by Kiki Thorpe
The last bit of sun was gone. The pale twilight was darkening into inky night. To Kate’s relief, Peter declared there was no point in exploring the ship any more. Without Tink’s light, they couldn’t see a thing.
Instead, they sat on deck and watched the stars come out. Peter pointed out constellations—the Sparrow, the Guppy, the Greater Foot and the Lesser Foot, Starkey’s Hat. Kate had the feeling that he was making them up as he went along. But it was pleasant sitting there, watching his finger trail through the sky. She could almost see the shapes in the stars.
They talked about their adventures. Kate told him about Cloud, the mist horse she’d tamed and ridden across Never Land. She told him about winning goals she’d scored in soccer and about the time she’d broken her arm trying to slide down the banister at her grandmother’s house. For every story Kate had, though, Peter seemed to have a hundred. He’d flown with eagles and visited stars and played tricks on elves and battled dozens of pirates. But when she pressed him, he was always fuzzy about the details.
“What was the name of the pirate you defeated on Skull Rock?” she asked.
“Him? Oh, that was Barbecue,” Peter replied.
“I thought you said Barbecue met his end at sea,” Kate said.
“Did I?” said Peter. “Well then, it must have been Bonnet. Yes, I’m sure it was Bonnet.”
“It sounds exciting,” said Kate, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“It was,” said Peter.
Kate leaned against Peter’s shoulder. Her eyelids felt heavy. Before she knew it, she’d fallen asleep.
She woke sometime later. She was lying curled up on deck. The arm that had been touching Peter’s shoulder was cold.
Kate sat up. “Peter?” she said, looking around.
There was no reply. Kate got to her feet, calling louder. “Peter?”
The only sound was the slap of waves against the hull. The shore looked far away. With a start, Kate realized the ship was floating out to sea. And Peter was gone.
At first, Kate thought it was another one of Peter’s jokes. She expected him to pop out from behind the mast at any moment, or spring up from a coil of rope, shouting “Boo!”
But minutes passed, and Peter didn’t appear. Kate slumped against the ship’s helm, shivering. Before, the ship had been merely spooky. But now, in the moonlight, the shadows seemed menacing. Her ears were alert to every sound. Was that the wind in the rigging? Or was it a ghostly voice?
At one point Kate was certain she heard a splash. Her heart nearly leaped into her throat.
It was a fish jumping. That’s all, she told herself.
But what if it wasn’t? What if the ship wasn’t really abandoned? What if it belonged to pirates who had gone ashore to bury their treasure and were on their way back this very minute? Was it the splash of their rowboat oars she’d heard?
Kate waited, frozen with dread. She was still holding Nibs’s sword, though she knew it wouldn’t be much use. After all, what could she do with a sword against a real pirate?
Several times she considered flying away. But the thought that Peter might need her help kept her there. What had happened to him? she wondered. Was he lost somewhere in the ship’s hold? Had he fallen and hit his head? Or had a ghost gotten him after all?
The moon rose. The night grew cooler. Kate’s eyes kept playing tricks on her. When she spied a shape slipping over the side of the ship, she wasn’t sure if it was real.
Then the figure stepped into the moonlight, and she saw that it was Peter. He was as wet as a seal, and grinning.
“Where have you been?” Kate asked. Her voice came out in a croak.
“Just now? I was talking to a mermaid,” Peter replied. “I was telling her the funniest story.”
“But you’ve been gone for ages!” Kate said.
“Have I?” Peter asked with genuine surprise. “It didn’t seem long at all.”
“I’ve been here all by myself. I was waiting for you!” Kate stopped just short of telling him how scared she’d been.
“I’m sorry. I guess I forgot,” Peter replied. “Why didn’t you just fly off and do something fun until I got back?”
Kate stared at him. It dawned on her that he didn’t understand why she was upset. Possibly he couldn’t understand. In the short time she’d known him, she’d never seen him afraid of anything.
“I was worried about you,” she said.
“What for?” Peter asked. “Listen, I have an idea. Let’s wake up the Lost Boys and the other girls and set sail now. The moon’s nice and bright tonight.”
Kate stood up stiffly. “I don’t think I want to go anymore,” she said. Sailing to the mainland with Peter didn’t seem quite like the adventure it had before. “I think I just want to go home.”
Peter’s brow wrinkled. “Why would you do that?” he asked.
