Hello!
I'm actually quite pleased with how I managed to get this chapter finished reasonably quickly. Especially considering that I only really started writing it properly on Saturday and I get around half an hour on a night (if I'm lucky) to work on it.
Anyway, something new that's happened in my life: I went to a party last weekend. But I don't think that it's really my type of scene (*sarcastically* what a shocker, I know). I much prefer just curling up in a blanket at home. XD
Boring, pointless story aside, I should probably just get straight into the chapter.
Mack would have to thank Struts and CheeChee for starting the war that had broken out in her living room another time because right now she had much bigger things to worry about, like their cover being blown.
"You know we haven't sung anything in a while."
This was not the sentence that Mack thought wanted to be hearing coming from Lela's mouth that evening. And it definitely wasn't relevant because Mack was pretty sure that she heard her singing something earlier that morning. But then again, these characters came from a world where they participated in high energy dance numbers all day every day…so a rock concert performed by small children last night and a morning radio sing-a-long obviously wasn't enough to satisfy them.
"You're right," Tanner agreed. "Why don't you sing something, Sweetie?" he said, grinning lovingly at his girlfriend.
"Ooh, great idea, Tanner!" Lela squealed, already hopping out of her chair and scurrying over to the space in front of the TV.
"What do yous think yous is doin'?" Butchy asked, not too impressed that his sister was interrupting the cooking show that the Wet Side Story teens had somehow become completely enthralled by.
"Yeah, we were watching that," Seacat said.
"I'm going to sing something," Lela announced happily.
Mack inwardly groaned. Not again, please. It was bad enough the million other times they'd started singing out of nowhere during this trip, but the fact that Brady was looking after his younger siblings instead of being here with her made it even worse.
"Ugh," was Struts and CheeChee's shared response.
"What?" Lela asked, her face suddenly falling.
"Why do you gotta be the one to do it?" CheeChee asked.
"Yeah, you always sing, Lela," Struts agreed. "All wes ever do is sing in the back."
"Why don't you take the lead for a change then, Struts?" Giggles suggested.
Everyone looked at Giggles like she'd just announced the meaning of life.
"What a great idea!" Lela gushed, hurrying over to Struts, taking her by the hands and hauling her off the sofa into a standing position. "You always sing back up for me, so why don't you try taking the lead this time?"
"Ok, sure!" came a very overwhelmed Struts' reply. But as soon as a mop was thrown to her to act as the microphone stand a smug smile crept onto her face.
"Hey, what about me?!" CheeChee squeaked. "I ain't ever got the chance to-"
"Ssh, CheeChee. Struts is going to sing!" Lela whispered, taking Struts' place on the sofa and squashing up next to CheeChee.
'Please tell me it's not-' But Mack's thought couldn't even be finished before her nightmare became true. Oh yes, what else would a hopelessly romantic girl from Wet Side Story sing other than Fallin' For Ya?
Struts: "Fallin' for ya, fallin' for ya
Can't hold on any longer, and now I'm fallin' for you"
"Is this even slower than usual?" Seacat whispered to CheeChee, seemingly not impressed with performance so far.
"Yeah and I ain't listenin' to this same, borin' song no more," CheeChee hissed under her breath. "I never get the chance to sing with 'em."
"Well…no one's stopping you now," Seacat said slowly, cautiously watching CheeChee as she fidgeted beside him.
But instead of giving Seacat a reply, she let out one of her infamous giggles, jumped to her feet and shouted.
CheeChee: "Five, six, seven, eight!"
As if on cue, the music sped up quite significantly. And all Struts could do was stare in shock at CheeChee as she sauntered over to her.
"Uh, what do ya think you're doin'?" Struts asked CheeChee under her breath. But Struts got no reply, all she got was CheeChee yanking the mop out of her grasp and stealing her solo.
CheeChee: "The day started ordinary, boys walking by" (Giggles & Coral: "Walking by")
An amused Coral and Giggles decided to chime in as the (very giggly) backing singers now because apparently 'we never get the chance to sing this at all'. But it didn't seem like they minded too much because of the endless splutters of laughter that was drifting from the girls' mouths during the performance whilst they both tried to squash in one arm chair.
