“Uh, Mack? You okay?” Brady asked.
“Brady, would you think I was crazy if I told you two people who look exactly like Lela and Tanner were walking toward us on the beach?” Mack asked.
Confused, Brady turned around. He saw the boy and girl walking toward them.
“Those people don’t look like Lela and Tanner. They are Lela and Tanner,” he said with awe in his voice.
Mack ran toward them. “Lela? Tanner?”
“Brady! Mack! We found you!” Tanner called out.
Mack reached Lela and crushed her in a hug.
“It’s so good to see you!” Lela cried.
“You too,” Mack said, smiling at her friend.
“You’re really here? In three dimensions?” Brady asked.
Tanner nodded. “I know. It must seem too good to be true. But it is!”
“I missed you,” Lela said, squeezing Mack again.
“I missed you, too!” Mack said. “I think about you all the time.”
Brady tapped her shoulder. “Ah, Mack. Can I just take a quick second to highlight the little fact that they. Are here?”
“Wow! Yes!” Mack exclaimed. She looked at Lela. “Why? How?”
“I found the necklace,” Lela said, showing it to her.
Mack was confused. “But I lost it in the ocean.”
“It floated back to me,” Lela explained, tucking it absentmindedly back under her shirt. “I knew it was a sign! I had to find you. So I carried the necklace into the waves, questioning my whole existence—”
“I never question anything,” Tanner interrupted. “I just followed her.”
“And the next thing we knew, we were here!” Lela finished.
“Ah, one quick question,” Tanner said. “Where, exactly, is ‘here’?”
“We’re on the beach, silly!” Lela said.
“Oh, right,” Tanner agreed. “But, like, what country are we in?”
Mack and Brady exchanged looks. They had never explained to Lela and Tanner that they weren’t real, only characters in a movie.
“Let’s just call it the future,” Brady replied.
“The future?” Tanner screwed up his face, thinking hard. “Like, it’s already tomorrow, today?”
“Maybe a few days after tomorrow,” Brady said.
Tanner grinned. “Cool!”
“Cool! It’s way cooler than cool!” Lela exclaimed.
From out of nowhere, music swelled, just like it would have in a movie before the characters broke into song.
Mack looked at Brady. “So they magically brought music with them?”
“In a word, yes,” Brady replied.
They watched, helpless, as Tanner and Lela sang a song about how cool it was to be in the future.
“I think I’m gonna love it here, because it seems like the kind of place where I can follow my dreams,” Lela sang.
“This is right where I wanna be,” Tanner sang with her. As Tanner and Lela sang with all their hearts, other kids on the beach watched in amusement.
When the song was finally over, Lela announced, “I don’t think I’m ever going to leave here! Come on, Tanner. Let’s take a walk on this crazy beach of the future!”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him away to frolic in the water, leaving Brady and Mack in an awkward situation. They were still in a big fight—but now they had a problem they needed to solve together: figuring out what to do. Nobody else would understand.
“What are we going to do with them?” Mack asked Brady. “I mean, they’re from 1962. They could get into serious trouble.”
“Come on. Lela? Tanner? What kind of trouble could they get into?” Brady asked.
They heard laughter, and turned to see Tanner and Lela fascinated by the automatic sensors in the beach showers, laughing and making a big scene. A small crowd had gathered to watch the strange kids in old-fashioned clothes.
Brady sighed. “Yeah. What are we going to do with them?”
Then Mack noticed something as the shower water splashed over Lela and Tanner.
“Their hair. It’s dry,” she said.
“Just like when they surf in the movie,” Brady added.
Mack frowned. “Brady, they don’t belong here. Remember what happened to us when we were in their world? We almost got zapped out of existence. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them if they stay in ours, but it won’t be good. We’ve gotta get them home. We should just tell them the truth. They’re made-up characters in a 1962 beach movie.”
“Wouldn’t that kind of totally blow their minds?” Brady asked.
Mack sighed. “You’re right. They couldn’t handle it,” she admitted. “So maybe we just show them that our world isn’t as great as they think it is. So they want to go back.”