He really doesn’t understand, Kate thought. He only cares about playing games and having fun. Peter was the most exciting person she’d ever met. But for once, Kate was tired of excitement.
She climbed up on the side of the ship. “I’ll see you around Never Land,” she said.
“You’re really leaving?” Peter looked disappointed. But a second later, he brightened. “Maybe the next time you see me, I’ll have sailed this ship around the world. What an awfully big adventure that would be!”
He probably will, too, Kate thought. Peter seemed able to do just about anything. She smiled. “I can’t wait to hear about it,” she said.
Then she rose into the air and set out for Pixie Hollow.
When Kate reached the shore, she looked back toward the ship. Peter was still at the wheel, shouting things like “All hands on deck!” and “Smartly, now!” He looked as if he was having the time of his life.
Back in Pixie Hollow, the Home Tree was dark and quiet. But a light blazed in the window of Tinker Bell’s workshop.
Inside, Tink was busy searching the shelves where she kept her found things. Sometimes Clumsy objects washed up on the shore of Never Land. Tink polished them to use them in her inventions.
“This hinge will work,” she said to herself. “And I can use this scrap of metal. Now, where is that four-hole button?”
When Tink had gotten back to Pixie Hollow that evening, she’d found her fairy friends waiting for her—Silvermist and Fawn, as well as Rosetta, Prilla, and Iridessa. Even the fast-flying fairy Vidia had been there, though she’d pretended she was just passing by. They greeted Tink with tears and hugs, as if she’d returned from a long journey. Tink had scoffed at all the fuss. But secretly she was pleased.
It was late now. All her friends were asleep in their rooms high in the Home Tree’s branches. But Tink didn’t feel sleepy. Her mind was whirling with plans.
The adventures that day had given her ideas for several new inventions—like a mechanical turtle boat, with four paddles that moved like flippers, and a shadow lantern that spun and projected spooky shadow plays on the wall. And of course, Tink still wanted to fix her mouse-powered well. She had an idea for how a button could work as an emergency brake.
She had just found the button beneath a pile of polishing rags when she heard a soft thump-thump on her door.
That’s not a fairy’s knock, Tink thought. She went to the window and peeped out. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Kate,” came the girl’s voice. “I saw your light on.”
Tink was surprised. It was a long way back to Pixie Hollow in the dark. “Is Peter with you?” she asked.
“No,” said Kate. “Will you come outside? It’s hard to talk through the door.”
Tink sighed. Was this another prank? “I’m very busy,” she said. “I have a lot of tinkering to do—”
“Just for a minute,” Kate pleaded.
“Oh, all right.” Tink opened the door.
Kate was crouched at the roots of the Home Tree, just outside Tink’s workshop. Her red hair was windblown from the long flight back.
“Well, what is
it?” Tink asked.
“I’m sorry,” Kate said. “It was my idea to play that trick on you. It wasn’t very nice.”
“It wasn’t,” Tink agreed. Was this what Kate had come back for? she wondered. An apology could have waited until morning.
“You must be really mad at me,” Kate went on. “I spoiled the whole adventure for you.”
Tink shook her head. “You didn’t spoil it. I could have stayed if I’d wanted.”
“Why didn’t you?” Kate asked.
“There were other things I wanted to do,” Tink replied. “Adventures aren’t everything, you know.”
“Peter thinks they are,” said Kate.
Tink smiled. “Well, Peter is Peter. If he was a fairy, he’d have a talent for adventures.” She looked at Kate curiously. “Why did you come back?”
“I don’t know.” Kate sighed. “We were going to sail the ship all the way to the mainland. It would have been the most exciting thing I’d ever done, and part of me still wishes I had gone. But another part of me just wanted to go home. Isn’t that weird?”
“Not really,” said Tink.
Kate stood up. “I was supposed to meet Mia and Lainey and Gabby back here hours ago. They probably went home without me. I guess I don’t blame them,” she added.
“They’re still here,” Tink told her. “They’re waiting for you in the willow tree room.” The willow tree was where the girls had slept the first time they spent the night in Pixie Hollow.
Just then, they heard voices coming toward them, speaking in whispers.
“It’s so dark out! I told you guys we should have left earlier.”
“It was dark then, too!”
“I wish we had a flashlight.”
“How are we going to find the right cove at night?”
“Maybe we should wake one of the fairies and ask her to come with us.”
