Peter & Emily, The Girl From New York

by Thomas Hayes

Chapter Five

  “What’d you mean, straight on till morning?” I asked, floating. “It’s the middle of the night.”

  Peter waved his hand. “Come on. Trust me. You’ll see.”

  “Emily,” Tim said, “I hate to bring this up, but I think people are starting to notice us.”

  I looked at the nearest building. Many of the lights were on, and I could see a woman staring. Below, crowds of people were pointing.

  “All the more reason for us to get going,” Peter said. “We don’t want too many people taking photographs of us, after all. Come on, Emily. Grab my hand, and Tim, you grab Emily’s.”

  Unsure, I took Peter’s hand. Then, reaching out and kicking my legs, I grabbed Tim.

  “Emily,” he said. “I know I was all about this five minutes ago, but are we sure this is a good idea?”

  “It’s a great idea,” Peter answered. “You’re gonna love this more than anyone, Tim. Now hold on, both of you. Our speed is about to pick up dramatically.”

  Extending his arm, Peter pointed toward the far-off star.

  “Here we go! Back to Never Land!”

  With a sudden WHOOSH!, we were flying—soaring faster than I could believe through the buildings of New York City, and bulletting upwards.

  “Peter!” I yelled. My hair flew all over the place. “Slow down! Where are you taking us?”

  “This is awesome!” Tim yelled. “I’m flying! And I’m gonna puke! This is awesome!”

  “We’re headed right where we need to be!” Peter said. “Just hold on tight and don’t let go! We’ll be there in the blink of an eye!”

  Squinting, I looked ahead. The light from the star was getting brighter and brighter. It was almost like it was growing, even though I knew that was impossible.

  “Just a few more seconds now!” Peter squeezed my hand. “Brace yourselves—this part can be a little jarring to rookies.”

  The star was so bright now it seemed to light up the whole sky, with infinite arms stretching across the horizon, filling my vision. Soon, it was so bright I had to close my eyes.

  “Never Land, here we come!” Peter yelled. “Yup, I see the afternoon sun up ahead—you see, what did I tell you? You can trust old Peter Pan!”

  In a flash, the blinding starlight went away, and through my closed eyes, I could tell it was completely dark. But, the darkness only lasted a second, and as our bodies slowed, it became bright again. However, it wasn’t blindingly bright this time; I had my eyes shut, but I could tell it was simple daytime sunlight. It was also very warm—almost tropical.

  “Emily,” Tim said. “Em, open your eyes. I don’t know what happened, but you gotta open your eyes.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to. What did he do?”

  “I have no idea. But you’re not gonna believe it. We aren’t home anymore.”

  I felt our bodies drifting downward, nice and slowly. The warm air blew up around me.

  “Careful now,” Peter said. “Those of us with our eyes open know we’re heading for the shore.”

  I stiffened my legs, waiting to feel the ground underneath me. Soon enough, I did, and slowly and nervously, I opened my eyes. With my arms outstretched, I listened to myself breathing. My body felt so strange, as if I had just been on the world’s fastest, most intense rollercoaster. My legs were wobbly, and I felt sick to my stomach. Suddenly, I grew angry.

  “What the hell?” I slapped Peter’s arm. He jumped back, but he was laughing. “What did you do? How did you do that? What did you do to us?”

  “I told you,” Peter said, enjoying himself. “I told you I was going to bring you to Never Land, and I did. That’s exactly where we are—Never Land. This is where I come from.”

  “Whatever. Take us back.” I stepped forward, fists clenched. “Take us back, now, before I really flip out.”

  “Em,” Tim said. He looked in the opposite direction as me. “Em, turn around.”

  “No. Not until this weirdo explains himself. You may have scared us with those shadow things, but I’m not falling for this anymore. Did you bring them there to scare us, so we’d follow you to this, this…island?” I looked around. We were standing on sand, and the lapping waves of the ocean were only a few feet away. There were palm trees where the sand met the forest. “What is this? How did we—how did we travel so far?”

  “If you want to start understanding things,” Peter said, “the best thing you can do is listen to your brother.”

  Peter motioned for me to turn around.

  “Yeah,” Tim said. I realized how shocked he sounded. “Listen to your brother. Turn around.”

  I did, and looked where Tim was looking.

  There was an island, floating in the air. On its grassy top, I could see tall palm trees, and little houses—they looked like gingerbread houses.

  I looked down. Underneath the island, ahead of me in the sand, there was a lagoon. Women were swimming in it, sitting on large rocks and singing, with a waterfall behind them. They were giggling and having a grand time, jumping into the water and then popping up again. Each of them was stunningly beautiful—one had brown hair, one was blonde, one had freckles, one had hair that was purple, one had skin that was the color of caramel. They also had green, glistening flippers instead of legs. Mermaids. They were mermaids.

