Hey, readers and writers. So it looks like there's a little confusion of the form this is written in (If one reader thinks so, there's bound to be others) so this is to clarify: This is CGI Format. I understand the confusion as even the brilliant Simon isn't brilliant enough to build a machine like this as a real chipmunk, but I made an exception. I also understand if there's some confusion through the whole story as it may be tough to know who the heck's point of view it is. Well like always at the beginning I tell you who's point of view I'm writing in. :) Hope you enjoy; Happy reading and Happy Writing.
Alvin's Point of View
My head hurt… After the flashing light that I was sure would have given me a seizure and the loud BANG afterwards, I wouldn't be surprised if I had a concussion. I was dizzy -my vision was blurry and I couldn't see a thing-, my brain pounded at my head, and my entire body was sore through all the wreckage. What the heck happened?! Smoke filled our room and as far as I knew, Simon's machine was in ruins. Simon!
"Simon?" I called through the dense cloud of smoke. I thought I was looking in the direction of the other "pod," but I couldn't see a thing, "You okay, buddy?" No reply. Simon always replied, I mean ALWAYS, even when he was peeved. Something wasn't right. There was never a time when he wouldn't reply in some way. But here I lay in silence. Where was he? Just then, I noticed the smoke fading fast and a cool breeze smacked me in the face. The window, someone opened the window. That HAD to be Simon. Even as some of the smoke cleared, my vision sucked; I must have hit my head. I got up quickly, pushing away any of the plastic pieces that used to be the pod. Adrenaline pushed me forward and I toppled as I stood. Right, that stupid helmet was still on my head.
"He's gotta work on the design of this thing." I grumbled, ripping the helmet off and throwing it to the ground, smashing it apart. "Whoops." I thought sarcastically. I walked towards the cool, clean air. Forced to hold my breath until the smoke cleared, it was no surprise that I rushed. As I moved, I finally caught sight of a figure in the smoke. At first I thought the figure was Simon, it was only natural, right? We were the only ones in the room, right? Right? RIGHT? But after a closer look, I knew the figure couldn't be any taller than me. It couldn't be Simon, or even Jeanette. The figure wasn't very large either, ruling out Theodore and Eleanor(Sorry guys). Obviously it couldn't be Dave. That left Brittany. When and why did she come in? Surely out of everyone to hear the bang she wasn't the first. I didn't even know she was home! Guess I should greet her and maybe even thank her.
I broke through the last wall of smoke and I got a somewhat clear visual of the figure. While my vision wasn't clear, one thing was: I'd lost my mind. My eyes were wider than a doughnut hole as I stared at myself. Crazy, right? But there I stood. Red hoodie with an 'A' on it, perfect brown fur (a little dirty from the explosion) and a cool figure. My figure, my body… Was it a clone? My body turned to me and gasped when he, er… It, saw me. Jeez, even the gasp sounded like me. I raised my hand and it mirrored my movements. It was strange, but I couldn't recognize my own paw. It seemed… darker. I raised both my hands above my head and it did the same at the same time. I even did a little dance on the spot and still it mirrored me. I had truly lost it. Wide-eyed, we battled each other in a staring contest. One minute… Two minutes… Three minutes before the "copy" of me blinked first.
"AAHHH!" I screamed, causing the "copy" to scream back. "W-What the heck are you?!" I asked. I couldn't recognize my own voice, "Is this a dream?" My vision refused to clear up and everything was fuzzy. This HAD to be a dream. "Where's my brother?"
"Alvin?" The copy said and moved closer, poking my shoulder, "Is that you?" Something was… Different. I was actually looking down at myself… DOWN! I wasn't very tall, about average height for a chipmunk, and how could I be taller than myself? "Alvin, it's me, Simon. Don't you recognize me?" This wasn't a dream, this was a nightmare.
"Um, no." I said, "I think you've had a few too many cheese-balls. You're Alvin, and I'm clearly psycho."
