Always Neverland

by Zoe Barton

  In the tree, we all turned to look at Peter. He smiled mysteriously and took another enormous bite out of his dinner.

  “It were my favorite,” said the second voice sadly. “Roast beef sandwiches.”

  “Not sure if I believe Cook,” the first voice grumbled. “Seems to me Cook might have taken them for hisself and blamed Pan.”

  We could see them now. The pirates had wandered into the clearing below, just fifty feet from the trunk of our tree.

  “Oh, it was Pan all right,” Smee said. He was a little thicker around the middle than the other two. With his glasses, white hair, and red nose, he looked a little bit like Santa Claus’s pirate brother. “I heard him crow with me own ears, I did.”

  “Look!” I whispered, pointing at the tallest pirate. “Are his hands on backward?”

  Button nodded solemnly. “That’s Noodler.”

  “The other one looks like Black Patch Pat,” added Dibs.

  “They’ll be sorry they came here,” Peter said in a low voice, drawing his weapon.

  It must’ve been a signal. Even Tink chimed a little softer. The Lost Boys moved quickly and silently to hiding places like Kyle’s in the trunk, where they pulled out swords of their own.

  I felt a little left out. I didn’t have a sword yet.

  “What do we have here?” Smee had found the blankets on the ground. He held up a particularly rumpled blue one, and the other two pirates came over to inspect it. “Someone’s been sleeping in this bed, I think. We must be getting closer. The cap’n will be so happy when we bring back his hat.”

  “Now we really will have to move again,” Kyle murmured to Button.

  Move? After all the nests we’d relocated? I didn’t want to have done all that work for nothing, and I definitely didn’t want to end up sleeping on the ground somewhere while pirates roamed the forest.

  “What if we don’t go out there?” I asked suddenly.

  This was the wrong thing to say. Thinking I was scared, the Lost Boys all turned to me with scornful looks.

  “Don’t worry, Wendy girl. You don’t need to do anything,” Peter said, suddenly very superior and smug. He swung his sword magnificently. “We’ll protect you.”

  I glared at him. If he was going to fight, I wasn’t going to hide in the tree, but that wasn’t what I’d meant. “No, what if we did something else? Something where they never saw us?”

  “Like a trick?” Prank asked, suddenly interested.

  I nodded, and Prank turned to Peter with a bright, begging look.

  “Smee! There’s something here!” Black Patch Pat had stumbled upon the photos the Lost Boys had left in a pile on the grass. The pirate picked up one and squinted at it in the dusky light. “It looks like Pan, sir, but very small.”

  The rest of the Lost Boys watched Peter with that same hopeful look.

  “We can make it seem like Neverland itself is defending you,” I whispered to Peter, “but we have to act fast.”

  Peter glanced at all the Lost Boys and nodded deeply.

  I whispered my plan. Prank caught on first and began climbing down to the lowest branches.

  All three pirates had gathered around the Polaroids. Smee took the photo from Black Patch Pat carefully. “It does certainly look like Pan,” he said after inspecting it through his glasses. “How did he get in this little flat square?”

  “Something the fairies cooked up?” Noodler suggested. “One of their pixie-brained plots?”

  Tink hissed, outraged, and Peter hushed her.

  “Has Pan been imprisoned at last?” Smee said.

  Then it was up to me to keep Peter from going out and defending his reputation. “The great Pan is never caught,” he said, not quietly enough.

  I held on tight to his sword arm and whispered, “Just think how you’ll trick them—how you’ve already tricked them.”

  That was when the attack started. Prank pulled a branch so far back that when he let go, it whistled through the air and smacked into Noodler’s side. Noodler jumped and looked around wildly as the Lost Boys spread out among the lower branches right above the pirates.

  Smee and Black Patch Pat didn’t look away from the photos. “If he’s imprisoned, then why is he smiling?” asked Black Patch Pat. “Here’s another little Pan!” he added, picking up a second photograph.

  Prank found another branch, a larger one, and aimed at Noodler again. The poor pirate yelped when it struck him.

  “Quiet, Noodler,” Smee said absently. To Black Patch Pat, he said, “We’ll have to show ’em to the cap’n.”

