Straight On Till Morning

by Liz Braswell

  “Oh! I’m really here! This is Peter Pan’s hideout!…And yours, too,” Wendy added quickly just as the fairy began to frown.

  The place was as delightful as she had imagined. The cave under the Hangman’s Tree was perfectly dry and smelled mostly fresh—with only the very slight tang of dirty little boys. The ground was even, and, if not neatly swept, then at least covered with an assortment of skins and rugs. One particularly large sheepskin near the firepit had its soft and thick fleece turned upward, showing indentations where it was obviously slept on. Other beds were stashed willy-nilly around the cave: some nestled in hollows made in the walls themselves, some in the cradling arms of gigantic roots that stuck through the ceiling. Some were hammocks hanging from those same roots.

  There were a few civilized details, like chairs that looked as though they had been purloined from more modern and elegant domiciles—a red velvet recliner, for instance, which would have been far more at home at Mr. Darling’s club than in a cave. Wherever did that come from? Wendy wondered. But the rest of the furniture consisted primarily of things like barrels cut in half with moss for cushions, and the stumps of trees with hastily hammered-on backs. Enormous mushrooms made for tables. Some of the lanterns were fungus as well—softly glowing bluish-green “flowers” that spread in delicate clumps just below the ceiling.

  “John would just have a field day with those, I’m certain,” Wendy said with a smile.

  One large barrel was placed under the end of a hollowed-out root to collect rainwater. There were shelves and nooks for the few possessions considered precious by the Lost Boys: piles of gold coins, interesting animal skeletons, shiny crystals, captivating burrs and seedpods. Also more strange detritus of the civilized world: a hinge, a pipe, a knob from a drawer, a spanner, and even a pocket watch.

  “Oh, this is all…amazing! Not that it couldn’t do with a bit of a woman’s touch.” A proper cauldron could be hung from a chain above the fire for soups and stews, for instance. The rugs could be beaten out a bit. Where was the washtub? And the out-of-place, ornate gold frame that cleverly delineated a window could have used a nice little chintz curtain to keep bright light and prying eyes out.

  Oh, she could do so much with it! Imagine if it were hers, and all the Lost Boys, too; she would take care of them…

  …like young pirates.…

  Wendy struggled with that thought. In many of her stories about Never Land, she kept house for Peter and them much like Snow White for the dwarfs. And they revered her and promised to never leave her and always brought back the best little trinkets from their adventures.…

  An inquisitive tinkling brought her out of her reverie.

  “I don’t know where they are,” Wendy answered, thinking she had guessed the question. “But I’m sure they’ll be back soon.…”

  With an irritated swoop, the fairy grabbed one of her locks and pulled, flying to the far corner of the cave and forcing Wendy to stumble quickly after to avoid any pain.

  “You don’t have to—oh!”

  The fairy let her go and pulled aside a piece of bright gold-and-pink silk hanging on the wall. Behind it was the fairy’s own private room.

  She had a soft bed of bright green moss with several iridescent feathers for a counterpane. A shelf mushroom served as an actual shelf displaying an assortment of dried flowers and pretty gewgaws the fairy had collected. There was a charming little dining table, somewhat bold in irony: It was the cheery but deadly red-and-white amanita. The wide top was set with an acorn cap bowl and jingle shell charger. In the corner, a beautifully curved, bright green leaf collected drops from somewhere in the celling much like the water barrel did, but this was obviously for discreet fairy bathing. An assortment of tiny buds, rough seeds, and spongy moss were arranged neatly on a piece of gray driftwood nearby to aid in cleansing.

  “Oh my,” Wendy sighed. “This is the most beautiful flat I have ever seen.”

  The fairy tried very hard not to look pleased.

  “The accessories…the flowers…the furniture. It’s all perfect.”

  Maybe the fairy didn’t precisely blush, but she did allow a single grudging smile.

  Wendy felt her heart leap. They were, despite the fairy’s initial hatred, growing closer.

  Maybe.

  Suddenly the cave resounded with bumps and knocks and disturbing echoes from above. The furniture—fairy and full-sized—shook.

  “What’s that?” Wendy cried. “Are we being attacked?”