"What are you talking about? I'm not you and you're not me!" I was confused, more than confused, more like insane. None of this made any sense. "Alvin, look in Brittany's mirror." Brittany always kept a mirror hung beside her bed, one of the few mirrors in the house; but with her beauty who could blame her? I did as was told by, uh, "Simon" (yeah, right) and looked in Brittany's mirror. Nearly fainting, I couldn't believe the horrible sight. The reflection I got in the mirror had somewhat darker fur than me and wore a blue hoodie.
"What the…?" I whispered and beside me stood the Alvin body holding a pair of round, black-rimmed glasses.
"These might help you see." He said. I put them on and like he said, my vision was crystal clear, and I hated my looks even further; I was a nerd! No no no no! This was just not right! I can't be a nerd! I'm Alvin!
"Simon?" I turned to my own body, who nodded with ghostly eyes as he too looked through the mirror. "What did you do?! Look at me! How could you turn me into this!"
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" He replied, "I'd say you look pretty sharp." Tch, he would.
"Are you kidding? I look dorky, and man do you have bad eyesight." Was I really in Simon's body? My own brother's body? But even worse, could he actually be trapped in mine? Every physical feature of his, were they mine now?
"Shut up." He stated, "This is all your fault anyway."
"How?"
"You put the chemical in the wrong section and destroyed me transmitter!" I looked back at the once perfectly built plastic contraption, now just a pile of rubble.
"You know, we can play the blame game all you want later," I began, "but I think we have bigger problems right now!" I acknowledged our little situation of being in the others body, even exaggerated it by giving him a view of myself. "As you can see, I am not supposed to look like this."
"If you didn't mess up in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation." I couldn't take him so seriously in my voice, my body. I was never this stressed, he had to chill out. Seeing him stressed in my body, it just didn't seem as important. At that moment, Brittany skipped in.
"What situation?" She asked and saw the mess, "Wow. Alvin what did you do?"
"Nothing!" Me and Simon (in my body) said together.
"Okay?" She questioned suspiciously, "Hey, Alvin?"
"What?" I replied and she gave me a strange look, then Simon nudged me.
"You don't mean what, I mean what," He informed and turned to Brittany, "What?"
"Uh, are you two okay?" She asked with confusion, "You're both acting weird. I mean, weirder than usual. And what's with this mess? Start talking, munks."
"Oh, heh, we're fine." I stammered and pushed her out the door, "Thanks for asking!" I slammed the door shut as quick as I could.
"Simon! Let me in!" I heard from the other side of the door.
"Sorry, maybe later!" I yelled and stood against it in case she tried to get in again, "Simon, what are we going to do?! Brittany's going to rampage! It's not safe."
"Yeah, for you! I mean me! I mean… Ugh!" Uh-oh, even he was losing it. If he gets confused, it's a sure fire sign to say we were doomed.
"How do we get back to our own body?" I asked calmly.
"Well, I have to fix my machine." He stated, "But that could some time; Alvin, I think we're going to be stuck like this for awhile."
"Great." I huffed sarcastically, "We're going to die. They'll find out and then we'll be experimented on and then… and then…"
"Snap out of it!" Simon slapped me, "Dang it, Alvin, you're making me slap myself. We need to keep calm."
"But look at me!"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm a nerd!"
"Hey!"
"Don't 'Hey' me!" I retorted, "You know it's true." What was I doing? Now was not the time to argue, now was the time to make Simon solve the problem at hand. "how long will it take for you to fix, er rebuild your machine?" We looked at the transmitter as the six feet of plastic now sat as two feet of garbage.
"Um, if I work really long hours, I can get it done in time for the science fair next week."
"You're still worried about that?!" Seriously? We have bigger problems; does he not realize this?
"Of course! How couldn't I be?" He asked, "But Alvin, I'll sadly need you to take my place." He said this as he looked at me, his own body.
"What? No way! I'm not doing it, Si!"
"Please, Alvin?" He begged, "I can't go as you. No one would ever believe you were smart enough to build this."
"So switch us back before the fair."
