Hello! Long-time no see…again.
I'm so sorry that my chapters have been so infrequent lately, after being ill it took me ages to get back into writing, then I just had no inspiration for this chapter and along with all of the school work that I constantly seem to be getting (as well as my exams, which are coming up in a week) I have really struggled to get this chapter finished. Sadly I don't know when my updates will start getting more frequent again because of the exams I'll be having in just over a week, the fact that my birthday is coming up super soon (but I doubt any of my friends are going to make a big deal about it because it's in the middle of the week of exams :/ ) and that I'm actually going on holiday kind of soon (in July, so not that soon but knowing me it'll take that long for me to get a chapter done :/ ). I promise I'll try my best though; I'll work something out to keep you happy.
I hope that you enjoy what I've been working on for pretty much a month though… (Yikes).
Brady's mouth had been hanging open for the last fifteen minutes…how on earth was all of this happening? How had some of the Wet Side Story characters actually managed to keep their jobs? How was his little brother playing a rock concert with his classmates? And how the heck were Coral and Lugnut able to pull all of this off and not start screaming at each other? He looked across to Mack and saw that she was wearing the same expression. Her eyebrows were creased, her mouth had dropped slightly open and her eyes kept flicking from the group of kids on stage and the two Wet Side Story teens at the side of it. Apparently she was just as confused as he was…Coral and Lugnut were definitely not the teens that they had been expecting to keep their jobs until the end, but then again this week has been full of surprises…so why did this shock him so much?
Everyone at Mack's house was sat in the living room, most of them were just sat watching a movie they'd found but there were occasional quiet conversations happening between handfuls of the teens. So when Coral and Lugnut burst through the front door and made a dash straight for the hallway, everyone slumped on the sofa almost jumped out of their skins.
"Jeez, you's is in a rush," CheeChee said, gathering herself together after being scared half to death.
"What did you say?" Lugnut asked, skidding to a halt halfway down the corridor before scrambling back to the living room area to continue his conversation with the biker girl.
"I just said ya were in a rush. Whatcha doin' anyway?"
"We's just gots to finish some things off for tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? You still have your job?" Seacat piped up, his eyes practically popping out of his head from shock.
"Yeah…why?"
"You're telling me the two people who hate each other more than anyone else here are the only two that managed to actually work togother?"
"You all lost your jobs?! What the heck did you do?!"
"Do you want the whole story?" Seacat sighed.
"Lugnut!" Coral screamed from a room down the hallway.
"Apparently not," Lugnut replied, before the surfer girl who he was needed by came scuttling up behind him and dragged him off out of sight.
"Stop chatting, we've got work to do," she giggled before shoving him into the room that the Wet Side Story boys were currently using to sleep in.
"Oh my god, what's happened to them?" Seacat said, noting the two teens' odd behaviour almost immediately.
"What are they even doing in there?" Rascal asked.
"Theys is probably sittin' 'round makin' friendship bracelets and talkin' 'bout their feelings," CheeChee said sarcastically, letting out one of her infamous giggles as a smirk floated onto her face.
No one really did ever find out what it was that Coral and Lugnut had snuck off to do, but they didn't see them again for the rest of the night. They said that they would skip dinner but Mack brought them some through anyway (the last thing that she needed them to do was starve). It didn't really seem to bother anyone that two of their friends were missing, but then again they were the ones usually furthest at the back, so it wasn't like they were that relevant to what was going on and they others just watched TV all night anyway. But once people started to drift off to their respective bedrooms, everyone noticed that Coral and Lugnut had evacuated the guys' bedroom...and were now nowhere to be seen.
