Hello!
I'm so sorry that it's literally taken an eternity for me to finish this chapter. Back after my last chapter I did a week of work experience in a dental practice (since I want to be a dentist when I'm older in case you were interested, even though you probably aren't), which meant that I had no time at all to write anything that week. And then I focused on writing my last one-shot for Tumblr, which took me way longer than I wanted because I just didn't know what to write for it. And then I went back to school, so I had to try to fit my writing around my school work. But I think I've got it sorted now, hence why I'm finally here again with a chapter.
I know I always take forever to post a new chapter but I'm just super busy with school work and don't often get the chance to write. These chapters are usually around 4,000 - 5,000 words too, so they're not quick to write. And I put a lot of effort into them as well, I really am trying my best to make them as good as possible for you. I know I make excuses all the time but I just want you to understand how hard it is for me to balance everything. I just really hate disappointing you.
I hope you understand. And I'm sorry about that little rant, here's the chapter you came to read.
If Mack heard Lela say that she loved calculus one more time she thought that her head would explode. Even Mack, who had been taking this class for years, had been struggling to keep up with the teacher. But then there was Lela, who was writing down the answers more easily than if she was asked to write her own name.
As awful as it sounded, Mack had much preferred watching CheeChee and Struts decide that it was too much 'smart stuff' for them to cope with five words into the lesson. But then again glancing across and seeing Tanner almost drop his pen in shock when the teacher started writing notes on the board and then sit there with his mouth hanging open for the first ten minutes was quite amusing. Eventually CheeChee and Struts had just struck up a conversation between themselves to get through the lesson and Tanner had given up all hope in actually understanding a word that the teacher was saying, so he just spent his time gazing at Lela in admiration as she sped through the questions that been set.
Mack felt like it was a godsend when the bell that signalled the end of class echoed through the halls, that is until she met up with Brady in the cafeteria and saw the scene he (well, his group of movie characters) was creating. As soon as Mack led Lela, Tanner, CheeChee and Struts into the cafeteria to reunite with the others, to her horror, she found literally half of the student body crowded around the table where the remaining six Wet Side Story character members were perched.
"What's going on?" Mack asked Brady as he rushed over to her with a guilty expression spread across his face.
"Coral and Butchy broke the bleep test school record and now everyone wants them to join their sports teams," Brady hissed.
Mack's eyes flitted over to the huge huddle of teens in sports uniforms babbling away enthusiastically around the table before she dragged them back to meet with Brady's. "What? How did they-?"
"I don't know. One second I'm trying to calm down Giggles and Seacat, who are dripping in sweat and almost passing out on the bleachers, Chad is freaking out because he thinks that he's broken the record and then I look across and see Coral and Butchy still running and chatting away to each other like they're on a jog."
"But how-?"
"I have no idea; I don't know how they did it other than by saying that it's something to do with the movie. But it's still crazy. And then when Chad saw them he started flipping his-"
"Uh, run along, I saw her first," a girl with sandy blonde hair spat, waving away a short girl with a brown ponytail whilst shooting her a look of disgust. This girl just so happened to be Taylor Maxwell: the head of the school's cheerleading squad, the most popular girl in school and the girl with the ability to ruin your life with one look. Taylor had dismissed the petite girl, the captain of the school's track team, so forcefully that it had even managed to drag Mack and Brady's attention away from their own conversation to see what was going on. "Hi," Taylor said, plastering a bright smile across her face as she grabbed Coral's shoulder and spun her to face her. "I love your hair," she continued, lifting a perfectly manicured hand up to gently scrunch the cherry red (slightly sweaty now) curls that framed Coral's face. "It makes you look really…feisty."
"Uh, thanks, but-" Coral began, her initial confusion already turning to an eager smile.
"Well you certainly proved back there in class that you've got a lot of energy," Taylor continued, completely ignoring Coral's attempt to speak. "Why not put it to good use? We could really use a girl like you in the cheer squad," Taylor simpered, smiling so sweetly at Coral that she feared she would get a headache just by looking at her.
"Really?"
"Sure! You're like the perfect cheerleader, you've got all it takes," Taylor exclaimed, laying a hand on Coral's shoulder in an almost protective way. "I can totally change your life if you join." And after a quick pause for Taylor to toss her hair over her shoulder, the cheer captain caught sight of a certain girl with candyfloss hair sat on the next table. "And you can bring your friend along too, I'm sure she'll be just as great!"
Taylor had persuaded Coral with this new addition to the offer and she knew it. She stood there with a smirk curling across her face as Coral called Giggles over to talk to her about what she'd had just said.
