Ezra In Beach City (Book 1)

The Message

At the open beach, Greg played his guitar to Steven and Ezra with his van parked outside the Crystal Temple.

"That sounded great!" Steven cheered.

"Nice." Ezra complemented.

"Oh thanks! I'm thinking about calling it Water Witch." Greg said.

"Cool." Steven smiled.

"And check this out, I can add some vocal distortion too." Greg added as he pulled down a microphone from the ceiling of the van, adjusted a control panel and spoke into the microphone, that distorted his voice into a robotic one. "Steven, your dad's a robot now. And now that I'm a robot, things will be better and colder. Please forgive me for being an amazing machine."

"I can't stay mad at my robo-dad." Steven smiled. "Where's all this awesome energy coming from?"

"Actually, I was inspired to make some new songs after the ocean got sucked up into space a while back." Greg said. "I even drew up some freaky album artwork."

Greg showed Steven and Ezra his drawing of his album cover, titled Water Witch. Ezra's eyes widened in surprise.

"It looks like...Lapis Lazuli." Steven said.

Greg took the drawing back.

"Easy with the tender touches, don't want it to get all smudged." Greg said. "Here, plug this up and help your old man work out this witchy jam."

Greg handed Steven and Ezra an electric guitar.

"Yeah! Let's... Jam!" Steven cheered as he strummed the electric guitar but it made no sound. "Uh? Where my jams at?"

"I don't think it's plugged in." Ezra replied.

"Ah ha!" Steven said before he plugged the electric guitar into the TV in Greg's van. "All right, here we go. Let's ... jam!" Steven strummed the guitar again, but it still made no sound. "Uh... hmm." He strummed it again. "Jam!" No sound was made. "Hmm... Jaaaam!"

Steven repeatedly strummed the guitar, but still no sound.

"Oh, sorry, that's just the TV." Greg said as he pointed to the TV. "See, you plugged into the video jack, but were making audio here. Don't you know video killed the audio star?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about?" Steven replied as he looked around in confusion.

"That's okay, you leave the details to me." Greg assured. "When you're a one-man band you got to know how to do it all lyrics, graphic design, forum moderation, but for me it was all about the audio."

"What a lovely poem." Steven said.

"Ok, we need a catchy hook! Something like-..." Greg said as he started to play his guitar and sang "♫ Well she's a riptide queen and she's super mean-."

"Woah, hold the phone!" Steven interrupted as he halted Greg from singing. "Now give the phone to me. Lapis was not mean, she was just trying to get home. How 'bout this instead?"

Steven: 🎼 She was trapped in a mirror / And it couldn't be clearer / She wanted to leave this place / And get herself back in space / And dad you might think she's a criminal / But her friendship comes through subliminal. Lapis Lazuli~ You fled into the bottom of the sea~ Lapis Lazuli~ You were so mad but then you came around to me.

As the song played, Ezra recalled memories about Lapis and silently blushed pink.

Steven stops singing and the song ends, when a strange loud noise startled him.

"Uh, what the heck is that?!" Steven asked

"It must be some kind of weird feedback!" Greg replied.

"I'll look around." Ezra announced as he looked outside the van.