by Anna Katmore
As a message for Jamie? No! “You’re cruel, Peter Pan! It will never work!”
“You’re right.” His eyes narrow back on the notebook. He rips off the first page, scrunches it up and tosses it against the wall. Then he mumbles along as he writes a new line, “Your life for hers.”
At this moment, we both jerk our heads in the same direction. Tami’s worried voice drifts to us as she repeatedly calls out my name.
“Tameeka! I’m here!” I shout hoarsely.
Peter jumps to his feet. “Stupid little thing. How could she find us here so fast?” Striding to the back of the cave, he fetches the slingshot and loads it with a walnut size stone that he picked up from the ground. He pulls the rubber band until it’s dangerously taut and aims it at Tami.
“No! No, Peter, don’t do this!” I scream. “Don’t shoot her. Tami’s your friend!”
Peter hesitates, and so does Tami as she reaches us. Hovering in front of the cave, her face is full of horror and regret. Whatever Peter did in the past, she sure never expected him to raise a weapon against her. It’s breaking her heart. And mine breaks for hers.
“Peter,” she whispers.
After an endless moment, he lowers the slingshot and turns, growling, “Go away, Tami. This is not your concern.”
Tami lands behind him and lifts one hand to touch his arm.
“I sad go away!” he yells at her, pulling his arm out of her reach.
Even though she cringes at his harsh voice she ignores his demand and straightens, asking in the softest tone, “What’s happening to you?”
“You know very well what’s happening. I’m growing old. Look at me.” He grabs her shoulders and shakes her once. “It’s unstoppable and I’m aging faster.”
I don’t know when Tami saw him last or how old he looked then, but his face now scares her speechless. She realizes he’s speaking the truth. We both do.
The boy who wouldn’t grow up is going to die.
And I know this because his hair’s grayer now than fifteen minutes before.
Silent tears start to trail down Tami’s cheek. They are drops of sparkling silver. One drips off her jaw and as it leaves her skin, it turns into a small diamond that clanks away on the hard stone ground.
“Don’t waste your tears on me,” Peter says in a much softer voice than before, but no less filled with pain. “I know it’s going to happen soon. I can’t stop it.” Then the muscles in his face harden. “But I won’t go down without destroying Hook first, I swear.”
I sob, but no one hears it.
“No, Peter. I don’t want you to become this monster,” Tameeka pleads with him, but he pushes her away.
“I don’t care about what you want! Leave me alone!”
Her entire body starts to shake. I’ve never seen a girl turn this pale before.
“And since you’re going back to Hook anyway,” Peter continues, shoving the note he wrote before into her small hand, “take this with you. Tell him where I am and to come alone.”
Slowly, the pixie shakes her head. For once there’s no rain of golden pixie dust. “I won’t help you. You’re mean and losing yourself. I don’t want to be your friend anymore, Peter Pan.” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Not if you are like this.”
“What? Old?”
“No. Cruel.”
What she said cut him deep, but he tries to hide his hurt behind compressed lips.
“You can give Hook the note yourself,” Tami tells him.
“So you can free Angel in the meantime? I don’t think so.” Peter’s voice cracks, but he pulls himself together quickly. “Take the note to Hook. And better be fast. He has two hours. Then I’ll cut the rope.”
Horrorstruck, Tami’s gaze traces the rope until we’re looking at each other. She doesn’t say another word before she wraps her fingers around the sheet of paper that Peter gave her and zooms off with fluttering wings.
“Why did you do that?” I ask Peter when we’re alone again, but the words are barely loud enough for him to hear. He glances over his shoulder to me. “Why did you have to hurt her so?” I ask again.
He lifts in the air so fast that I gasp when he’s right at my face. “Because she’s a traitor just like you are, and Hook, and the Lost Boys. I don’t need her—or them.”
He says that out loud, but his eyes tell a different story. And then he abruptly sinks, like there’s a gap in the air. If it wasn’t for his reflex to grab the branch next to my head, he’d have fallen who knows how far.