CheeChee: "It was the same old story, too fresh or too shy (Giggles & Coral: "Or too shy")
I'm not the kind to fall for a guy who flashes a smile (Giggles & Coral: "It goes on for miles")
Don't usually swoon, but I'm over the moon" (Giggles & Coral: "'Cause he was just too cool for school")
By this point Struts had eventually gotten over the shock of what had just happened and was just stood glaring at CheeChee…but she was still very much confused. So if CheeChee was going to play dirty to get the solo then so was she.
CheeChee: "And now I'm f-f-falling" (Giggles & Coral: "For ya")
Before CheeChee could even finish the line, Struts elbowed CheeChee's arm and grabbed the mop from her hands as she let out a little shriek of annoyance.
Struts: "F-f-falling (Giggles & Coral: "For ya")
I know I shouldn't but I, I just can't stop myself from
F-f-falling" (Giggles & Coral: "For ya")
CheeChee resorted to just shoving Struts this time in the hope that she'd lose her balance in those hot pink heels of hers. Luckily for CheeChee, she did. She didn't quite fall over but she tripped enough to let CheeChee grab the mop back.
CheeChee: "F-f-falling" (Giggles & Coral: "For ya")
But Struts wasn't going to let that deter her again, because obviously this solo was very important (or at least that's what almost everyone but Mack thought at this point). However, CheeChee wasn't handing over the mop-I mean microphone, so they ended up both singing the final line of the chorus.
Struts & CheeChee: "Can't hold on any longer, and now I'm falling for you"
"I can't believe you'd steal my spotlight like that, Chee!" Struts cried as soon as she'd finished singing.
"You get to sing it all the time," CheeChee said, brushing the comment off with ease.
"As backup!" Struts argued. "Why would you even think to do that?!"
"Hey, Seacat suggested it," CheeChee barked.
"Seriously Seacat?!" Struts shouted.
"Look, it's really not that big of a deal, is it?" Mack said, trying her best to prevent any conflict.
"Yes it is!" Struts and CheeChee yelled back.
"Your fighting's ruining it anyway," Seacat said, getting up from his space on the sofa.
"What are you talking about?" Struts snapped.
"Well if you can't decide which one of you is going to sing then why don't I take over?" Seacat asked with a smug smile before lightly shoving CheeChee to the side and grabbing the mop from her hands.
"WHAT?!" CheeChee and Struts practically screamed.
Seacat: "Now we're going steady, she's the cat's meow"
"What are you doing?!" CheeChee shouted at him, trying to grab the mop out of his hands. But he swung it out of her reach.
"Hey, I never get to sing anything. I've gotta get a solo somehow," Seacat said. Although before he could sing the next line, the mop was taken away from him. Despite it being highly likely that Struts was the one to have snatched the mop, it actually turned out to be her boyfriend.
Rascal: "She says, 'ready, Freddie?' and we paint the town" (Giggles & Coral: "Paint the town")
"Rascal? What are you-?" Seacat started, completely stunned.
"Like you said, we've got to solo somehow," Rascal interrupted, wearing the same smug smile as Seacat had been earlier.
"You're not soloin' at all!" CheeChee shouted, grabbing the mop from him so that she could continue.
CheeChee: "I'm not the kind to fall for a guy just 'cause he says hi" (Giggles & Coral: "When he's cruising by")
But once again, as soon as CheeChee tried to sing, Struts yanked the mop from her grip and took her place back in the spotlight.
Struts: "He's ready to race and I'm catching his gaze"
But CheeChee wasn't letting it go either.
Struts & CheeChee: "We'll go on like this for days"
Struts: "And now I'm f-f-falling" (Giggles & Coral: "For ya")
CheeChee: "F-f-falling" (Giggles & Coral: "For ya")
The two biker boys and two surfer girls were looking on at the group of bickering teens in amazement.
"Theys is really goin' through this much effort to sing a line of a song?" Lugnut thought aloud.
"Yeah, it's great," Coral chuckled as her and Giggles sang another line of laughter-filled backup vocals.
"It's ridiculous," Lugnut said, obviously disagreeing on the subject.
And when the four watched Struts sharply elbow Rascal in the ribs, Coral scrambled to her feet.
"Where are yous goin'?" Butchy asked in surprise.
"I'm getting in on this," Coral grinned.
"Coral, don't stir up more trouble," Tanner half-pleaded from his seat on the sofa. He looked practically horrified at the ordeal that was being carried out on front of the television.
"Why? That's what's fun about it," Coral said with a mischievous grin.
