Chapter 11: First Night Out
Dave drove the car into the driveway with his boys, Simon sat in the front seat and Alvin and Theodore sat in the back. The trip back from the mall was surprisingly a quiet one. This somehow, concerned Dave. He reached up and turned off the ignition.
"Are you sure we got you enough cloths, Simon?" Dave asked.
Simon looked down at the five bags that sat at his feet. Four bags carried the new cloths they just bought and the fifth one carried his old uniform from the island. "Yeah!" He said with a sigh. "If I need anything else, I'll let you know."
"I'm sure if he needs anything, he can make us a 'smoke' signal!" Alvin commented under his breath as he mimicked the motion of smoking a cigarette. Simon caught what his brother said and turned to glare at him. It was obvious that Alvin was not going to drop the idea that he now smoked.
Dave looks at the two brothers that are now giving each other the 'hate look' and shakes his head in disbelieve. 'Simon's back not even a day and already he and Alvin are at each other's throats. Ah, the good old days.' He thought to himself as he rolled his eyes skyward. "Um, boys, is there something you want to talk about?" Dave asked.
"Not really," Alvin replied through gritted teeth.
"I'm good," Simon added, not turning away from his older brother.
"Oh, all right then!" Dave sighed, while getting out of the car. He figured these two are now old enough to work out their own differences.
Simon got out and pulled up the front seat so his brothers can get out. He was almost tempted to slam the seat back onto Alvin as he got out, but decided against it. Simon noticed Theodore was looking a bit annoyed towards him as he crawled out from the backseat. Perhaps it could be the fact that he and Alvin were suddenly not talking to each other, or maybe he could smell smoke coming from his new jacket. It was then that Simon remembered that Theodore's smell was more acute then he and Alvin's. That would be the reason why he was receiving the look of suspicion from his younger brother. Simon tried to give Theodore a look of sincerity and smiled to let him know it's all, ok. As soon as both brothers were out of the car, Simon pushed the seat back and took out his bags from the floor of the front seat and closed the car door.
"Come on boys! Let get washed up and get dinner started!" Dave said as he unlocked the door to the house.
A queasy feeling came over Simon as he remembered on what happened to the waffles he tried to eat earlier. Just then the Chipette's came by with a chirpy attitude. "How did the shopping spree go?" Asked Eleanor.
"Ah, it went well. I got a few new clothes which will last me awhile…um, that is, until I can get more later." Said Simon with a half excited tone.
"Well, defiantly a better improvement then that bland uniform you had on when you came off the plane." Brittany nodded with an approving smile. "Especially with that cool looking jacket, a nice touch, by the way."
Simon smiled for a bit then frowned looking down at the bags he was carrying, he couldn't help agreeing with Brittany, for once. "Yes, it is." He said not looking up from the bags in his hands. Mostly he focused on the dreaded uniform that tormented him for over five years.
The three girls looked at each other with a worried expression. They could only imagine what Simon was thinking right now. "We were just wondering if you boys would like to come see this movie with us? There's one that we are dying to see, and it just came out this weekend." Jeanette finally asked.
"Aw, man! It isn't that sappy love story with Brad Pitt, is it?" Whined Alvin.
"Sappy? I'll give you sappy…" Brittany took offence to Alvin's remark. How dare he put down one of her favourite actors? She started stepping up to him aggressively while waving her fist up in the air. Eleanor stopped her before she got any closer in causing an ugly scene. "Let it go, Brittany!" She told her sister.
"A…A movie?" Simon asked nervously.
"Yea, you want to join us? Jeanette said, trying to sound enthusiastic. "It'll be fun!" Simon looked up into her beautiful green eyes and found comfort in them.
"Is it ok if I invite Tom and Renee?" Simon asked hopefully.
"Sure, the more the merrier!" Eleanor said cheerfully.
"Great, I'll go give them a call!" Simon took his things inside the house and ran to the phone to call his friends.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
FOUR HOURS LATER
The eight chipmunk teens walked out of the movie theater when the movie was over. They decided to walk to a near by ice cream parlor. Everyone ordered his or her favorite ice cream, except Simon, Tom and Renee. They just wanted a glass of water. Alvin and Theodore were worried about Simon; he hadn't eaten dinner, except for having a glass of orange juice. Neither did he have anything at the theater they wondered if their brother was sick or something. The two of them thought they would talk to Simon later about his condition, but right now they were out with friends, and having a good time. The eight of them found a table that they all could sit at so they can enjoy their ice cream and water more comfortably. Alvin, Brittany, Eleanor, and Theodore sat on one side of the table. And Jeanette, Simon, Tom, and Renee sat on the other side.