Once Tanner and Seacat informed Mack that the two teens she'd said were occupying the boys' room were not there, she decided to investigate. Although she knew deep down that they wouldn't have actually left the house, a little knot was forming in the pit of Mack's stomach as she made her way through the house. There was no need for her to worry though, because she soon found them in the back room with the old piano in it. Both of them had drifted off to sleep though, apparently mid-way through whatever they were doing. Coral was slumped in a chair, her head rolled to the side, a notebook flopped onto her chest and a pen was still loosely gripped in her hand. Lugnut on the other hand was still sat in his chair but with his head resting on the table in front of him. He had a pair of headphones on but because he'd fallen asleep they'd gone askew, his hand was still resting on the trackpad of Mack's laptop that he's asked to borrow earlier and his mouth was ever so slightly hanging open. Mack was actually quite impressed that the teens from the 1960s had managed to actually figure out how to use her laptop without having to be told again, and they seemed to know what they were doing because they were working on something with the music-layering software that Brady had downloaded. Instead of trying to wake them up to move them, Mack just decided to grab the blankets from their make-shift beds and let them sleep there tonight. She draped Lugnut's blanket over his back and Coral's over her front and snuck out of the room again, quietly clicking the door back into place. They didn't stir once.
The next morning when everyone was starting to wake up and Mack was starting her rounds of checking on everyone, she padded down the hallway and noticed that the 'music room' door had been pushed open. To her surprise, a groggy Lugnut and Coral were already back to working on the laptop.
"Guys, don't you want to take a break? Lela and I are making some pancakes for breakfast," Mack said, quietly knocking on the door to get their attention.
"Yeah, that sounds awesome," Coral grinned, eagerly getting to her feet.
"Coral, we've got stuff to finish," Lugnut grumbled, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her back down into her seat.
"We'll have time when we get there, stop worrying. And Mack's right, we need a break."
To Mack's surprise, Lugnut actually agreed with Coral and all she received for persuading him take off the headphones and make his way down to the kitchen was an eye roll and a half-hearted smile. These two really were getting along better...
"You're back early," Mack noted as Brady strolled through the front door twenty minutes earlier than he normally did after dropping everyone off at work. But then again, he only had two people to take today.
"Well normally I drive everyone there first and then go and pick up Zack but today he said he needed to get there sooner than normal to help set up."
"Set up for what?"
"The presentation thing his class has been working on."
"What kind of presentation are they doing? Haven't they just been colouring all week?" Mack snorted as her lips curled into a small grin of amusement.
"Don't ask me, Zack hasn't told me anything," Brady replied, Mack's contagious smile reaching his face too. "I'll find out this afternoon though, I've got to go and look at them all."
"Go and look at what?" Lela asked. She'd d been on her way to get something from the kitchen when she caught the tail-end of Mack and Brady's conversation. Even though this would probably have been totally normal to anyone else, to Lela, who was fascinated by literally anything and everything, the prospect of doing something out of the ordinary was extremely exciting. And if the tone of her voice hadn't been enough to tell you that, the huge grin that had sprung on to her face definitely should have been.
"My little brother's class presentation," Brady answered almost sheepishly.
"Ooh, can we come?" Lela squeaked.
"You really want to?" Mack asked, rather shocked that Lela wanted to be dragged along to something so hopelessly boring.
"Sure!"
"Lela, it's really not that exciting. You'd have a much better time just staying here actually," Brady said, trying his best to persuade her.
"Well it'd still be nice to get out of the house for a while, we've been stuck here since yesterday afternoon," Lela said with a small smile. "Let us know if we're going with you when you leave," she finished before heading off through the door again.
Mack and Brady watched Lela go before turning to each other. "She's right. We can't just keep them shut away until we find a way to get them home."
"So we're all going to this elementary school thing then?" Mack asked.
"Apparently, yes."
"Ugh, when did they start actually using their brains?" Mack huffed, not too pleased that she was being dragged along to hear a bunch of children stumble through pre-written speeches about homemade posters covered in stickers.
"Don't ask me," Brady chuckled, slipping his hand into Mack's before leading her towards the living room. "Come on, we'd better keep them occupied before we go. We don't want them getting grouchy."
"You're acting like they're three year olds."
"I think some of them are mentally."
After almost falling asleep stood up multiple times, Mack had moved onto wishing her life away whilst a group of eight year olds tried to explain multiplication for fifteen minutes. Not only was she getting bored but she was pretty sure that most of the Wet Side Story characters were feeling the same way that she was. Their endless fidgeting and heavy sighs were tell-tale signs that their attention spans were wearing very thin. It was probably mere minutes before one of them started up some sort of stupid game that would make Mack want to punch someone even more than she already did. When the parents that surrounded them started to clap she was ripped back to reality, letting out a grateful sigh as the cluster of people began to walk over to the next exhibition.