"So are you two girls interested then?" she asked, plastering her incredibly fake smile onto her face again the second that the girls looked at her.
"Yeah," Coral started. But that was all Taylor needed, so before the surfer girl could continue, she cut in again.
"Great, try-outs are at first lunch in the gym. If you need anything before that though, I'm Taylor," she grinned.
"I'm Coral."
"And I'm Giggles," the two girls said, introducing themselves whilst beaming at Taylor like little girls looking upon a princess.
"Oh…cute nicknames!" Taylor exclaimed, piling on more fake happiness hide her true colours. "See you at try-outs!" she finished with a final flounce before whipping her head and strutting away in the opposite direction.
"She seemed nice," Giggles smiled, although something at the back of her mind told her otherwise. But he tried to ignore it since it didn't seem like Coral saw anything bad in her judging by the way that she was grinning like an idiot.
"And look at us! We're going to be cheerleaders!" Coral exclaimed as both girls hopped around like giddy children in a sweet shop. "This is so perfect for us!"
"I know!" Giggles squealed. But she still couldn't shake the thought that something wasn't right about Taylor…Maybe it was just Giggles being paranoid, but maybe it was her being a better judge of character than anyone ever gave her credit for.
"So what do you say?" the captain of the school's baseball team asked.
But before Butchy could even think about replying, the boy he was speaking to was shoved to the side by none other than Chad: the football captain, the typical douchebag jock and the guy that had his thunder stolen by two nobodies, one of whom was stood directly in front of him. "So you're the one that took away my title," he barked at Butchy, quite clearly very annoyed. But with Butchy being Butchy, he seemed completely unfazed and he wasn't going to just pass up the opportunity to take this guy on.
He didn't quite get the chance to though.
"It wasn't your title though, was it?" another boy smirked, walking up behind Chad and slapping him on the back. "You've actually got to win it for it to be yours."
"Shut up, Carter, I did win it," Chad snapped, refusing to view himself as a failure.
"You may not have won the title, but you did win a new team member," Carter said, still smirking at the blonde beside him.
"I am not letting him on the team," Chad hissed, appalled at the thought of letting the guy he already despised anywhere near his precious football team.
"Well if you do actually want to win something this year then I suggest that you let the fastest guy in school try-out for our new running back," Carter challenged, shooting his teammate one more prompting look before turning to walk away.
Chad stood there seething for a few seconds, trying to decide whether or not he should sacrifice some of his pride to benefit his team. And although it was a painful decision to make, he eventually forced himself to face Butchy again. "Look, I don't like you, but you could be good for the team. Do you want to come and try-out at first lunch?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"Is that what yous calls a temptin' invitation?" Butchy scoffed, knowing perfectly well that he was winding the jerky blonde up.
"Look, are you interested or not?" Chad barked.
"Sure, if I can show yous up again then I'd love to go along," Butchy smirked.
"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Chad asked, his anger getting the better of him. "You think you're tough, newbie?"
"I could knock yous to the floor with my little finger," Butchy scoffed, squaring up to the boy and shooting him a confident grin.
But just as Chad was starting to raise his hand, Carter strolled back up behind him, grabbed his arm and led him away without cracking his face. "See you at try-outs," Carter said to Butchy, giving him one last smile before dropping Chad's arm and giving him a shove.
Butchy couldn't help but let a smirk crawl across his lips again as he watched the two boys in football jerseys leave, but he couldn't relish in the moment too much because before long, Lugnut walked up behind him.
"Come on, we's is all goin' to marine biology," he said.
"What biology?" Butchy asked, clearly having never heard of such a thing.
"I don't know, I think it's about water 'n stuff," Lugnut said, sounding just about as interested in the subject as Butchy looked.
So with a heavy sigh, Butchy trudged over to the others with Lugnut tagging behind.
Since Mack and Brady both had marine biology next period, there was really no escape for the 60s teens, which meant that all ten of them were going to be stuffed into a classroom together. And with the way that they had been acting lately (i.e. like children) Mack didn't really have a lot of faith in them just keeping their heads down and making minimal noise.
And as Mack was parading the ten teens down the school halls, her chest tight from the lingering panic of having to handle ten rowdy teens from another dimension in one classroom, Brady seemed to be able to read her mind.
"You need to stop stressing about this," he said quietly, snaking his arm around her waist and gently pulling her into a hug. "They're not going to be here forever, you know. You should try to make the most of it."
"Well in case you hadn't realised, I'm kind of good at stressing about them," Mack said sarcastically.
"Mack, I know there's nothing we can do about them yet," Brady said, emphasising the 'yet' so that she didn't start freaking out about getting them home again. He'd had enough of that already. "But I'm pretty sure we'll figure something out soon enough."