“What is it?” I demand with more concern than he deserves.
“Nothing,” he growls back and cuts a glance to the cave as he hangs helplessly next to me.
“It’s not nothing. You can’t fly! Why can’t you fly anymore, Peter Pan?”
“Be still. Of course, I can still fly.” But he doesn’t. Sure, he’s as anxious as I am. After a moment to deliberate, he starts swinging back and forth on the branch. When he lets go, the momentum takes him in a gentle arc through the air. I shriek, because he misses the cave’s entrance, only can grab the edge with the tips of his fingers. But it’s enough, thank God, to keep him from falling. He hoists himself onto the platform. I let out a breath of relief.
When he gives me a sideways look through narrowed eyes, adjusting the collar of his black leather jacket, I can feel how he blames me again for what just happened. But what did I do?
And then the truth smacks me hard in the face. “Oh my God, it was her. It takes a happy thought to fly, and you lost yours.” I swallow hard at the way I’m suddenly aching for Peter. “Tami was your happy thought.”
Chapter 12
WHERE THE HELL is the pixie? She said she’d find Angel and come back to tell me where Peter took her. What keeps her away so long?
Pacing the length of the ship, I rake my hands through my hair and scan the sky for the hundredth time during the past half-hour. But there is no sign of the pixie. The urge to go find Angel on my own overcomes me, but I can’t even have the crew set sail, because there’s no way to tell which direction to go. Hard as it is to bear, at the moment, the pixie is my best bet.
And then she shoots across the sky like a tiny green and golden cannonball right into my arms. The impact knocks us both backward, but I manage to regain my balance and stand. “Where is she?” I demand as I put the pixie down.
Her cheeks are wet from crying and she dabs at her tears. “In a cave in the mountains at the other side of Neverland. You have to leave immediately. Peter said you have two hours.” She shoves a tiny piece of paper into my hands. “If you don’t come to him in that time, he’ll hurt Angel.”
Reading Peter’s note, my jaw hardens to a point where I might crush out one of my molars. I scrunch it up and throw it overboard. “Smee! Set sail to the east side!”
“James,” Smee says and startles me as he stands right next to me. “It’ll take us half a day to get around the island. The pixie said a couple of hours.”
“And he wants you to come alone,” the small girl adds.
“What am I supposed to do?” I bark, trying to contain the worry and wrath that consume me whole, then close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. There’s no way to make it from one side of Neverland to the other in such a short time.”
“There is a way.” It’s the pixie’s small voice that makes me look down. “How fast can you run?”
“As fast as I’ll have to, to save Angel.”
She nods. “You have to go through the jungle.”
“Are you kidding?” Smee shouts. “He’ll never make it even halfway through those trap littering grounds.”
“He will, if I show him the way.” Tami’s determination and honest concern for Angel has me convinced in an instant.
“All right. I’ll go. You”—I turn to Smee—“follow with the Jolly Roger. If anything happens in the jungle, you have to save Angel for me.” I don’t wait for Jack to hurl any bullshit about it being too dangerous but dash down the gangplank and run up toward the for
est, the pixie flying above my head.
The shoes I got from Bre are a great help right now. I don’t think I’d be able to make it that fast wearing my boots.
When I reach the first trees of the jungle about thirty minutes later, I’m drenched in sweat and quite out of breath. Bracing myself with my hands on my knees, I rest for a moment, but Tami pulls on my shirt, fluttering her wings anxiously. “Come on, Captain. We don’t have a minute to lose.”
I want to brush her off with my arm, but she’s right. Sucking in one last deep breath, I straighten and jog after her through the thickening jungle. She flies in a zigzag course, telling me where and when to watch out, jump, duck or stop until she could trigger yet another trap before a heavy trunk swinging down could knock me off my feet.
Time is ticking away, and we haven’t made it very far. I start to wonder if going through the jungle was the best choice after all. At this pace, it’ll probably save me a quarter of an hour to going by ship, but no more.
