I think this update is a tad bit premautre (in case you haven't noticed, I don't usually update until it's off the first page of stories), but the next couple of days are going to be thick with our final rehersal (tomorrow) and then our show. It's Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, with a spaghetti dinner that we're putting on before the show Saturday. Right now, my biggest personal worry is that my curls won't be properly curled and I'll look like a big mistake on stage...My biggest worry for the show is that the cast members with lines won't have all their lines memorized...Three of them had to stop and say 'line' flat out today, one of them carried their script around with them (the main character, no less...and he's an amazing actor, but something must be getting in his way of practicing and memorizing)...ect ect ect. It's coming together nicely...After the bad rep it had when we heard that we were doing it, it sure turned out great (according to people that had read the script earlier, it was a disastor waiting to happen, just because of how poorly written it is...But in reality, it's just so well written that until you act it out and really realize what's going on, it will look a bit dumb).

So enough of that ranting. Please, do enjoy chapter 8...Geeze, here I am answering everyone's prayers, only I'm answering them four or five chapters after what you're reading...(like you fluff lovers out there...I was in the process of working that in well before you asked for it...Please, when you suggest something, try to keep in mind that I'm right now in the middle of writing chapter 13).

One last note: At all times, please be thinking about weather they're in character or not. I need to know if I'm hitting the nail on the head with a hammer or if I'm driving a screw gun into the ground (completely missing the nail all together).

And on that note...I end my rant.

AND DON'T FORGET: Sign my petition to let Ross and Janice know that we want to see more of the cartoon Chipmunks (and not just the old episodes either...the Chipmunk Adventure needs to be shown on TV as well as the fact that they need to make more).

Switched

Chapter 8: Nightmares

Alvin's eyes jolted open, his heart racing and his mind confused. It took him a few minutes to grasp that the darkness around him was indeed a bedroom, even if it wasn't his own. No…It was the Chipette's room and he was sleeping in Brittany's bed. He crawled out from under the blankets and tried to quietly reach the ground. Of course, not used to the silky sheets he ended up sliding to the ground. He heard both his brothers tossing in their sleep, but neither of them had woken up. He was just glad he hadn't woken up screaming…

He tried to creep as quietly as he could to the door, the floor creaking underneath him. Whenever he couldn't sleep or he had a nightmare (that he didn't wake up the rest of the house with) or just sometimes late at night for no reason, he'd creep downstairs and get a drink of something. Depending on the situation, it could be anything from pop to milk to water. Tonight called for chocolate milk, if Miss Miller had that. Five days in the house and he hadn't seen a sign that Miss Miller had ever even heard of chocolate milk.

He tentatively stepped out of the room, but the old floor underneath let out the loudest creak he'd ever heard. A quick glance back at his brothers told him they were still sleeping, so he hurried towards the stairs. "Al-vin?" Miss Miller said in her usual way. The southern twang in her voice was much more prominent tonight though. Perhaps it was just because his mind was still foggy from his nightmare. "What's the matter dear?"

"Just…couldn't sleep," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "I was going to go get a glass of milk."

"Just what I was after. Warm milk always puts me to sleep." Alvin grumbled a little under his breath as she led him down the stairs. "I had the strangest dream just now." Alvin really couldn't care less as he sat down at the table. He was trying to get his dream out of his mind. "The girls and I were floating down a river on that decrepit raft that we found on our way to that one gig in…"

"When Brittany had to ride a mule and shovel coal and do the dishes only to find out she was the star of the boat. She didn't leave out a single detail."

"Right. Well, the raft fell apart in this dream, just like in real life. Except this time, instead of finding a boat to carry us on our way, we all got swept down the river and pushed over a waterfall. I tried as hard as I could, but the girls and I were separated…Frightful dream. I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to them."

"That's nothing. In my dream we were all going to play at the biggest gig of our lives. We'd been invited to perform in front of the White House! But no one showed up. Even the president himself wasn't there. It was a ghost town. But we started playing anyway, and Brittany kept getting in my way. So we ended up fighting and as we fought this huge black hole opened up in the sky and sucked up Dave and Simon and Theodore! Then it got you and the girls…and the instruments…and everything!" Alvin felt his heart racing just recalling the emotions he'd felt in that dream. It wasn't so much that what happened was frightening…it was that he could feel the wind, smell the air…taste the dirt that had been flowing around. It had been completely real.

"My. No wonder you need a glass of milk." He heard her microwave beep and smiled as she set the glass in front of him. He'd have much preferred chocolate milk, but as he sipped the warm milk he did find it quite soothing. He turned to stand up and walk around while he was drinking, just something to get the energy out of his not-so-tired legs. As he picked the glass up, they heard two ear-splitting screams from upstairs. It got him to drop the glass so that it shattered across the floor.

"Simon! Theodore!" Due to his young age, he was upstairs in under a minute. It took Miss Miller considerably longer to get to the two boys. Theodore had pulled Eleanor's comforter around him and was a lump in the middle of his bed. Simon had fallen clean out of bed and was just laying there trying to get his bearings. "Nightmares?"

"That was…so real…" Simon gasped out as Alvin went over to help him up.

"Join the club. We've got milk." Simon looked at him in confusion, but the blurry blot that was his brother gave him a headache. He reached for his glasses, only to hear them clatter to the floor. For the second time that night, Alvin heard cracking glass.

"Please tell me…"

"Sorry. That was your glasses." Alvin reached over to pick them up. "Well, look at it this way. It's only one side that broke." Simon groaned as Alvin brushed away the specks of glass and held them up for his brother to put on. But a sharp edge caught his eye and he merely set them on the nightstand. "Well, Miss Miller can always order you a new pair."

