Here we are with the next chapter! My life has been super hectic lately, and I'm sorry I haven't updated in a long time. I'll try to be better about that now.

Enjoy!

Okay! Alvin thought frantically. Dire circumstance here! Power—save me!

Nothing happened.

Like, NOW, please!

But nothing happened.

Jeanette tried desperately to hold onto Simon, but the current ripped her away. She tried to call out to him, but she was yanked under the water and all that came out were bubbles.

Eleanor was being tossed and twirled this way and that, not knowing what was happening or which way was up. She felt like she was in the world's biggest washing machine.

Theodore was trying to find the others, but he couldn't see a thing as waves crashed over his head again and again. He couldn't even focus enough to light the water and see where to go to find the others.

Simon was yelling for Jeanette, barely able to keep his head above the water, but she had been yanked away from him, and he didn't know where she was.

Brittany was focusing as hard as she could, trying to turn into a mermaid, but nothing was happening.

The current must be too strong for the transformation to take place, she thought frantically. I can't change!

Jeanette had given up fighting the current. She was being tossed and thrown about like the tiny, frail chipmunk that she was. She closed her eyes.

Simon, I love you, she thought.

Then she was driven into something hard and solid, so hard and solid that all the breath left her lungs in a whoosh of bubbles.

What did I crash into?

She worked as hard as she could, fighting and clawing her way to the surface.

She burst above the waves, gasping in cold, sweet lungfuls of air.

She peered up at what she had hit.

A ship! It's a ship! It must be the ship that the others came to save me on!

One wave carried her particularly high, and she saw a thick brown rope trailing over the side. She lunged and managed to nab it. Now she was dangling on the rope far above the waves.

"GUYS!" she screamed. "OVER HERE! THE SHIP! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?"

No one answered.

"SIMON! ALVIN! THEO! ELLIE! BRITT!"

Nothing.

Simon was being thrown and churned in the water, and he was still trying desperately to find Jeanette.

Then his head went above the surface, and he gasped air. But he could hear something else—someone calling.

"GUUUYS! OVER HERE! OVER HERE! I FOUND THE SHIP! SIMON! GUYS!"

Jeanette!

"I'M HERE!" he yelled back. "HERE, JEANETTE!"

"SIMON!" she yelled. "SIMON, HERE! GET OVER HERE, QUICK!"

He swam as hard as he could in the direction of her voice, and then he saw the ship. He wouldn't have made it, though, if a lucky wave hadn't carried him right up to it.

He saw Jeanette dangling from the rope that Brittany usually used to climb up and down. He jumped as high as he could and managed to snag it.

He climbed up to where she was, panting.

"Where are the others?" she cried. Miraculously, she still had her glasses, and so did Simon.

"I don't know," he replied frantically. "Quick, get up to the ship. We've got to find them."

She scrambled up to the deck and lifted herself over the rail, collapsing and coughing up seawater. Simon followed her, coughing himself.

"GUYS!" he yelled. "THEODORE! ELEANOR! ALVIN! BRITTANY!"

"Simon?"

The small voice came from directly beneath the ship.

"Theodore!" he yelled. "Here! The ship! We're up here!"

Theodore looked up and let out a gasp as he saw the ship looming over him. "The ship!" he cried. "The ship!" He grabbed the rope and began to climb.

"Where's Alvin? Where's Ellie?" he cried when he got on deck.

"I don't know," Simon replied frantically. "They're still out there, and so is Brittany."

"Someone call my name?"

Alvin was below, clutching a bedraggled and wet Brittany around the waist. She was coughing fiercely.

"Up here!" Theodore yelled, waving a paw frantically. Alvin clambered up the rope with one hand and held tight to Brittany with the other.

"Where's Eleanor?" Theodore asked frantically.

"I don't know," Brittany whispered. "I'm sorry. I couldn't see. It's raining and dark out here…"

It was indeed raining, and they could barely see a thing.

Eleanor was still in the water, being tossed and crashed about. She didn't know which way to turn. She thought she'd heard people yelling earlier, but she didn't know where they were. She couldn't see anything in the rainy darkness.