Now it was Brady’s turn to look thoughtful. “Then…they’d just have to carry the necklace right back into the ocean and beam themselves home.”
Mack nodded. “Exactly. But it’s not going to be easy. So in the meantime, we should probably keep their identities secret. So the whole world doesn’t freak out.”
Brady glanced at Lela. She was staring in fascination at a remote-control helicopter.
“Amazing! How did they find a pilot so small?” Lela asked herself.
Brady shook his head. “Good luck with that. We’ll need a cover story. Exchange students or cousins or something.”
“Good call. I’ll take Lela, you take Tanner. We’ll meet up at school,” Mack said. “I’m still mad at you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still mad at you, too,” Brady said. But neither of them sounded entirely convinced.
They looked at each other shyly for a minute and then headed off to round up Lela and Tanner.
Mack brought Lela back to her house.
“So, if you’re going to come to school with me, you need to look…less like you look,” Mack said, taking in Lela’s sixties hairdo and old-fashioned (but supercute) dress.
Mack pulled a plain blue dress out of her walk-in closet. “This is good. Not too flashy.”
Lela took it and headed into the closet to change. When she came out, she was wearing the blue dress—but now it looked like it was from the sixties! The skirt flared out, and there was a big belt around the waist. Lela even had a matching blue bow in her hair.
More movie magic, Mack thought. There had to be some way around it. She handed Lela a plain T-shirt and jeans.
Lela went into the closet and came out again—still looking like a sixties movie character. The jeans had become capris, the T-shirt sported little capped sleeves, and now a red patent leather belt circled her waist.
“Great,” Mack said under her breath. “First singing, now this!”
Brady wasn’t sweating things as much. His mom worked nights, so it wasn’t an issue to have Tanner sleep over. They ran into her as they left the house the next morning.
“Oh, hello,” Luanne greeted them, surprised.
“Mom, this is…Dolf,” Brady lied. “He’s an exchange student. From Iceland. I volunteered for him to stay with us for a few days.”
Tanner shot him a confused look, then nodded and played along. He knew that Brady must have some reason to not reveal his true identity.
Luanne raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s a surprise.”
“Yeah, sorry, it was kind of a last-minute thing,” Brady said.
His mom smiled. “Okay. Iceland. Wonderful.” She turned to Tanner. “Our house is your house. It’s great to meet you.”
“That’s how everyone feels,” Tanner replied brightly.
Brady groaned inwardly.
Bringing Tanner to school wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought.
Back in the movie, the bikers and surfers were feeling pretty uneasy without Lela and Tanner around.
“I’m feeling a little lost here, peoples,” Butchy announced. “Ever since Lela and Tanner walked off into the ocean, I got the sense that things should be happenin’ that ain’t happenin’.”
“We could rumble,” suggested a biker named Lugnut. “That always cheers you up.”
“I does love a rumble, but no,” Butchy said. “It feels like that ain’t supposed to happen right now.”
Then he had an idea. “Maybe somebody should sing something, like Lela might have done if she was heres. Cheechee, sing something!”
“But I was doing my nails!” Cheechee complained. Reluctantly, she took her chewing gum out of her mouth, placed it behind her ear, and started singing “Falling for Ya,” Lela’s song.
Butchy watched, worried. It still didn’t feel right.
“Seacat, maybe youse should get up there and help her out,” he suggested.
“Sure,” Seacat said, jumping up to sing Tanner’s part. But the song sounded totally different when Cheechee and Seacat sang it. And when it came time for Cheechee to fall off the stage…
Thud! She landed on the floor. Seacat didn’t catch her.
Shaky, Cheechee got to her feet. “I think some of my hair may have broke.”
Butchy shook his head. “This don’t feel right. None of it.”
Behind him, one of the surfers sparkled magically—and then vanished….
The next morning, Lela and Tanner followed behind Mack and Brady as they walked up to the high school.
“This is perfect. School,” Brady whispered to Mack. “It’ll make them hate our world. Nobody likes school.”
