSSHHHOOOH!... HeyyYYIIISSSHHOOOah!”
In the meantime, Cherish searched the underground office thoroughly, until she found an old fashioned telephone. With relief she found out it still worked. In a hushed voice, she called the police. The ten minutes it took the police to arrive were the longest ten minutes of Cherish’s life!
At last, it was over. The criminal trio was overpowered within a few seconds – Cherish would never forget the stupid look on their faces when she appeared in front of them. In no time, Scooby was free from his bonds, and at the same time, Freddy and Bill returned, having noticed the police car.
“Hey, that was an exciting start of our hiking weekend!” Freddy grinned. “Great job, sis! And, uh… bless you, Scooby!”
Nodding his thanks to him, the Great Dane continued sneezing forcefully, turning aside in order not to spray his friends.
“How lucky you found that phone in the basement!” Bill said, looking at his sister in awe.
“Yes – and I found something else too!” With a proud grin, Cherish presented a big burlap bag that seemed to be a hundred years old. It was full of twinkling golden coins.
“THE TREASURE!!” Three excited voices shouted.
“Well done, CherrrrRRRIIISSSHHHHUUH!” Scooby hurled out another tickly sneeze.
“Awww, bless you! Your poor nose is still so full of dust!” the girl said sympathetically. She offered Scooby some tissues again so he could blow his nose, but it didn’t seem to help much – his nostrils blasted out one itchy, snorting sneeze after another.
“Let me try to help you, Scooby!” Cherish took his terribly tickly nose between her fingers and started massaging it with soothing, circular motions.
After a while, the sneezing eased off, and the four friends were ready for their next adventure.
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Such a huge buildup, and such desperate sneezy expressions. I love the close ups of her nose, and the feather tickling it, or being inserted into it. Great detail there!
. I dunno, what does everyone else think?