Theodore dashed to the front of the boat and held his hand out. Flashlight beams of light flew out from them. He focused as hard as he could and they grew brighter, and brighter, and brighter, so bright that the others had to look away.

Eleanor managed to surface, but she couldn't see or hear a thing. It was all darkness and the crashing of the waves.

Then she saw a brilliant light, shining brighter than the sun. She squinted up at it, and then grinned. She only knew one person who could make that kind of light.

"Theodore," she tried to yell, but her voice was raspy and tired, and it didn't go very far.

"ELEANOR! ELLIE!" she heard Theodore yelling, and knew that he saw her, due to his ability to see through the darkness.

She heard a whistling noise, and a life preserver landed next to her with a splash. She used her last bit of strength to climb up onto it and was barely able to cling to it as they pulled her in.

She saw the ship going closer and closer, but she barely cared anymore. She was so tired…she just…wanted…to sleep.

She closed her eyes…

"What's the matter with her? Is she all right? What happened?"

Theodore's shrill voice rose above the others.

"I think she just fell asleep," Brittany soothed him. "She looks just fine."

"She looks wet," Jeanette commented.

"We all do," Simon pointed out. "We just fell in the ocean while it was raining."

"That's true," Jeanette conceded. She and Simon smiled at each other and shared yet another tight hug. They hadn't strayed a foot away from each other since Simon had rescued Jeanette.

"Why wasn't I able to turn into a mermaid, though?" Brittany frowned. "I don't understand it."

"Maybe it's just because the current was so strong," Theodore suggested.

Simon looked down at her hand and gasped. "Or maybe…" His voice trailed off and he swallowed hard. "Maybe it's because your ring is gone."

"Don't be ridiculous," Brittany snapped. "My ring is not—," She looked down and let out a shriek when she saw her bare finger.

"My ring!" she cried.

Simon looked down and gasped. "Oh, no! My anklet!" he cried, pointing. The cord was still there, but the blue jewel was gone.

Alvin took his cap off hurriedly and looked down at it. He gasped and pointed. One of the studded jewels was missing.

"My jewel is gone, too!" he said miserably.

"So is mine," Eleanor coughed in a small voice. They all looked down at her in astonishment to see that her green gem was gone from her bracelet.

"I didn't know you were awake, Ellie," Theodore said, hurrying to her side.

"My gem is gone," Eleanor whispered, gesturing to the silver charm bracelet.

"You guys all got gems, too?" Jeanette's voice was startled.

They all looked at her, remembering that she hadn't been on the ship with them when they'd all gotten their jewels.

"What do you mean, too?" Simon asked her.

She reached into her dress and tugged the necklace out, displaying the purple gem dangling from the end.

"Wow," Simon whispered, fingering it gently.

"At least you still have yours," Brittany said glumly.

"I have mine, too," Theodore pointed out, pointing down to the bright green jewel still firmly implanted on his pin.

Then there was a loud laugh from behind them.

They all whipped around and could just barely make out Adam, leaning on the rock ledge, perfectly relaxed.

"Looking for these?" he called out, holding his hand out.

Four gems sparkled in his palm—a normal pink one, a normal pastel green one, a normal blue one, and a shining, sparkling red one.

"Aw, Adam got our gems!" Brittany wailed.

"We have to get them back!" Alvin cried. "My gem still has my powers in it! We can't let Adam get our powers!"

"He's right," Theodore said immediately. "We've got to get them back."

Simon groaned. "Fine, fine. We'll get them back, and then we're going straight home to Dave."

"What about Adam? We can't just let him get away with this!" Brittany cried, outraged. "He's kidnapped her and hurt her!"

"Dave will know what to do," Simon said firmly. "I'm not having Adam on the same ship as Jeanette, and especially not for three weeks."

"That's true," Eleanor conceded. "He might hurt her. Or any of us."

Adam laughed once more and then vanished inside his fortress once again.

"We have to dry off and prepare ourselves," Simon continued. "C'mon, Jeanette, let's go downstairs."

The two chipmunks started to go down to the lower decks when they heard a small voice over the edge of the ship.

"Hey! Heeeey! Room for one more?"

Jeanette dashed to the edge of the ship and looked down. Her face split into a smile.