"You seem so sure when you say that," Mack said.
"Maybe because I am, you goof," Brady chuckled. "Look, Mack, everything happens for a reason."
"Yeah, I just wish this didn't have to happen to us," Mack sighed, leaning into Brady's hug. "We're making a pretty big mess of it, aren't we?"
"First of all, 'we'? You're the one taking charge here, I literally just round everyone up," Brady chuckled. "And second of all, you're definitely not messing this up, Mack. If anything, you're holding it all together. You know for a fact that if I'd been left to control them there would have been ten times as many disasters. And they would have come from Lela alone." Brady glanced across at his girlfriend and saw that she'd cracked a tiny smile, which was enough for him. "Do you get it now?" he asked with a smile.
"Yeah, a bit," Mack admitted, that same small smile desperately pulling up the corners of her lips.
"Good, now stop being so miserable, enjoy it while it lasts," Brady chuckled, earning a look of mock horror from his girlfriend as well as a sharp thump on the arm.
"I am not miserable!" Mack cried as her mouth dropped open in shock, even though she was still fighting not to smile back.
"I think I need you to prove that," Brady laughed as he grabbed Mack's hand before she could whack him on the arm.
"Fine, as long as they don't mess anything else up," Mack said, motioning to the gaggle of movie characters behind her. "I'm going to try my best to have more of this 'fun' you keep talking about," she continued in a sarcastic tone.
"Well sarcasm's one way to start," Brady said with the same tone as Mack. He moved his arm up so that it was now holding onto her upper arm furthest away from him. But a few seconds after he did so he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. It wasn't much but it was enough to get that shy smile of Mack's to finally show itself.
As Brady was getting the 60s teens seated and Mack was just finishing explaining the situation with the 10 'new students' to the teacher, who else would come bustling into the classroom with a big grin on her face than Mack's best friend at school: Alyssa.
"Mack!" she squealed upon laying eyes on the girl.
"Alyssa!" Mack greeted, a little more than startled at the girl's outburst.
"It's so good to see you!" Alyssa exclaimed, wrapping Mack into a hug despite having a notebook in one hand and a clipboard in the other. "How was your summer?"
"Good," Mack said. "A little crazy, but good. How was yours?"
"Oh, the science camp was amazing and that student government thing was super interesting and you'll never believe who I saw there-"
"Mack, is it alright if Tanner and I sit on the bench next to yours?" Lela asked, walking up to the pair and accidentally cutting Alyssa off.
"Uh, yeah, sure," Mack said, trying not to show how flustered she now was.
"Thanks," Lela grinned before skipping back over to the other Wet Side Story characters.
"So…who's she? You made a new friend over the summer?" Alyssa asked, trying to make light of the situation no matter how uncomfortable she felt about it.
"Sort of, it's a really long story," Mack sighed. "A really long, crazy story."
"What do you mean?" Alyssa asked. But her eyes widened when she tried to look for the raven haired girl again and found the ten other teens as well. "Hang on, how many of them are there?"
"Ladies, could you please take your seats?" their teacher asked as he breezed across the room to grab some papers.
As Alyssa and Mack both took their places in silence, Mack couldn't help but feel guilty about how much she wasn't telling her. The mix of confusion and almost jealous hurt that was painted across Alyssa's face spurred Mack on to do something she definitely did not think that she would be doing that day.
"Alyssa, listen," Mack started, trying to keep her voice down since the rest of the class was already settling into the lesson.
"What?" Alyssa asked, still a little hurt but the intrigue in her voice was clear.
"This is going to make me sound insane but I hope that you know me well enough to know that I wouldn't – couldn't - make something like this up," Mack continued.
"Ok…" Alyssa trailed off, now almost worried to hear what Mack was going to say.
"This summer, Brady, the guy I've been texting you about, and I were transported into a movie."
Alyssa just stared at Mack for quite a few seconds as she tried to wrap her head around what had just been said. If Mack had made such a big deal about her not making stuff up beforehand then she knew that she should trust that she was telling the truth but this was just ridiculous. It was impossible, at least to Alyssa. "Right…" she eventually said, but Mack could tell that she didn't believe her. If anything, she thought she was a lunatic from the way that she was looking at her.
"Don't ask me how it happened but we did, it's how I managed to persuade my aunt to let me stay here this year," Mack carried on, hoping that if she just kept talking then Alyssa would start to understand.
"Oh I don't know what I would have done without you here," Alyssa gushed, suddenly remembering the state she had been in when Mack had called her to tell her the bad news. What she hadn't been expecting though was the phone call the next day to say that everything had been cancelled. "But how does that link in with this…other thing?"
