Preface: Hello, again! Wow, it's almost been a month since I posted Chapter 1! So sorry for the slipup - it should be smooth sailing from here on out! Anyway, let's see what Bluey and Rusty are up to!

This fanfiction of Bluey is called:
"Beach Doggies"

Previously...after Chloe and Indy left for their vacation to Hawaii, Bluey and Rusty agreed to have a beach day of their own.

Now...they arrive at the beach...

Roll Call

Bluey Heeler: Six-year-old blue heeler. Loves to play.

Bingo Heeler: Bluey's little sister. Slightly more sensitive.

Rusty Kelpie: Bluey's pal from the bush. A military brat.

Chapter 2:
Sand Castles

[Character Selected: Bluey]
[Current World: Bonegea]
[Current Location: Brisbane, Unknown Beach]

[BGM: Asu01 - The Beach]

There is a good reason why some call Queensland the Florida of Australia. Even though the seasons are on the opposite end of the United States, it always seemed like the sun was shining, children were out laughing, and birds were chirping. That meant that every day was a good day to go to the beach.

And that was where a certain blue heeler and her sister were at this very moment.

"BEEEEEEEEAAAACH!" Bluey and Bingo screamed as they ran towards the water. The green and yellow zinc on their faces stayed on as they rubbed their faces in the sand like real life dogs. Certainly, today would be enough to have Bluey forget how much she missed Chloe and Indy.

Of course, she wasn't going to be here alone. A red kelpie was rushing towards her with blue and red zinc on his face. "Bluey!" cried Rusty, rushing to meet his friend. "You're here!"

"Ready for a big beach day?" asked Bluey, her tail wagging with excitement.

"Yeah!" said Rusty. "My mum and dad and your mum and dad are gonna have a barbecue, and then there's gonna be a bonfire!"

"Oooo!" said Bingo, fascinated. "I hope there's sausages!"

"There will be!"

"And salad!" said Bluey. "I love capsicum salad!"

"Yuck!" said Rusty, sticking out his tongue. "I don't like capsicum! I prefer fruit salad!"

"Oh, I like fruit salad, too," said Bluey. "But I think capsicum salad would be better."

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yuh-huh!"

Just then, Bingo looked down at her feet and got an idea. "Oh! I know how we can figure out what's the better salad!" she said.

"Really?" said Bluey and Rusty. "How?"

"A sand castle building contest!" Bingo declared, throwing her hands into the air.

"Yay! Sand castle contest!" shouted Bluey and Rusty. With that settled, the three began to prepare. Grabbing a stick, Bluey drew two big boxes in the sand. "Okay, this box is me and Bingo," she said, pointing to the left box, "and this box is yours, Rusty," she pointed to the right box.

"You can't have a partner without me having a partner," Rusty argued. "It's not fair that way."

"Oh, that's true," Bluey pointed out. She looked over and saw that the grownups had initiated a game of cricket. "I don't think we should disturb my dad, though. He gets cranky when his cricket is interrupted."

"But where am I gonna find a partner?" Rusty asked.

Before the two could ponder any longer, a yellow-spotted beagle wearing green glasses ran up to the two. "Hi, Bluey! Hi, Rusty!" said the beagle.

"Honey!" said Bluey. "You're coming to the beach, too?"

"Yeah! Your parents invited mine to their barbecue!" said Honey, nodding. She noticed the setup the others had. "Can I play?" she asked. It was just like when Rusty abruptly joined in on a game of 'shops', solving the issue of who would be the shopkeeper.

"Yeah!" said Bluey and Rusty. "Honey, you'll be on Rusty's team. We're having a sand castle building contest," Bluey explained.

"Okay," Honey nodded. She knelt down and began to collect some sand.

"Wait!" said Bingo, throwing her hands up. "We need a timer!"

"Yeah, so we don't take too long building!" Rusty agreed, nodding.

"I'll go ask Mum if I can borrow her phone," said Bluey, and she ran to get Chilli. A minute later, she returned with the smartphone opened to the timer app. "Okay, how long should we have to build?"

The four puppies thought for a moment. "I know! Thirty minutes!" Honey proposed.

"How long is that?" asked Bingo.

"Um…I think it's six episodes of Chutney Chimp?" said Bluey, setting the timer to half an hour.

"Wow! That's a long time!" said Bingo, not understanding how short thirty minutes actually is. Five-year-olds, amirite?

"Okay, we all have buckets and shovels," said Rusty, counting the equipment. "Is everyone ready?" Everyone nodded.

"3…2…1…" Bluey was just about to start the timer when she saw something getting close. "Wave!" she cried, and the four all ran away just as the wave crashed down, taking the boxes with it. "Oh, you cheeky wave! You washed away our building areas!" Bluey barked. "Now I have to do it again!"

Thankfully, after Bluey redrew the boxes, there weren't any more waves getting close for a while. Bluey started the timer and the four all started to collect sand and water in their buckets and used them to make the walls. However, they differed in how they went about it. Bluey and Bingo decided to start doing the wall around the castle first, while Rusty and Honey decided to make the castle first. When Bluey took notice, she asked, "Why are you doing the castle first?"

"Because then we can make the castle look good before we close it off!" Rusty argued.

"No, you're supposed to do the wall around the castle first," Bluey argued. "Then you know for sure how big you can make the castle!"

"My way is better, you'll see!" said Rusty, and the two hmphed and went back to work. Bingo and Honey just looked at each other and shrugged.