“Wait here!” the pixie suddenly cries out to me then and bats her wings harder to reach the top of a high tree. She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts into the twigs, “Lost Boys, come out! I need your help!”
An hour ago, she told me to go to Peter alone, and now she calls for support? I quirk my brows as she sinks back to my side, but she says nothing. The boys won’t be happy to see me here. I only hope they still care for Angel as much as they did a few months ago.
Moments later, the top of a stump flaps open and two guys climb out. One looks like a man-sized squirrel with huge ears and teeth inclined like those of a troll. The other wears a hat with fox ears. I don’t remember this one’s name, but the first one’s called Skippy. They look just as appalled as I imagined when they see me and pull out the knives they carry in their belts.
Placating them with my hands up, I say in a calm voice, “I’m not here to fight. I just need to find—”
“Peter kidnapped Angel,” Tami cuts me off, flying in front of me, shielding me from the boys. “He has changes so much. I think he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s threatened to kill Angel if Hook doesn’t get there within the next hour.”
“Wait!” I yell and spin her around. “Kill? You said he might hurt her. You never said he would go as far as to kill her!”
“Let her go!” the Lost Boys immediately growl at me, one pointing his knife at the base of my throat. “You already did enough harm to Peter. We won’t let you hurt Tami, too.”
I ease my grip on the pixie’s shoulders and step back. Drawing my sword and engaging Fox Hat in a fight wouldn’t help Angel right now. And I sure didn’t intend to hurt the little girl. Or my brother for that matter…
“Stop it, boys!” Tami warns us all. “We have to take Hook to the mountains. Fast. He must save Angel. Cart him through the jungle.”
Whatever did she mean by that? What could these boys do to get me to Peter faster than if I ran?
The two boys glare at me, but finally they seem to grasp the urgency of the moment. Angel needs help. Skippy puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles as he leads us over to the hole in the stump that’s obviously the entrance to their hideout. “Get out here, boys!” he shouts then.
Three more Lost Boys join us and Tami explains everything that happened in one breath. My heart stops as I hear about Angel being tied up and left hanging from the cliff. I might have not wanted to hurt Peter Pan before. But right now it all changed. I want him dead.
The guy with black hair, which he has tied to a ponytail, and three quarter length buffalo leather pants, seems to be their new leader since Pan has left them. He calls everyone—except me—to a small circle to explain whatever he thinks needs to be done. When all the boys nod their agreement, he grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls me along through the jungle after his friends.
Not far from their den, they make me climb a tree. At this point, I don’t ask but just follow orders, trusting them to do whatever they can to help me save my girl. There’s a shaky wooden platform on top where we all gather. Hanging from ropes above this platform are three tiny boats that sit two persons. Little Bear pushes me into one of them. The construction sways a little, and I really start to wonder what the hell this is. He climbs in after me and takes the front seat.
I’m surprised that he’s the one teaming up with me. After all, I’d threatened to cut his throat if Peter didn't save Angel from a deathly trap the night after I met her.
“Are you ready?” the leader calls to my companion, who’s still in that fury vest he always wears when I see him.
“Get it going, Toby!” Little Bear calls back, then he slides a glance at me over his shoulder. “Hold on tight.”
A queasy feeling makes my stomach roll. I grip the edge of the boat. Toby, who’s still standing on the platform, pushes down a long branch that’s obviously a switch and our boat starts to glide forward. First we go at a gentle pace, but after a few seconds, the rope tied from tree to tree where we obviously hang on to takes a sharp tilt downward and we reach a speed that knocks the air out of my lungs in a surprised gasp. The wind in my face makes my eyes water.
As we race through the jungle, twigs and leaves brush my shoulders and the sides of my head. Little Bear ducks forwards. He knows best, so I follow suit and escape further cuts to my skin.
We move along the tree suspended line for what feels like about three to four minutes, then the boat starts to sink and a row of bushes slows us down. The end of the line is tied to another tree, but this one’s far lower than at the start of our ride. On top of the tree is another platform. From there, one line leads in the direction we just came from, and another goes further on.
