Neverland (4 page)

THE RABBIT IS excellent, and the best thing about this dinner is there’s lots and lots of strawberry milk to wash it all down. Best dinner I ever had.

I help Tami and Toby clear the table, but when I go back for the second load of dishes, Peter grabs my arm and pulls me aside. “What do you say? Shall I give you a quick tour through Neverland before night falls?”

A hike through the jungle? I might spot a possible way to get off this island while exploring. Great! So I don’t have to wait until tomorrow after all. “Let me just get my sweater, then we can hike off.”

“Hike off…” Peter says, testing the words while I slip into my black sweater.

As I pull it down, an ear-piercing shriek bounces off the walls inside the tree. The little pixie with the pointed ears dashes to her room, leaving a trail of golden dust in her wake. With a loud boom, her door slams shut.

“What in the world—” I don’t get to finish my sentence. Each of the boys in the room points at the skull on my sweater. Actually, they look rather ridiculous with their outstretched arms. I make a sheepish face.

“Get Tami out of there and tell her Angel is not a pirate,” Peter instructs Sparky, who’s running a helpless hand over his buzz cut. “Angel and I have to go now, or it’ll get too dark for the tour.”

While the boys talk to Tami through the wall, I sidle up to Peter, waiting for him to show me a door that’s leading out of this underground tree house. To my total astonishment, he just scoops me up in his arms like earlier this afternoon and rises with me in the air. “What are you doing?” I cry.

He stops and hovers a few feet above the ground. “I thought you wanted to explore?”

“I do. But why do we have to fly again?”

“Because it’s the easiest way. Are you scared?”

“Not of flying. I’m just afraid I’ll be too heavy for you and you’ll drop me.” From two hundred feet.

“Yeah, now that you mention it…” Peter sets off toward the opening in the top of the tree, but he’s flying like a drunk, wobbling to all sides. “Whoa. Girl, I don’t think I can hold you any longer!”

“What?”
We’re halfway up through the trunk.

“I’m sorry!” He tips from left to right, clearly losing his balance. “You’re just too heavy!”

All of a sudden, his hands are off me, and I plummet. Rowing with my arms is no use. A moment later, gravity flings me into the trampoline and shoots me back up. I gasp as Peter catches me and waggles his brows. He zooms with me out of the tree. The laughter of the Lost Boys follows us.

“Very funny,” I growl, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck this time.

Lightheartedly, Peter replies, “Yes, it was.” Then he rolls his eyes and grins. “Too heavy for me…? Crazy girl.”

The deep orange sun slides low on the horizon as we glide across the sky. The weird thing is, Peter tells me we’re starting off north, and if he’s to be trusted, the glowing orb is lowering on the east side of the isle.

Frankly, why does this even surprise me?

“Look! Down there’s Mermaid Lagoon,” Peter says into my ear.

I tilt my head to catch a glimpse. We’re right above the north peak of Neverland. The Caribbean-blue sea glistens in the last sunrays of the day. Young women with beautiful long hair and fishtails frolic in the waves, shouting up to us that we should go down and meet them.

“Do you know these girls?” I ask Peter as we descend to the rocky north shore.

“Some of them. Mermaids are usually shy people, but once they get to know you, they sort of warm up.” He chuckles, and I’m sure it’s about a memory he shares with the mermaids.

Peter sets me down on the shore and waves at the girls in the water. “Hey, Melody! Come and meet my new friend!”

One of the mermaids detaches from the group and pops her head out of the water several feet away from us. She pushes her wet auburn hair behind her ears while the long strands float in the water around her and gives us a shy smile. “Hello, Peter. I haven’t seen you in a while. I almost started to believe that Hook had gotten you in the end.”

“Never!” Peter laughs and pumps up his chest like a proud rooster. “The day that Hook catches Peter Pan is the day that the sun goes down in the West.”

I guess for Neverland this is a working metaphor.

“It would be a sad day for us all,” Melody replies. Then her curious gaze wanders to me.

Peter places a hand at the small of my back but his attention is still on the mermaid. “This is my friend, Angel. Dropped from the clouds today.” He leans forward a little and adds in a loud whisper, “She got lost.”

“Don’t they all?” Melody giggles a soul-warming sound and does a back-flip into the water. She comes up a little closer to us next. Near enough to reach for my hand, actually.

