Amelia scribbled three words on a scrap of paper. She stared at them. Then she crumpled the whole thing into a tight little ball.
Splat. The ball bounced off the desk and landed on the lampshade. The lamp wobbled. She stared at it. No good. Grabbing a fresh sheet, she sat back down.
She hummed a little melody and started writing. One line. Two lines. Three lines. The pencil kept time with the hum.
Then she stopped. The pencil tapped the paper. Tap. Tap. Tap. Not right. She ripped the page in half. The scratch came back, louder.
Amelia wrote the last line. She folded the song into a tiny square, then stuffed it deep into her coat pocket. The crumpled paper rustled against her hip.
There, she whispered, patting the pocket. Outside the window, the dusk was going purple, one stroke at a time.
Past the big oak tree, Ezra was already waiting. Amelia stopped. Her foot would not lift. She pulled the crumpled page from her pocket.
She held the page up, then lowered it and hummed. The melody drifted under the branches. Ezra tapped his shoe on the concrete. Tap. Tap.
Amelia tucked the page back in. She kept humming as she walked past. Ezra waved — slow, like a wave to the song. She waved back.
The porch light turned the sidewalk gold. Under the big oak, two little melodies drifted apart into the dusk.
