Peter took note. “Rosemary, take over for Jam.”
“Wai—” However, before Gwen could object, her little sister was already flying down to play bait for the crocodile. Peter took off, hovering down near the mermaids, but not too close.
Gwen, curious and confused, did not want to just wait around on the deck. Emboldened by a new sense of purpose, she left the lost children to gape at the mermaids from a distance. She threw herself into the darkness of the hull, no longer afraid now that the crocodile was in the open sea. It was perilously hard to see, but fortunately, Gwen wasn’t the only curious one.
Hollyhock came after, and Gwen welcomed the glow of her tiny friend. She trod the steps carefully until she came down into the first floor of the hull. From there, she headed directly to a porthole. She pushed the grimy, round window open with a careful hand. Peering out to see the mermaids, she heard the tail-end of their clandestine conversation.
“The tracker can lead them to Neverland. We need your help to get it.”
“Peter,” Eglantine chastised. “Our kind has been here longer than you have—or ever will be. No one can come to Neverland unless they are led by a creature that holds its magic.”
“They will have the means to bomb us again,” Peter warned.
Cynara laughed. “Then they will bomb Neverland. The reality-dwellers cannot even scour the depths of their own seas, let alone come after us in ours. This poses no threat to us.”
“You don’t want it to come to that.”
“Of course not,” Cynara declared. She sounded genuine to Gwen, but with mermaids and their sly voices, it was always impossible to tell. “But you are in no position to bargain with us.”
“We’ve stated our price,” Lasiandra replied. “Either deliver it to us or worry about the crocodile on your own.”
“Alright, alright,” Peter reluctantly ceded. “I have a sky glass with me, see? Bring me the transmitter and it’s yours.”
The mermaids giggled, their aquatic voices ringing with an ominous joy.
“Now you’re being agreeable.”
“We’ll bring you the transmitter.”
“We promise!”
As they sealed the deal, Lasiandra caught sight of Gwen, spying on them from the porthole window. Gwen gasped as Lasiandra’s eyes met hers, and she ducked out of sight. Realizing Peter would be back to the deck in a moment’s time, Gwen hurried back up the steps to rejoin the other lost children waiting for him.
It was a little frightening to watch mermaids wrestle with a crocodile. Gwen found herself fearing for the reptile in its three-against-one fight. It was hard to follow exactly what was happening while the girls continually dipped underwater and darted through the foam and opaque waters of their struggle. A thin arm would appear here, a head would pop up there, and a splendorous tail would surface just long enough to splash down again. The water frothed with action, and the mermaids seemed to enjoy having an audience of lost children cheering them on and baiting their egos.
Finally, Lasiandra got around its front and held its front feet while Eglantine clamped onto its tail and back feet. This demobilized it enough that Cynara could wrap her arms around its snout and begin singing to the ravenous creature.
The children were instantly quiet, entranced by the sound of the mermaid’s song. The rippling voice gave rise to a song whose notes ebbed and flowed like the tide. Even Gwen was captivated by the song. Although it was spoken in a watery tongue with lyrics that carried no meaning, something about it struck Gwen as familiar, as if she had heard it long ago and it was somehow a quintessential part of her own childhood. It haunted her like the tune from an old music box, and Gwen began to think that it was just that. She remembered hearing this song before, as a child, and falling asleep on an early summer evening after her mother wound her music box and put her to bed.
The crocodile could not fight the lullaby, and it was subdued quickly by the mermaids’ charms once their physical strength had overpowered its ability to fight them back. Peter had said that mermaids were dangerous creatures. Here, Gwen saw the evidence of it. The beast did not seem asleep, only in a trance. However, Eglantine rose to the surface and pulled herself up on the great beast’s back to yank the tiny transmitter from off its neck.
The crocodile roared in pain as this was done. A bloody spot appeared between the scales, and the children all cheered as it reanimated, swimming desperately away to some place where it would be safe from the vicious mermaids’ reach. They hadn’t even needed the rocks, rope, and net the children had gathered.
