Far from Shore

by Kiki Thorpe

  Copyright © 2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies, in conjunction with Disney Enterprises, Inc. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks, and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Thorpe, Kiki.

  Far from shore / written by Kiki Thorpe ; illustrated by Jana Christy.

  pages cm. — (The Never girls ; 8)

  “A Stepping Stone book.”

  Summary: “The Never Girls have heard about a boy who lives in Never Land—a legendary boy who brings adventure wherever he goes. A boy named Peter Pan. Kate can’t wait to meet him. But Tinker Bell knows that Peter is also good at causing trouble. Will this be an adventure, or a disaster?”— Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-7364-3302-0 (paperback) — ISBN 978-0-7364-8166-3 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-7364-3303-7 (ebook)

  [1. Fairies—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Characters in literature—Fiction. 4. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.] I. Christy, Jana, illustrator. II. Disney Enterprises (1996–) III. Title.

  PZ7.T3974Far 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014023980

  randomhousekids.com/disney

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.

  v3.1

  For Anna

  —K.T.

  For Mom, Lola, and Sophia, with all my love

  —J.C.

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Never Land

  Map of Never Land

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Sneak Peek of Before the Bell

  About the Author

  Far away from the world we know, on the distant seas of dreams, lies an island called Never Land. It is a place full of magic, where mermaids sing, fairies play, and children never grow up. Adventures happen every day, and anything is possible.

  There are two ways to reach Never Land. One is to find the island yourself. The other is for it to find you. Finding Never Land on your own takes a lot of luck and a pinch of fairy dust. Even then, you will only find the island if it wants to be found.

  Every once in a while, Never Land drifts close to our world…so close a fairy’s laugh slips through. And every once in an even longer while, Never Land opens its doors to a special few. Believing in magic and fairies from the bottom of your heart can make the extraordinary happen. If you suddenly hear tiny bells or feel a sea breeze where there is no sea, pay careful attention. Never Land may be close by. You could find yourself there in the blink of an eye.

  Kate McCrady lay on her back in the meadow. Above her, framed by wildflowers, was the bright blue sky of Never Land. Now and then, a fairy flew past carrying an armful of bluebells or a fat chestnut. But the fairies never looked down or seemed to notice the tall, redheaded girl hiding in the grass.

  Kate held perfectly still, even when a grasshopper jumped onto her arm. She stared up patiently at the blue sky, waiting…waiting…

  Nearby, the grass rustled. Someone was coming.

  “Where did Kate go?” Kate recognized the voice of her best friend, Mia Vasquez.

  “I don’t know. I thought I saw her here a minute ago.” That was Kate’s other best friend, Lainey Winters.

  “Guys, wait for me!” called a third girl. It was Mia’s little sister, Gabby.

  They were getting closer. Kate stifled a giggle.

  When they were almost on top of her, Kate popped up from the grass, shouting, “BOO!”

  The girls shrieked. The flowers in their arms went flying.

  Kate stood up, laughing. “Ha, ha! Got you!”

  Mia gave her a playful shove. “Geez, Kate. You really scared me,” she said. She bent to pick up the flowers she’d dropped. More flowers were woven into her long, curly hair. “You told us you were going to pick some daisies.”

  “I did pick daisies. They’re here somewhere.…” Kate looked around and spotted them. The daisies were on the ground beneath her, squished. Kate shrugged. “Oh, well. I guess that means no more daisy chains for me.”

  “You’re the one who said you wanted to try making them,” Lainey pointed out. The friends had spent the morning weaving flowers with the garden-talent fairies in Pixie Hollow. Mia, Lainey, and Gabby were all wearing colorful wreaths of buttercups, bluebells, daisies, and tea roses.

  “I guess it sounded like more fun than it is,” Kate said. Her daisy chains never came out quite right. They always looked lopsided or fell apart—even with the help of fairy magic.

  So what, Kate thought. There’s more to life than perfect daisy chains.

  Ever since they’d discovered the secret magical passage that led from their world to Never Land, Kate and her friends visited Pixie Hollow whenever they could. Every time they went, they had a new exciting adventure.

  And if it was a quiet day, like today? Well, Kate didn’t mind making her own excitement.

  “Listen, I was thinking we should go to the mill and ask Terence for a pinch of fairy dust. Then maybe we could go flying.” Kate looked at her friends hopefully.

  “No, thanks,” Mia said, as Kate had feared she might. “No flying for me.” When Tinker Bell had first taught the girls to fly, they’d all ended up in Havendish Stream. Since then, no matter how hard Kate tried to convince her, Mia had refused to try it again.

  “Come on,” said Kate, trying one more time. “It’s just like riding a bike. You might fall a couple of times. But once you get the hang of it, it’s easy!”

  “Nope.” Mia shook her head.

  “We’re in Never Land! Don’t you guys want to do anything?” Kate asked.

  “We are doing something. We’re making daisy chains,” Lainey said.

  “I meant anything fun,” Kate replied with a sigh.

  “Why don’t you go,” Mia suggested. “We can stay here and finish our flowers.”

