| 𝙿𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜 | 𝙹.𝙼𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚊 | 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚍

23 | GREMLIN

     THE BAND WASN'T as lucky as they hoped to be when their show ended. Just as a manager, one that Carrie seemed to know who therefore must be important, came up to them so did Julie's dad who did not look so happy to see his grounded daughter out of the house. The four ghosts poofed home, leaving Julie to deal with the wrath of her father.

They all waited in the lounge, watching Carlos with his iPad trying to find ghosts with it. But it wasn't working.

"You can't hide forever, ghosties." Just as Carlos faced down the hall, the iPad beeped, claiming to have caught a ghost. "Gotcha!"

But that ghost turned out to be his aunt. "For the last time, mijo. Ghosts are not real."

"Typical adult." Reggie huffed. "Do you remember when we were kids, and they never believed what we said?"

"Just be glad we don't die when someone says they don't believe in us, like fairies in Peter Pan." Hayden said, leaning back on the couch beside Luke.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's just a you thing." Alex replied. "I was always pretty trustworthy."

Hayden and Luke glanced at each other, neither adding to Alex's statement as the pair weren't exactly the most trustworthy with their parents when they were alive. Luke hiding the fact that he was in a band for a long time and Hayden sneaking out to see girls.

"Shouldn't we be more worried about Julie?" Luke asked, no longer looking at Hayden. "Her dad just busted her, okay? He's probably making her quit the band."

Reggie shrugged. "Well, there's not much we can do about that now, but...we can still help Carlos. Adults not believing in children ends tonight. Showtime."

The three other band mates watched as Reggie turned off the lamp beside him, making the two lifers look towards it and Tia to let out a small gasp.

"Ghosts aren't real, huh?" Carlos smirked. "How do you explain that?"

Tia shook off her nerves. "Light bulbs burn out all the time, Carlos."

Reggie scoffed. "Wrong answer, Tia. Explain this." The bassist got up from his spot on the arm chair arm and went over to the shutters, pulling them up and down repeatedly.

Alex, Luke and Hayden let out a collective sigh at Reggie. Without Julie, the band can't go on, yet here Reggie was messing with Carlos and his aunt instead of worrying about Julie and the band.

"Maybe it's my mom." Carlos said. "She knows I haven't been replacing the toilet paper!"

Tia, who looked like she had been watching a horror film, clutched to Carlos and shook her head. "Your mama would never scare us. This is the work of a demon!"

This made Reggie stop in his tracks. "Hey, words hurt."

Hayden shrugged. "Personally, I don't think she's far off. More of a gremlin than a demon, though."

"Wait! I gotta get this on video." Carlos announced.

"Yeah, you do." Reggie went over to the full laundry basket and pulled off the white sheet on top, throwing it over his head to make the classic ghost look. "Tim e for an old classic."

Tia began to scream, getting more scared by the second as Reggie moved around in the sheet. Carlos made a comment about the camera being in selfie mode before he was dragged out of the room by his terrified aunt.

Reggie let out a small cheer and fell back onto the arm chair, a content smile on his face that soon dropped when he saw the disappointed look on his friends faces. 

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, I do." Reggie nodded. "I've defended every kid who's never been believed in. Some might say I'm a superhero."

Hayden rolled her eyes. "You defended one kid, terrified his aunt and you are no superman, Reg."

A haunted look came over his face. "We should probably hide before Julie finds out, huh?"

Reggie ran from the room, the three others following after before they were blamed for Reggie's actions. They ran to the studio, Hayden pausing for a second when she realised that they could have just poofed back to the studio. Then again, it felt nice to be somewhat normal, so running made Hayden feel a bit more human.

The next day, Hayden woke up a bit too late, she had missed Julie and had planned to ask her about tonight's performance. So she did the next best thing and showed up at Julie's school when she knew the Molina had some free time. After a bit of wandering, Hayden found the girl at her locker and waited for her to notice the ghost.

"Hey." Hayden finally said, after not being noticed for a few seconds.

Julie jumped and slammed her locker closed at the sudden voice. "Normal people don't do that. And ghosts definitely shouldn't. What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk about what song we're going to play tonight." Hayden replied, getting straight to the point. "Luke and I were thinking Great."

Julie seemed distracted by a group of people snickering, she realised that she must look pretty weird speaking to thin air so she took her phone from her pocket and held it up to her ear so she could pretend to have a conversation over the phone while she was actually talking to Hayden, luckily the girl picked up on it quickly.

"But, yeah. I think Great is a..." Julie grinned at her on coming joke. "Is a great choice."

"Sweet. Well..." Hayden trailed off. "I mean, that's pretty much all I wanted to talk to you about. So..."

"Oh! Okay."

Hayden bit her bottom lip before shaking her head. "Actually no, there is one more thing I wanted to talk to you about. Its...you remember that song I wrote about my ex? Well, I rewrote it and I would love to show it to you when we get home and-and, you've made me a better writer, Julie."

The Molina girl smirked. "I think we make each other better."

Hayden blushed softly. "You know what? Why don't you just ditch school today? Lets go rehearse or listen to my song."

"What? No. No. I promised dad, school first." Julie sighed.

"Right. You were at school first, and now you're leaving to go rehearse." Hayden smirked at the loophole she found, bouncing on her heels. "Come on, I can't do this without you."

"I can't. I told Nick I'd be his dance partner."

"Hey, Julie!" A deep voice said. 

"And he's heading this way. Gotta go, bye."

Hehe, guess who's alive. And also no longer in high school! Whoo! Very fun times. Now, because its now summer holidays for me, I'm from the UK, I'll have quite a bit of free time so hopefully this book will be done long before I head to sixth form. If not, I'll kick myself. But a reminder that I do have other things that will be happening in my life, aka a summer job, working out (how fun), I have a dog to look after and other things so be somewhat patient with me.

Thanks guys and enjoy your morning/evening/night.