“Here it is, Peter!” Eglantine called. “Come down and get it!”
“Throw it,” Peter told her.
“I might break it.”
“Good. I want it destroyed.” Peter was adamant. He was not going within arm’s reach of any of them. The mermaids bobbed peacefully in the water, but they fooled no one. The children had all just seen what they were capable of.
“Bring us the sky glass first.”
“Yes,” Cynara chimed. “We’ve told you we’ll give you the transmitter when you give us the glass. Come down and give it to us.”
Gwen watched as Peter pulled nothing more than a shard of mirror the size of his palm from his pocket. “I’ll throw yours down when you throw mine up.”
Eglantine sighed. “Oh, very well, Peter.” She cocked her arm and tossed the transmitter up as Peter sent the mirror down to her with perfect aim. It landed in her outreached hands, and the transmitter clattered to the deck of the ship. Cynara and Lasiandra swarmed Eglantine, while all the lost children gathered around the transmitter.
“Blink, give me the rocks.”
Blink had them ready in her hand. Peter laid the transmitter down on the flattest rock, and drove a sharp-edged stone straight through the electrical device, which appeared no bigger than a USB drive to Gwen. Peter brought the rock down with a fearsome cry, seeming to drive all of his hatred for all things grown-up down with the rock as well.
The huddled children scattered as the tracker exploded. Peter let out a yell of pain, and a small fire blossomed within the broken, sparking pieces of the transmitter. It sizzled, and Jam—the only one wearing shoes that day—stomped it out.
“Arrghh!” Peter cried, holding his burned hands in front of himself. The explosion left his palms swollen and pink, but Bramble and Hollyhock began kissing his fingers to help heal the hurt.
However, a much louder commotion had cropped up below the ship.
“No, let me see!”
“You did see!”
“He threw it to me! Give the sky glass back!”
“You can’t even use it yet; just give it here!”
Peter forgot his burns as he went to overlook the mermaid fight. The lost children quietly asked questions among themselves, and the whole band watched as the mermaids greedily wrestled each other for their precious mirror, a commodity that could not be reproduced underwater. As they fought, growing ever nastier about it, the mirror finally slipped out of someone’s hand—it was hard to tell whose—and flew against the hull of the ship. Upon impact, the thin mirror shattered, its pieces falling quickly to the water.
“NO!” the mermaids screamed in unison. They dove underwater to search for a reasonably sized shard they would not find, but not before they started blaming each other.
“Look what you’ve done!”
“You’re such a fool!”
“Lasiandra, you’ve lost it!”
It was a pitiful thing to see, but when Gwen turned to Peter, he was smiling at their small tragedy. He was relieved.
The week was wearing thin when Peter declared that they were going to track down Old Willow. This announcement seemed to be entirely spontaneous. It evoked the most enthusiastic response from the lost children. The morning had been dull and uneventful, so Peter rightfully deemed it time for an adventure.
The children scrambled and redressed. The boys flung off their shirts to go bare-chested as the girls helped each other put
their hair into braids. The underground home was turned upside down in an attempt to find the bows, arrows, walking sticks, and other tokens they had collected from Old Willow and her tribe. Hollyhock and Dillweed proved to be especially good at turning up the long-lost relics and toys, which were hidden under beds, in drawers, and strangely stuck to the ceiling.
“Come on!” Peter rallied. “If we want to find them before dark, we’ll have to start tracking the redskins now!”
Spurt ran yelling across the room, hooting and hollering, pounding his palm against his mouth.
Gwen was incredibly uncomfortable with this. “Don’t you think that’s, you know, inappropriate?” Gwen asked. “I mean, calling them… redskins?”
“No,” Peter answered as he scaled a rope up to his hammock. Gwen watched him as he dug through his things. Alongside the hammock in which he slept, Peter had woven nets of twine that hung from the ceiling, full of the many trophies from his previous adventures. He found his headband, an embroidered leather band that he slipped proudly onto his head before climbing back down.
