Hello!
How are you?
I've had exams all week which means that I haven't had any time to write, so it's a good thing that I write my chapters in advance! But I've only got one more tomorrow and then it's my birthday on Sunday! The On My Own video premiered this week too and I'm already obsessed with it! I can't wait for Teen Beach2 to come out!
Enough about me though, here's chapter 19!
"I can't believe they just dumped us here," Coral huffed, kicking a stone on the path with the toe of her sneaker.
"I know, we have no clue what we're doing," Lugnut grumbled.
"Brady said to walk in and take the first left to go to the principle's office," Coral explained. "You were obviously listening, weren't you?" she added, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Oh brother," Lugnut muttered, pushing open the glass doors to the school. It wasn't a huge building and it certainly wasn't tall, the squat structure had only one floor but it did have quite a large playground and from what Coral and Lugnut saw on their walk in, the classrooms looked to be bright and happy; no screaming kids that they had been dreading having to control. The pair made their way down the corridor and eventually found the door to the principle's office, thanks to the help of the sign on the door. Lugnut knocked twice before a voice called out.
"Come in!"
Lugnut pushed open the door and the two teens stepped inside, instantly faced with a woman in her late forties, who was sat behind a desk with stacks of paperwork littering the top.
"Can I help you?" she asked in an authorative voice.
"I'm Coral and this is Lugnut, our friend Brady said that we were supposed to be helping out for the week," Coral explained, trying to sound as polite as possible to the woman.
"Ah, yes, well welcome to our school's summer workshop," the woman smiled, seemingly relieved when she knew who the two teens were. "As you may know, the teacher for class 4B has had to drop out at a moment's notice, leaving the children without a member of staff. That is where you two will step in, you are to supervise them whilst they are working on their project, if there is any trouble be sure to alert me and I'm sure that they will all work quietly. I don't expect you to teach them anything, don't worry, they've been given their task so if they do need any help with something that you don't know about, just come to me. Is that clear?"
"Yes," Coral and Lugnut said in unison, plastering on fake smiles in a hope to impress the lady.
"Good, let's go and introduce you to them," the woman smiled, standing up from her desk and sweeping out of the room. Coral and Lugnut shared a look, which turned out to be more of a glare and then pushed past each other to follow the head teacher. After a short walk, the lady breezed into a classroom with a bright red door. "Children, since Mrs. Mitchell is unwell this week, I'd like to introduce you to your new teachers. These two will be looking after you for the remainder of the week but I doubt that either of them have taught a class before, so I hope that you will be on your best behaviour for them," the head mistress explained, all of the children's eyes trained on Coral and Lugnut, who were stood awkwardly in the doorway. "Well then, I'll leave you to it," the lady smiled, turning to Coral and Lugnut before walking back out of the door.
"Um…" Lugnut started, staring blankly at the class of about fifteen nine to ten year olds.
"Hi," Coral said, addressing the whole room. "I'm Coral and this is Lugnut."
"Yeah, hi," Lugnut added, noticeably less interested than Coral.
"Those are funny names," a girl with one brown plait running down her back snapped, her eyebrows slightly creased as she stared at the two teens in the doorway.
"Why thank you," Lugnut said sarcastically.
"What do you guys know about teaching?" the girl continued.
"Yeah, what makes you guys good enough to teach us?" a boy with wild dark brown hair asked.
"The fact that we have a good friend," Coral replied, paying no attention to the children's comments. "Now, is there anything that we should be doing or are you just going to get back to work?"
"Well no one's taken the register yet," the girl with the brown plait said.
"Oh alright," Coral replied, quickly glancing around the room and spotting a black clipboard on the desk. "Is this it?" she asked. The girl nodded and Coral picked it up and handed it to Lugnut. "There you go, why don't you do it," she said, giving Lugnut a fake smile, which he returned.
"I'd be happy to," Lugnut said sarcastically, snatching the clipboard out of Coral's hands and going to sit in the chair behind the desk, leaving the surfer girl to grab a chair from an empty desk.
"You two don't really like each other, do you?" the brown girl with the plait said, raising an eyebrow at the pair.
"No, and you like to talk, don't you?" Lugnut shot back, sort of playing along with the kids and earning a few laughs. This was either going to go less horribly than they thought, or it was all going to fall apart very quickly.
