“Butchy’s right,” Tanner said. “We’ve gotta get going before another one of us—”
Suddenly, Butchy started to sparkle. Then he disappeared—holding the necklace!
“—vanishes,” finished Tanner, stunned.
“Butchy!” Lela screamed.
The other kids at the dance didn’t notice—except for Devon.
“Whoa! Did you guys see that?” he asked Alyssa and Spencer, but they were slow-dancing and gazing into each other’s eyes.
Devon looked into the cup he was holding. “I gotta lay off the punch.”
Brady stared at the spot where Butchy had just been. “He’s gone.”
“With the necklace,” Mack added.
Lela’s eyes were wet with tears. “My brother…”
Mack put a hand on her shoulder. “Lela, I’m sorry.”
“This is really happening!” Lela cried. “We’re losing ourselves. What are we going to do? How can we get home? How can we make all this right again? Before we all vanish?”
Nobody replied. Then Lela answered her own question.
“Wait. When you guys first came to our world, you didn’t have the necklace, because I hadn’t given it to you yet,” she said, remembering. “How’d you get there then?”
“Lela, you’re a genius!” Mack cried.
She and Brady hurried to her house on Brady’s bike. The magic surfboard that had taken them to Lela and Tanner’s world hung on the wall in her bedroom. The yellow surfboard had a medallion embedded in the surface. Shaped like a flower, the medallion glowed faintly—just like the necklace!
They brought the board to the beach. Stars glittered in the black sky. Most of the other movie kids had vanished already. Only Tanner, Lela, Seacat, Lugnut, Giggles, Struts, and Cheechee were left.
“Finally!” Cheechee cried.
“Everyone’s disappearing,” said Struts.
“Just like Butchy!” Giggles added.
Then…poof! Struts and Giggles vanished!
“We’ve gotta hurry!” Lela cried.
Brady held out the magic surfboard. “This will take you home.”
“Are you sure?” Tanner asked.
Poof! Seacat vanished.
“Yeah,” Brady said, shaken. “I sure hope so. Just paddle out and catch a big wave.”
Then he froze. “Oh, no.”
He stared out at the completely calm ocean.
“There’s no surf,” Mack said.
“But how can we surf if there’s no surf?” asked Lela.
“You can’t,” Mack said, defeated.
Cheechee looked down at herself. She was sparkling.
“Oh, no,” she said. “Good luck, guys!”
Poof! Cheechee vanished.
“Tanner! It’s just us!” Lela wailed.
“We have to get back. Now,” Tanner said firmly. “Before our movie is gone forever and we vanish, too!”
“But how? You need waves to surf, don’t you?” Lela asked.
Brady looked at the magic surfboard. Suddenly, he had an idea. He ran to his bike and grabbed a small toolkit.
“Tanner, remember how you said you’ve never made anything?” Brady asked.
Tanner nodded. “Yeah?”
“I need your help making something,” Brady said, handing Tanner the toolkit. “Take my bike kit. Use it to try and pry the emblem off the board.”
“Hey, I can help, too,” Lela offered. “I’m good with tools.”
“Awesome,” Brady said. He turned to Mack. “In the meantime, we need to swing to my place.”
Brady led Mack back to his house. Then he walked past it, toward his secret shack.
“Where are we going? We passed your house,” Mack said.
“We’re not going to my house,” Brady said. He stopped in front of his shack.
Mack raised her eyebrows. “Oh.”
“Come on up,” he said, climbing the stairs.
Mack followed him. “What is this place?” she asked, looking around.
“It’s kinda my personal workshop-slash-chill-out space,” Brady explained.
Mack noticed all the surfboards around the room. A look of awe dawned on her face.
“Wait. What’re all these?” she asked.
“Surfboards,” Brady replied. “Kind of. Some of them are just prototypes.”
“You made them? From scratch?” Mack asked.
Brady nodded. “It’s not as hard as it looks,” he replied. “Well, it’s about exactly as hard as it looks.”
Mack suddenly got it. “This was your secret.”