"Tom and I want to thank you for allowing us to tag along this evening." Renee said politely. "As you can tell, we don't get out much." She then let out an embarrassed giggle.
"Oh, don't worry about it! We are glad you came!" Eleanor chirped. "This gives us the opportunity to get to know you two better."
"So what did you guys do for fun at…uh…where ever you were?" Brittany asked Simon, Tom, and Renee.
The three friends looked at each other and frowned knowing all too well that there were very few fun days on the Island. "Fun? Ha! What's that?" Tom finally said, in a very solemn, sarcastic way.
Alvin and the others looked confused. Renee decided to fill in the rest. "They wouldn't allow, 'fun'. It would get in the way of all the lessons that they made us do." She said.
"They forbid us from playing games, listening or even playing music." Simon added with a look of hurt on his face.
"I'm sorry." Jeanette said with sympathy and placing her hand on Simon's. The motion almost took Simon off guard. He turned to her and again, looking into her eyes, he felt safe.
"That's ok." Tom said waving his hand sideways and giving his friends a knowing look and grinning in the corner of his mouth. "It just forced some of us to be a little more creative." He thought for a moment then bumped Simon with his elbow. "Hey, remember the laboratory incident!"
Renee began to laugh and Simon slapped his hand on his forehead, "Oh, no!" He said with half a laugh.
"What happened?" Theodore asked.
"Well," Renee began, "our other two friends Brenda and Brian were there too. They are, of course, were sent to their own homes now." Renee frowned for a moment, but then continued. "Brenda is back in London, England and Brian is living with his family in Ontario, Canada." She then came back to her story. "Anyway, it was Brian that did it."
"I was sitting beside him during a chemistry lesson, we had to do a bunch experiment for the Founders… " Simon chimed in. "He started muttering all sorts of math equations and astral physics. It's something he would do all at the same time as he worked with experiments. Suddenly he just blurts out 'Ah screw it!'"
Renee began to laugh again and added, "Brian is the type of kid that would be calm and content one moment and totally angry and almost psychotic the next."
Then Tom added. "Well, that boy started mixing the chemicals, and as soon as we realized what chemicals he was using two word came into all our minds, 'get out.' So we figured it was time for a smoke break. We all got up and calmly left the lab, it was when we made it half way across the field a loud Boom was heard from inside the building. We turned, and saw the windows of the lab were covered in purple goop. That was our queue to run as fast as we could into the forest and get out of sight until things would quietened down."
"As soon as we made it to our secret field, we started laughing so hard that we thought that our sides would split!" Simon finished as he finished with a laugh.
"Everyone and everything in that room was purple for a week." Renee laughed too.
The others pictured the scene and laughed along with Simon, Tom and Renee. Renee stopped laughing for a moment at the thought of her good friends and sighed. "God, I wish they were here now. I miss then so much." Renee said solemnly, Simon and Tom nodded in agreement.
"What's the 'secret field'?" Asked Jeanette.
"It's hard to explain, but all I know is that the Founders never stepped foot near there. We are not sure why they avoided that field, but it was one of the only safe places we were able to go." Simon said.
Eleanor thought about on what Tom said earlier and decided that she wanted find out more about it. "What did you mean when you said 'time for a smoke break'?"
"Yeah!" Alvin added, giving Simon a leering stare.
Simon felt his brothers' stares, but does not looks up to meet his gaze.
Tom noticed Simon's discomfort with his brother looking down on him and figured that he should explain. "It was the best excuse we in getting out of those 'brain washing' classes." He snapped giving Alvin a serious look.
"Ok, and who are these 'Founders' you spoke of?" Brittany also asked.
"The Founders? They are, well…the Founders of the Island! We are not sure whom they worked for, but they were to teach us many things… to be their 'warriors' or something." Renee did her best to explain the second question. As she was trying to explain it, she suddenly hears a voice blocking her train of thought. 'No one is to know…' was what she kept hearing. Brittany and Eleanor noticed Renee wince as she shakes her head. They wondered if something was something wrong with her. The two sisters turned to each other for a moment in concern then back to Renee that now appeared to look better. She started to give them a perky smile to indicate she was ok.