  The fairy rolled her eyes, once again dismissive of her human companion.

  As the first boy’s body tumbled into view, Wendy understood: the Lost Boys were home.

  They came flying down the tunnels’ slides, landed neatly, and unfurled like ferns or strange creatures. These were the lads Peter had rescued from orphanages and the terrible fate of growing up. In her stories, Wendy always had them wearing the skins of animals.

  And so they did, sort of. The first boy definitely had on a real bearskin, as real as the rug on the floor, and the animal’s claws were worn over his hands like gloves. The next one, the tallest, had on the tail of a fox, but he also sported the bright red coat of a traveling salesperson and a red felt hat beaten into two peaks to resemble fox ears.

  There was a set of twins with black gloves and black masks plastered directly onto their faces somehow. They also had fluffy striped tails affixed to their gray baggy overalls—which they wore with no shirts on underneath. Scandalous, like poor street ruffians. Wendy searched her mind for what animal they could possibly be and finally came up with raccoon, a creature from the Americas that was supposed to be terribly smart and devious but quite prim, habituated to washing its hands and food before dining.

  The smallest Lost Boy was no more than a toddler. He also wore real fur, a beautiful black-and-white hide with a strangely pungent but not entirely unpleasant smell. Another New World creature: a skunk. They could spray their stink in acidic streams to deter predators. Very useful defense for one so small and helpless, Wendy found herself thinking.

  Right in the middle of the group, neither the tallest nor the shortest, not the fattest or the skinniest, was an approximation of something that was not quite a rabbit. A long, very used dove-gray tailcoat had an equally long black tail with a white tip on the end. A leather headband that held back short brown hair sported two long, floppy gray ears.

  “Oh! Hello!” Wendy said, clapping her hands together in delight at all of them.

  They looked up at her with a little surprise, but not much more. A shadow hung over them and in their eyes.

  “Who’s this, Tinker Bell?” the tall fox asked.

  The fairy flew down in between them and tinkled and jangled.

  “A Wendy? What’s a Wendy? Oh, she is. The Wendy. I get it.”

  While Wendy was pleased with this introduction, she felt a little slighted. She had loved fairies, always loved fairies. How come the Lost Boys could understand what the fairy said, and she couldn’t? And they even knew her name!

  “Pleased to meet you,” Wendy said, very properly holding out her hand.

  The fox looked at it.

  “I’m Slightly,” he said. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen, but there was something in his eyes that seemed both older and younger. “I’m the leader when Peter’s not around. This is Skipper.” He gestured at the rabbit thing, who looked away. “And these are the twins.”

  The two raccoons bobbed their heads and grinned.

  “How d’ya…”

  “…do?”

  Wendy grinned, charmed by the way they acted in perfect unison.

  “Cubby.” The bear bowed and growled. He pointed at the littlest one, standing next to him. “This is Tootles. He don’t talk much. He’s a baby—but, I mean, a fierce baby. Don’t scrap with ’im.”

  The skunk had started to look annoyed and sulky, but then smiled broadly, easily lulled by quick-thought words of praise.

  “How do you do,” Wendy said, leaning forwar
d to the little skunk. His smell was actually less offensive than what was coming off some of the other ones. She had to resist the urge to crinkle her nose or hide behind a scented glove (which she didn’t have, anyway). Slightly seemed to be the only one who bathed at all. His dark skin was free from the permanent layer of grubbiness that covered the rest of them. As with the pirates, Wendy desperately wanted to scrub them with a nice boar-bristle brush, starting with the fierce baby.

  Tootles melted under her attention, practically swooning.

  “Whatcha doing here, The Wendy?” Cubby asked, displaying a set of teeth pocked by the occasional absent baby tooth.

  “I’m here because…well…”

  Any internal struggle she had about confessing her use of Peter’s shadow and handing it over to the pirates was immediately cut short as Tinker Bell dove in, literally and figuratively, bouncing up and down and angrily shedding sparkles as she obviously told what she thought was a tale of betrayal and near-murder.

  Slightly nodded and said, “Uh-huh,” madly understanding everything the fairy jingled.

  “Oh…so that’s what happened to his shadow,” was all he said when she finished. Then he collapsed contemplatively onto a giant mushroom chair that bowed a little under his weight.

