Hello!
How are you?
I'm great because I had lovely day on Sunday, which was my birthday, and I got all of my results for my exams back and I got really good marks, especially in the sciences because I got three A*s! I also got a book of piano music for the Teen BeachMovie songs for my birthday and I absolutely adore it, I just play them all the time! XD
But who cares about me, right? You came here for the story so here's chapter 20!
"Coral, I swear to god, if you throw another ball of paper at me I'm gonna personally flush your hand down the nearest toilet," Lugnut snapped, making the surfer girl roll her eyes and lean back in the little classroom chair she'd been forced to sit on as a few of the ten year olds laughed.
Back in the elementary school, the kids had been working solidly for an hour, with just a low buzz of chatter filling the room. Lugnut had been sat in the teacher's chair with his feet up on the desk in front of him, whilst Coral had been perching on the small plastic chair from a spare desk. And as the children worked, Lugnut had managed to nap in the chair…well, Coral thought he'd been napping, which is why she had thrown around twenty tiny balls of crumpled up paper in the biker's direction. But he'd been awake the entire time, he just couldn't be bothered to say anything.
"It's not my fault I'm bored," Coral huffed, getting up from her seat and making her way over to Lugnut.
"What'cha want me to do about it?" Lugnut asked, frowning slightly at the surfer girl.
"I don't know, aren't we supposed to be teaching them something?" Coral asked, looking over her shoulder at the children.
"No, Coral, we're not the teachers, we're just supervisin' 'em," Lugnut replied, scoffing a little at the surfer's stupidity.
"I know that, but they can't expect us to just sit here and watch them write a few sentences on a piece of sugar paper," Coral said.
"Again, what'cha want me to do about it?" Lugnut asked. "We don't even know what they're doing this project thing on."
"Well why don't we just ask them?" Coral asked, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"What are we going to do about it anyway, if it's somethin' like trigonometry then I won't-" but Lugnut didn't get to finish his sentence because Coral had already turned around to face the room of children.
"Guys, you know this project thing? What's the topic of it?" Coral asked, addressing the entire room as she spoke.
"Music," the girl with the brown plait answered, who, after taking the register that morning, Lugnut and Coral found out was called Sarah.
"Wait, really?" Coral asked, a huge smile spreading across her face.
"Seriously?" Lugnut continued, equally as excited as Coral. Music played a rather large part in both of their lives so this just sounded a hundred times better.
"Yeah," Luke answered, he had mousy brown hair and warm green eyes.
"What are you doing for it then?" Coral asked eagerly. "Are you performing something."
"No, we're doing a presentation on the history of all of the different instruments that you find in an orchestra," Sarah answered.
"Are you kidding me?" Coral cried.
"Coral," Lugnut hissed, obviously not wanting to dishearten the kids.
"But that's so boring!" Coral continued.
"It's what Mrs. Mitchell left us to do," a boy with ginger hair and blue eyes replied, whose name was Connor.
"That doesn't stop it from being boring," Coral replied.
"Look, everyone, you were all workin' really well before," Lugnut started, hoping to get the children back to doing the work that they were supposed to be. "How about you go back to doin' that?" Thankfully, the children all obeyed and the room was back to the low buzz of chatter and work. "What on earth was that all about?" Lugnut snapped at Coral once the room had gone back to the way it had been.
"What are you talking about?" Coral asked.
"I'm talking about you making them feel bad about their work," Lugnut shot back.
"I didn't say anything bad about their work," Coral started.
"You said that it was boring," Lugnut interrupted.
"I didn't, I said that the topic they're doing is boring," Coral explained. "Music's one of the greatest parts of life so why are they wasting their time writing about the history of the oboe when they could be performing something?"
"It's not our place to do anything though," Lugnut said.
"Well it could be, what's the worst that could happen? We're not going to have permanent jobs here, are we? We'll be going back home soon," Coral replied.
"Even if we did do something, what are we gonna teach them? They're ten, I doubt that they're musical prodigies," Lugnut said.
Coral could tell that she was wearing Lugnut down and that he secretly did want to do something good with the kids, so she decided to take her opportunity. "We could teach them a song," Coral suggested.
"What song? Coral, they're not gonna want to do it," Lugnut said.
"I don't know, any song," Coral said.
"Coral, we'll talk about it later, just let them get on with what they're doing," Lugnut snapped.
"You don't have to snap at me all the time, you know," Coral said.
"Believe me, I do," Lugnut huffed. Coral rolled her eyes at the biker boy, making him glare at her. The pair shared a dirty look before Lugnut sat back down and Coral started to wander around the classroom.
The surfer girl started to look at the displays that lined the walls and as she got to the back, a certain set of work caught her eye. "What are these?" Coral asked the girl sat closest to her, who was called Zoë. She had blonde hair, brown eyes and was writing a page of information about the double bass.
"They're poems that we had to write last year about a place that we like to go to," Zoë explained.
"What place did you write your's about?" Coral asked, not intentionally being so intrusive, she was just genuinely curious.
"I went to Austria with my family last year and we stayed in a hillside lodge," Zoë said. "So I wrote it about that."
"Groovy…" Coral smiled, but instantly realised that she wasn't supposed to use her 60s lingo. "I mean…cool!"
"I guess so," Zoë mumbled, going back to her work pretty quickly. Although Coral had only been talking to the girl for less than a minute, she could already tell that Zoë wasn't the most outgoing member of the class. And despite her job being to basically watch these kids for four days, she wanted to make a difference, even if it was only with one kid. And Zoë definitely looked like she needed a confidence boost.
"Which one's yours?" Coral asked.
"It doesn't matter," Zoë mumbled. "It's not that good."
"I'm sure it is," Coral said, starting to search the pieces of paper for the girl's name. "Is this it?" she asked, plucking a sheet from the wall and showing it to the girl.