"You look like you're having fun," Brady teased.
"I'm losing the will to live," Mack sighed.
"Hey, we've only got to watch one more and then we can go."
"I thought that there were like three more classes."
"Well Zack's in the next one so we can leave after that if you want."
"Great," Mack sighed, relieved but still fed up from her afternoon so far.
But when the crowd of people made their way over to Class 4B's presentation area, the mood of the crowd seemed to change quite significantly. The class of ten year olds was all huddled in a circle in the centre of a makeshift stage, but they looked far from the smart respectable school children that their parents had been expecting to see them as. With ties loosely hung around their necks, their hair spiked up in crazy styles and 'felt tip pen graffiti' all over their white shirts, these children looked like they'd just been dragged through an art supplies store with a punk rocker manager. And amidst the rabble of elementary school kids stood, well crouched, Coral and Lugnut. And they looked just as ridiculous as the rest of the children did.
"What on earth have they done to them?" Mack hissed to Brady as soon as her gaze fell on the pair of 1960s teens.
"I have no idea. But I've got a feeling that this isn't going to be another presentation about the alphabet."
"Ok, guys, you've all worked super hard on this for the past three days and we're really proud of you. So just go out there and have fun!" Coral whispered to the kids she'd been looking after for the past week.
"Yous'll all do awesome, let everyone enjoy themselves as much as you've enjoyed puttin' it together," Lugnut followed up.
"What if we haven't enjoyed it?" Noah piped up, the little boy's cheeky smile giving away that he was joking.
"Then I'll just have to go out there and drum instead," Lugnut teased, ruffling the boy's already intentionally messy hair and trying to swipe the drumsticks out of his hand.
"Hey! No way!" the boy retaliated with a laugh, prompting the rest of the children to let out little giggles.
"Ok, settle down," Coral began, playfully rolling her eyes at the two boys. "Everyone's coming to us now so are we ready?" The children all nodded, their excited grins confirming her hopes. "Ok, hands in." Everyone obeyed; each member of the class (including Lugnut and Coral) placed their right hands into the centre of the circle they'd created. Each hand was home to a different piece of felt tip pen artwork courtesy of Hannah, the resident costume designer. "On three…one, two, three."
"CLASS 4B ROCKS!"
Coral and Lugnut were just about deafened by the children's shouts, but the huge grins that had pretty much taken over their faces were more than enough to take their minds off it. The pair shuffled to the side of the presentation area and watched as each member of the class got themselves ready. This is what they'd been helping them to work towards all week and Lugnut and Coral had grown so close to these kids that as they started to tell the audience about their workshop, they shared a quick glance, a nod of good luck and then clasped each other's hand. This was it.
"Hello and welcome to Class 4B's presentation on music," Sarah, a brown haired, green eyed, rather bossy little girl began.
"Oh boy," Mack muttered, her stomach instantly plummeting to her feet. Coral and Lugnut lived in a world where they practically breathed music…so what on earth had they done to these poor kids?
"At the start of the week we went back to our old routine of grabbing a textbook and copying the information from it onto a poster about anything we could find on the topic we were given," Sarah continued. If what she was saying wasn't enough to grab people's attention then her wild hair certainly was. "But when our substitute teachers Coral and Lugnut arrived-"
Mack gasped at the mention of the movie characters' names. There were definitely people here old enough to have heard about Wet Side Story…what if they were recognised? "Why didn't they use fake names?" Mack hissed.
"Because we forgot to tell them to," Brady replied with a sigh of defeat before turning his attention back to the girl on the stage.
"They taught us that there was a lot more to music than just a tambourine. And with their help we learned that music is about expression, it has no boundaries and is a way for you to let yourself go and have fun. So that's what we did. We came to them with the suggestion to put on a performance for you all. And after learning about all of the different components that have to go into putting on a show, they assigned jobs and we got to work. We had people working on the wardrobe, the sound quality, the lighting, the equipment, the security, the band's manager and of course the actual band, not to mention our very own song writer."