  “Something’s been hitting me!” Noodler said, starting to sound mad.

  At this point, all of the Lost Boys had gotten the hang of it. They each let go of a branch at the same time, pummeling the pirates. Smee got leaves in his beard, and Black Patch Pat started saying words that Mom once grounded me for repeating.

  “It’s the trees!” cried Noodler, drawing his sword. “They’ve come alive.”

  The Lost Boys could barely keep themselves from laughing. Kyle started snorting softly through his nose.

  “Such a thing has never happened in Neverland before,” Smee said. His voice wobbled with fear. He pushed up his spectacles to examine the tree, but he couldn’t see the Lost Boys. The light was too dim, the leaves on the lower branches too thick. “We must tell the cap’n.”

  Tink flew down and started her own barrage, slapping them with light branches so fast that they looked like an endless blur of green.

  “To your weapons! To your weapons!” cried Smee, sounding really scared now. “Fight the tree to the death!”

  My plan was working! While the Lost Boys distracted the pirates, Peter and I zipped up to the top branches, and then over to the tree next door, where the relocated Never birds still sat in their nests.

  “Go out there,” Peter told the closest one. “All of you. Chase them away.”

  The Never birds glared at him, as if he had gone crazy. Peter’s eyebrows rose really high. He’d expected them to follow his orders immediately.

  Below us, Black Patch Pat wailed. “My eye! My one good eye!”

  “Now,” Peter said in his angriest, most commanding tone.

  I tried a different approach. Looking straight at Spot, I said, “They’re a threat to your nests.”

  “Oww!!!” shouted all three pirates at once. Tink had pulled back another branch, one so big that it knocked the pirates to the ground. Fairies must be really strong for their size.

  Inspired by her success, the Lost Boys started to team up so that they could pull back bigger branches too.

  “Do you know what they’ll do if they find your eggs?” I told the Never birds, who watched me now instead of Peter. “They’ll eat them.”

  That got the Never birds’ attention. Several clucked in a threatening way. Spot’s feathers started to ruffle.

  I dropped my voice to a whisper, like I was telling a secret. “I thought you should know—I heard them talking about Never bird omelets.”

  That did it. The Never birds burst out of the tree, squawking and furious. They swooped down at the pirates and pecked at their heads. Spot even tore a chunk out of Smee’s hat.

  Noodler and Black Patch Pat both screamed, throwing up their arms to protect their faces. “Retreat!” Smee shouted, and the pirates ran out of the clearing and into the forest.

  Peter crowed in triumph. The Lost Boys cheered too, and even Tink twinkled in a pleased way.

  “Thank you, Never birds,” I said, feeling very smug as the flock flapped back to their nests. If this didn’t prove I wasn’t the stupidest visitor they’d ever had, then nothing would. “That went well, I think.”

  “I like this Wendy girl,” Kyle told Peter as I flew down to the blankets and Polaroids.

  “She’s very clever. That’s why I brought her,” Peter said, and I smiled wider.

  Half buried under the blankets, I found what I had been hoping for—a sword, straight and silver, that came to a nice sharp point.
One of the pirates had left it behind.

  I admired the pretty swirling guard around the hilt and wondered when I would get a chance to use it.

  Chapter 9.

  I Find Out I’m Good at Pretending

  Kyle jabbed again with his short, flat blade. I scrambled out of the way, but not quickly enough. The point of Kyle’s sword caught my pajamas, and the fabric ripped.

  The littlest Lost Boy lowered his weapon. “Oops. Sorry, Wendy girl.”

  I looked down at my pajamas and sighed. Kyle had torn a palm-sized hole in the knee.

  The Lost Boys had been trying to teach me how to use my new sword. It wasn’t going all that well.

  Peter lay back lazily in midair, as if an invisible lounge chair hung in the sky, and he played his pipes, watching us. I had the feeling he still didn’t know what to do with me, but after tricking the pirates, we’d gotten past the taking-me-home-early idea.

  While I practiced, the moon had risen, brightening everyone’s blades with its silvery light. Unfortunately, I had gotten a little sweaty and a lot frustrated, but not any better.