"Well being there helped me realise that I've got to do the things that makes me happy, and being here is what makes me happy."
"I could have told you that, Mack," Alyssa huffed. "So what's all this about? Why are you making up this ridiculous story? What are you trying to tell me?"
"I'm not making any of it up. Who do you think all of these guys are?" Mack asked, jerking her hand in the direction of the surfers and bikers all squashed up behind a bench. "Brady and I washed up in their world and now they've been transported to ours."
"Mack, I swear if this is a joke-"
"I'm not joking! We don't know how to get them back home."
"Well they don't look like any characters from a movie I've seen. I might believe you if Darth Vader was sat there wielding a lightsaber but they just look like normal kids," Alyssa said, her eyes continuously flitting between the group of teens and Mack.
"That's just because we had to disguise them."
"What?"
"Well they couldn't just walk around looking and acting like they normally do, they'd look insane."
"Why?"
"Because they're from a 1960s beach musical," Mack admitted.
"What?!" Alyssa squeaked, looking at Mack like she'd actually lost her mind. The teacher gave them a sharp look which plunged them both into a sheepish silence. But as soon as the experiment they were supposed to be conducting had been explained to them, Mack went right back to trying to make Alyssa understand.
Neither of them could really concentrate on what they were doing because they were so deep in conversation. It pretty much took the whole lesson and a quick confirmation from Lela herself to more or less convince Alyssa that everything Mack had told her was completely true.
"You can't tell anyone, ok? I don't really want everyone knowing," Mack said as she started to pack away her things.
"Well I don't think I could tell anyone without them thinking that I'm crazy," Alyssa said with a small laugh. "Look, if you need any help with…this, then you know I'm here for you, ok?"
"Yeah," Mack said as Alyssa stood up and wrapped her into a hug. "Thanks, Alyssa."
"No problem. This is what best friends are for, isn't it? You tell me crazy stories and I believe them."
"If you say so," Mack chuckled.
"Now, I'll catch you later but right about now I think I need to go and look for a certain cute boy, I'm sure I saw him earlier by the Spanish classroom," Alyssa said, flashing Mack a knowing look and mischievous smile before slinging her bag over her shoulder and scuttling out of the classroom.
Mack smiled as she watched the girl go, but her happiness couldn't last much longer than that, could it?
"And where am I supposed to get that hour of my life back?" Butchy demanded as the ten 60s teens strolled towards Mack.
"Oh come on, it wasn't that bad," Giggles said, trying to be positive even though she hadn't really enjoyed it either.
"Yeah it was," Struts said.
To be honest, none of the Wet Side Story characters had understood any of what was going on in that lesson, apart from Lela of course. They had started to develop a game to play to take their minds off it, but by then the class was pretty much over. That didn't mean they hadn't descended into a fit of supressed giggles at least twice though, but that was probably because they were so collectively confused that they just got over the frustration and descended into hysteria.
"Please tell me that we don't have to sit through something like that again," Seacat said.
"Well lucky for you, it's either government or world history next," Brady said sarcastically as he walked up to join them.
The 60s teens looked bored out of their minds already.
"Is there an option for neither?" Rascal asked.
"Yeah, it's called detention," Mack said.
A collection groan arose from the group of teens. They were starting to ponder the question: could this get any more boring?
Actually, it was about to get a whole lot more interesting because by the time that first lunch rolled around, something had caught the Wet Side Story teens' attentions: clubs.
"What are we's doin' now?" Lugnut asked Mack as he trudged out of government class with Lela, Tanner, Struts, Giggles and Butchy.
"It's first lunch, so you can either go to get lunch or sit around for a bit and wait for second," Mack explained without even looking at the biker boy. She'd caught Brady's eye from down the corridor and hadn't been able to stop herself from grinning at him.
"Hey, I gots go try out for the football team," Butchy announced, which managed to drag Mack away from gazing at Brady to looking at Butchy like he'd just announced that he wanted to dip his hand in a tub of acid.
"What? Why?" Mack asked.
"That idiot with the blonde hair who freaked out in PE invited me, said I'd be 'good for the team'," Butchy smirked.
"And you're actually going?" Mack asked, thinking that Butchy had lost his mind.
"Yeah, if I can show that jackass up again then I'm definitely goin'," Butchy snorted. "You comin', Lugnut?"
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. Who else is I's going to take?" Butchy asked, signalling for Lugnut to follow him, which he unquestioningly agreed to do.