“We have to unhook the cart and carry it up there,” my assigned Lost Boy tells me. The boat is made of water reed, so that’s not a difficult thing to do. After we attached it to the new line, the second part of our journey through the jungle begins. This time, he reaches out and flips the switch himself.
Sink me, these guys definitely made themselves comfortable in the jungle. Their creativity impresses me and I'm more than grateful for it right now. In less than ten minutes, we covered a distance that would have taken me at least three hours, if I was on my own.
When we finally step out of the boat after the second ride, I glimpse the mountains through the thinning tree tops. We wait for the others. They arrive only minutes later, then all of them accompany me to the foot of the mountain.
Together we climb the smooth bottom until we’re out of the jungle. Everyone turns their heads skyward, up to the mouth of a cave. The air freezes in my lungs. Despite the distance, I can see Angel dangling helplessly from a tree that grows sideways out of the rock face. “Peter, you bloody bastard,” I mumble, clenching my teeth. Then I face my followership. “Listen, the pixie said I was supposed to meet Peter alone. What you did was great, but from here I’ll go unaccompanied.”
The boys look uncomfortable. It impresses me how much they want to come up there with me to save Angel. But at Tami’s urging, they relent.
“We’ll wait down here. If you need help, whistle,” Toby tells me with insistence.
I nod and shake his hand. “Thanks.”
Then I start climbing the steep mountainside. Peter must see me coming. He sure is prepared and I wonder if I’m going to get hit by a rock before I even make it up to the cave. Nothing falls on my head, however. Maybe he’s at the back and hasn’t seen me yet.
Every now and then, I cast a glance down to the ground and up to the tree where Angel is hanging. Her eyes are closed, but the pain is obvious on her face. For the first time in my life, I really want to be able to fly, so I could move up there and release her from her torture. But I don’t dare shout her name.
I’m almost to the top when Angel looks down at me for the first time. She sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes filling with hope and fear at the same time. It’s apparent that she’s going to call to me, but before she can I shake my head. If Peter hasn’t noticed me yet, I�
��d rather have the advantage of surprise on my side.
Angel nods slowly, readjusting her grip on the ropes above her tied hands. Knowing about her pain tortures me. I can’t look at her any longer, because the cave is right above me now and I need to keep a clear head when I face Peter. I may only have one chance to save Angel and I can’t screw it up.
Angelina
HE’S HERE! JAMIE came to free me. I don’t know if I should be happy or terrified, because Peter has been silent for so long, I’m afraid he’s plotting something awful in his crazy, grown up mind. And he has aged again. His hair is grayer now and deep furrows mar his forehead.
Sitting on the stone floor with his back leaning against the rocky wall, he started sharpening a piece of wood with his knife a while ago. He wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t answer my questions, only worked the blade with a vengeance on the stick in his hand. But I can see how sad he is about what happened between Tami and him. There’s only so much a person can take, and Peter seems to have reached his limits. Growing older so fast must hurt, not only in his soul but also physically. And he’s facing his death. After losing his brother and his best friends too, I wonder how he still copes.
Instead of hatred I feel sorry for Peter. He was my friend. I wish I could help him, but I don’t know how. However, letting me hang above this abyss isn’t going to do anyone good. Least of all me. My wrists burn like hellfire and my shoulders make me feel like my body suddenly weighs two-hundred pounds. Why can’t he just release me and we can try to find a way to save him together?
But the look full of loathing he throws me every so often reminds me that he gave up on himself already. All he wants is to destroy his brother first.
Jamie has almost reached the entrance to the cave when Peter stands up and walks to the back. I turn my head to see what he’s doing, but my arm is in my way and I’m too weak to lean forward or twist to get a better view. Several times in the past couple of hours I prayed that the pain in my arms and shoulders would let me pass out. Seems like now is the moment that my wish will come true.