  “You’re in trouble now, Kyle,” Dibs said, smirking a little from his perch in the lower branches of the Tree Home. “Wendy girls are very particular about their clothes.”

  I wasn’t upset about that. I was upset that my sword and I weren’t getting along, but Kyle’s eyes still got really big.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “Neverland is a little too hot for long pants anyway.” I grabbed a handful of loose fabric and tugged, ripping straight across until the bottom of the torn pajama leg came completely off.

  The Lost Boys stared at me like no Wendy girl in the history of Neverland had ever ripped her clothes on purpose. Dibs’s mouth even gaped open.

  “They’re just pajamas,” I pointed out, trying not to laugh.

  “You should probably do the other side,” Button said solemnly.

  I nodded. “Kyle, if you could,” I said, gesturing to the other pajama leg, and with a giggle, Kyle used his sword to make a tear near that knee. I grabbed the hem and ripped the bottom of the leg right off. Suddenly, I had shorts instead of pants. “At home, we call these cutoffs.”

  A gentle Neverland breeze swirled around my ankles, and I felt much, much cooler.

  “Now you look like one of us,” Prank said. His pants had holes in them, and his shirt was stained with mud and grass. But he smiled like it was a compliment, so I grinned back.

  “Yeah, but you need to fight like us too,” Dibs said. “Otherwise, Peter won’t let you go on adventures. Right, Peter?”

  We all looked up at Peter. He nodded, moving his pipes along with his head so that he didn’t have to stop playing.

  “Again,” I said to Kyle, raising my sword.

  Kyle swung his sword. I blocked it, just barely, but then Kyle hooked his hilt around mine. My new sword fell to the ground with a clatter.

  The fairy chimed in a smug way, and Dibs grinned. “Tink’s right. You are hopeless.”

  “I am not,” I said, snatching the sword back and glaring at Dibs. I was too embarrassed to look at Peter.

  Sighing deeply, Kyle raised his weapon high above his head, and I watched him, trying to guess where he would strike and how I could counter it.

  “Wendy girl, you’re thinking too hard,” Button said suddenly.

  “No, I’m not,” I said, feeling even more defensive. “I just need a little more practice, that’s all.”

  “Oooooh,” said the Lost Boys together, as if a great mystery had been revealed.

  “That’s your problem, then,” said Kyle sympathetically, lowering his sword. “I had the same trouble when I first came to Neverland.”

  “You don’t need to practice,” said Prank. “You need to Pretend.”

  “You know the saying Practice makes perfect? It doesn’t work here,” said Button. “In Neverland, it’s Pretend that makes perfect.”

  All four of them—even Dibs—looked at me earnestly, waiting for me to do something, and I stared back, confused. “Wait. What am I supposed to do?”

  “You have to Pretend to be a great swordsman,” said Dibs, rolling his eyes.

  “Swordswoman,” I said automatically, but I still didn’t understand.

  “Look—at home, you would’ve had to practice and practice and practice to get good,” said Kyle, “but you’re in Neverland now. In Neverland, Pretending is even better than being something for real. If you Pretend that you’re already a great swordswoman, you will be one, and then no pirate will ever stand a chance against our Wendy girl.”

  I nodded slowly. I could do that. Michael and I pretended to be sailors and explorers and stuff in the tree house at home all the time.

  It just had to work—if it didn’t, I would get stuck watching from the sidelines the next time Peter and the Lost Boys fought a battle.

  I stared at my sword and Pretended as hard as I could: I was Ashley Delaney, famed swordswoman, Wendy girl as no Wendy girl had ever been, feared by pirates for her strength and cunning and skill. My blade had defeated many a foe already, and word had spread to the far reaches of Neverland.

  My toes and fingers tingled again, just like they had that morning when Peter and I had flown toward the island. But it was stronger. It felt more like it does when your foot falls asleep and then starts to wake up.

  Suddenly, the sword felt more comfortable in my hand, like I had been using it all my life. Instead of feeling sore at the exertion, the muscles in my arm kind of liked the weight of the sword. It was almost reassuring.

  To test it out, I tried a little flourish.

  “Oh, good,” said Kyle. “That’s much better.”