“Whoa,” is what I say for a greeting. “I’m shaking hands with a mermaid.”

Melody’s kelp-green eyes begin to glint with a hint of mischief, and suddenly she tugs hard on my hand. “Come in and play with us!”

I gasp as I lose the ground beneath my feet.

“Oh no!” Peter laughs. “Not today, Mel.” He has already wrapped his arm around my middle, preventing me from plunging head first into the waves. “I want to show Angel our treasure as long as we have low tide. Maybe we’ll come back tomorrow to play.”

Note to self: If you aren’t wearing a bathing suit, keep a safe distance from mermaids in the future.

Melody pouts and bats her lashes, but in the next moment she smiles again and splashes water at us with her mighty fishtail before she dives into the waves and swims off. “See you tomorrow!” she shouts over her shoulder.

Yeah. Tomorrow,
I think and realize that Peter’s still hugging me to his chest. “You do have crazy friends, you know that, Peter Pan?”

“Aw, you’ll love them once you grow used to living in Neverland. I promise you’ll never want to leave again.”

He is right. This dreamy island feels too good to be true. Pixies, houses in trees, and mermaids…who wouldn’t want to live in a place like this? On the other hand, back home I have a room of my own and don’t have to share a tree with six immature guys and a shrieking pixie. I also miss my sisters, and I’d never trade the adventure of riding on a red double-decker bus for a flight in a lanky guy’s arms.

“Are you ready to go?” Peter breaks through my thoughts.

I nod. “Where to?”

Lifting me in his arms again, he pushes off the shore and glides out to the sea. “Treasure island,” he informs me. “If you can’t fly, you can only reach it with a boat. And then you’ll only find it when the tide is out.”

“Really? Why?”

“At low tide, the top of the rock protrudes from the water. There’s a cave with a hole at the top. We sealed it with a trapdoor. This way no water gets inside when the tide is rolling in. And Hook can’t find it, because he can only move out with his ship when the tide is high.”

“Very clever,” I agree to his smug grin.

We fly about half a mile until we finally reach a rock formation that looks like birthday candles on a cake. Peter lands on the rock closest to us, then he says, “Now second to the right.” As if the two of us are weightless, he takes a gazelle-like jump from our rock to the next, and the next. That one’s a little bigger than the others. Peter puts me down and starts carrying stones out of the way. I help him and find a square wooden trapdoor beneath. My anticipation rises as he fishes a key from his pocket and unlocks the door. It flaps down on one side. The scent of seawater and rusty copper wafts in my face.

Peter straightens, giving me a teasing look. “Okay, for going down there, you have to actually hug me. The door’s too small to carry you through in my arms.”

I see what he means, but I feel a little awkward when I sling my arms around his neck and he pulls me closer. Like an embracing couple, we glide down through the porthole. Pitch-black darkness surrounds us. I can’t tell how far we really descend, but after a few seconds I feel some sort of ground beneath my feet. Something tingles when I shift my weight from one foot to the other.

“Wait here,” Peter orders, then he leaves me alone in the dark. I can hear him scurry around somewhere to my left. Moments later, the warm flames of a torch brightens the cave.

I suck in a sharp breath. “Oh my freaking goodness!”

Peter flies back to me. “You like it?”

In a wild frenzy, I grab his collar, pull him close until our noses touch, and cry, “This is unbelievable!”

Three quarters of the cave floor are covered with heaps and heaps of gold coins, silver goblets, mirrors specked with gemstones, and all kinds of jewelry. I stand on the highest pile, shoving clinking coins in all directions as I drop to my butt and slide down one side. The urge to dive into the heap and swim in the money pool like Uncle Scrooge grips me by the neck, but Peter’s voice drags me out of my fascination.

“Come. I want to show you the rest of our treasure.”

I make big eyes at him. “There’s more?”

“Just a little bit.” He pulls me past the hills of gold, toward a huge heavy wooden chest in a corner. When he opens it, thousands of diamonds and multi-colored gemstones glimmer in the torch light.

I run my hands through them, trying to remember to breathe. “Where did you find all this?”

Peter shrugs. “It’s Hook’s treasure. We stole it from him some time ago.”

“You stole a pirate’s treasure? Oh my God! Now I understand why this guy is after you.”

