cherrygorilla and marie: I can't thank you both enough! Sorry for the wait - we had some wi-fi issues at home.
Here's the next chapter. Enjoy!
The Magic of Movies
Chapter Nine: Plot Twist
Mack's head rested in her hands as she sat with a table of surfers at Big Momma's. She could barely drink her soda. Today her heart had officially broken.
When she'd tried to help Brady, he (and Lela) made it absolutely clear that they wanted nothing to do with her.
She stirred the cola with her straw, turning the dark liquid into a whirlpool. It splashed against the sides of the glass but didn't spill.
Mack stopped stirring and rubbed her eyes. Glancing a few tables over at Tanner – who was getting the royal treatment from a swarm of girls, she shook her head and looked away.
The front doors crashed open and a loud, black motorcycle rode to the center of the dance floor. Behind Butchy were at least a dozen tough-looking bikers. Seacat and Tanner were on their feet immediately. Several other surfers stood by them.
The room split in half.
Bikers on one side.
Surfers on the other.
"Soifers." Butchy laced his hands together and cracked his knuckles loudly.
"Rodents." Seacat curled his lip maliciously.
"We do 'dis. Now." Butchy snapped his fingers.
The bikers lined up behind him forming three evenly spaced lines.
"What is going on?" Mack whispered to a girl at her table.
"Turf war," the girl replied.
Turf war…or DANCE war….Oh No…
The surfers were lined up in a V-shaped formation behind Tanner.
The jukebox was off but music began to play from somewhere.
The boys snapped their fingers in time with the beat as each side took five crossover steps toward the door.
Wait a minute? Isn't this supposed to happen when Tanner and Lela fall in love? At the BEGINNING of the movie!
Mack nearly hyperventilated. Had someone rewound the movie? But the leads hadn't fallen in love with each other …. Where was this turf war going to go?... If one side won – that meant the other side would leave….and if they left…. They wouldn't unite and destroy the weather machine.
There would be no storm.
And if there was no storm.
There was no going home….
I have to stop this. I have to do something. But what?
The first verse of the song was over and they were singing the hook – Mack knew she didn't have much time….
Knocking the soda bottles off the table, she stood on her chair, then the table.
"Stop!" she yelled at the roof.
Nothing happened.
"STOP!" she screamed at the top of her lungs.
The music paused.
The surfers and bikers stopped dancing.
They looked around in confusion.
Then they all looked at Mack.
She got ready to speak but the music began again.
"STOP!" she screamed.
It stopped.
"Les Camembert wants to destroy Big Momma's. He's building a…a… laser that is going to blow this whole place up. It's in the lighthouse. Come on everyone we have to save Big Momma's!" Mack shouted, trying to create a movement.
"Who?" Butchy looked at her and scratched his head.
"What's a laser?" Rascal asked.
"Why would someone want to hurt Big Momma's?" Struts wiped a tear from her eyes.
"Come on everyone," Mack jumped down from the table and ran for the door. "To the lighthouse!"
But when she got there, she realized no one was following her. Desperately she looked around for help.
"Lela," she looked over at the dark haired girl. "Brady said he took you to the lighthouse yesterday – did you see anything….strange?"
"Just a weather changing machine," Lela shrugged as though it was as common as a blender.
"A weather changing machine that shoots lasers," Mack announced. Glancing around the crowd she saw the hat covered curls.
"Seacat!" she yelled. "Remember last night when we saw those strange lights coming from the lighthouse."
"They were LASERS!" Seacat shouted.
"LASERS!" Rascal echoed.
"LASERS!" everyone shouted.
"We have to save Big Momma's!" Tanner proclaimed. "Come on!" He ran for the door.
"NO!" Butchy shouted. "WE'RE gonna save Big Momma's!" He took off for the door too.
It was like Black Friday at Wal-Mart as the surfers and bikers all tried to get through the door at the same time.
They raced through the sand toward the lighthouse. Mack couldn't keep up and started to lag behind, but she pushed herself forward. She reached the lighthouse just in time to see Brady removed a key from its secret hiding place under the door mat.
With the doors opened Butchy and Tanner raced each other inside. Mack was one of the last to cross the threshold.
Brady held the door open for her.
"Mack," he touched her arm as she passed by.
"Yeah?" she panted, still winded from sprinting across the beach.
"Nice work," he smiled.
"Thanks."
Together they went inside and into Dr. Fusion's secret lab.
A giant weather changing machine took up almost the entire interior. The surfers and bikers were arguing with each other.
"You can't just start tearing it apart!" Tanner yelled at Butchy. "It could explode and then we'd all die!"
"If we don't destroy it. It will destroy Big Momma's," Butchy yelled back. "Now give me that wrench!"
Butchy crawled beneath an access panel. "This motor isn't much different than a four stroke, 500cc, flat twin, air-cooled wankel with shaft final and rear wheel drive!"
The biker worked hard. With each turn of his wrench, parts of the weather machine fell to the ground. As he removed the last part there was a soft wooshing sound.
The lights on the weather machine went out.
The bikers cheered.
"You did it Butchy!" Struts cried.
"He did it alright," Tanner interrupted. "Thanks for disabling the accessory lighting system." He flipped a chalk board over to reveal an elaborate drawing with chalk lines everywhere.
"What is that?" Butchy looked at the board.
"It's a blueprint of the machine," Tanner told him.
"Can you read it?" Giggles asked.
"It's very detailed," Tanner admitted.
"You can do it Tanner," Mack rubbed his shoulders. "It's just like engineering."
He took a few minutes tracing lines with his hands then he frowned and thought out loud, "This doesn't make any sense. How can there be a variable battery and no ground?"
Everyone stared at him in shock.
Tanner's secret was out.
"Let me take a look," Lela pushed her way forward.
"You?" Seacat asked in surprise.
Tanner moved over to the side showing the circuit to Lela. "You're right," she agreed. "That doesn't make sense." Then she thought for a second. "Wait a minute, remember the time we overhauled that '57 Chevy big block in your dad's Corvette?"
Tanner looked at her and smiled, "We had to rewire the ground point to connect the resistor and switch."
"So if we….," Lela took a piece of chalk and circled three points on the blueprint.
"Enough!" Butchy stepped in between them and ripped the chalk out of his baby sister's hand. "No more smart talk!" he yelled at them. "You are a biker," he told Lela. "Not a bookworm!" Then he turned to Tanner. "And you need to stop giving her ideas! She wants to finish high school because of you."
Mack looked over at Brady, who mirrored her shocked expression.
"Can we discuss this later?" Tanner looked at Butchy. "We're trying to save Big Momma's remember?"
"Oh yeah," Butchy backed off and looked around. "So," he twirled a wrench. "What's the next step?"
The three of them dismantled the weather machine in a relatively short time, leaving nothing more than a pile of parts in its place.
"I wonder where Les Camembert and Dr. Fusion are?" Brady asked Mack.
"Who cares?" Mack smiled. "I'm going home!"
Then she looked over at Lela and Tanner standing next to each other in front of the blueprint.
She looked back and forth between them.
Dazed expressions.
Check.
Goofy smiles.
Check.
"Oh no," Mack's hands fell to her side as she realized what was happening. Apparently someone else realized it too.
Brady shifted nervously beside her. "You see it too, huh?" he asked.
Mack nodded. "Did you expect the movie to end differently?"
Brady shrugged. "I guess not."
Mack's smile faded as she watched the somber expression on Brady's face.
"Brady, you okay?" she asked.
He didn't reply in words but she could see his heartbreak in his body language.
Great. I fix one problem and create another….