  Wendy tried to stave off her anxiety while waiting for his reaction, conclusion, or decision, by running her hands through Tootles’s wispy hair.

  Meanwhile, Skipper kept staring at her, unblinkingly, either in awe or disgust.

  “But…wait…” Slightly finally said, frowning. “There’s one part of your story I dinna get, Tink. His shadow was in London the whole time and he never thought to look there?”

  The fairy began to sway back and forth in the air, her face twisting like a child’s between contrived innocence and a brow furrowed in deep thought as she desperately tried to come up with a better answer.

  “Oh, Tink,” Slightly said, shaking his head. “Did you keep him from going back? Were you jealous of The Wendy?”

  “It’s just Wendy,” Wendy corrected, unable to stop herself even as she processed this new information. She looked at the fairy in shock. That pretty thing had been jealous? Of Wendy? A plain, boring London girl living with her brothers in a nursery, inventing tales of a world more wonderful than their own? Tinker Bell had Peter Pan himself! All Wendy had were stories and his shadow. And the fairy was jealous?

  “But…why?” Slightly pressed, echoing Wendy’s thoughts precisely.

  The fairy looked taken aback by this honest question.

  Then she stuck her tongue out at Wendy, put her hands on her hips, and turned away, fluttering her wings provokingly and buzzing. Skipper shook his head in acute disgust.

  “She says it was stupid the way he always made her go to London and sit outside your window,” Slightly translated. “And then forced her to listen to you, The Ugly Wendy, tell long and boring stories about her friend.”

  “Oh dear,” Wendy said, unable to think of anything else.

  “That’s Tink,” the fox boy said with a sigh. “No one gets between her and Peter.”

  “But I wasn’t, I didn’t, I couldn’t even…”

  “Aw, don’t worry about it. She’ll come around,” Cubby said, rolling his eyes. “Girls.”

  “Oh, there is so much I must make up for in Never Land, and I haven’t been here a day!” Wendy cried. “Starting with you Lost Boys. Slightly, I am deeply sorry for what I have done. Trading in Peter Pan’s shadow for passage to Never Land was a base, cowardly thing to do.”

  “What?” Slightly—and all the other Lost Boys—looked at her in surprise. “Why are you sorry? Wasn’t no other way you could get here. Grown-ups ain’t allowed. Pretty clever, really. Besides…pirates, you know? Hook was the one that tricked you. They’re the bad guys. They’re always scheming to get Peter.”

  “So you forgive me?” Wendy asked timidly.

  “I guess it’s Peter’s got to do that. You should, um, probably talk to him,” Slightly said, but he seemed uncomfortable saying it. He looked over at Skipper, who looked away.

  “What? What’s going on?” Wendy demanded. “Something is going on. You’re not telling me.”

  “It ain’t nothing,” Skipper murmured.

  “It’s just that no one’s really talked to Peter…”

  “…since he lost his shadow,” the twins said.

  “He’s been real ornery. Gotten way worse lately,” Cubby said, rolling his eyes. “No fun at all. Him and Slightly been going at it.”

  “Going at it?” Wendy asked in shock. “You’ve been fighting with Peter Pan? Your leader?”

  “Peter said it was time for Slightly to get out of Never Land…”

  “…because he was growing up,” the twins said quietly.

  The rest of the Lost Boys looked embarrassed. Like it was something they would rather die than reveal to an outsider.

  Slightly frowned and worked his jaw, rapping his fingers on the table in nervous anger.

  “Aye. He did. He said I was growing up and there weren’t no place for me here anymore.”

  “But—that’s unheard of! No one gets kicked out of the Lost Boys! Why? Why did he say that? Was it anything you did at all?”

  The fox boy shifted in his chair and then suddenly leapt up, going to look out the window. “I was just getting sick of it…you know? I been here the longest. Done it all. ‘Go hunting.’ ‘Talk to the mermaids.’ ‘Battle the pirates.’ ‘Raid the L’cki.’ ‘Get raided by the L’cki.’ ‘Tease the Cyclops.’ It’s always the same things.”