"No, I think if I do that, the transmitter will break and I'll be without a project. Please, Alvin?" Ugh, as much as I wanted to disagree, as much as I wanted to argue and say I didn't want to go to a boring science fair filled with a bunch of other geeks, I knew he was right and that if I ever wanted to get back into my own body I had to make sure he was fully focused on the machine rather than a science fair. I had no choice, I had to take his place in the science fair.
"Okay, fine, but you owe me big time."
"I know I know; one more thing," He brought up and I twitched. What more could he possibly want? "We're going to need more of that chemical."
"AAAAAHHHHHH!" I screamed inside my head. "This sucks!"
"Boys, dinner!" Dave called.
"Guess I'll get started after dinner." Simon sighed.
"Alvin, Simon," Dave greeted, and gestured to a human girl, "This is Charlotte, a friend of Eleanor's." Brown hair, soft green eyes, she wasn't looking too bad. Time to turn on the charm.
"Well hello there, Charlotte." I said, hopping to her at the end of the table. I took her index finger and kissed it. This made Jeanette look up from her meal, almost like she was hurt. All eyes were on me and not in the good way like on stage.
"Oh, heh," Charlotte stammered, "Call me Charlie."
"Will do," I winked, "Oof!" Simon elbowed me in the ribs.
"You're me, remember?" He whispered and looked at Charlie, "It's nice to meet you." He smiled, which was followed by many moments of awkward silence.
"So let's eat." Dave said, looking back and forth between everyone, "Oh, by the way," He continued, "Simon, why did you push and lock Brittany out of her own room? And I heard there's a mess."
"Oh, my fault." Simon admitted, as if he was forgetting that he was in my body. "Sorry, Dave, we'll clean that up after dinner." Now everyone looked at him, squinting, trying to figure out what the heck was going on. The thought that had to be going through their heads: Did Alvin really just admit to something AND promise to clean?
"Didn't you hear the explosion?" I asked.
"There was an explosion?!" Dave raised his voice. Really? How did no one hear it!
"Never mind." I added.
"Explosion or not, that doesn't mean you can lock me out of our room!" Brittany argued.
"You wouldn't have wanted to see the mess anyway, or be in the explosion." I said.
"Is everyone okay?" Dave broke in and I ignored him.
"You're too girly for it, if you stayed in there for another second, you'd probably die. You should thank me for saving you."
"Excuse me?" She said, "Thank you?!"
"You're welcome."
"Simon!" Dave broke in, "Don't be rude!" He then mumbled, "Boy, that sounded weird."
"I could hear Charlie whisper to Eleanor, "I thought you said Alvin and Brittany were the ones who argued."
"They usually are." Eleanor whispered back. We all went back to eating silently. I felt like I was being interrogated even though no questions popped up and I was sure Simon felt the same. Eleanor was whispering to Charlie and both continued to give us strange looks. Jeanette kept looking at either me or down at her plate, and Brittany was giving me death glares and Simon confused looks. Things were pretty messed up at dinner tonight.
"Alvin," Brittany said, breaking the silence. I looked up, but remembering I wasn't Alvin, I wasn't me, I went back to my dinner.
"Um, yes, Brittany." Simon said politely. Die it down a little, bro! "I mean, Brit!" For a smarty, he was really being stupid. We really needed to take acting acting classes, we were sucking at being each other so far.
"Never mind. You seem… Preoccupied." Another weird look was given to Simon and he slapped his forehead.
"Dave, may me and Charlie be excused?" Eleanor asked, "She's going to help me with school work." Dave nodded, seeming to be relieved that this dinner was nearing it's end.
"Ooh, I'll join you, ladies, in a sec." I joked (yeah, like I'd ever do school work at home), my attention to Charlie.
"Alvin!" Simon groaned.
"Alvin?" Brittany question.
"Simon!" Simon corrected himself.
"Simon?" I asked.
"Yeah, Simon." Brittany exaggerated.
"Right: Simon!" I almost shouted. This was really hard.
"Yeah, Simon." Simon laughed nervously.
"Wait, Simon?" Brittany thought out loud, "Why is Simon flirting?"
"Because I'm Simon!" I told her and rested my head in my hands. Everyone was giving me and my brother looks like we were crazy. This was really going to be a long week.