Brittany sighed with relief as the cast popped off her arm and clattered on the ground. "Thanks," she told Eleanor, relieved.
"You can get up and move around now—you just have to be careful," Eleanor warned her. "Don't exert yourself too much."
"Okay," Brittany agreed, clambering down out of bed. She scampered up on deck.
She twirled the ring around her finger absentmindedly as she walked up to the rail and looked down into the frothing waves below. She shivered involuntarily—Brittany didn't know how to swim—but she couldn't help but feel like the waves were beautiful in a way.
"You're finally allowed out of bed, huh?" Simon called.
Brittany turned to face him and grinned at him. "Yeah," she called back. "Eleanor took my cast off just now."
Simon nodded once and continued to stare down at his phone.
Brittany noticed something. "Nice anklet," she told him.
He looked up, alarm and panic in his eyes. "What? Huh? Oh—uh—thanks. Yeah. Um…thanks."
Flustered, he looked back down at his phone again.
Brittany frowned. Odd, she thought.
She turned back to face the rail again.
"Careful, Britt. It's kind of slippery up here," Alvin called.
"Thanks," Brittany called back. "I'm fine."
Alvin stumbled over to where she was and looked over the rail with her. "Weird, huh?" he asked.
She nodded, staring down at the waves as if mesmerized. She didn't know what, but something inside of her seemed to be trying to tug her down toward the water. The water seemed to be pulling at her, trying to get her to come closer. She leaned a bit farther over the rail.
"Careful," Alvin warned again.
"I'm fine," Brittany repeated absentmindedly, still trying to get closer into the waves.
"Britt!"
She leaned too far over.
She fell.
"BRITTANY!" Alvin yelled.
Screaming, Brittany plummeted all the way down and was lost in the waves.
"Stop the ship!" Alvin bellowed. "Stop! Brittany fell! CHIPMUNK OVERBOARD!"
"Quick, help me lower the anchor!" Simon yelled to the others, dropping his phone with a clatter. All four of them pushed hard and managed to lower the anchor and stop the ship.
Alvin ran to the back of the ship and peered into the water behind it. "BRITTANY!" he screamed. "BRITTANY! WHERE ARE YOU?"
Brittany was shrieking as she fell, hurtling and plummeting toward the ocean. The sky spun sickeningly above her, and she could just barely make out Alvin's face, twisted in horror, one hand outstretched toward her. He was yelling something, but she couldn't make out what it was.
Then she hit the waves.
A part of her was still screaming and shrieking as she was tossed about by the current. She couldn't surface, no matter how hard she fought. She didn't know how to swim. But for some reason, a part of her, the part that had been tugging her toward the waves, was rejoicing. In the midst of all this chaos, she felt…somehow…at home.
Then, to her horror, she felt the current dragging her down even farther, deeper…
This is it, she thought to herself. This is the end.
I'm so sorry, Jeanette…
For some reason, she opened her eyes and lifted her hand in front of her face. Her last sight would be the ring, still beautiful.
Then she saw that it was shimmering.
Lights were beginning to swirl and twist around it. She stared at it in astonishment, even as her lungs ached for air.
Just then, there was a brilliant explosion of light, so bright that Brittany had to shield her eyes. All the air left her in a flurry of bubbles, and then she was choking.
But she forced herself to look at the ring again.
Then she saw that the swirling, twirling patterns inside it seemed to be coming out.
Spirals and twists of silvery light flew from the gem until they were floating in the water beside Brittany, just floating there next to her. They looked remarkably like the patterns that used to swirl in the ring.
Then they began to surround her, coming in closer, weaving into one another in an intricate pattern. They formed a brilliant silvery cocoon of light around her, and it was so, so bright.
Brittany remembered the note. The magic is trapped in the gem, but it will come out to you only in the most dire circumstance when you need it.
This is a dire circumstance if I've ever seen one, she thought.
There was another burst of light, and the silvery lights seemed to be touching her, caressing her. And then…they began to flow into her.
It was a wonderful sensation, like being slowly filled up with the air that she had been craving so much. Then she realized that her lungs weren't bursting anymore. She smiled to herself, feeling warm and at peace.
Then the lights vanished, leaving Brittany with a slight tingling sensation and the realization that she was somehow still alive.
She let out a little sigh.
Then she blinked.
I can't sigh underwater.
Frowning, she experimented and sucked in.
She could breathe.
Underwater.
Trembling, she lifted the ring to her face again and peered into it. The silvery, twisting lights were gone. The ring was just one solid shade of light pink now, not changing shades. It looked just like an ordinary ring.
Then she looked down and let out another gasp. She had…changed.
But it felt so, so good. So right.
She smiled and twirled around in the water, letting out a little giggle.
Then she remembered.
Alvin! The others! The ship!
She instantly whipped around and tried to find it. She saw it in the distance and instantly began to head toward it.
"BRITTANY!" Alvin was near tears.
Then he saw what looked like a bright light far off in the water. He frowned and squinted hard at it, but then it faded away.
"What was THAT?" Simon asked with a frown, joining Alvin at the rail.
"I…I don't know," Alvin said, reaching up subconsciously and touching his gem.
"Ouch!" He yanked his hand away from it. It was burning hot.
Then Simon let out a yelp and shook his ankle. Theodore stifled a hiss and pulled his sweatshirt away from his skin where the pin was. Eleanor let out a little cry and shook her wrist.
Jeanette, far away in the cave, let out a little gasp and grabbed her necklace away from the skin. She looked at it in fascination.