"Monique!" she cried. "Here, grab the rope!"

Monique grabbed it and began to climb. Soon she was on the deck.

Jeanette gave her a big hug. "You came back!" she said happily.

"Of course I did, Miss Jeanette," Monique said warmly. "We've become such good friends…I just couldn't leave you."

Jeanette, beaming, grabbed Monique's paw and led her over to Simon. "Monique," she said breathlessly, "this is Simon, my boyfriend." She smiled lovingly at Simon. "He's the one that I told you all about."

To everyone's surprise, Monique ran up and hugged Simon.

"Um…" Simon was confused.

"Thank you so much for saving Miss Jeanette," Monique exclaimed.

"She hugs people when she wants to say thank you," Jeanette explained in a low voice, trying hard to stifle a grin. "Just give her a hug back."

Simon awkwardly hugged Monique back, and then Monique hurried over to hug each of the other chipmunks.

Simon and Jeanette smiled at each other again and headed downstairs.

Simon caught Jeanette up on everything that had happened. She took a deep breath.

"Wow," she whispered. "That was a lot."

"So, what happened with you and Adam?" Simon raised an eyebrow.

Jeanette fidgeted and looked down at the bed.

"Is it really that bad?" Simon's voice was testy.

"Simon," Jeanette said firmly. "I did not do anything with him. I didn't even touch him."

He seemed a bit relieved.

"You know that I'm in love with you, not him," she told him firmly. "I never touched him. Granted," she muttered under her breath, "he touched me…"

"Excuse me?" Simon's voice was sharp again.

"I…nothing. It's nothing." She avoided his eye and busily put her hair up in its normal ponytail after tugging it out of its braid.

"Jeanette."

She squirmed slightly under his gaze. "Look, it's just going to make you mad, so I don't see any point in…"

"I want to know, Jeanette."

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

"And you're a bad liar," he added. "Keep that in mind."

She sighed again and flopped back on the bed. "Okay. When we came in first, I was still in that cat carrier. He let the spider bite me first thing, and it didn't work, so they ran a bunch of tests…" She shivered, remembering the needles and horrible tests that they'd made her go through.

Simon cast her a look, but she ignored it and plowed on with her story. "He was making a plan," she said quietly. "He was going to make me pretend that I was in love with him to get revenge on you. Then he was going to figure out what was in the cure and change me into Callie…and you back into Simone."

Simon sat on the bed, thunderstruck, but Jeanette still wouldn't meet his eyes.

"How did you get so hurt, then?" Simon frowned.

Jeanette sighed. "He kept threatening me to go along with it," she whispered, "and when I said no, he…he…"

"HE did that?" Simon yelled, jumping to his feet.

"I told you this would just make you angry," Jeanette pleaded. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's fine. It's done now. He can't hurt me anymore. I'm fine. Please, let's just stop talking about it."

She reached up and pulled Simon back down on the bed. He was quiet for a while, and then he said evenly, "How often did he do it?"

Jeanette shivered.

"Jeanette."

"Every day," she whispered, her eyes tightly closed.

She felt him tense up immediately.

"I'm gonna kill him," he muttered.

"Simon, just leave him alone," Jeanette begged. "I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

"I'll be fine, Jeanette," he assured her, brushing a stray hair out of her face. She smiled slightly. She had missed his touch so much.

"I never stopped waiting for you," she whispered to him. "Never, ever. I missed you so much."

"I missed you, too," he whispered. "And I never stopped looking for you. Never, ever."

"I thought…I thought…" Jeanette was suddenly crying. "I thought that Adam was going to kill you," she whispered after a moment. "I thought I'd never see you again…"

"It's okay, Jeanette," Simon whispered, pulling her close. "I'm here now. And I'll never let him hurt you again."

He laid down on the bed, and she curled up next to him, her head on his shoulder.

They stayed like that for a very long time. Finally, they fell asleep.

Brittany hurried down the stairs to ask what the game plan was, but stopped midsentence when she saw that they were both fast asleep.

Smiling slightly, she backed out of the room and went back up on deck. Yes, getting the gems back was very important. But it could wait for a bit longer.