Bluey and Rusty generally didn't have any arguments from there on out and focused on building their castles. Bluey and Bingo went with a quantity over quality method, giving their castle two floors with several turrets. For decoration, they were able to afix small flags on top of some of the towers and stuck some seaweed and seashells onto the walls, creating icons of mermaids and crowns. As for Rusty and Honey, they went with quality over quantity. Their castle was smaller than the Heelers' and had less turrets, but had more varied decoration, with flowers attatched to the walls and seashells and rocks providing additional texture. They were even able to make little figures of a royal family watching over the kingdom on the roof, and a moat surrounding the outer wall.

When they managed to sneak a break in the action, however, Bingo and Honey stepped aside to talk about their teammates' mysterious rivalry. "Honey, do you know why Bluey and Rusty seem so mad at each other?"

"I dunno," said Honey, shrugging. "But my dad says that when people are upset, they can do things they don't normally do."

"And I think Bluey misses Chloe and Indy," Bingo pointed out. "They're on holiday in…Ha-wah-ee." She had trouble pronouncing the word.

"Maybe that's it," said Honey. "Maybe they just miss their friends!" At that moment, the timer rang, signifying that the building time was up.

"Oh! Time's up! Stop building!" shouted Bluey. She grabbed the phone and ran to give it back to Chilli before running back to the sand castles. "Okay, now let's show each other our sand castles."

"We'll go first," said Rusty. He and Honey presented their sand castle to Bluey and Bingo. "We put in things we found in the sand to make the wall look nice, and we have a princess and her family watching over the sand kingdom!"

Bingo particularly liked the royal family figures. "Hello, little princess!" she said, waving to the tiara-wearing figure.

Secretly, Bluey thought Rusty and Honey did a good job, but she didn't want them to know that. "Well, if you would kindly walk over to our castle," she said, leading the way, "you'll see that we made ours bigger and put a picture of a mermaid on it!"

Rusty inspected the castle. "Hmm…it doesn't look that unique," he admitted. "It's just a tall castle with a few pretty things on it."

"Well, it's taller, meaning it's better!" Bluey argued, sticking her face in Rusty's.

"No, mine's better! I put more effort into it!" Rusty shot back.

"But it's short!"

"So?"

"So it's not as good!"

"Says who?"

"Says me!"

"Bluey! Rusty! Look!" shouted Honey. The two turned around to see exactly what Honey was pointing at.

[BGM: End]

"WAAAAAAVVVEEEE!" The four ran away once more, the wave splashing down on both sand castles. And when they turned around, they saw something that really devastated them.

"NOOOO! Our sand castles!" cried Bluey and Rusty running to the rubble of their hard work, now reduced to a pile of sand. Devastated, the two just sat in the space between the boxes and tried not to cry.

[BGM: Asu01 - A New Beginning]

"All our hard work, gone!" said Bluey, frustrated.

"Well…I guess it was gonna happen anyway," Rusty pointed out. He sighed. "Bluey…why were we even squabbling in the first place?"

"I don't know," Bluey admitted. "I just miss Indy and Chloe. It's not the same without them."

"Yeah, I miss them, too," Rusty admitted. "Especially Indy," he added, his heart particularly aching. "I guess I was so upset my brain wasn't working right."

Bluey giggled. "Yeah, I don't think mine was, either," she added. The two smiled and stared into the afternoon sky, the sun beginning its journey to the other end of the sky. "Rusty, if you want fruit salad at the barbecue tonight, that's okay."

"And if you want capsicum salad, that's alright, too," added Rusty. He turned around and saw that Bingo and Honey were beginning to make a new sand castle out of the rubble of the old ones. "How about we help make a new sand castle?" the red kelpie suggested.

"Yeah! We can turn our sand castles into one!" said Bluey. And for the rest of the afternoon, that's just what they did. The four constructed a huge sand castle combining details of the two that were made separately. They worked into the early evening, just as the grownups put down their cricket game and began to make the barbecue. In the end, they had a wall dotted with seshells, rocks, and a mermaid decal, a moat surrounding the castle and going into the courtyard, and a royal family standing near the flags, watching their kingdom. And this time, Bluey was sure to have Chilli snap a photo of it.

"It's a nice sand castle," Rusty admitted. "I can't wait to show it to Indy and Chloe when they get back."

"Me either," said Bluey. She sniffed the air. "Hey! The barbecue's ready!" she said.

"And they have sausages!" said Bingo, excitedly running to join the grownups.

"And both capsicum and fruit salad!" Honey pointed out. The three puppies looked at each other and laughed at how the conflict from the start was so easily resolved. With that, the three joined their parents to have a nice dinner on the beach before the bonfire started.

To be continued...and next time: back to Chloe and Indy!

Next chapter: "Mermaiding" It's their second day in Hawaii, and Chloe and Indy have a fantastic opportunity - to pretend to be mermaids! It's a lot of fun, but their new friend seems a little shy about it...maybe he just needs some encouragement!

Postface: Chapter complete! I think this makes a pretty good Bluey episode, don't you think?

Trivia time! Originally, I was gonna focus on Indy and Chloe entirely, but I had trouble coming up with ideas, so...split-focus with them and Bluey and Rusty! And it turns out Honey decided to join them, too! I thought she would make a good fit alongside Bluey and Rusty. I also threw in some references to certain Bluey episodes here and there - specifically BBQ, Takeaway, and The Beach. Also, regarding the reference to Bingo as being five years old instead of four, I picture this fic as being set in between Seasons 2 and 3, and Bingo had her birthday in Season 2's Handstand, so...that works out!

That should be it! Please read, review, and share around, and I'll see you all next time for Chloe and Indy's next endeavor! Stay diamond, everyone!

-Alfred

~Bluey and everything related to her are properties/licensees of Ludo Studio PTY., LTD., the Australian Broadcasting Corp., and BBC Studios Dist., LTD. No copyright infringement with any of these companies nor financial gain was intended in the making of this story. Any resemblance to real-world people or events are either coincidental or done fictitiously.~