All five of their gems were glowing very bright, and burning hot.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, it faded. The gems were smooth and cool once again.
Then Alvin turned back to the waves and let out a cry of delight, pointing down into the water.
Poking her head out of the water and grinning and waving at them all was Brittany.
She had changed, though. Her hair was out of its ponytail and swinging down to her waist. It had grown significantly. Also, her normal clothes were gone. Only her upper body was out of the waves, so they could see that her shirt and jacket had been replaced with a light, fluttery, pastel-pink shirt that was soft as sea foam and clung gently to her.
"Hi, guys!" she called, twirling around in the water.
"Brittany, come up here!" Alvin called.
"I don't think I can!" she called back, giggling once more.
"What? Why not?" Alvin was confused.
Brittany bit her lip, bobbing up and down in the waves. "I'll show you," she called at last.
She leaned backward and then threw herself forward, diving down so vigorously that her legs went straight up in the air before slipping under the waves.
Only…her legs didn't come up.
What did come up was…a tail.
It was bright and pink, and the scales glittered and gleamed in the sunlight as Brittany moved it and twisted it from underwater, showing it off. Then the tail vanished under the waves, and Brittany's torso popped up again.
She grinned at their flabbergasted expressions.
"Brittany's…a mermunk!" Alvin cried in astonishment.
"Do you really think this will work?" Brittany called up to them, nervous.
"It should," Eleanor said firmly. "In all the books I've read, if a person is half-mermaid and half-human, all they have to do is get out of the water for a while and their legs will come back."
"Do you think my tail will ever come back again, too?" Brittany asked them, looking sadly down at her tail. "I mean…there's really no way to describe this. It's just so, so cool."
"I think that it will happen whenever you're in the water," Eleanor told her.
She tossed the thick rope down to Brittany, and Brittany tied it around her waist. Then she and Theodore pulled Brittany out of the water and up onto the deck.
Brittany stretched out, her tail flopping limply.
"I feel…really…dried…out," she panted.
"Just give it a minute longer, Britt," Eleanor whispered.
"Put…me…back…in…the…water," Brittany huffed dizzily. "This…isn't…working." She was gasping for air now.
"Brittany, rub your ring," Alvin spoke up suddenly.
Brittany frowned at him. "What?" she asked.
"Rub your ring and focus really hard on what you were like before," he told her. "Then try to move yourself from your mermaid body and into your chipmunk one."
Brittany looked skeptical, but she rubbed the gem on her ring and closed her eyes. Her expression changed from annoyance to a deep concentration.
Then there was a brilliant flash of light, and when it faded, Brittany was lying on the deck. Her tail was gone, and her normal clothes and legs were back.
"It worked!" Brittany cried.
"See, now when you want to be a mermunk, you can do that in the water, too," Alvin told her, satisfied.
"That was the coolest thing ever," Brittany gushed, grabbing Eleanor's hands and squeezing them. "It was just SO AWESOME!" Then she caught sight of Eleanor's bracelet.
"Wow, that's pretty, Ellie. Where did you get it?" Brittany asked, and then she noticed the green gem hanging from it.
She gasped and released it. Eleanor rubbed it nervously and backed away.
"You…it's…"
"I know it's weird, but just let me explain!" Eleanor began, but Brittany shook her head.
"My ring," she whispered, "was exactly like that…only pink…before I turned into a mermaid."
"Wait a minute. What are you guys talking about?" Simon ran over.
"Look," Brittany whispered, holding out Eleanor's bracelet.
Simon gawked at it for a long, long moment before lifting his ankle and pointing.
"Hey! You have one, too!" Brittany cried, staring in astonishment at the swirling blue gem that was dangling from it.
"Is this sort of thing what you're all gawking about?" Alvin griped, pulling off his hat and displaying the gemstones on the side. He pointed to the real gem, swirling and red.
They all gaped in astonishment.
"Um…my pin looks kinda like that," Theodore said in a quiet voice.
They all whirled to look at him and he shyly pointed to the green swirling gem on his pin.
They all stared at one another in silence.
"And did you all get this note with it?" Alvin asked quietly at last, pulling the paper out of his pocket.
After reading it, they all nodded silently.
"So…we have, like, powers?" Eleanor asked, staring suspiciously at her green gem. "And they're locked in these gems. But they'll only come out when we need them."
"That's what happened to me!" Brittany cried. "I was drowning." She ignored Alvin's flinch. "But then the powers came out of the ring and they went…they went into me. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true, that was the bright light that you saw! I would have died, but instead, I have the powers of…water?"
"Well, not necessarily," Simon shrugged. "You may just have the power to be part 'mermunk,' as Alvin calls it."
Brittany looked down with wide eyes. "Then how do you explain this?" she asked after a long pause, holding up her hands.
They all stared in astonishment.
Streams of water were trickling from her fingertips.
"No way," Simon said in a hushed voice.
"And look," Brittany cried. She dove over into the water, and everyone let out a cry, but seconds later there was a bright flash underneath the water and she surfaced as a mermaid. She scooped up some water and held it there, a perfect round water ball, in her hands.
"Whoa," they all chorused.
She climbed back up the ship one-handed, holding the water ball in her other hand, and turned back into a chipmunk. Then she stood on the deck and displayed the ball of water to the others. They all stared in astonishment. Eleanor reached out and poked it, but it dissolved and ran through her fingers.
Brittany leaned down on the deck and scooped up the puddle, not leaving behind a drop and forming another water ball with it.
She bounced it up and down in her hand, grinning ear to ear as everyone gaped in astonishment.
"Awesome, huh?" she beamed.