“Yeah,” said Brady. “I’ve been making boards. But not just any boards. Boards that do cool new things.”
He pointed to one nearby. “This one’s like a catamaran, so it really flies.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me?” Mack asked.
Brady sighed. “Because, well, you’re so together. College, your whole oceanography thing. You’ve got a vision for your life, your future. And here I am, just making boards. I wasn’t sure you’d, I don’t know…respect it.”
Mack’s eyes widened. “Brady, this is incredible!” she exclaimed. “My grandpa spent his life making boards. It’s an art. And what you’re doing, this is the next level. This is a vision for your life. An amazing one.”
“You really think so?” Brady asked.
Mack nodded. “I do.”
“Good!” He pulled the tarp off the big board he’d been working on. “I’ve been making this one for us.”
Mack ran her hands along the almost-finished board. The longboard was beautifully crafted. It had an odd shape, and Mack could see a large lump toward the back, down by the fins.
“The only bummer about our summer was those days when there was no swell, when we couldn’t surf together. So I had this idea,” Brady explained as he quickly worked to add the finishing touches to the board. “What if we didn’t need a swell? This board has a motor built in.”
“So you can surf, even when there’s no surf,” Mack said.
“Any day we want. No matter what,” added Brady.
“It’s beautiful,” Mack said softly.
Brady struggled to get the hatch covering the motor closed, but it finally shut.
“If this baby actually works, with the magic emblem on it, it might just take Tanner and Lela home,” he said hopefully.
“I know I should have told you about it sooner,” Brady admitted. “I’m sorry.”
“Brady. I’m sorry,” Mack said. “I’m sorry you ever felt like you had to hide this from me. Do you want to know the only thing that really matters to me about our future?”
“What?” Brady asked.
Mack smiled. “That we’re in it together.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes. Finally, they understood each other. All the bad feelings that had been around since school had started washed away.
“It’s ready,” Brady said. “Now or never.”
As they left the shack, Mack noticed the poster of Wet Side Story on the wall. Characters and words were disappearing, one by one. Worried, she hurried back to the beach with Brady.
Tanner and Lela ran up to meet them.
“We got the pretty flower off!” Tanner said. Then he noticed the new board. “Hey, that’s the manifold…hydro…lithium…board. The one that can surf by itself.”
“Exactly,” Brady said. “There’s some tire glue in the kit. It should do the trick.”
Lela handed him the glue, and Brady quickly cemented the emblem to the board.
“Let’s get it down to the water,” he said, and Tanner and Lela grabbed the board and waded into the ocean.
Mack hung back.
“You okay?” Tanner asked.
Mack nodded toward the nearby mangrove trees. “Do you know where we are?”
Brady looked around. “The clearing in Dolphin’s Cove.”
“Where we met,” Mack added. “Brady, if this doesn’t work, and Lela and Tanner vanish and the whole movie never even existed, doesn�
�t that mean that we never would have met? If they don’t make it…we won’t even know each other.”
Brady hugged her and managed to smile. “How could you ever forget me?”
Mack smiled back. There was nothing to do now but hope. The two of them joined Lela and Tanner at the water’s edge.
“I guess this really is good-bye, this time,” Mack said.
Brady hugged Tanner. “Thanks for everything, man. Honestly, I’m glad you came,” he said. He looked at Mack. “We needed it.”
“You’re welcome, Brady,” Tanner replied.
Mack hugged Lela. “I’m so glad I got to see you again.”
“Me too, Mack,” Lela said. “I’ll never forget you. Again.”
“Me neither,” Mack said, and then she looked into Lela’s eyes. “Listen, Lela. When you go back to your world, it doesn’t have to be the way it was. Start a math club. Invent a new flavor of lip gloss. Change the movie. Make it your story.”
Lela smiled. “Thanks, Mack. I will.”
Then Mack took off her blue SAVE THE BEACH bracelet. She had decorated it for the dance with a version of the magic flower. She put it on Lela’s wrist.
“I’ll treasure it forever, Mack,” Lela promised.
