by Kiki Thorpe
She figured the storm had blown her back to Never Land. But though she’d been to every corner of the island, the beach here didn’t look familiar. She didn’t know which way Pixie Hollow was, or how far.
By the time she had finished breakfast, the sun was no higher in the sky. In fact, it seemed not to have moved at all.
Tink looked again. No, it had moved, but not in the expected way. It seemed to have shifted to the right. Tink had the strange impression that rather than climbing to its zenith, the sun was slowly moving around the island, like a wolf circling at a distance. She felt as if she was being watched.
Of course, Never Land was known to do strange things. It could move about on the waves, or stretch itself so the horizon changed. But she’d never seen this before.
Tink stood and took a deep breath. Yes—adventure was in the air.
She decided the mast could wait. First, she would go exploring. After all, hadn’t the whole point of this journey been to discover something new?
She refreshed her fairy dust from a barrel belowdecks. One cupful was all a fairy needed for a day of flying, but Tink took a second cupful, put it in a pouch, and tied it to her belt, just in case.
She started out over the sand, flying toward the dense forest that grew just inland. She hadn’t gotten far, though, when she again had the feeling she was being watched. Tink turned.
Nothing there—only her own shadow on the sand.
“Jumpy, aren’t we?” she said to herself, her voice sounding loud in the silence.
She flew on and had almost reached the edge of the forest when she thought she saw something move out of the corner of her eye.
Tink spun around. But it was only her shadow again. The low angle of the sun made it stretch long across the sand. She looked like a giant!
Tink had never imagined herself as a giant before. She waved her arms and spun in the air. She fluttered her wings double-time. The giant shadow Tink danced along with her.
Tink twirled around again. She was still spinning when she saw another shadow fall next to her own. She turned to see who it belonged to.
No one was there.
When she turned to look back at the shadows, she saw that a third one had joined in.
Tink’s heart leaped, then dropped. Suddenly, she understood why the sun looked so different, and why the beach was so unfamiliar.
She wasn’t on Never Land. She wasn’t anyplace she’d ever been before.
And she wasn’t alone.
When Gabby got back to the beach, Mia, Kate, and Lainey were waiting. Kate had a large sack of fairy dust and was doling out pinches to the other girls.
“Here you go, Gabby.” Kate sprinkled fairy dust over her. Gabby felt a familiar tingle and her toes floated a little off the ground.
Fawn was saddling two seagulls, while Silvermist looked on. Gabby was surprised to see Iridessa and Rosetta there as well.
“We’re joining the search party,” Iridessa explained. “Tink’s our friend, too.”
“Don’t call it a search party,” Silvermist said. “It sounds so…serious.”
“But that’s what we’re doing,” Iridessa said. “We’re searching for Tink.”
“We’re looking for Tink,” Silvermist corrected. “Tink, our friend who has just gone for a quick boat trip and will probably be back any moment. After all, we don’t know that anything is wrong.”
Iridessa frowned and opened her mouth to reply, but Rosetta cut her off. “Searching, looking—who cares? We just want to be sure she’s okay,” she said.
“Right,” said Fawn, cinching a saddle tighter. The seagull shifted and ruffled its wings. “The gulls are ready. Silvermist, you and I will ride Aaawrk.” Fawn squawked the name with a seagull accent. “Rosetta, you and Iridessa take Cawwr.”
Rosetta eyed the large seagull. “I’m not riding that bird.”
“Why not?” asked Fawn.
“He smells like fish,” Rosetta complained. “And I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.”
Fawn rolled her eyes. “Of course he smells like fish. He’s a seagull. It’s windy at sea, Ro. You won’t make it far flying on your own. You’ll get blown away like dandelion fluff.”
Rosetta put her hands on her hips. “Then I’ll ride with one of the girls.”
“I’ll carry you. I don’t mind,” Gabby volunteered. She loved holding fairies, but they rarely allowed it.
“There, see?” Rosetta fluttered over and landed on Gabby’s shoulder. It tickled, but in a nice way. She settled herself and took hold of Gabby’s collar. “All set.”
The slight weight of Rosetta on her shoulder made Gabby feel better. Her talk with Spinner had left a twisty feeling in her stomach. She’d learned nothing about Shadow Island—nothing helpful, anyway.
But the other fairies didn’t seem worried, and their mood rubbed off on Gabby. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe Shadow Island was just a made-up place after all. Gabby hoped so.
“What should I do with this?” she asked, holding up the map.
“Hold on to it, I guess,” Silvermist told her. “I don’t know how much use it will be, though, since I still don’t believe the island exists.” She looked around. “Everyone ready?”
“Look!” Mia said suddenly, pointing.
A small dark cloud had appeared on the horizon. It was all by itself in the bright blue sky. It reminded Gabby a little of a lost black sheep.
“It’s only a cloud,” Fawn said, shrugging. “Nothing to worry about.”
Fawn and Silvermist climbed onto their seagull, and Iridessa got on hers. The gulls spread their wings and lifted off.
One by one, the girls rose after them—Kate first, followed by Mia and Lainey.
Gabby took a deep breath of the salty air and pushed off the ground. She didn’t feel worried anymore. She was going to find Tink and the Treasure and bring them home. She was sure of it. And she knew her friends would help her every step of the way.
Of all the strange, magical things that happened to her on Never Land, the one thing Mia Vasquez could not get used to was flying.