"I'm already losing you guys to this school," Mack said half-sarcastically to the three girls that remained. "You're not going to ditch me and Brady, are you?" she snorted, still slightly in shock from the sudden disappearance of the two biker boys, especially to something as horrific as the concept of football try-outs. Mack suspected that they would be ruined by the time they came back from them, but after all the times those two had complained to her for no reason since they'd arrived in her world, she no longer cared what happened to them. If they wanted to go to football try-outs, then they'd go to football try-outs.
"Actually," Giggles sheepishly started, snapping Mack's attention to her. "Coral and I got invited to cheerleading try-outs."
"Seriously?" Mack asked, again in disbelief. All she got from the pink-haired surfer girl was a meek nod. "And you're going?" she asked.
Once again, Giggles nodded in reply. "If you don't want us to though-"
"No, no, no," Mack said hurriedly, already sensing the guilt in Giggles' voice. "At least it's something for you to enjoy doing here."
"Thanks, Mack," Giggles grinned, scurrying off down the corridor to meet up with Coral.
"And if you see Butchy and Lugnut tell them to meet us in the cafeteria when they're done," Mack called.
"Will do!" Giggles called back, grabbing Coral by the hand and dragging her off further into the crowds of students.
"So where is Giggles going?" Lela asked.
"Cheerleading try-outs," Mack said in a somewhat bored tone. "It's where a bunch of girls with pretty hair jump around for the enjoyment of members of the football team. I'm sure in other schools it's based a lot more on the skill of the sport and empowering the girls that take part but here it really is just a lot of jumping and looking nice."
"Oh, ok," Lela said before getting another idea. "Mack, are there other clubs here?"
"Yeah, if you can think of a club I'm pretty sure that we have it," Mack chuckled, digging a booklet she had been handed this morning out of her bag. "Here, take a look through this," she said, handing the book to Lela, who immediately started flipping through it.
Initially, Mack had thought that this action had been rather innocent. But no more than ten minutes later, Mack and Brady were sat alone in the cafeteria.
"I didn't realise we'd be able to get rid of them that fast," Brady joked.
After the other 60s teens had gotten wind of the fact that there were clubs at the school they'd all disappeared. Lela had practically jumped four feet in the air when she saw that there was a French club and had managed to persuade Tanner to go along with her because she said it was the 'language of love'...but also because she had him wrapped around her little finger. Struts had gone straight to the library when she found out that there were more books there for her to read (who would have guessed?), which left Seacat, Rascal and CheeChee. None of them really had any motivation to do anything in general, let alone anything at school. But once Seacat and Rascal discovered that there was a whole club dedicated to sitting around watching movies they were sold. And since CheeChee didn't particularly fancy being left on her own all lunch time, she tagged along.
As strange as it seemed, because Mack and Brady had spent so much time with the Wet Side Story characters lately, it felt kind of lonely without them all buzzing around and craving their attention.
"I know, at least it gives us a little bit of peace though," Mack said with a small smile.
"And some time alone," Brady said with a half-joking smirk.
"Oh calm down, we're not Coral and Butchy," Mack teased. "I'm not just going to start making out with you in front of everyone."
"One kiss will just have to do then," Brady chuckled, pressing a quick kiss to Mack's cheek.
"Ugh, fine, but now we've got to get on with our homework," Mack carried on in her teasing tone.
"You're such a killjoy," Brady laughed.
"Hey, it's what I do best, isn't it?" Mack chuckled as she flicked a pencil-top eraser at Brady. And although they were both chatting away and trying to focus on their homework, neither of them could help but think about how they were going to need a lot of tissues to wipe away the tears of the Wet Side Story teens when they came crawling back to them from their clubs. Little did they know though, they needed to have a lot more faith in the 60s teens...
I hope that you liked it!
I know it's not the best but for some reason I kind of like it. Don't ask me why, I just do. XD
Also, I've been meaning to ask you. I've gotten a few reviews asking me to continue Just Like Me (which I kind of accidentally put on hiatus because life just got crazy busy). What I wanted to ask was if anyone was still interested in me trying to continue it in any spare time that I have. I don't know how quickly that I'd get them done but I'd do my best if it was a popular choice.
Anyway, I hope that you understand what I said about updating at the start. I'm trying my best for you, it might just take a little bit of time for the next chapter to go up, especially because I'm so busy with school work. I really don't want to disappoint you all so I want you to know that I'm working as hard as I can to get things done for you.
If you've got any feedback on this chapter then I'd love to hear it because like I said, I don't want to disappoint you with the chapters when I finally get them up. I'm always trying to improve so any honest feedback is really appreciated. :)
I think that's all I have to say though. So thank you for reading! Please leave a review with some feedback!
-cherrygorilla