They hugged one last time, and Tanner and Lela carried the board into the ocean. Brady jogged into the water to coach them.
“Okay, try to stand,” Brady instructed them. “Find your balance.”
Lela and Tanner stood up on the board.
“Good,” said Brady. “Tanner, hold on to this T-bar. Lela, hold on to Tanner. Bend your knees, keep your weight forward. Steady yourselves. Once this thing goes, it’s going to go fast.”
Brady put his hand on the start button. He took a deep breath and pushed it.
Nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?” Lela asked.
“I don’t know,” Brady replied. He pushed it again, and nothing happened. He tried a third time, and the motor still wouldn’t start.
Suddenly, Lela and Tanner started to sparkle.
“Oh, no! It’s happening!” Tanner cried.
“There must be something wrong with the propulsion system!” Brady exclaimed. “Hang on!”
He dove under the water and opened the hatch. There was a problem, all right.
He emerged from the water. “I can’t fix it without a screwdriver.”
Lela pulled a bobby pin out of her hair. “Will this work?”
Brady grinned and dove back under. He quickly worked to make the repair. When he surfaced again, Lela and Tanner were sparkling like crazy.
“This is our last chance! Get ready!” Brady yelled. “Come on!”
He pushed the button, and the motor roared to life. The surfboard blasted off, carrying a sparkling Lela and Tanner out to sea.
Then they vanished into two streaks of light.
Brady tumbled out of the swirling water. He ran back up the beach, toward Mack…and then right past her, without even looking at her.
That was because they hadn’t met yet.
Instead, Brady ran up to Devon, who was waiting for him. They launched into their surfer handshake.
“Bro-heim! I told you! Night bodysurfing! Mondo spiritual, right?” Devon asked.
“It was totally flat, dude,” Brady replied, shivering. “Let’s get out of here. I’m freezing.”
As they walked off, they noticed Mack, standing alone.
“Who’s that?” Brady asked.
“No idea, bro,” Devon replied. “I think she might go to our school. She’s in the ocean club or something.”
“She’s kinda cute,” Brady said.
Mack didn’t notice the two surfer boys. As she stared at the waves, a tingling sensation traveled up her spine.
That’s weird, she thought. It was like she was supposed to remember something, but she couldn’t.
Mack shrugged off the feeling and walked back up to Billy’s Beach Burgers and Sushi. The Save the Beach dance was in full swing. Mack was elated; the dance was more successful than she had hoped. They’d been able to rent a giant movie screen to set up in the parking lot. Everyone had loved the idea of airing a sixties teen beach movie on the beach. They even got into wearing costumes from the film!
As Brady and Devon biked past the restaurant, the music caught Brady’s attention.
“Whoa. What’s going on there?” he wondered.
“I think it’s that dance thing,” Devon replied. “There were fliers at school.”
“They’re going to project a movie?” Brady asked. “It looks kind of awesome. You wanna check it out?”
“When have you ever known me to pass up a possible fiesta?” asked Devon.
They headed to the party. Alyssa and Spencer were selling tickets at the door.
“Mack! Where have you been? Sales are through the roof!” Alyssa reported when Mack showed up. “You’re a genius. People love the theme!”
Brady and Devon walked up.
“Can I help you guys?” Mack asked.
“Yeah,” Brady replied. “I gotta ask. What’s with the screen? And the costumes?”
“It’s a fund-raiser,” Mack explained. “We’re saving the beach. It’s a 1962 drive-in movie party.”
“Cool. How’d you come up with that idea?” Brady asked.
“I don’t know. It was just inspired, somehow.” Mack smiled at him.
“What movie are you showing?” Devon asked.
Mack nodded to a poster on the wall. It showed the kids from the Wet Side Story movie. Except the title was changed. Now it was called Lela, Queen of the Beach. And Lela was leading the pack.
A shiver traveled up Brady’s spine.
That’s weird, Brady thought. It was like he was supposed to remember something but couldn’t.
“Lela, Queen of the Beach?” he said.
“You’ve never heard of it?” Mack asked.