"Many smart kids that were taken to the Island aloud themselves to believe in the Founders stories and false truths because they didn't want to be tortured. But some of us knew better and found other ways to not fall into that trap." Tom spoke again. "It wasn't until I meet these older teens, they were some of the original groups of kids that were brought to the Island. They really knew the tricks of the trade, so to speak. Anyway these guys were masters at getting by the Founders rules. They taught us the sneaky ways in getting around them. For example, smoking was one of the only things the Founders allowed on the Island, and the only reason why they'd allowed us to 'take a break' from class. Without these guy's help we'd probably end up like the other kids…all dead."
Simon, Tom and Renee just had a sudden image of all the children and the remaining Founders that drank that 'punch'. And then realized that that could have been them too if the S.W.A.T. Team hadn't came in when they did.
Everyone at the table suddenly went quiet. Alvin and Theodore finally realized just a little of what Simon went through for the past five years and hung their heads in silent for the children that did not make it go home.
The silence seemed to be really intense and Alvin, Theodore, and the Chipette's all looked up at Simon, Tom, and Renee and noticed they were looking rather 'spacey'. The three of them just seemed to be staring at their glasses of water and not moving.
"Are you guys alright?" Eleanor asked.
"Huh?" Simon blurted, as he broke out of his trance.
Renee looked up as she suddenly realized something. "I wonder what happened to Mary-Anne and the others. They just disappeared a few days before all the police raided the Island. Weren't they supposed to be in that underground shack to hear Grafton's speech with us?"
"That's a good question? I'm not sure…" Tom thought about it. It turned out that he was unsure of anything that happened before, during, and after the invasion. "How about you, Simon?"
Simon didn't say anything, just shook his head. He just stared at the table with a look that would say that he knew something on what might of happened to their older friends. The only one that seemed to notice Simon's silent look, was Alvin and again he wondered what other surprises his brother may have.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
After the chipmunk group left the ice cream parlour they walked to a nearby park and by Renee's requested they decided to go and play on the swings and monkey bars. The eight of them felt like ten again with all of the running and playing they did. Simon, Tom and Renee wished that this moment would last forever.
Renee started to demonstrate her gymnastic abilities on the monkey bars by doing a balancing act with dangerous flips and spins. Some of her moves were so breath taking that it left everyone, except Tom and Simon, speechless. Then she does a miraculous finishing move by flipping off the bars and landing perfectly on the ground. "TA DA!" She called out. Everyone clapped for her, especially Tom and Simon. 'The moves are a lot easier to do when my IQ is tripled compared to what it was before my brain had been chemical enhanced.' She thought smugly to herself admitting that the new enhancement wasn't a totally bad thing.
"Where did you learn how to do that?" Brittany asked impressively.
Renee looked up at Simon and Tom, whom both sat at the jungle gym, and each gave each other a knowing look before Renee turned again to Brittany and answered. "I was in gymnastics before I was taken away to Founders' Island." She said in an attempt at being cheerful, but also had a hint of anger towards her kidnappers. "Guess I still remember a few things." Renee finished before joining Simon and Tom at the jungle gym.
Being the head cheerleader, Brittany knew a few good moves herself. She knows that it takes a lot of hard work and skills to keep up the perfect form in doing the moves. It was obvious to her that Renee wouldn't be able to have learned all of what she did as a child and still remember them now. Brittany also then remembered when Renee said something about being trained as a 'warrior' on the Island. This concerned her.
Things got really interesting when Simon, Tom and Renee started to talk in other languages without realizing that they were doing this in front of the others. Alvin and the others couldn't make out what they were saying, but had a feeling that they were all speaking in three or four different languages at once. They watched as they talked and laughed, as if no one else was around them. Alvin, Theodore, and the Chipettes felt like they were out of the loop. When Brittany finally cleared her throat loudly, Simon, Tom, and Renee broke out of their conversation and looked up at them feeling a little embarrassed. "Oh, sorry!" Simon apologized.
They continued to play on the swings and jungle gym for another hour and a half before reluctantly deciding to finally go home.