  Kate didn’t need to think twice. “I’ll just go for a little while,” she agreed. “We can meet back at the Home Tree.” She could practically feel the wind on her face already!

  Kate said good-bye to her friends. Then she hurried to the mill, which sat on the banks of Havendish Stream. The fairies kept their dust there, sealed up tightly in pumpkin canisters. Fairy dust was precious—it allowed the fairies to fly and do their magic.

  “Going flying?” asked Terence, the dust-talent sparrow man, when he saw Kate. He sprinkled a thimbleful of dust over her.

  “Just out for a spin,” Kate said. She pushed off the ground, and in a few seconds she was as high as the treetops.

  Kate flew away from Pixie Hollow, toward the big bend in Havendish Stream. This was where Tinker Bell had brought them for their first flying lesson. Kate wanted to teach herself how to do a flip turn, and this was a good place to practice. The trees were spaced wide apart, and the ground was covered with soft moss.

  Kate got a flying start. When she was halfway to the next tree, she tucked into a somersault, and—

  “Whoops!” Kate fell out of the air. She landed on her back in the moss.

  Kate sat up and glanced around, wondering if anyone had seen her fall. But she was alone. The only sound was a bird cawing in a nearby tree.

  “I must not have been going fast enough,” Kate said to herself.
She rose into the air to try again. This time, Kate put on a burst of speed. When she reached the halfway point, she ducked into a roll—

  “Oof!” Kate grunted as she landed on the ground again.

  Lying on her back, Kate stared up at the branches above. Somewhere in them, the bird was cawing again.

  “Cah-coo! Cah-coo!”

  “Oh, be quiet,” Kate grumbled as she got to her feet. This trick was turning out to be harder than she’d thought.

  She tried again, flying slower. Then she tried flying faster. She tried starting the flip sooner. She tried it starting from a standstill. But each time she ended up flat on her back in the moss. And each time the bird cawed loudly, “Cah-coo! Cah-coo!” Kate had the feeling it was laughing at her.

  She told herself she would try the flip once more before she gave up. “I’m sure I’ll get it this time.”

  But she was shaky after so many falls. She’d barely started before she was on the ground again.

  “Cah-coo-coo-coo!” the bird crowed.

  Now Kate was sure it was laughing at her. “Buzz off!” she shouted. She snatched an acorn from the ground and hurled it into the branches.

  A second later, the acorn came arcing back through the air. It landed right at Kate’s feet.

  Kate stared. She was pretty sure most birds couldn’t throw things—at least, not in a perfect overhand pitch. She rose and flew up into the tree. She wanted to see this bird for herself.

  High among the leaves and branches, Kate looked around. Because she was looking for a bird, it took her a moment to spot him.

  It wasn’t a bird at all. There was a boy in the tree!

  The boy was crouched in the crook of a branch. Kate hadn’t seen him at first because he was dressed head to toe in leaves. The leaves rustled faintly as he shifted on the branch. He was so well disguised that all Kate could see of him was a pale, heart-shaped face and a few curling wisps of red hair.

  The boy smiled at her. Then he pushed backward off the branch. He turned in the air, heels over head, and sped off in the opposite direction.

  Kate couldn’t help noticing that it was a perfect flip turn.

  The boy soared away, calling back over his shoulder, “Cah-coo! Cah-coo! Cah-coo!”

  Kate stared after him. Who was that?

  Tinker Bell tightened the last bolt into place. “All right!” she called. “Let’s try it again.”

  Tink’s friend Fawn, an animal-talent fairy, was standing at the ready. She pulled a sunflower seed from her pocket and offered it to the mouse in front of her, holding it just out of his reach. “Good boy,” Fawn coaxed. “Want a snack?”

  The mouse scrambled after the seed. As he did, the wooden wheel he was standing on began to turn. This turned another wheel, which turned a crank that began to wind a length of rope.

  “It’s working!” cried the water fairy Silvermist, who was watching nearby.

  They heard a zipping sound as the rope ran through a pulley at the top of a pebble well. Tink held her breath. A second later, the rope drew up a thimbleful of water from the well.

  “We did it!” Tink exclaimed. “My mouse-powered water well works!”

  Fawn fed the sunflower seed to the mouse, who stopped running. She and Silvermist joined Tink by the well. “Just think,” Fawn said. “It only took twelve tries, three different mice, and twenty-seven sunflower seeds to get this one bucket of water.”

  “There were a few glitches at first,” Tink admitted. “But think how much easier it will be to get water now!”

  At that moment, a large shadow passed over them. The mouse looked up and started running again, frightened.

  “Whoa! Stop!” cried Tink.

  As the rope wound, the bucket jerked out of her hands. It swung through the air and jammed against the pulley—spilling the water over Tink’s head.

  As Tink wiped drops from her eyes, a pair of giant feet in sneakers landed next to the fairies. Craning her neck, Tink looked up and saw they belonged to Kate.

  “Kate!” she snapped. “You can’t go swooping down on fairies like that. We thought you were a hawk.”

  “Sorry,” Kate said. She squatted down so they could talk more easily. “Why are you all wet?”