CheeChee: "I know I shouldn't but I-"
So whilst Seacat was messing around with the mop, trying to prise it away from CheeChee, Coral sauntered up and spun it out of his reach. The look that Struts and CheeChee gave Coral when she stepped up to interrupt their song further was murderous.
Coral: "I just can't stop myself from f-f-falling for ya"
Since Coral, Giggles' fellow backing singer for the night, had abandoned her to sing lead, Giggles saw no reason why she shouldn't either. So there was a sixth person trying to steal the performance. And because Coral had barely gotten to sing a line before Giggles cut in on the song, she didn't look too pleased with the blonde.
Giggles: "F-f-falling for ya
Can't hold on any longer and now I'm falling for ya"
"Ha, nice try Giggles," Seacat chuckled as he strolled over to her and pulled the mop out of her hands so hard that he almost pulled her arms out of their sockets with it.
Seacat: "It feels like I tumbled from another world, into your arms and it's so secure"
"Woah, I think yous has had your time, surfer boy," Butchy cut in, standing up and walking over to the group of six teens. And with one swift move, the group of six teens battling for a chance with the 'microphone' became seven.
Butchy: "Maybe I'll stumble but I know I can"
And then, to save himself the embarrassment of not taking a stand and singing himself, Lugnut made the number rise to eight.
Lugnut: "Head over heels I'm gonna be your man"
"Why are you tryin' to ruin this for me?!" Struts screamed at Butchy and Lugnut.
"Hey, it wasn't just us!" Butchy shouted back.
"Well you were part of it!" Struts screamed.
"Yeah, you tell 'em, Struts. I'll keep control of the mic 'til you're back," CheeChee giggled with a smirk.
CheeChee: "Yeah
F-f-falling, f-f-falling"
And because Seacat couldn't bear to keep himself away from the microphone, he was back again as soon as there was an opportunity.
Seacat: "I know I shouldn't but I, I just can't stop myself from"
"Why are you singing again?!" Struts yelled, grabbing the mop with both hands and wrestling it out of Seacat's grip. "You've had your turn!"
Struts: "F-f-falling for ya"
But at this point everyone wanted a turn to sing again. So they all pushed and shoved to try and get the chance to sing a mere three words.
Struts, CheeChee, Seacat, Rascal, Coral, Giggles, Butchy & Lugnut: "F-f-falling for ya"
But ultimately, after completely decking Struts, Butchy got control of the mop long enough to finish the song.
Butchy: "Can't hold on any longer, and now I'm falling for you"
Coral went to make a grab for the mop but completely lost her balance and ended up on the floor next to Struts. And Seacat made yet another attempt to take it from the biker boy, but tripped and collided with him instead. This then caused Butchy to stumble back and fall over Coral, landing completely on top of her. Then, whilst Giggles was trying to move out of the way so that Butchy didn't fall onto her, she bumped into Rascal, which send him stumbling back into the wall, where he hit his head pretty hard. And to top it all off, whilst Rascal was losing his balance, he'd grabbed onto CheeChee's arm to try to steady himself but had ended up dragging her onto the floor instead.
And through all of this hysteria, Lela, Tanner and Mack were completely and utterly baffled by it all.
As I'm sure you could imagine, the aftermath of 'The Great Fallin For Ya War' resulted in a lot of arguing and shouting and occasionally even screaming if Struts got worked up enough. Where was Mack even supposed to start in a situation like this?
After finally managing to calm the 60s teens down, she'd separated the girls from the guys by setting them up in different rooms, hoping that this would lead to as little conflict as possible. The girls were all squashed into their makeshift bedroom having a 'pampering session' as Lela had put it. And the boys had all crashed in the living room, flicking through the channels to find something to watch.
But just as Mack was trying to sort Rascal out with a bag of frozen peas for his head, Mack heard a knock at the door. Praying that Brady would be bringing some much needed backup support with him, Mack swung open the door with a sigh. But who she was faced with was definitely not Brady.
"Hey, Mack. You didn't miss me too much, did you?" her grandfather chuckled, outstretching his arms for a hug.
Mack completely froze.
Oh dear God.
This was not happening.
His week-long vacation was up and the Wet Side Story teens were still here.
She had the entire cast of his favourite movie in the house. How was she supposed to explain that? And how was she supposed to explain the fact that she had no idea how to get them home again?
Shi-
"Mack, is everything alright?" her grandfather continued, noticing his granddaughter's odd change of character.