Each time the fairy dust settled over her and she felt its magic—a tickly feeling, like soda bubbles rising inside her—Mia thought, This time will be different. This time I won’t be scared. And for an instant, as her feet left the ground, it really would seem different. When she floated up, light as a leaf, everything seemed possible.
As soon as she was above the treetops, though, she started to panic. She had to close her eyes and take deep breaths. It was hard not to think about falling.
But what choice did she have? Flying was the only practical way to get around Never Land, especially in the company of fairies. So Mia had learned to hide her fear. Her best friends, Kate and Lainey, didn’t know she was still afraid of flying. Neither did her little sister, Gabby. And she certainly didn’t tell the Never fairies. Everyone thought Mia had simply gotten over her fear of heights, the way you get over a cold or a case of the hiccups.
The trick, she found, was never to look down. Mia kept her eyes on the horizon. She forced a calm expression onto her face. She had gotten so good at pretending she wasn’t afraid that some days she even managed to convince herself.
Today, unfortunately, was not one of those days.
As she flew out over Never Sea, a knot formed in Mia’s stomach. The cold ocean wind tangled her long hair. It raised goose bumps on her arms. Flying over land was hard enough. But flying above water was a thousand times worse. In every direction, all she could see were white-capped waves. Losing her nerve here was not an option.
Keep going, Mia told herself. Think of Tink!
Their fairy friend Tinker Bell was lost at sea in a little toy boat. Mia, Kate, Lainey, Gabby, and four fairies from Pixie Hollow had come out to search for her. But it was an impossible task. Looking for a toy boat in the vast Never Sea was like trying to spot a pinhead in a mountain of sand.
“See anything?” Kate called over the wind.
&nbs
p; “Nothing yet,” Mia yelled back. Looking for Tink meant looking down, and that was the one thing Mia couldn’t do. “Do we even know this is the right way?”
Kate shook her head. “Tink could be anywhere.”
It was all Gabby’s fault. Mia glared at the back of her little sister’s head. If Gabby hadn’t left their great-grandfather’s model boat in Pixie Hollow, Tinker Bell wouldn’t have found it. And if Tink hadn’t found the boat and taken it out sailing, they wouldn’t be out here looking for her now.
As if she felt Mia’s eyes on her, Gabby glanced over her shoulder. She reached out her hand, and Mia’s anger softened. She couldn’t blame Gabby for wanting to find the boat. Their father had been so upset when Gabby lost it. The Treasure was—well, a family treasure. Gabby had promised not to come home without it.
What their father didn’t know was they’d lost it in Never Land. The magical island was the girls’ secret.
Mia sped up and caught Gabby’s hand. It felt small and warm in her own cold one. She told herself that she was comforting her sister, not the other way around.
Two seagulls, carrying the fairies Fawn, Iridessa, and Silvermist, came circling back toward the girls. The fourth fairy, Rosetta, was riding on Gabby’s shoulder.
“Let’s turn around!” Iridessa shouted. The wind almost carried her voice away.
But Mia heard her. Relief spread through Mia’s chest.
“We can’t stop looking!” Gabby piped up. “Tink’s still out here somewhere!”
“I don’t think she could have come this far. Not in such a small boat,” Silvermist said.
“We won’t stop,” Fawn reassured Gabby. “But we don’t know which way Tink went. We need to warm up and rest. Then we’ll try another direction.”
The group turned back toward Never Land, but the wind was against them now. Mia felt as if someone were holding her shoulders, trying to push her backward. Ahead, she could see Never Land’s shore, with its thin white thumbnail of sand. Only a few more minutes and her feet would be on the ground.
Abruptly, the air grew colder. Mia looked up and saw a dark cloud had moved across the sun.
They had seen the same cloud earlier. Mia was sure of it. From the ground, it had seemed little and harmless, a distant smudge in the bright blue sky. But up here, in the air, it looked bigger and darker.
A raindrop splashed against Mia’s face.
The search party stopped and treaded air. They were at the edge of the storm. Ahead, rain hung like a curtain between them and Never Land.
“We’d better not fly through it!” Fawn shouted from the back of her seagull.
“Let’s take the long way around,” Iridessa agreed. “We can fly north over the tip of the island and come in from the west.”
Mia’s heart sank. That would mean at least another hour of flying. Maybe more. And they were so close! “It’s only a little rain,” she argued.
“I don’t like the look of that cloud,” Rosetta said from Gabby’s shoulder.
Mia saw her friends hesitate. If she didn’t do something quickly, they’d agree to take the long route. “You guys fly around, if you want,” she said with a boldness she didn’t feel. “I’m going ahead.” Without waiting for an answer, she plunged into the storm.
Behind her, Mia heard someone shouting her name, but she couldn’t tell who it was. The cold raindrops stung her skin and blurred her vision. She could no longer see Never Land’s shore. Was she even going in the right direction?
Mia paused to get her bearings. Then she made her worst mistake: she looked down.
At the sight of the choppy sea below, Mia’s confidence fled. She dropped like a stone.
She screamed, but the sound was lost in the wind. The sea sped toward her. Mia braced herself for the cold water.
There came a blinding flash. The cloud above her blazed from within. The air frizzled with electricity.
And suddenly everything flipped. That was the only word Mia could think of to describe it. The world seemed to turn itself upside down.
A second later, she came down hard on dry sand.
Excerpt copyright © 2018 Disney Enterprises, Inc. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
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