  “It’s Tink’s mouse-powered water well,” explained Fawn. She was trying to calm down the trembling mouse.

  “Apparently, it isn’t Kate-proof yet,” Silvermist added.

  But Kate didn’t seem to be listening. Her eyes were bright with excitement. “Have you seen Mia and Lainey and Gabby?” she asked the fairies. “I have something to tell them. The weirdest thing just happened—”

  “Hey!” Mia said, walking up with the two other girls. “What are you talking about?”

  As Kate told her friends about her trip to the forest, Tink went back to fiddling with her invention. She tightened the bolts, examined the wheels, and added a bit of grease to the crank. Tink loved tinkering. She was happiest when she had something to fix.

  She was tightening a knot in the rope when she heard Kate say, “And when I looked up there was a boy dressed in leaves—”

  Tink’s pointy ears pricked up. “That’s Peter!” she interrupted.

  “Who’s Peter?” asked Kate.

  “Peter Pan,” said Silvermist. “He’s the Lost Boys’ leader.”

  “I’ve heard of him!” Lainey said. “The boys told me about him.” On a recent trip to Never Land, the girls had met the Lost Boys, a group of boys who lived in Never Land’s forest. “They said he was away from the island. He must have come back.”

  “Have you met him?” Mia asked the fairies.

  The fairies nodded. “He comes to Pixie Hollow sometimes to get fairy dust so he can fly,” Fawn explained.

  “What’s he like?” Kate asked.

  “Tink could tell you,” Silvermist replied. “She knows him best.”

  Everyone turned to look at Tink. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, fiddling with the rope. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him.”

  “But there must be something you can tell us about him,” Kate said.

  “Well, he’s clever,” Tink replied. “And brave. And he can fly as well as any fairy I know. He’s funny, too. And fun to be with.” She laughed, thinking about him. “Something exciting always happens when Peter’s around.”

  “I want to meet him!” Gabby cried.

  The other girls nodded. They all wanted to meet Peter. “Tink, will you take us?” Kate asked.

  “Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” Silvermist said before Tink could answer.

  “Don’t be silly,” Tink said. “Of course they should meet Peter. Everyone in Never Land knows him.”

  Fawn and Silvermist pulled Tink aside. “Are you sure about this?” Fawn whispered.

  “Of course,” Tink said. “It will be good to see Peter after all this time,” she added, more to herself.

  “But what about the mouse-powered well?” Silvermist asked. “Don’t you want to finish it?”

  “I will,” said Tink. “Just as soon as we’re back.”

  Silvermist and Fawn gave each other worried looks. “You will come back, won’t you, Tink?” Silvermist asked.

  Tink knew what she meant. Years before, Tink had left Pixie Hollow to go on adventures with Peter and she hadn’t returned for a long, long time.

  But things are different now, Tink thought. “I promise, Silvermist,” she said. “We’ll just pop by to say hello. We’ll be back before you know it.”

  Tink and the girls said good-bye to Fawn and Silvermist. Then they set out for the Lost Boys’ hideout, which was deep in Never Land’s forest. Tink and Kate flew, while the others walked. There was no path, so the girls made their way through slowly on foot. They climbed over tangled tree roots and pushed past giant ferns.

  “Don’t you wish you were flying now?” Kate said as she circled above them.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” said Mia. She was inching down a steep slope. She had to hold onto leaves and branc
hes to keep from falling. “I’m happy with both my feet on the ground— Whoops!” she cried as she lost her balance and fell. She slid down the hill on her backside and crashed into a bush.

  Kate flew down and offered her a hand. Mia sighed as she pulled herself up. “Don’t say it.”

  Kate grinned. “I didn’t say a word.”

  “I recognize this place,” Lainey said, coming up behind them. “I think we’re getting close to the hideout.”

  Tink recognized it, too. Memories of old times with Peter came flooding back to her. There was the giant mango tree where they’d once played with a family of monkeys. And over there was Peter’s favorite rock. He’d called it his study because he liked to lie there and study the clouds. None of the other boys were allowed to climb it. Tink was the only one he’d ever invited to sit there with him.

  And—could it be? There was the sapling Peter had split in a dagger-throwing contest. It had grown into a tall tree. Two trees, actually. The trunks leaned against each other like a pair of friends telling secrets. Had it really been so long since she last saw Peter?

  Tink wondered if he had changed. Of course, he wouldn’t have grown tall like the sapling. In Never Land, children never grow up. But Tink knew someone could change in other ways—ways that couldn’t always be seen.

  A loud roar startled Tink from her thoughts.

  The girls jumped and moved closer together.

  “That sounded like a lion,” Gabby whispered.

  “It sounded close!” Mia said. She peered nervously at the dense forest around them. “Maybe we should go back—”

  “Wait,” Tink said. “Where’s Kate?”

  They all looked around. “She was here just a second ago,” Lainey said.

  The roar came again, louder. This time it was echoed by another.

  “Do you think she could be in trouble?” Tink asked.

  The girls glanced at each other. “Knowing Kate, I’m sure of it,” Mia said.

  “We have to find her,” Lainey said.