"Yeah, everything's fine," Mack lied, slipping out of the front door and closing it behind her. "How was your trip?" she asked, trying to divert the conversation anywhere away from going inside.
"Good, good. It's always nice to catch up with Arthur. But it's even nicer to be back home. I've been looking forward to getting back in the workshop and-"
"Workshop?" Mack laughed awkwardly, stepping across the doorway as he grandfather made a move towards it. "You've been on vacation for a week. You don't want to get back to work that quickly, do you?"
"Speaking of work, your aunt just called," her grandfather said. "She's having trouble moving into her new place. She's so caught up in this new job of hers that she's barely gotten anything finished for it yet."
"She's got a new job?" Mack asked. "What happened to her car company?"
"Well she's still the owner, she's just 'taking a break to pursue other passions'," her grandfather explained, obviously not thrilled about his daughter's strange decisions.
"What does that mean?"
"I wish I knew myself, Mack," her grandfather sighed before trying again. "I'll try to ask her about it in the morning but for now I'll just-"
A thud echoed from inside the house, followed by a muffled cry of surprise. Mack's entire body froze. This was it. She'd been caught. All she had to think about now was how to explain it all without sounding like she was insane.
"Mackenzie," her grandfather said slowly. His expression was unreadable.
"Yeah?" Mack's hands slowly closed around the door handle.
"What's going on?" her grandfather asked.
"Uh…what-"
"Mackenzie, I trusted you with this."
"I know, it's just a few friends," Mack said, not technically lying yet.
"A few friends that are going to be leaving now?"
"Uh…you see…" Mack trailed off, racking her brain to come up with some sort of believable excuse.
"Mackenzie, what's going on?" her grandfather asked again.
Mack opened her mouth but said no words.
"Look," her grandfather started with a sigh. "I don't know what it is you're not telling me, Mack."
"Grandp-"
"But I'm trusting you to fix it."
"What?" Mack said, her voice barely above a whisper. She looked at her grandfather like he had gone insane. By the sounds of it he could have.
"You're a sensible girl, Mack. I know that you're not doing anything bad. And as much as I would like to know what's going on, I can tell that me trying to help would make things worse."
"How do you…?" Mack stuttered, completely gobsmacked.
"Mack, you've never been a girl who looks for trouble," her grandfather continued, his tone gentle and almost soothing in a way. "So I know that if I leave you to sort this out on your own, like you will have to do with all things someday, you're not going to end up getting arrested."
How was he so understanding about all of this?
"You're just trusting me to fix this?" Mack asked in disbelief.
"There's something you need to fix?" her grandfather asked, raising one of his eyebrows at her and letting out a small, triumphant. Although Mack had never actually said there was something wrong, he knew that if he assumed it long enough then she'd just blurt it out herself.
After a pause of Mack just staring in shock at her grandfather, she composed herself, took a shaky breath and spoke again. "What if I can't fix it?" she asked. Mack hated to admit it but these characters had been here for a week and she and Brady still had no idea how to get them back to where they belong. She hadn't dared even ponder the thought before but now she found herself wondering: what would happen if she couldn't get Lela, Tanner and the rest of them back to their movie?
"Every problem has a solution, Mack. And I know that you'll find it," her grandfather said. "If it's anything like the messes I got myself into in my day then I have no doubt that you'll be fine, you have a lot more common sense than I did."
"What did you do?" Mack asked, almost chuckling now.
"That's for another time," her grandfather replied with a fond smile. "Now, I'd better go and see how your aunt's settling in. I'll give you a week, Mackenzie. If it takes any longer than that then I may have to get involved."
"You can put up with Antoinette for a week?" Mack asked, raising one of her eyebrows.
"I can try."
"Thanks, Grandpa," Mack said softly, leaning in to give him a hug.
"If things get out of control, you know where I am," was all her grandfather replied with a reassuring smile. "But I know in my heart that you'll be fine." And just like that, he picked his suitcase back up, loaded it into his car and was on his way. But Mack was left speechless on the porch.
How had that happened?
What just happened?
How did she get out of that so easily?
What on earth was going on?
Even though Mack had somehow managed to get off the hook, she still couldn't breathe again until the sound of her grandfather's car chugging down the path back to the road was long gone. She let out a heavy sigh and leaned against the front door, sliding her back down it until her knees came up to her chest as she tried to wrap her head around the conversation that had just happened and how she'd managed to actually pull that off with no preparation. It was pretty much a miracle.