"Pair of what?" Miss Miller asked as she finally got up the stairs. "I have to hurry and clean up that milk and glass downstairs, is everything alright up here?'

"Just two more nightmares…" Alvin glanced over to Theodore. The youngest was peeking out from under his covers. He was starting to wish he'd run over to Theodore first. But because Simon had been on the floor Alvin had gone for him first…It was so hard being a triplet sometimes, especially when he had to pick between which of his younger brothers he'd help first.

"I'll go clean it up and get more milk for you three." Alvin led Simon over to Theodore's bed and they climbed up and wrapped their arms around the youngest.

"I want Dave!" Theodore whispered through the cover.

"It sure would be nice to have his reassurance," Simon added.

"You're telling me!" Alvin hissed. "I saw him getting sucked up into a black hole! I'd love to have him hug me right now just to make sure that this isn't the dream." Simon started snickering.

"Alvin, you never admit stuff like that. What's gotten into you?"

"Not having Dave around to do that without question." Simon sighed. There was no arguing with that. "So…what happened in your dreams?"

…X…

Brittany howled out in horror as she rolled out of her bed, tangled up in her blankets, barely missing the corner of the nightstand. Her sisters both woke up screaming as loud as they could also, just because of being shaken from their dreams in such a manner. It didn't even matter that they'd been having good dreams up until that point…as soon as Brittany started screaming their dreams had turned sour.

"What's wrong?" Dave exclaimed as he kept one hand on the doorframe, his eyes wide and his heart racing. It sounded like the three were burning alive. There was just no calming the screaming. Well, Brittany at least. Her sisters calmed down after a few moments and just sat there, eyes wide, as they tried to calm down. Brittany's howl turned into a few weak sobs before she balled up on the floor. "Are you girls alright?"

"I…yeah," Eleanor said, taking in a deep breath. "That doesn't always happen, I promise. Just whenever Brittany has a really bad dream, she always wakes up screaming…and her screams usually make our dreams change into bad ones and then we wake up screaming because our dreams scare us that bad…"

"It's a cycle," Jeanette whispered as she groped for her glasses. Eleanor had already hopped down and was trying to coax Brittany to sit up. Dave took a few deep breaths himself, trying to calm down. Alvin had only woken up screaming a few times before, and his screams didn't really get the rest of them going too. So he did what he knew to do. He went over and pulled Brittany up off the floor and hugged the little ball. She was still wrapped up in her blankets, but she started to calm down.

"Miss Miller usually goes straight for the milk," Jeanette said as she walked over, putting her glasses on.

"Do you three want some chocolate milk than?" Dave asked as he tried to pry the blankets away from Brittany's head. Now she was struggling to untangle herself.

"Chocolate?" Eleanor whispered. "We…we've never had chocolate milk. Miss Miller always gives us big glasses of warm milk."

"Warm milk? I'm afraid I've never really warmed up milk before…I'd probably mess it up trying now. The boys seem to be just as comforted by chocolate milk. You want to try it?"

"Sure," Jeanette said between two sneezes. She was much better than she'd been earlier, but she was still coughing and sneezing. Brittany was jealous that she was allowed to miss two days of school already, and Jeanette was the one that was getting to know Dave best. He certainly was a mother of a father. Dave even carried Brittany downstairs, since her mind was still racing too much for her to really even walk straight. They all sat down at the table as he made the chocolate milk, waiting to hear him ask them what the dream had been about. But he didn't. He just went on preparing their drinks.

"What happened?" Eleanor asked her sister sweetly.

"Well," Brittany said, but then she lost her voice. She clenched her eyes and shook her head. "Everyone…everyone was there. But all of you were like background noise…just something that was there…It was mainly about me and Alvin…and…and…" She couldn't say it, so Jeanette hugged her and let her be silent for a few moments.

"In my dream gone wrong, we were all at a concert and we all met our biggest idols, and then suddenly everything just turned upside down…there were monsters and natural disasters and everything." Brittany giggled. Jeanette seemed so down to earth and sensible, but her dreams could get so weird.

"Mine was at the restaurant that's on the Eiffel Tower," Eleanor added. "We were all sitting down to dinner when this huge earthquake happened! The tower collapsed underneath it and I was separated from you two…I don't even know if you survived in my dream or not." Dave set their drinks in front of them and then sat down himself. He figured it'd be weirder if he just up and left the room.

"A-a-a…" Brittany tried, but she couldn't take her eyes off Dave. Even if it was just a dream, it was still weird telling Alvin's dad what had happened to the poor boy in it. "Well…Some stuff happened…"

"We figured that much," Jeanette teased, getting a glare from her sister. Glares and giggles were good. It meant that the fear was melting away.

"But we ended up in this awful situation. I was hanging out of a hot air balloon…those goons from Antarctica were after me and him…Not the dolls or the diamonds…they wanted revenge."

"How do you know that?" Eleanor asked.

"It's one of those dream feelings…You just know. I don't know why those two wanted revenge, but they did…They did…" She wrapped her arms around her stomach. "It was so real…I was hanging on by a rope, you guys had already been captured…Alvin was the only one actually in the balloon. He was trying to pull me up…he was, he was…"

"Then what?" Jeanette said sweetly, rubbing her sister's back.

"Then someone else…It may have even been Claudia, I couldn't really tell…They just appeared in the basket and they grabbed onto him and threw him out! There was a cliff there…it was such a long drop…" Eleanor was on her other side. For the first time, Dave could really see how much Alvin really meant to Brittany. All he usually saw was the two of them bickering, but now Brittany was so upset over a dream where something happened to Alvin. "The goons got me…And I don't remember if they threw us over the edge too…"

"That's when you woke up?"

"Yeah."

"Thank goodness," Eleanor whispered. "At least you didn't have to suffer that one until the end."