"I'm just off to a meeting, I don't know if I'll be back in time to shut the shop up though so you'll be in charge of closing up, Becky," Veronica called, pulling her car keys out of her huge handbag as she breezed out of her office. "Oh, and don't forget to clean up my office. See you all tomorrow," she chirped, clearly putting on her cheeriness, before slamming the door behind her.
"And when she says that she's going to a meeting, she really means that she's going for a facial and to get her nails done," Jay huffed, another employee at the beach-themed clothing store. He was quite muscular and he had dark brown hair that never moved out of its quiffed position.
"Seriously?" Giggles asked, staring after the woman as she placed a folded blue t-shirt back onto a stand.
"Seriously," he huffed, picking up a cardboard box of new stock before carrying it into the back.
"Is she like this all the time?" Tanner asked, hanging a cardigan back up on its rack.
"Yeah," Jay replied, wandering back into the main part of the store.
"Well then why are ya still here?" Struts asked, putting a hand on her hip and tipping her head to the side.
"'Cause we need the summer jobs," Becky answered from behind the counter, half of her face covered with her long, honey-blonde hair.
"Yeah, as soon as school starts again I'm out of here," Jay agreed.
"Was she serious about us cleaning her office?" Giggles asked, peering through the doorway and noticing a half-eaten muffin on a plate surrounded by crumbs.
"Yep," Becky huffed, flicking the page of the magazine she was reading on the counter.
"Why did you guys get jobs here in the first place?" Tanner asked.
"'Cause we needed money," Jay answered.
"But this place is such a dump," Struts sniffed, turning her nose up at her surroundings and grabbing a new stack of t-shirts from the stock room to start folding.
"Why did you get jobs here then?" Becky asked.
"'Cause we're staying with our friends and they need the money," Giggles explained.
"It's just a shame we ended up here," Tanner added, the beginnings of a song starting to work their way into the conversation.
"Mack and Brady could've looked into the place a bit more before getting us a job here," Struts huffed.
Giggles: "How did we get from the top of the world to the bottom of the heap?"
Struts: "I don't recall Mack mentioning the boss is such a creep"
Giggles and Struts had dumped their stacks of clothes on the shelves and were ranting through the song, clearly not very happy with the situation they'd been landed in. So Tanner decided to cheer them up.
Tanner: "We still have the ingredients to make this summer sweet"
Struts: "Well, I got rags instead of riches"
Struts tugged at the dark pink t-shirt she had been made to wear as she sang.
Giggles: "And all these dirty dishes"
Giggles carried the plate holding Veronica's half-eaten muffin out of the manager's office and dumped the contents in the nearest bin before going back over to join Struts.
Struts & Giggles: "Just wish I had three wishes"
"Are you guys seriously singing?" Becky asked, staring at the three teens in disbelief.
"Yeah," Struts said.
"Why?" Jay asked, slightly more amused by the outburst than Becky.
"Why not?" Giggles asked.
"What's it to ya?" Struts drawled, popping a bubble with her gum and twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
"It's just that people don't normally sing," Becky explained, feeling slightly uncomfortable about the musical number.
"But singing helps everything," Giggles said. "And it's really fun!"
"That's actually quite a cool way to look at things," Jay started.
"I thought that we were all just gonna work out our problems like anyone else would but-" Becky started, but before she could finish her sentence, Tanner ran around he back of the counter, grabbed her hand and dragged her out into the centre of the empty store, starting to sing.
Tanner: "We've got to work, work, work this out
We'll make things right, the sun will shine
If we work, work, there'll be no doubt
We can still save the summer, if we work this out"
"What if someone comes in and sees all this?" Becky asked, looking rather flustered as she brushed her hair away from her face with her fingers.
"What's the problem?" Tanner asked, tipping his head to the side and not seeing anything wrong with the musical number.
"We can't just start dancing in the middle of the store when it's open. I know that no one's in here at the moment but we could still get fired," Becky explained nervously.
"Still not seein' a problem here," Struts drawled, obviously not that bothered about losing her job.
"Becky's got a point though, I know it's unlikely but what if Veronica comes back?" Jay started, crossing his arms. "She's not exactly the friendliest of people when it comes to goofing off in her shop."