“Ah.” He waves a dismissive hand at me. “If it wasn’t for us, Hook would be bored to death by now. He can consider himself lucky we’re taking care of him like this.”

“Yeah, right.” I chuckle and cut an amused glance his way. “You’re such a
selfless
person, Peter Pan, aren’t you?” He gives me a half-smile back. Then I spot a smaller chest right behind his feet. “What’s in there?”

Following the direction of my gaze, Peter lifts the silver chest that is actually no taller than a shoebox from the damp ground and blows across the lid. The dust cloud rising makes me sneeze twice. “Nobody knows what’s in there,” he tells me. “It’s sealed with this iron lock, and Hook still has the key. He carries it on a chain around his neck.”

I run my fingers across the dents in the metal. “You’ve tried to open it?”

“With a stone, with an ax, by tossing it from the top of a mountain, by trying to melt the iron lock…you name it.”

The burning marks are still visible and make me laugh. “No chance of getting hold of the key?”

“For years we’ve been trying to grab that key, but it’s the only thing we haven’t been able to take off Hook yet.”

“I see. Maybe you should bargain with him. Buy the key with part of his own treasure?”

“No way!” Peter flashes a keen grin that makes him look a lot younger. “One day, I’ll get hold of that key. You just wait.”

I tilt my head but hesitate with my reply. To me it seems like Peter doesn’t really want this key so much. It’s more the actual adventure of trying to steal it that keeps him motivated. “I hope I’ll be here to see it when that day comes,” I reply and only then realize how thoughtless that was of me.

“Oh, you can.” Peter puts the chest back down and reaches for my hand, tugging me up to the top of the biggest hill of gold. “You can stay here. With the Lost Boys and me. And Tami. Forever.”

Forever is not an option for me. “So you can teach me how to hang out in trees and make me a Lost Boy like the others?” I mock Peter and throw a handful of coins at him.

“Why not? You’d be the first Lost
Girl
in Neverland. And I’d make you a brilliant sword-fighter, too.” He tosses some coins back at me, which I dodge. When I straighten again, he gets me in the face with a pearl necklace. “Just think—we could steal Hook’s key together.”

Remembering how Toby mentioned a cannonball when I first met them this afternoon, I pull a face. “Sounds tempting but…no. I’m not in any way keen on meeting this horrible pirate.”

“Aw, you don’t know what you’re missing out on.” Peter bends over and pulls a small silver flute from between the coins. “Neverland is the most wonderful place of anywhere.” With the instrument between his fingers, he levitates a few feet up, crosses his legs as though he’s sitting on an invisible magic carpet, and starts to play a lovely tune.

I cock my head. “You’re a musician?”

“I only know this one melody. Can you play the flute?”

I shrug. So far I haven’t tried it, but it can’t be too difficult. Peter tosses the flute down to me. Carefully, I place my fingers over the tiny holes in the slim metal pipe and blow, lifting random fingers. The sound is god-awful.

Peter and I grimace at the same time and simultaneously we say, “Nah…!” There’s no musical talent whatsoever hidden in me. I toss the flute away and it lands on the treasure heap again with a clink. “Shall we go back?”

Peter nods then grabs me around the waist and flies out through the trapdoor before my cry of surprise even makes it out of my throat. Together we cover the entrance with stones again, then he takes me back to the island. It’s already dark when he lands on a hill somewhere close to the jungle. Stretching his limbs, he sprawls out on the ground.

I follow suit and study the many stars in the velvety sky. The grass is still warm from the sun and smells amazing. “I love lying in the grass back home on a warm day like this,” I muse into the silent night.

“If you stay, you can do that every day. There’s never one day of bad weather in Neverland.”

Fascinated, I roll onto my front and gaze at his daring face. “Never?”

“Never, ever! Pixie swear.” With his right index finger, he draws a cross over his heart and smirks. “So, what do you think? We have an empty sleeping booth in our tree. It’s the perfect size for you.” He waggles his brows in this typical teasing manner that I’ve gotten to know today.

“You’re fighting a dirty battle, Peter Pan. And you’re absolutely right, Neverland really
is
amazing.”

His grin spreads wider at my words.

“But you have a group of fine friends around you,” I argue. “You love them all, don’t you?” When he nods, I continue, “So you can understand why I must leave? Back in London, my baby sisters are waiting for me. They would miss me terribly if I never came back. And I miss them so much.”