  “He begun to miss things,” Cubby whispered, like it was too awful to mention aloud. “He thinks he can remember his mother.”

  “He misses beds…”

  “…and hard things…”

  “…and nurses…”

  “…and being indoors all the time!” the twins said in disgust.

  “I don’t ever,” Slightly swore, spinning around. “I don’t want any of those things. I just…I want different things. New things. Aright, and maybe a bed. So what’s wrong with that? I just had some ideas about things we could do and Peter just…Peter just…laughed at them.”

  “You look like a mother,” Tootles ventured, tugging on Wendy’s skirt. The Lost Boys looked at him in surprise.

  “Oh, why, thank you, darling,” Wendy said, scooping him up—reminding herself to wash her hands thoroughly as soon as she had a chance. The skunk boy snuggled into her soft chest. “So…because of this, he threatened to throw you out?”

  “Peter don’t like change,” Slightly said, scowling. “Anything different—unless it’s a newer, better game that he thought up—is growing up. And bad. So I’m bad. And I’m growing up. So I have to go.”

  “And do all of you agree?” Wendy asked, shifting Tootles onto her hip so she could turn and look each one of the Lost Boys in the eye.

  None of them met that look.

  “No,” Skipper finally said, eyes to the ground.

  “We love Slightly,” Tootles murmured.

  “He’s all we got when Peter’s not around,” Cubby said.

  “He’s a good…”

  “…leader,” the twins said.

  “Well, I don’t suppose it’s entirely up to Peter, then, is it?” Wendy said. “Is he the king of Never Land?”

  “No! No one is!” Slightly swore. “That’s the whole point, right? No growing up and no rules and whatever you want and fun all the time. If you want fun,” he added thoughtfully. “I don’t always want fun. And don’t freedom mean you get to do what you want, at least sometimes?”

  “Absolutely correct. Well, all right then. You will stay if you so desire,” Wendy said, carefully putting Tootles back down. “That’s sorted. No one is the boss of you here.”

  “That’s it?” Cubby asked, surprised.

  Wendy nodded. “Why not? It’s Never Land. Do as thou wilt—isn’t that the whole of the law here?”

  “Huh,” Skipper said thoughtfully.

&nbs
p; “I don’t think it’s quite that simple,” Slightly said. “At least not between Peter and me.”

  “Well, I don’t think there’s much I can do there. The two of you will need to work things out on your own. Just as I need to apologize to him myself. Tinker Bell and I are actually here trying to find Peter and help him get his shadow back. Which may ameliorate his mood a bit, and tone down the tension in your little tête-à-tête.”

  “Ameliorate… ? Tet-a-what? You memorize a dictionary or somethin’?” Slightly scoffed, waving his hand at her. “Aw, who would want to go back to London?”

  “Who indeed,” Wendy said dryly. “But listen: besides having Peter’s shadow, Hook also has something terrible up his sleeve for all of Never Land. Deadly, and rather permanent, as he said.”

  “What? Like destroying all of Never Land?” Skipper asked.

  Tinker Bell nodded.

  “But why?” Slightly demanded.

  “I have some theories,” Wendy said, “but I think it’s mostly because he’s mad. Anyway, we need to stop him, and I don’t think we could defeat the pirates on our own, just the three of us, me and Tinker Bell and Peter. Even with Peter reunited with his shadow. Can we count on you?”

  The fairy rolled her eyes and turned her head away with a sniff.

  “Aye, of course,” Slightly said, sticking out his chin. “Whatever my beef with Peter is, a man needs his shadow. O’ course we’ll go with him to get the pirates and save Never Land!”

  “That’s the spirit, Slightly!” Cubby cried.

  “We’ll show those stupid pirates…”

  “…and that stupid, stupid Captain Hook!” the twins crowed.

  “Wonderful,” Wendy said warmly. Everything was coming together! She had met the Lost Boys, rallied them to her cause, and now they would come with her, and of course the fairy—Tinker Bell—couldn’t object. It would be like trying to resist a cheery force of nature, a good-willed waterfall, once they decided to come along. “So where do you think Peter is?”

  “Sometimes when he’s down he goes to Mermaid Lagoon,” Cubby said, rolling his eyes. “Talks with the fishgirls.”