"Yeah," Zoë said, her cheeks reddening slightly as she looked back down at her work.
"Can I read it?" Coral asked, turning the little girl's attention to her again.
"It's not that good…" Zoë trailed off, but by this point Coral's eyes had already started to skim the relatively neat lines of text.
"Zoë, this is good, what are you talking about?" Coral asked, looking up from the page again and bending down to properly talk to the girl.
"It's not, Isabella said that it's not and Hannah said that it was a stupid idea," Zoë mumbled, not making eye contact with the 60s girl.
"That's horrible. Why would they something like that?" Coral asked, her eyebrows creasing together in confusion and concern.
"They think I'm weird, they don't like me," Zoë sighed.
"Well do you want me to speak to them? It's fine not to get on with someone but criticising their work isn't right," Coral said.
"No, it's fine, it's just a poem, I don't even think it's that good," Zoë mumbled.
"But, Zoë, it is good. In fact, I think that it's amazing. You could even turn it into a song if you wanted," Coral enthused, ending up speaking louder than she'd intended.
"What could you turn into a song?" Noah asked, he was a boy with wild dark brown hair and bright blue eyes, who was apparently not that interested in school judging by the fact that he'd written three words in the past hour but had made around fourteen paper aeroplanes, which had all ended up in various places around the room.
"Coral sit down and shut up," Lugnut snapped from the front of the classroom, fed up with the surfer girl's attempts to make the class more interesting.
"Zoë's poem," Coral explained to the little boy, completely ignoring Lugnut's comment. However, after Coral had spoken, she noticed two girls sat to the right-hand side of the classroom were sniggering. It didn't take an idiot to work out that they were Isabella and Hannah. "Um, excuse me, you two," Coral called, making the two girls turn around in surprise. "I don't see why you're laughing so maybe you'd care to explain," she continued in a clear voice, crossing her arms over her chest with an expectant look on her face. The two girls just looked blankly at Coral in shock, their mouths opening and closing but no words coming out. "That's what I thought, so maybe next time you'll think twice before making fun of someone's work," Coral finished, making the two girls mumble quick apologies to Zoë and turn back around with sheepish looks on their faces. Zoë sent a grateful smile to Coral, who returned it with a grin. At least she'd made one difference, even if it was only tiny.
"Coral, just come and sit down now," Lugnut sighed, clearly quite irritated by now.
"She hasn't turned Zoë's poem into a song yet," Noah piped up, obviously wanting to delay having to work for as long as possible.
"And she never will," Lugnut shot back, glaring at Coral from across the classroom.
"How do you know?" Coral challenged.
"Sit down," Lugnut ordered.
"Who wants me to turn Zoë's poem into a song?" Coral asked. The entire class raised their hands. "Ok, who doesn't want me to turn Zoë's poem into a song?" Coral continued. No one raised their hands. "Looks like you've been outnumbered," Coral called across to Lugnut with a smug smile, but all she got from the biker was an eye roll.
"How are you going to start it?" Noah asked, fully turning around in his seat so that he could see Coral more easily. Most of the class followed suit, all scraping their chairs along the floor until they were gathered as close to the surfer girl as possible.
"How about…" Coral started, thinking for a few seconds, glancing at the paper and then opening her mouth to sing.
Coral: "My day in the hills has come to an end, I know"
Normally the characters from Wet Side Story had naturally good voices that fitted well with the songs that they sang in the film. But Coral's voice, since she hadn't originally been a part of the cast, had a slightly different quality to it. It was clearer, richer and more powerful and it made you want to listen even if you hadn't intended to. So even after the first line, all of the kids were hooked and even Lugnut was starting to pay attention a little bit.
Coral: "A star has come out to tell me it's time to go
But deep in the dark green shadows are voices that urge me to stay
So I pause and I wait and I listen for one more sound, for one more lovely thing that the hills might say
The hills are alive with the sound of music
With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears
My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds that rise from the lake to the trees
My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies from a church on a breeze
To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over stones in its way
To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to bray
I go to the hills when my heart is lonely
I know I will hear what I've heard before
My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more"
Despite having a nice voice, Coral didn't really sing that much back in Wet Side Story. She probably sang more songs in the two weeks when she first arrived than all of the time afterwards. So it felt nice for her to be back doing something that she loves. But instead of being thanked with a round of applause, she was greeted with the sound of the school bell that signalled recess. The kids all scrambled up from their desks and made a break for the door, the level of chatter suddenly rising quite rapidly and within seconds Coral and Lugnut were the only ones left in the room.
"Nice job keepin' your mouth shut, moron," Lugnut grumbled, sharing an equally annoyed look with Coral before getting up from the desk himself and following the kids out the door.
I hope you enjoyed it! I'm sorry that it wasn't very long or very exciting, I'm trying to improve my chapters but because I've been so busy recently, I've been getting behind on writing. But I am trying, I promise!
The song that I used in this chapter is called The Sound Of Music and it's from The Sound Of Music (what a surprise!).
Thank you so much for the five reviews I got since I last updated! Every review makes me smile and it makes me so happy to know that you're enjoying the story!
Thank you DynamicGiraffe, MaddieGerbz, zina1412, DisneyChannelLover and RossLynch4ever! Also, thank you zina1424 for your suggestion, I really appreciate it and you'll see in the story soon! Don't hesitate to leave a suggestion if you think of one though, 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 what you think of Coral and Lugnut's relationship. Do you like them arguing all the time or would you prefer for them to get along?) 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 and I want you to know that I'm always here for you, feel free to send me a PM, I'll always reply! But you're all absolutely wonderful and I'm so lucky to have such lovely readers!
Thank you for reading!
-cherrygorilla