  I turned and looked out into the ocean. There were half a dozen, giant wooden ships, bobbing in the water. Each had a different flag above their massive sails, but it was clear they were all pirate ships. On the one nearest to me, I could see a crew of bandanna-wearing, sword-wielding, grunting men, raising their ship’s mast so they could head out into the sea.

  I turned back to Peter.

  “Yup,” he said with a grin. “Floating islands, mermaids, and pirates. But you ain’t seen nothing yet. Come on, follow me. I’ll show you where I live.”

  In silence, I followed Peter across the sand and toward the forest. Tim walked behind me, but he was looking toward the lagoon.

  “Can we go see the mermaids first?” he asked, his voice monotone. “Their singing is so beautiful. I want to…I want to get closer. Plus I think one of them had their top off…”

  “Oh, no,” Peter laughed. “You don’t want to get closer to that set of mermaids, Timmy boy. Those beauties may look like fun, but they’re nothing but trouble. That’s a good lesson, actually: a pretty girl may look like fun, but she’ll turn your life right upside down.”

  “But their song. They’re singing to me.”

  “They sure are. They can see a boy like you coming from a mile away. Ten, eleven years old—that’s when girls really start getting in your head. But, you keep listening to their song, if you get any closer, they’ll never let you leave. You’ll be stuck in that lagoon forever.”

  “That’s okay. I wouldn’t mind.”

  Deeper and deeper, we walked into the woods. The sand and palm trees eventually turned into grass, patches of briars, and tall oak trees, reaching into the sky.

  “This is where you live?” I asked. “In this forest?”

  “Yes, just up ahead here. You’ll see.”

  “Peter, I don’t understand what’s going on. We were in New York and now we’re here. Where is this place? What is this place? How can this be real?”

  Peter laughed. “I don’t know, but it is. We really aren’t that far from where you’re from, actually. Never Land is a place you can only come to if you believe. If you’re still able to believe in wonder and adventure and fun, in excitement and wonderful things. If you’re still able to have fun—pure, true, laughing-till-you-cry fun—then you can come here. I must have caught you just in time. I wasn’t worried about Tim, but if I had waited a few more weeks, you mighta been too grown up.”

  “Too grown up for what?”

  “For adventure. To believe that anything is possible. Once you grow up, the world takes all the magic out of you. You start worrying, and getting mean, and angry, and rushing around everywhere, never stopping for adventure. You start not hav
ing fun, because they take the fun from you. But, before that, before your wonder goes away, before your childhood stops, you can come here. To Never Land. All kids are welcome in Never Land. That’s the beauty of it. As long as you believe.”

  “I’m not sure that I do. I’m not sure if I believe any of this.”

  He laughed. “Ah, but you obviously do. Or else you wouldn’t have been able to make the trip. You might think you’ve grown up, Emily, you might think being seventeen and in high school makes you a mature, intellectual, boring, mean adult, but it doesn’t. You’ve got a couple more years of wonder left in you. You still believe in adventure, even if you don’t realize it. I’m just glad I was able to get you here in time.”

  “But why? Why did you bring us here?”

  “You’ll see. But first…” He held out his hand. “Welcome to the village of the Lost Boys.”

  I looked past Peter. We had made it to some kind of settlement in the middle of the woods. But, rather than a village like Peter had said, it looked more like a series of clubhouses, made from wood and palm leaves and tree branches. There were houses up in the trees, multi-level huts on the ground, and bicycles driving around the dirt paths that criss-crossed through the village. Most of the bicycles were made from bamboo, and obviously homemade, but some of them were metal, old and run-down—like they were made in the 1930’s or 40’s, and not taken care of much since then.

  There were also boys everywhere—not a girl in sight, and no adults. It seemed the entire village of clubhouses was populated with hundreds of boys, ranging from six to 11 years old. Only little kids lived here—and each of them wore homemade clothes, like Peter’s, all different shades of brown and green. They were also filthy, with dirt-streaked faces, greasy hair that stuck up all over their heads, and shoes that were either caked in mud or stained green with grass (many of them didn’t wear shoes at all). Besides their brown and green clothes, many of them had splashes of color—an orange baseball cap, a blue belt that criss-crossed their chest like an ‘X,’ or a even stripes of yellow face paint under their eyes, like they were some kind of warrior.

  It was also incredibly loud—all of these boys were hooting and hollering and screaming with laughter as they made their way through the village. Crashing into each other as they jousted on their bikes with tree branches, playing some kind of basketball game in the corner of town with a coconut, or literally wrestling in the dirt, while other boys cheered and bet on the outcome with candy bars—it was like a middle school teacher’s ultimate nightmare, come to life.

  “This is…” I said, looking around. “This is bizarre.”

  There was a buzzing sound above us, and I looked up to see a boy zip-lining down from his clubhouse. When he hit the ground, he immediately joined a picnic table of boys who were chowing down on a spread of junk food—pizza, ice cream, and soda.

  “This isn’t bizarre,” Tim said. “This is heaven.”