As each position that Coral and Lugnut had assigned was announced, the children part of that group stepped forwards. And as Mack saw how much effort the Wet Side Story characters had put into this, her jaw dropped open a little further.
But Brady's jaw dropped the furthest when his little brother shyly stepped forwards as the song writer. "Zack wrote a song?" he questioned aloud, his mind not fully processing the thought.
"And with a lot of hard work and dedication, Coral and Lugnut managed to keep us all under control and focused so that we could perform this for you today and show off our new skills. We've all really enjoyed working together this past week, it's been our best round of summer school yet thanks to those two, so we hope that you enjoy our show as much as we enjoyed putting it together."
The audience started to politely clap as Sarah finished speaking, all a little unsure of what they were going to witness next. But what they did see literally floored everyone.
The lights shut off and Zack stepped forwards as the rest of the band got into position behind them. Zack began to play the first notes of his song on his electric guitar before the other members joined in with their instruments too. Zoe, the little girl that Coral had helped with her confidence, was stood there playing the bass guitar; Nick, one of the kids that Coral had taught to sing, was also on electric guitar, Connor, the boy with ginger hair that Lugnut had defended from teasing on their second day, was playing the keyboard, Noah, the boy whose middle name was 'Mischief', was letting some of his energy out on the drums and Leslie, Leah and Lucy, all girls that Coral had also taught how to sing, were using their new talent by being the backing singers. And despite these all being ten year olds…the song wasn't actually that bad.
Finally the words kick in and Zack steps up to the microphone to sing the song he wrote…and surprisingly, the words weren't that bad either. Brady was just in utter shock as he watched his brother sing a rock song about school, but after the first chorus, when his little brother's guitar solo kicked in, was when he actually almost collapsed on the floor.
"Damn, that kid's awesome," Butchy commented.
"He doesn't know how to play the guitar," Brady stuttered, completely awestruck as he watched his little brother literally shred his guitar solo.
"Uh…are you sure about that?" Mack asked him, raising one of her eyebrows.
"Well he didn't at the start of this week," Brady said.
But upon hearing one of the background singers step up to the front to solo, they were blown away again. Leslie, the rather outspoken girl who was often pushed to the back of the group of teens, strutted up to the microphone that Zack had now abandoned and absolutely killed it with her vocals. Apparently Coral had taught her well. But soon enough Zack was back to singing with her, as well as Zoe (the bass player) and Nick (the other electric guitarist), who stepped over the microphone specifically to shout, "Kick some ass!"
Mack's mouth dropped all the way to the floor because she was pretty certain that Lugnut and Coral were the ones to approve (or maybe even add) that line since they high-fived directly after it was shouted...before going back to dancing with the kids at the side of the stage. Mack completely expected the parents around her to gasp at the children speaking in such a way, but most of them seemed unfazed (probably too shocked by the whole thing to even notice) and a few even laughed. Everyone appeared to be taking this extremely well considering that it looked like something from another planet compared to the other presentations.
And after some more singing, a guitar solo from Nick and a final chorus, the lights finally came down and the children erupted into fits of pure joy. All fifteen of them rushed to Coral and Lugnut, practically bowling them over as they all started to excitedly chatter to each other. Once they'd managed to calm the kids down a little bit and had pried them away from them, Coral and Lugnut just stood looking at each other in complete shock.
"Did they just pull that off?" Coral asked in disbelief.
"Did we just pull that off?" Lugnut shot back with a chuckle.
And because they had no idea what else to do, both so happy and proud of the kids that they just grabbed each other into a hug. They actually hugged each other.
"Are they actually hugging?!" CheeChee squeaked, her eyes almost popping out of her head when she saw the pair.
"Geez, those kids are miracle workers," Struts commented, following her comment up by blowing, and popping, a bubble with her gum.
As soon as the Wet Side Story teens spotted that Coral and Lugnut were free they made their way over to them, instantly bombarding them with questions. But Brady was much more interested in talking to the star of the show.