“But, referring to them, just by a color, don’t you think that’s… offensive?”
Peter shook his head, flinging his hair out of his face. “They call us kids. That’s just an age.”
His mind was completely untroubled by an issue that Gwen had spent the past few years tiptoeing around, for fear of falling into its contentious and controversial pit. “I just don’t think we should call Native Americans that.”
Peter laughed, and Gwen could tell it was at her expense. “Do you think you’re in America right now, Gwen-dolly?”
“Well—no.”
Peter’s smile stayed strong. “Then they aren’t Native Americans, are they?”
As usual, Gwen was without answer.
Once they had dressed, the children gathered gifts for the redskins. Jam neglected this part of the process so that she could cover her face—and everyone else’s—in war paint. She even forced Gwen to sit down so she could smudge lines of bright red pigment all over the older girl’s cheeks and forehead. As Jam smeared it on, Gwen couldn’t help but think of Claire and all the times she had forcibly applied makeup to Gwen’s face. Claire’s mascara brush and eyeliner pencil were much more uncomfortable than Jam’s warm fingers.
With all the hubbub, Bard was the only one to ask, “What are we going to see Old Willow for?”
Peter took down the stars and bones flag they had recovered from Rackham’s ship, which had been nailed up to the wall of the underground home for the past few days. “Because we’re expecting an ally,” Peter replied, “and she’ll be able to help us find him.”
“Another lost boy’s coming?” Newt asked. Hollyhock zipped over to Peter, eager to hear more about this ally. Peter had spoken very little of him, and although Hollyhock had a few theories as to who it might be, she leapt at any opportunity to hear more about him.
“Not quite a boy,” Peter replied, “but he's definitely been lost, so it will be hard to find the piper without redskin trackers.”
“Piper!” Jam exclaimed, her excitement increasing tenfold.
“Oh boy! Really, Peter, really?” Spurt was overjoyed. “Is he going to play music for us?”
Bard put her hand to her face and pensively remarked, “We better bring nice gifts then.”
The lost children packed up and set out through the forest, creeping and stalking in a direction Jam referred to as nouth. Gwen trailed after Jam, who seemed the most confident in her navigational abilities. Newt and Sal wove through the brush, looking for tracks or signs of the redskins. Bard and Blink carried a wicker basket between the two of them, filling it with all the fruit that the others picked as they explored the forest. While Hollyhock and Dillweed scouted ahead and flew among the others, Bramble remained stowed away in the fruit basket and was carried along as he secretly feasted.
The trek became so fun in its own right, that half of them forgot they were even trying to seek out the redskin camp. They ate fruit, collected interesting sticks, and wandered through the forest happily until early in the evening.
As the sun began to set over Neverland, Peter hushed the brigade of children and scaled to the top of a tree. The others flew up to see what he saw, immediately recognizing the smoke of a redskin fire drifting up from the plains just beyond the forest.
The children crept to the edge of the forest with wide-eyed caution. Even the fairies stayed low, tucking themselves into the children’s pockets so that their glow would not be seen. The prairie grasses grew yellow and tall on this side of the island. A cackling bonfire flickered and burned, unattended. Three tall teepees stretched up toward the dimming, golden sky, but not a soul was in sight. Gwen’s heart began to thump in her chest with the rhythm of a horse’s gallop.
Scenes of old westerns flashed in her mind, and she waited for a similar scenario to unfold. Grinning, Gwen couldn’t help but remember the last time she had played cowboys and Indians in the schoolyard. It had been such a long time ago, yet the memory was still so vivid for the sheer joy of the game. She didn’t know how to feel about that happy, innocent memory of caricaturing Native Americans.
“Is it safe, Peter?” Spurt asked, his whisper so loud that the entire group heard it.
“Where are they?” Jam whined.
“Maybe they’re out hunting,” Bard proposed.
Blink was more skeptical. “They might have heard us coming and set a trap.”
No one wanted to step out from the trees and brush alone, lest the redskins attack.
“What do we do, Peter?” Rosemary asked, tugging on his arm.
