The Death of Lucy van Pelt

"The Death of Lucy van Pelt" is the sixth episode in the ninth season of the American animated television series Peanuts. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on April 13, 2005. In the episode, the kids begin ignoring Lucy, leading to her thinking that she become a ghost.

Plot
Snoopy, Charlie, Sally, Linus and Lucy wait at Charlie and Sally's house for Sharon, Charlie and Sally's mother to come home with KFC. When she arrives, the kids help her unload her groceries, but Lucy remains behind, eats all the crispy skins, and goes home to sit on the toilet. Enraged, Snoopy, Charlie, Sally and Linus decide Lucy has finally crossed the line and decide to start ignoring her. The other kids in their class go along. Lucy, unable to conceive that anyone would ignore her, thinks she has died and become a ghost.

Butters, however, is not privy to the plan and greets Lucy as she passes by in a state of despair. Lucy convinces Butters that she is a ghost, terrifying him. Lucy threatens to haunt Butters unless he helps her soul achieve peace. Lucy first has Butters apologize to everyone on her behalf, which fails to impress her ex-friends and her father but gets her mother crying. Lucy makes emotional goodbyes to Butters, believing that she will now be permitted to go to Heaven. When this fails, Butters suggests he might need to atone for all the terrible things she has done. Lucy draws up a long list and delivers gift baskets to all her victims, including Sally Struthers, Mr. Horse's family, and Charlie and Sally's uncle's synagogue. When this, too, fails, Lucy destroys Butters' room with a baseball bat and disappears before his parents turn up. A doctor is called and decides that Butters might suffer from a deep trauma. To make sure, Butters is taken to a mental institution and subjected to a terrifying series of tests. Now genuinely traumatized, Butters accepts that he has been imagining Lucy's visits, but Lucy breaks into the asylum to get his help again.

The two consult a psychic, who suggests that God has kept Lucy on Earth to help with a crisis. When they hear of a hostage situation at a Red Cross Center, Lucy and Butters set off; and Lucy stops the criminals by moving things around in the style of a poltergeist. The robbers are merely befuddled, which provides a distraction for Butters to release the hostages and the police to subdue the criminals. The two are credited with saving the day. Lucy and Butters exchange protestations of friendship once again; but the other kids turn up and praise Lucy's heroic behavior, thinking she has truly changed. Lucy now realizes that she was merely being ignored and again goes berserk, insulting Butters for her own misunderstanding and threatening retaliation. Butters's parents arrive with the doctor, and Butters realizes he is going back to the asylum, while Lucy's parents appear and ground Lucy for escape home in night.