"Mack, was that your grandpa's car I just saw?" Brady asked, propping his biker up against the side of the railing outside Mack's house mid-run. He raced around to greet her with a look of confused horror on his face, which went completely blank as soon as he saw his girlfriend sat by the door. "Mack?"
"Yeah, it was," Mack said half-heartedly.
"Oh my god, what did he say? Did you tell him? Where is he-?"
Brady's stream of questions was broken off by a crash from inside. Suddenly Mack remembered the Wet Side Story teens inside. Her energy seemed to return rather abruptly because she scrambled to her feet and was through the front door within seconds.
"What's going on?" she asked as she raced into the living room. But the living room no longer looked like a living room. It looked like a popcorn stand had exploded. It looked like Lugnut had fought a losing battle with the now upturned arm chair. It looked like they'd ripped through every bag of crisps in the building. But it certainly didn't look like a single one of the Wet Side Story boys knew the meaning of 'please do not touch anything until I get back'.
All Mack had told them to do was find something they wanted to watch on TV. Yet somehow, she'd ended up with her living room being completely trashed in the five minutes she'd been out of the house.
"What happened here? What do you think you're doing?" Mack cried.
"Trying to work the TV," Butchy replied bluntly.
"Do you really think that's what I'm talking about?" Mack snapped, glaring at the biker boy for being so dismissive. She was stressed out enough as it was, she really didn't need anything else being added to the list of things she had to handle.
But apparently the Wet Side Story girls thought otherwise.
"Mack," Brady started quietly, sensing that Mack was getting close to her breaking point. "Don't worry; I'll help them clean it up. You just-"
Brady was interrupted by a collective scream spilling out of the girls' bedroom doorway.
"Oh my god," Mack mumbled, marching down the hallway to see what was going on.
"Lela!" she heard Coral shout.
"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!" Lela gushed, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
"Sorry?!" Giggles chimed in.
"The boxes all looked the same! I thought that the colour of the hair on the front was what colour it would turn out to be. I didn't realise that you had to read the stuff on the back!"
"Struts, you were the one reading the instructions! Why didn't you realise?!" Giggles cried.
"I just skipped to the instructions. Lela said she was sure that these would be the right colours!"
"Well this is far from a 'warm blonde', Lela!" Coral shouted at the biker girl.
This conversation definitely wasn't putting Mack at ease as she made her way towards the bedroom that the 60s girls were squashed into. Lela's idea of having a 'pamper session' began earlier that day when Mack took a few of the teens, that were interested in going, to the mall, whilst Brady stayed back at the beach with the others. Apparently earlier that morning she'd managed to persuade Giggles and Coral to ever so slightly change their hair colours, even if it was just for a day, to switch up their looks. So she bought two temporary hair colouring kits with the $15 budget that Mack had given her to spend, along with buying her, Struts and CheeChee facial kits and a pink nail polish that was 'the perfect shade of rose'. But Lela had apparently grabbed the hair dye kits in a hurry because they were definitely not what she thought that the box said that they were. And then actually reading the box had never crossed her mind.
The second Mack pushed the door to the girls' room wider open though, her jaw dropped to the floor.
Giggles was stood frantically running her fingers through her hair whilst Coral was just staring at her reflection in horror, meanwhile CheeChee and Struts looked completely shell-shocked but Lela looked like she was actually scared for her life. After all, she was the one responsible for this disaster. Yet another to add to tonight's total. But this one took the craziness of coping with the 1960s teens to a whole new level.
Giggles' hair was candyfloss pink. And Coral's hair was cherry red.
Well, I hope you enjoyed it!
A lot happened in this chapter but I managed to condense it a lot more than I normally do. So I'm quite pleased with myself actually!
The song I used is the Fallin' For Ya version from Teen Beach 2 (duh) in case you were wondering. I just thought that it would be something fun to add into the chapter to liven it up a bit!
Also, I just wanted to let you know that a good friend of mine, DianaDirectioner, has restarted the sequel to her Teen Beach fanfic and I absolutely love it! You should definitely go and give it a read if you haven't already because it's such a great story and it really inspires me to write. Go and give the story some love!
Anyway, I don't think I really have anything else to say (for once). I'll try and get the next chapter up as soon as possible but until I do, leave me some feedback on this one! What did you think of it? Quite a bit of drama went down so I'd love to hear what you thought of it!
Thank you for reading! See you soon!
-cherrygorilla