“Hey, I like school,” Mack protested.
“Yeah, but you’re weird,” Brady teased. “Take Lela to Calculus with you. Ten minutes of heavy math and she’ll be begging to go home. I’ll try to keep Tanner out of trouble.”
Mack nodded, then turned to Tanner and Lela.
“Okay, we’ve got some ground rules for you,” she said.
“Don’t do anything that gives you away,” said Brady.
“No hair wetting,” said Mack.
“No clothes changing,” added Brady.
“And Tanner, don’t do that thing with your teeth,” Mack told him.
“This thing?” Tanner asked, smiling.
Ping! His teeth gleamed.
“Yeah, don’t do that,” said Brady.
“And most of all…” Mack began.
“No singing!” she and Brady said together.
“Just one song?” Lela asked.
“No!” Mack and Brady said firmly.
Then Mack and Lela headed to class, and Brady and Tanner took off down a different hallway.
“Okay, stay close to me,” Brady told Tanner as they walked through the crowded halls of the high school. “Just walk down the hallway and be cool.”
“You got it!” Tanner replied. “There’s one thing I can do better than anyone, and that’s walk down a school hallway.”
He snapped up his collar and began to strut down the hall, greeting everyone he passed.
“Hey, how’s it going, big daddy? Looking good,” he told one guy. Then a girl walked past. “Hi, name’s Tanner. Hang ten, cookie.”
Tanner started getting weird stares. Then Devon showed up.
“Brady! Greetings, meister-bro,” he said, doing the surfer handshake with his friend. Then he noticed Tanner. “Who’s this dude?”
“This is, uh, my cousin Dolf,” Brady replied. “From Iceland.”
Tanner shrugged and smiled.
“Dolf! What’s up?” Devon asked.
“The ceiling?” Tanner guessed.
Then he noticed Devon’s spiked-up hair. “Your hair is very pointy!” Tanner remarked.
“Thanks, bro,” Devon replied. “It’s amazing what you can do with a screwdriver and some surf wax.”
Tanner pointed to the perfect wave of hair on his head. “I use my own secret mix of coconut juice and rubber cement,” he confessed.
“Rubber cement! Wicked! What a great idea!” Devon turned to Brady. “I love this dude! Later, dawgs.”
Brady breathed a sigh of relief as Devon walked off and pushed Tanner toward their first class.
A short while later, Mack ushered Lela out of Calculus. She had hoped that Lela would hate it enough to want to go back to her own world.
“So, what’d you think of Calculus?” Mack asked. “Pretty brutal, right? That’s what life is like in the modern world. Lots of tough classes.”
“I loved it!” Lela crowed, her blue eyes shining. “It’s magical! The integral accurately gives the area under a formula while the derivative predicts its instantaneous slope at any point!”
Mack looked surprised. “Wow, you really got it, didn’t you?”
Lela smiled. “Who knew thinking could be so fun?”
Spencer approached them. “Mack! Hey, who’s this?”
“This is my cousin. Ah, Delga. From Finland,” Mack replied.
Lela trusted Mack knew what she was doing. She nodded agreeably.
“I see the resemblance,” Spencer said, smiling at Lela. Then he turned to Mack. “Listen, I hope I didn’t cause any problems with you and Brady last night.”
Mack shook her head. “No, our problems are totally our own.”
“Fair enough,” Spencer said. “Hey, how’s the big dance shaping up?”
“Okay. We haven’t sold many tickets,” Mack replied.
“I’m sure people will come. It’s a good cause,” Spencer said. “Maybe you can save me a dance. Purely as friends, of course.”
“Ah…maybe?” Mack said. She still hadn’t sorted out her feelings about Brady. Spencer seemed to like her, but it was too much all at once.
“Great. I’ll catch you later, then,” Spencer promised.
“There’s a dance tonight?” Lela asked as Spencer walked off. “How fun! This world just gets better and better.”
“Yeah, until your formerly adorable boyfriend starts acting like a completely different person,” Mack said with a sigh. “You’re better off in your world, Lela, where boys are simple. And more reliable.”
