FAR FROM NORMAL ── REGGIE PETERS

18. FINALLY FREE

"Keep it on." He smirked at her ever so slightly. "It looks better on you."

Before Ashley could get another word in on the matter, Reggie had disappeared from the roof in nothing but a whoosh, a pop and a slight breeze.

JULIE had been grounded.

Of all the nights that she could get grounded during the week, of all the nights that her father just had to listen to her tias advice, it had to be the night of a really important gig, didn't it? Because that was just Julie's bad luck.

The girl had tried to call Ashley on her mobile, tell her that the show probably couldn't go ahead considering she was confined to her room, but she wasn't answering, so Julie had given up. When it got late, Ashley would come looking.

Julie was sitting on her bed, doodling on her mic, a birthday cake as she remembered the adventure she, Ashley, Reggie and Alex had gone on earlier in the day, when there was a knock on her door, from inside her bedroom, and when she looked up, there was an arm sticking through her door.

Who else was that going to be?

"What are you guys doing?" Julie chuckled as Reggie stuck his head through the wood of Julie's bedroom door so he could see her in her room.

"We're being classy." He pulled a face at her before he was pulled back from the door by a hand and Luke walked through the wood and into Julie's room.

"Why are you still here?" He asked her with a smile. "We're going in, like, twenty minutes. Ashley is just waiting in the studio to drive you both there."

Julie sighed.

"I lied to my dad, so-" she paused, sticking the lid of her pen back over the nib- "now I'm stuck in my room all night. You guys will have to tell Ash, she won't answer my calls and I don't want her waiting here for me all night."

"Yeah, but we were just at the venue. I mean, it's packed. Like VIPs, managers. It's kind of crazy." Alex was getting excited as he spoke, gesturing with his hands.

'So that's where Luke and Alex were,' Reggie thought to himself. He didn't say it out loud, but he had preferred what he had been doing so much more.

"What are we gonna do about my aunt? She's right downstairs."

"Your aunt." Luke scoffed lightly, a smile still on his face.

Reggie poofed from the room suddenly and was only gone around ten seconds before he was back, standing in the same place as if he hadn't left the room at all.

"Where did you go?" Alex looked at him with a bemused expression.

"To tell Ashley to wait at the bottom of the window." Reggie smiled smugly.

Luke bounced over to the window to look out to see Ashley jogging up to the house, standing just underneath the window as she looked up to meet his eyes.

"You alright, Ash Attack?" Ashley smiled at Luke using that name again.

"Yeah, everything's good." She tilted her head to the side, a little confused. "What am I doing here, exactly? And why are you guys in Julie's bedroom."

"Julie got grounded." Luke rolled his eyes out the window and Ashley chuckled. "We were just telling her how she's leaving but not taking the stairs."

The boy stuck his head back through the window and raised his eyebrows.

"You coming, or what?" He nodded towards the window and Julie grinned.