“We’ll go out all at once so if they try to ambush us, we’ll outnumber them. Gwen and Rosemary, you two hang back, just in case of an emergency.”
“What do we—?” Gwen began, but Peter was already marching forward toward the teepee camp. The others scrambled alongside him, pushing their way over the last creeping ivy vines and shrubberies. Rosemary was the first to yelp; she and her sister hung back and saw the trap spring into action a split second before the others felt it close up around them.
All the children screamed as the ground lifted from beneath them and they were swept up into a booby-trapped net. As soon as they triggered the trap, the net sprung and gathered them all up like fish, worming and writhing, squished next to each other. They were a puddle of children, mewing and moaning for help, suspended between the trees. Even the tiny fairies were having a hard time squirming their way out.
“What do we do, Gwen?” Rosemary frantically asked.
“I don’t kn—” Yet again, Gwen was cut off. This time, it was as a dark hand clapped down over her mouth. She began screaming, but with all of her friends caught up in the rigged trap, no one could respond to her muffled cries. A strong arm wrapped around her, and Gwen found that she could not break away from the redskin brave who had a hold of her.
In another tongue, he called out something. Gwen saw another man spring from hiding among the bushes as Rosemary ran by. He lunged at her little sister, but Rosemary was quicker. She dove out of the way, grabbing the tomahawk at his side. It was right at eye level for the small girl, so she pulled it off his leather belt as she raced past him. The redskin holding Gwen yelled something again, but Rosemary was already up in the air, her quick flight disorienting the brave who was after her. She got up just high enough that she could swiftly come back down behind him, holding the tomahawk to his own neck. She kept the blunt end of it to his throat, for the moment, and latched onto his back, yelling, “Let my sister go!”
The sound of old laughter, breaking down an ancient, smoky voice, interrupted the sobriety of their fight. From out of the forest came a final redskin. He was an old man, with deep-seated wrinkles forming a somber expression on his face, even as he laughed and smiled through them. His hair was a dark, stony grey, mingled with a once-youthful black. He wore a brilliant feather headdress and a bright woven robe. “Running Fox, have you met your match in this tiny girl?”
“She is like the little jackrabbit!” he objected.
The elder waved dismissively at the other brave. “Let the sister go, Storm Sounds. The newcomers have beaten you, though we have trapped our old friends.”
Storm Sounds let go of Gwen, and she turned around to look at him. He bore a stoic expression, as if already working on setting the same deep lines in his face as those of his elder. Rosemary released Running Fox and graciously handed him his tomahawk back before hugging him and bursting into a fit of giggles.
“Chief Dark Sun!” Peter announced, yelling over the mutterings and squabbles of the other children he was presently clumped with. Dillweed had managed to worm his way out of the entrapment. He was now working on pulling Hollyhock out from where she was squished between Jam and Newt. Everyone else was quite unalterably trapped.
“Ah, Brave Peter,” the chief replied, looking up at the trap. “Peace be in your travels.”
“Never!” Peter defiantly cried. “Now, will you let me and my comrades down, or must I cut our way out of your fine net?”
Dark Sun chuckled and told Running Fox, “Let down our old friends so that they might join us at the fireside tonight.”
“We come bearing gifts!” Sal yelled.
“All the more reason to welcome them,” Dark Sun replied. Sound Storms helped his fellow brave as he untied the knots and rigging that suspended the seven children overhead. “But who is the jackrabbit and sister? These are new faces to me.”
“Jackrabbit comes from our white man land, and she has brought her sister, the storyteller.”
Rosemary marched right up to Dark Sun and stared at the tall, old man’s painted face. “I’ve never seen a redskin before.”
“Rose!” Gwen hissed, appalled with her imprudent little sister.
Dark Sun smiled at Rose, but asked, “What is the storyteller’s objection?”
“Don’t mind her,” Peter replied, struggling to orient himself without elbowing, kneeing, or otherwise injuring the others. “She’s just a stupid girl.”
The Neverland Wars Page 13