Alyssa walked up to them. She raised an eyebrow when she saw Lela.
“Who’s the girl in the crazy dress?” she asked.
“Lela. Hi,” Lela said, confidently thrusting out her hand. “I’m here to discover who I am and find fulfillment.”
Alyssa looked at Mack, impressed. “A woman who knows what she wants. I like her!” She turned to Lela. “I did my philosophy camp thesis on female self-empowerment.”
“I can rebuild a motorcycle,” Lela offered.
“Really? I’m thinking of buying a scooter,” Alyssa said, and she and Lela walked off together, talking excitedly.
She’s never going to want to leave, Mack thought. But then what will happen to her? Mack shuddered just thinking about it.
“It’s a disaster. She loves everything,” Mack reported to Brady later, as they waited in the cafeteria’s lunch line.
“I think I might be wearing down Tanner a little,” Brady said.
Ahead of them, Tanner held up something. “Nuggets made out of chicken! Amazing!”
“Or not,” Brady said. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan. It’s gonna for sure break their spirits. We need to turn them loose, alone, in the most dangerous, frightening, confusing place imaginable. A place where one false move results in mockery, exile, shame, and horror.” He gestured with his right hand. “The high school cafeteria.”
Brady and Mack approached Tanner and Lela.
“All right, you guys are on your own,” Brady told them. “Find a place to sit. Make friends. Good luck!” Then he and Mack ran off.
Tanner and Lela got their lunch and carried their trays to the tables in the quad outside. Tanner nodded at a table of football players.
“Hi! I’m new here,” he said cheerfully.
“I could care less, spray tan,” one of the guys said.
Tanner didn’t lose his smile. “Actually, the name’s Tan-ner. No ‘spray.’”
The football player stood up. “Get out of my face!” he growled.
Tanner and Lela backed up. They realized everyone was staring
at them.
“Tanner, are you getting the feeling that everyone here is kind of standoffish and meanish?” Lela asked.
“Right. And angryish, too,” Tanner replied. “Like the surfers and bikers. Only angryish-er.”
Brady and Mack watched the scene from across the quad. It looked like their plan was working.
And then they heard the music.
“Oh, no,” Mack groaned.
Tanner and Lela started to sing a song about how they wanted everyone to be friends. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Everyone stood up and joined in the song. The whole school was dancing and singing! And movie magic was making them do it!
Mack and Brady joined the other students as they danced around the cafeteria. Cheerleaders danced with nerds. Jocks danced with kids from the band. Then the music ended, and everyone sat down where they were. Nobody was sure what had just happened.
But the weird thing was nobody was mad. The song had worked. Everyone was in a better mood. Tanner and Lela happily waved to the crowd.
Mack sighed. “Our plan is definitely not working!”
After a long, strange day, the final school bell rang. Tanner walked outside with Devon and Brady. Devon was listening to music on his earbuds.
“Dude, you got some bodacious pipes!” Devon told Tanner, talking loudly over the music only he could hear. “You totally have to join my surf band. I play a gnarlicious didgeridoo.”
“Thanks! Why are we talking so loudly?” Tanner shouted back.
Devon didn’t hear him. “Later, my hombre!” he said with a wave.
Then Tanner saw Lela with Alyssa and Mack and walked over.
“Lela! Hi! You wanna hang out?” he asked her. “I’ve been working on some new looks. I call this one ‘Thoughtful Handsome.’”
He made the face for her, resting his chin in his hands.
“That’s wonderful, Tanner, but I can’t,” Lela replied. “I’m sorry. Mack and I are going to do some calculus homework together. It’s so exciting!”
Tanner was confused. “Okay, well, have fun. Without me.”
Mack pulled Brady aside. “We’re further than ever from talking them into going back.”
“Just stay with Lela,” Brady told her. “Keep working on her. I’ll take Tanner.”
Mack nodded, and they went their separate ways. Brady took Tanner to his shack and handed him his tablet.
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