"Zack!"
"Oh, hey, Brady," Zack said as he inched away from his group of friends, knowing it would save him from future embarrassment.
"That was incredible," Brady breathed, his smile radiating pride as he bent down to his brother's level.
"Thanks," Zack mumbled shyly.
"Why did you tell me you could play guitar like that?"
"Because when Coral and Lugnut was teaching everyone they told us not to say anything so that they didn't get busted for letting us goof around," Zack replied simply.
Brady had to laugh at that. Yep, he didn't doubt that for a second. But when he was done the smile remained on his face. "You learnt how to play that well in a few days?"
Zack nodded.
"And you wrote that song by yourself?"
He nodded again.
"And how did I manage not to realise?" Brady asked, his face crinkling into an affectionate smile as he watched his brother stifle a grin and shrug. Brady paused to think for a second after that and took a sigh before continuing. "I haven't spent enough time with you recently, have I?"
"Well…I guess Saffie and Garrett need a lot of attention so…"
"That doesn't mean that you need to be ignored though," Brady said, laying a hand on Zack's shoulder. "Hey, how about when Mom and Dad get back, I take you out for ice cream sometime?"
"Or what about that bowling place with the awesome nachos?"
"Sure, anything you want," Brady chuckled. "Bring some of your friends along too if you want."
"No, I'd rather it be just us," Zack bashfully admitted.
"Just us? I haven't heard you say that in about three years," Brady teased as Zack playfully punched him on the arm.
"Hey Zack!"
"Ok, you can go back to your friends now," Brady sighed.
"Thanks, Brady," Zack said, fist-bumping his older brother before running over to the two kids from his class that had called for him.
Meanwhile, Mack was having a tough time interrogating Coral and Lugnut, who seemed to be smashing every curve ball she shot at them out of the park. She didn't know whether to be happy about this or worried.
"Ok, ok, start from the beginning again," Mack instructed, trying to wrap her mind around everything that the two movie teens were telling her. Everyone else, including Coral and Lugnut looked beyond bored at this point, but Mack was adamant to know what had happened. She couldn't risk them revealing themselves after all.
"Listen carefully this time, I's not sayin' this again," Lugnut sighed. "On the first day we found out that their class project was about music, at recess Coral taught some of 'em to sing 'cause she thought that makin' posters about clarinets was boring. Then, when Brady brought over your old violin, she went to the music shop down the road to get it tuned properly."
"How did you know about the music shop?" Mack asked.
"'Cause we saw it on the drive up here," Lugnut shot back.
"Ok, so what happened at the music shop?" Mack continued.
Coral took the lead in the conversation this time. "I was looking around the store over the lunch break when a guy came in wanting to buy a guitar. I think he thought that I worked there because he started asking me about stuff and which guitar he should buy. I said that this blue one in a glass case looked pretty cool so by the time that the old man who owned it came out to the front I'd practically already sold it to him."
"How modest of you to say," Butchy quipped, but Coral just ignored him.
"Anyway, apparently it was super expensive and he'd been trying to sell it for years. So whilst he was tuning your violin for me he said that if I ever needed a favour, he'd be happy to help me out since I helped him so much."
"And that's who supplied the instruments for the kids. He said that we could borrow 'em for the rest of the week as long as we kept 'em in good condition," Lugnut said.
This was the part of the story that Mack struggled to wrap her head around. How could the guy at the music shop be so prepared to buy a super expensive guitar? The only explanation that Mack could think of that was in some way logical was for it to have something to do with the magic of movies following the 1960s teens around like a shadow. Everything had to work out perfectly for them, right? Wasn't that the whole point of their existence?
"So on the second day we moved all the instruments we needed to the classroom, explained what music was really about and started to teach the kids to play them after they suggested it. Coral taught Zack and Nick to play the guitar and Zoe to play the bass. And I taught Connor to play piano and Noah to play the drums."
"We had an argument about who was teaching drums…" Coral said.
"I won," Lugnut said with a cocky smile.
"And they learnt everything that quickly? It's been like three days!" Mack cried.