“Ow! Gabby, you stepped on my foot!”
“You guys!” Kate cried, running to her friends. A second later, the girls were wrapped in a four-way hug.
“We were just coming to find you,” Lainey told her.
“None of us could sleep,” Gabby explained. “We kept thinking about you on that scary ship.”
“We shouldn’t have left you behind,” Mia said. “Are you really mad at us?”
“No way!” Kate said. “I thought you’d be mad at me for staying there without you.”
“Well then, it’s settled,” said Mia. “The next time we come across a big, spooky ghost ship, we all stick together.”
“If there is a next time,” Lainey added.
“What do you mean?” Kate said with a laugh. “There’s always a next time in Never Land.”
The other girls didn’t seem to notice Tink. She fluttered into her workshop. As she went back to the plans for her latest invention, she could still hear them talking.
“So what happened on the ship?” Mia was asking Kate. “Did you see a ghost?”
“Did you find the treasure?” Gabby asked.
“Not exactly,” Kate said, then quickly added, “But it was still pretty exciting.” She put an arm around Mia’s shoulders and another around Lainey’s. “Let’s go home. I’ll tell you all about it on the way.”
Gabby knew most of the sparrow men in Pixie Hollow, but she’d never seen this one before. He wore an oak-leaf vest with many patches. His hair stuck out every which way from beneath his stocking cap. And his shoes were so full of holes that Gabby could see his toes peeping out.
“Spinner’s back!” Beck cried, jumping to her feet.
The sparrow man fluttered down, and the fairies surrounded him, welcoming him with smiles and hugs. Spinner returned their happy greetings, but his eyes kept traveling back to Gabby. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so,” he said at last, “but you’re the biggest fairy I’ve ever seen.”
“What? Oh!” Gabby laughed. He’d noticed her dress-up fairy wings! “I’m not a fairy. I’m a girl.”
“She’s an honorary fairy,” said Iridessa.
Spinner looked impressed. “Well, I’ll be jammed and jellied. You’re the first honorary fairy I’ve met. What’s your name?”
When Gabby told him, he chuckled. “I’m a bit ‘gabby’ myself. You and I will get along just fine.”
“You’ve been gone a long time,” Iridessa said to Spinner.
The sparrow man nodded. “A dozen moons at least. And I have as many stories to tell.”
“Spinner is a story-talent fairy,” Silvermist explained to Gabby. “He travels all over collecting tales. Then he brings them back to Pixie Hollow.”
A story talent! Gabby had never met a story talent before. She squatted down to get a better look. “What kind of tales?” she asked him.
Spinner’s eyes lit up. “Would you like to hear one?”
“Yes! Tell us a story!” the fairies all exclaimed. They sat down to listen. Gabby sat, too, wrapping her arms around her knees.
“It all started one afternoon when I was in the forest eating Never Berries,” Spinner began. “Now, as anyone who’s ever had a Never Berry knows, there’s nothing more delicious. Why, I’d say they taste just like a summer sunrise.…”
As he spoke, a strange thing happened. Gabby’s mouth filled with a fresh, juicy taste, a flavor as sweet as strawberries and as bright as lemons. It was as if she were inside Spinner’s story, eating berries right along with him.
“Before long I noticed a bird gobbling up the berries, too,” Spinner went on. “He had an ivory beak and silver feathers. I knew he wasn’t from Never Land.”
Gabby could see the bird as clearly as if it were sitting next to her. Its white beak was stained with pink berry juice. Its feathers gleamed in the sunlight.
“I said to the bird, ‘These berries are the finest food you’ll ever taste.’ But the bird puffed himself up and said, ‘I’ve had better. Where I’m from, there’s a cake as sweet and light as a dream. It’s made from stardust and baked in moonlight.’ Well, I knew I had to try that cake. So when the bird left, I hitched a ride.…”
Spinner kept talking, but Gabby no longer heard the words. She was suddenly in the story, riding on the silver bird’s back.
Excerpt from Before the Bell copyright © 2015 by Disney Enterprises, Inc. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
KIKI THORPE spent much of her childhood reading, daydreaming, and searching for fairies in the forests of Idaho—pastimes that were good training for writing children’s books. She is the author of several books for young readers, including the New York Times bestseller In a Blink, the first book in the Never Girls series. She lives with her husband, Greg, and their two children in San Francisco.