"What's the worst that could happen?" Giggles asked.
"She can't be that bad," Struts agreed.
"You guys don't get it," Becky huffed, sitting back on the high stool behind the cash register as Jay stepped over to the two 60s girls. And to everyone's surprise, including his own, he started to sing.
Jay: "I'd rather face a seven footer straight up in the post"
Becky: "That sure beats hangin' here and burnin' someone's toast"
As soon as Becky had sung her line she clamped her hands over her mouth, very shocked at her outburst. Normally she found it hard to just talk to strangers, so singing out loud in front of a bunch of people that she barely knew was definitely out of her comfort zone. But she couldn't really control it, and neither could Jay. The pair shot each other panicked looks, but Jay just decided to go along with it.
Jay: "I needed Benjamins, but this ain't worth the stress"
Becky: "Maybe there's a better way to fix this greasy mess"
Tanner: "We're a champion team"
Tanner walked over to Becky and Jay, who was now stood over the counter from the shy girl, and sent them both reassuring smiles.
Struts: "A well oiled machine"
Struts went over to stand with Tanner, trying to get the two teens to relax a bit and have some fun.
Giggles: "And we've faced tougher problems than this"
Tanner and Struts were joined by Giggles, who was also trying to help Jay and Becky to loosen up.
Tanner: "I know it's a grind"
Struts: "But I'm sure we can find"
Giggles: "A way to have fun"
Tanner, Struts & Giggles: "While we get this job done
We've got to work, work, work this out
We'll make things right, the sun will shine
If we work, work, there'll be no doubt
We can still save the summer, if we work this out"
Tanner grabbed Becky's hand again and Struts and Giggles both cornered Jay after they'd finished the chorus, getting the two workers to follow the dance routine to the break in the music. It wasn't long before Becky and Jay started to actually have some fun with it, and with a little bit of persuasion, the pair were dancing just as enthusiastically as the Wet Side Story teens.
Tanner: "Tell me what you want"
Giggles: "Tell me what you need"
Becky: "A little bit of sugar"
Jay: "A little bit of butter"
Struts: "It's the perfect recipe"
Tanner, Giggles, Struts, Jay & Becky: "Pay day!"
Jay: "It'll taste so sweet"
Tanner, Giggles, Struts, Jay & Becky: "Pay day!"
Becky: "Good enough to eat"
Jay: "Gonna see some motion pictures"
Struts: "Hit the mall with my biker sisters"
Jay: "Get tickets to the Knicks and Sixers"
Becky: "Kick it with the music mixers"
Tanner: "Catch a ride that suits my style"
Giggles: "Lounge around the pool a while"
Tanner: "Make a date with my favourite girl"
After everyone had sung about what they wanted to do with their money, they all gathered in the middle of the shop again, everyone fully enjoying it now. All the worries completely gone.
Tanner, Giggles, Struts, Jay & Becky: "We've got it made!
We've got to work, work, work this out
We'll make things right, the sun will shine
If we work, work, there'll be no doubt
We can still save the summer, if we work this out
Work this
Gotta work this
We can work this out"
As the five teens all struck their ending pose, a mother and daughter opened the door to the shop, making the workers freeze for a few seconds before rushing back to what they'd been doing. Hopefully their antics hadn't been too noticeable by the customers.
"Ok, I've gotta admit, that was actually really fun," Becky whispered to Giggles as she sat back on her stool behind the counter.
"I told you," Giggles grinned, refolding a navy blue t-shirt before skipping over to help Tanner re-organise a rack of shorts.
I hope you enjoyed it!
The song that I used in this chapter is called Work This Out and it's from High School Musical 2. Thank you for DisneyChannelLover for suggesting it to me!
Thank you so much for the three reviews I got since I last updated! I absolutely love to read them and it makes me so happy to hear that you're still enjoying the story.
Thank you MaddieGerbz, RossLynch4ever and DynamicGiraffe! Don't hesitate to leave a suggestion if you think of one, I still want to hear them and I want to know what you enjoy reading.
I know I say this all the time (if you're reading this then let me know if you've heard On My Own yet and if you have then what did you think of it?) but I want to say thank you to everyone who sends me PMs, leaves reviews and is just generally supportive of my stories because you all mean the world to me!
Thank you for reading!
-cherrygorilla