  I looked at the Lost Boys, and through my Pretending, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I could fight them and win.

  Grinning, I told them, “Again—all four of you this time!”

  Without any hesitation, Kyle, Prank, Button, and Dibs all leaped toward me, swords raised. I sprang up into the air to meet them.

  I blocked Kyle’s sword so hard that the force sent him spinning back through the trees, head over feet, giggling and trailing fairy dust.

  Prank tried to catch my blade between both of his, but I twisted my weapon so his two swords went flying.

  Dibs stabbed toward me, and I turned the blow aside, straight into the tree trunk behind me. The point of Dibs’s sword slid into the wood and stuck fast.

  And Button—poor Button—was so surprised that he dropped his sword and raised both hands in surrender.

  “Hurrah for the Wendy girl!” Kyle said, flying back into the clearing with twigs tangled in his hair. “I knew you would be good at Pretending.”

  Peter blew a triumphant little ditty into his pipes, grinning at me, and then flew high above the trees and out of sight. But we could still hear him crow.

  I was so happy with my success that I rose into the air, and took a quick bow about a foot off the ground. Prank, Kyle, and Button applauded.

  “Thanks,” I said, dropping to the grass and picking up Button’s sword. When I handed it back, he took it from me sheepishly.

  “But why did you have to be better than all of us?” Dibs said grumpily, trying to wiggle his blade out of the wood. I scowled at him.

  “It just means that she can Pretend better than the rest of us,” Button said in his quiet way.

  “Exactly what we should expect from our newest Wendy girl,” said Prank proudly, and I beamed, glad I was beginning to win them over.

  Dibs snorted, clearly not satisfied. With one last tug, he freed his sword from the tree trunk, taking a huge chunk of wood with it. “Good at Pretending to be everything but our mother, you mean.”

  I threw him a dirty look. He had no reason to bring that up again except to make me look bad, but then the other Lost Boys descended to the ground slowly, hanging their heads as if a very sad thought had come over all of them. That’s the trouble with fairy dust—people can tell exactly what you’re feeling just by looking at y
ou.

  It was really hard not to feel guilty.

  I remembered the little imitation of Mom I had done earlier that day—with the twig glasses and bark paper. Someone had mentioned Pretending then. The Lost Boys probably thought I had been using Neverland’s magic rather than just faking.

  Now that I knew better, I probably should’ve Pretended to be a mom—just to see whether or not I could.

  But I didn’t.

  I didn’t want the Lost Boys to like me just because I Pretended to be their mother. Maybe I would make some cookies, but if they got me patching their clothes and tucking them in at night, they wouldn’t think of me as a friend. I wanted them to like me for me.

  They still didn’t realize that a Wendy girl could have a few good adventures up her sleeve. At least, not yet.

  “I’m sorry,” I told the Lost Boys, and I meant it.

  Button must’ve heard how sincere I was. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” said Dibs, returning his sword to his hiding spot and slamming the door shut. I squirmed uncomfortably.

  “Wendy girl, if you can’t be our mother, then could you maybe tell us a story about mothers?” asked Kyle, and all the Lost Boys looked at me eagerly, rising a little and hovering a few inches above the ground.

  “A story? About Mom?” I repeated, a little panicky. Mom breaking her promise about the Christmas tree probably wasn’t the kind of story that the Lost Boys wanted, but that was the first one that came to mind.

  “Yeah!” said Kyle enthusiastically.

  “You have a mother, right?” said Dibs with a touch of mockery.

  “Tell us something about her,” said Prank, just as excited as Kyle.

  “Like what did she do when you last saw her?” asked Button.

  “She . . .” My mind scrambled backward through my memories. For a minute, yesterday seemed very far away—adventures and adventures ago. Then I remembered watching the twin red lights on my parents’ car as they disappeared down the street. All the hurt and disappointment came rushing back, as fresh as ever.

  “She left,” I said shortly, and my voice caught on the second word.

  “Oh,” said all the Lost Boys at once, coming back to the ground with a thud, and sympathy shone on all their faces. Even Dibs’s, although he didn’t say anything. He just climbed up into the Tree Home and disappeared among the higher branches.