"Well no, we didn't teach them that much, only enough to play the song," Lugnut replied. "So really, just the basics, if that."
"How did you teach Zack to play the song if he wrote it?" Mack challenged.
"We didn't start teaching them that until Wednesday. Originally we were teachin' 'em Cruisin' For A Bruisin'," Lugnut explained.
"It was gonna be so cute," Coral said with a grin.
"But by on Tuesday night Zack was so eager that he borrowed Brady's guitar and wrote a song," Lugnut said. "Which surprised all of us."
"He wrote it all by himself?" Mack asked.
"Well he wrote the tune by himself, all we had to do was refine it and create the music to fit with it for the other instruments to play," Coral explained. "The kids did the rest. They planned out the lighting, the staging, the outfits (which they made us get involved with as well)…"
"I can see that," Mack cut in, casting her eyes over Coral's messy, high pigtails and Lugnut's white t-shirt that had a drawing of a guitar pinned over the pocket.
"And for the rest of the week we practised and practised and then here we are…end of story," Lugnut finished ever so slightly sarcastically, before adding. "And end of questions, I ain't answerin' any more now."
"Ugh, fine."
"Look, I know we ain't normally the ones yous would expect to do somethin' well, but we're not complete idiots. We can pull somethin' off if wes try," Lugnut said to Mack once the others had started to break off into their own conversations.
All Mack could do was stare at Lugnut for a few seconds; she was stunned into silence. But her statue-like manner was soon broken when Lugnut pulled a chunky white envelope out of his back pocket and gently tossed it into her lap with a smug smile. "A present," he said.
As soon as he'd turned away from Mack to join a conversation between Lela and Struts, Mack tore through the paper, revealing a bundle of cash which, according to the sticky note stuck to the top bill, amounted to $500. Mack's jaw dropped to the floor.
"Are we all set then?" Brady asked, walking up behind her with Zack in tow, obviously referring to her being ready to leave.
"We're set for months," Mack replied, marvelling at the amount of money that the two 60s teens had somehow earned. At least she wouldn't have to be feeding the Wet Side Story teens toast all the time now. Thank god at least some of the movie teens pulled through. Maybe they weren't as hopeless as she thought they were.
I hope you enjoyed it!
If you couldn't tell, the whole premise of Lugnut and Coral teaching the school kids to play a rock song came from the film: School Of Rock, which you should definitely watch if you haven't. It's just an all around great movie. And the song that the kids sung is from that movie too, in case you were wondering.
I'm sorry again that this chapter took me so long to post, but I had a break from revision so I thought I'd check through the chapter and get it posted for you. I know you probably hate me for being so infrequent with my updates but hopefully I'll have more time to write once my exams are over.
Like I said at the start of the chapter, my birthday's coming up in just over a week and since I know for a fact that no one is going to really bother about it, I thought that I might as well give you something. So I've got something planned to post but I need advice. Should I include Coral or not? I know most people really don't like her so I don't want to ruin it by putting her in. My only reason for including her would be so that Rascal would have someone to hang out with since I'll be pairing everyone else off in my usual couples. Let me know if it would be alright for me to put Coral in for a little part of it! Thanks!
And also, I just want to say thank you to everyone that's stuck with this story so far. I know the plot's been crappy so far and I take ages to post chapters, but I promise that after this chapter, things start to get a lot more interesting. I could do a short summary but I don't know if that would spoil it for you. I just want you to know though that these chapters that are coming up are a lot better plot wise than the ones that have already gone, at least I think that they are. I just really don't want you to lose faith in this story, I'm trying my best to make it good for you!
Anyway, thank you so much for your lovely reviews and reads, especially Kellyh, who left a lovely review with lots for me to read. Thank you, girl! I promise I'll include some more drama, I've got a ton of it coming up for you! And also Silent Echo, I don't know if I've got room for any Grease songs in this story (because I've already planned out the chapters) but I'll be sure to include more of them in future stories. I think I used one of them back in Paper Flowers if you're that interested. XD
Once again, thank you for your amazing support! I love you so much, you mean the world to me!
-cherrygorilla