Blue Melodies // Julie and the Phantoms (Reggie Peters)

07

Julie yelled at Luke, who'd returned to the box, "Oh, my gosh! I thought I told you to leave that alone!"

"I know," Luke replied. "You just should've have said nothing, 'cause now I can't stop thinking about it, so... What's in the box, Julie?"

"It's just my dream box, okay? Whenever I get a thought, I write it down and get it out of my mind."

"Like lyrics?"

"They would be if I still wrote music like I used to with my mom. Now it's just full of stuff that doesn't make me sad."

Alex stood and said, "But I mean, you do play. We heard you this morning." Luke and Reggie glared at him and Luke swatted Alex's chest.

"In the garage? So you were there too?"

"Uh... I don't..." Alex began.

Reggie turned to Alex. "Uh... he was, like..."

"We were..."

"Somewhere."

Luke, who'd moved to lay on Julie's bed, held his head up with his hand and asked, "So where is your kitchen, by the way?"

"Okay, we need to set some boundaries," Julie told them. "For starters, stay out of my room!!" She pointed to the door.

The ghosts shot up. "Mm-hmm. Crystal clear. Let's go."

"We're leaving," Reggie said. "Yes, ma'am! We are out of here."

"Okay."

The three ran towards the door while Eloise blipped away.

Alex popped his head back in and said, "Hey. Um, sorry. I didn't mean to bother you. Did you get back into your music program?"

"No. No, I didn't," Julie replied as she looked down.

"I'm sorry. That really sucks."

"Thanks."

Alex glanced up and Julie asked, "Is that it?"

"Yeah. Yeah. This is getting weird," Alex said.

Julie waved at them.

"Okay," Alex stated as he disappeared.

---

Eloise popped back into her room and made her way to her brother's room.

She listened silently as he strummed a few chords on his guitar.

---

Julie made her way downstairs. Carlos was laying on the couch playing a video game and Ray was sitting on his laptop as he looked at pictures.

"Hey, Dad," Julie greeted as she entered the living room. "What'cha working on?" She pocketed her hands.

"Well, now that the house is on the market, we need to add some photos to the website," Ray replied, ushering Julie over. "Help me pick some good ones."

As Julie passed her brother, she moved his foot and he shot her an irritated look.

Julie stood next to Ray as he showed her the photos and said, "Got this batch right here."

"These are really nice," Julie told her father.

"Yeah?"

Julie chuckled. "Yeah."

"Thanks." He switched to another batch of photos. "These didn't turn out, though." He switched to another picture and there were four glowing orbs near the piano. Julie looked at the screen, wondering why there were four orbs when she'd only seen three ghosts. "The ones from Mom's studio. It's like... little lights and dots all over the place. Kinda look like orbs, right?"