“Oh, I’ve heard of it. Everyone has,” Brady answered.
“Good!” said Mack. “Then we agree it’s pretty much the most awesomest movie ever made.”
“I don’t think ‘awesomest’ is a real word,” Brady said. “And even if it was, I’m not sure that movie’s exactly my jam.”
“This film was totally ahead of its time,” Mack told him. “It’s a visionary take on female empowerment and self-expression. It’s the reason I love to surf.”
“You surf?” Brady asked.
“Of course,” Mack replied. “How about this: come inside, check it out. If you don’t totally dig it, I’ll buy you a mango smoothie.”
Brady grinned. “I do love mangos.”
“Sounds like you win either way,” Mack said.
She put a blue SAVE THE BEACH bracelet on his wrist. There was a moment of familiarity.
She led him to the party. “Wait here,” she told him.
She climbed onstage, and the music stopped. All eyes turned to Mack as she spoke into the microphone.
“Thank you all for coming!” she began. “We totally blew away our expectations and raised a ton of money for the beach. And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…Lela, Queen of the Beach!”
Everybody cheered wildly, and the movie started to play on the screen. It looked a lot like Wet Side Story, except Lela was front and center this time. The bikers and surfers started to sing, and the kids watching the movie started to dance along.
“Really?” Brady asked.
“Come on,” Mack said, grabbing his hand. “Sometimes you’ve just got to spontaneously burst out into song.”
Brady relented and joined in the singing and dancing. Mack led the dance-along in sync with the kids on-screen.
Lela looked down from the screen at Mack and Brady dancing. Mack felt eyes on her and looked up to see Lela, who seemed to be staring right at her! Lela held out her hand. Was that a SAVE THE BEACH bracelet around her wrist? Lela gave her a wink and a smile.
Mack got that weird feeling again. Then Brady smiled at her, and looked into her eyes.
As they began to slow dance, a whole new feeling took over. A feeling that everything was happening exactly like it was supposed to.
“I’m Mack,” she said.
“I’m Brady.”
And somewhere, on a beach far away, a necklace washed up onto the sand…and started to glow.
Give me the overall plot.
Garrett Clayton: So what you can expect in Teen Beach 2 is a flip on the first movie, so where you saw Mack and Brady deal with the musical world, now you’re going to see Lela and Tanner and all the other friends jumping in the real world. You see how the musical deals with the real world, so it’s really funny, and you don’t really understand a lot of what’s going on, so it’s super comedic. The music is way over the top this time, and the dancing is better, and it’s just really exciting.
Why will Disney Channel viewers love Teen Beach 2?
Garrett: If you love Teen Beach Movie, Teen Beach 2 is going to be bigger and brighter and funnier.
What’s your favorite thing about Tanner?
Garrett: My favorite thing about Tanner is how genuine he is, and how everything is from the heart. Even if it’s like self-absorbed, it’s never in a malicious way. It’s always very, you know, he loves the people around him, and it just so happens that he was written to be self-absorbed, you know? [laughs] But that’s not who he is, and I think that’s why a lot in this film you get to see he’s learning that just because you’re told to be a certain way doesn’t mean that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
How has Tanner grown since the first movie?
Garrett: The way Tanner’s grown since the first Teen Beach is that by the end of this one he’s a lot more self-aware. He jumps into this world of new possibilities and options and he doesn’t just have to be the funny, quirky guy, or he doesn’t just have to smile and tooth ping, you know?
Talk about the trials and tribulations Tanner and Lela go through.
Garrett: Well, in the beginning of Teen Beach 2, Lela starts questioning her place in the world, or in the world of Wet Side Story. And so she runs out and she and Tanner have this big scene where she just doesn’t, you know, it’s not right for her anymore, and she wants to be a woman who can be herself and feel empowered and that’s okay. And it’s hard in 1962 for that to be okay, just because of the time period. And then she finds the necklace and, you know, it’s like destiny jumps in all over again, so she runs into the ocean and Tanner chases after her because he loves her.
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