Forever Neverland

by Susan Adrian

“Wasn’t it?” Peter says. The bow and arrow are slung on his back now. “I knew I could make him run without a fight.” The pixies dive at Peter, hovering in front of his face, and he laughs. “Yes, it was you, too.” He turns to me. “What kind of beast was that?”

  I’m pleased that he asked me and not Clover—everyone always asks Clover. I stammer a little, but I squeeze the words out. “M-m-mountain lion. Or cougar.”

  “Cou-gar,” the girl called Shoe tries. “Cougar.” She shuffles her feet like she’s doing a dance, and I want to join in. I tap my feet a little. “It’ll be fun to have new beasts and foes,” she adds. Her skin is a rich red-brown, and she has black eyes with long eyelashes. Her hair is all the way down her back, curly and tangled. I think her color is blue, shifting blue like the ocean. When her eyes meet mine, I look down. I might have been staring.

  “Foes?” Clover asks.

  “Of course,” Peter says. “There must always be foes for adventures. Different foes for everyone who visits. But it’s been long and long since we had visitors.” He’s quiet for a bit, so I look at him. His face is scrunched up, but I don’t know what that means. Then he bows and stretches out an arm. “First we must show you our home. Wendy taught me that.” He turns to Clover. “Your house—Wendy’s house—fell down, so we used the wood for a great bonfire. We could build another house if you like. Or you could sleep underground with the rest of us.”

  “Underground is fine,” Clover snaps. “I’m not different from anyone else.”

  Peter nods. “Off you get, Lost Boys.” Everyone scatters to different trees. I see that every tree is hollow, with a big hole in each one. The Lost Boys (and Girls) slip into the hollows.

  I stand with Peter and Clover, shifting back and forth. My feet want to run, to disappear with the others, but I don’t know where to go. I look up at the orange-blue sunrise sky, clouds floating wispily. There’s a cloud that looks like a cougar. I wonder if that’s coincidence or magic.

  “Why do you call them all Lost Boys, if there are girls too?” I ask Peter.

  He shrugs. “We took a vote when we started having girls too. We change terms every once in a while. We were all Lost Girls for a while, but we’re Lost Boys for the moment. Fergus, you shall fit in the biggest tree, same as me.” He studies Clover. “You, the second biggest. They all go to the same place, so it’s just which one fits you best.”

  “Is it time for bed now?” Clover asks. She yawns so big I can see her teeth. “We’ve been up all night.”

  Peter laughs. “We don’t have bedtime. When you’re tired, you lie down and sleep, day or night. Unless we’re fighting, and then no one sleeps.” He shrugs. “Except when we have a mother here. Wendy made us go to bed early, I remember, no matter what.” He tilts his head at Clover, and raises an eyebrow. “Will you make us go to bed early?”

  Clover frowns. “No bedtime is fine with me.”

  I don’t think she means it. She usually loves enforcing bedtime when Mom’s not home. I can’t imagine Clover not following rules. She’ll probably have everybody in bed by nine tomorrow, and then start making rules about everything else.

  I’m going to enjoy it until she does.

  Peter goes to a tree entrance—the third tree from a big fire pit—and points down. “Fergus, this one. We have ladders now instead of chutes. I think it was Margaret who added those.”

  Margaret, our grandmother. I try to picture her as she is now, plump and gray-haired, slipping down inside a tree. I laugh. It’s a good image.

  I slide over and look down the hole. It’s dark, and seems tight, but neither of those things bothers me. I find the ladder, made of sticks and twine, and start down.

  I stop halfway because I like it in here. The tree smells cool and damp but alive, like an old forest. Here in the middle it’s dark and small, and just me. No one can watch me or hear me. I grip the ladder sticks, breathe, and feel myself relax, feel the stress seep out into the earth.

  It’s good to know I can come here if I want to calm down.

  When I get to the bottom, it’s loud, with all the Lost Boys running around and shouting. It’s one big room with nine beds all along the edges, a stove on one side with a chimney going up, and a table in the middle. I stand there for a minute, one hand on the ladder, and watch. I could go back up if I want to, I tell myself. If it’s too much, I could stay in the tree for a while.

  I kind of want to stay in the tree.

  But watching them run also makes me feel like running too, so I decide to join in, even though I don’t know the game. I don’t think it matters. Peter comes down behind me and joins in. We run, and shout, and tag each other sometimes, until we all get tired and drop to the ground.

  Friendly gets everyone bowls of some kind of stew, and we sit in a loose circle on the floor around the table and eat. Clover sits next to me, too close. I wish she’d sit on the other side and let me be. She’s hovering like I’m going to do something wrong.

  I frown at her over my bowl. The texture is funny, with some strange chunks I don’t like, but it’s warm and I’m hungry, so I eat everything but the chunks. Those I push aside and leave in a little pile in the bowl. I don’t look at Clover in case that’s wrong. Some of the Lost Boys laugh and talk, while others just eat quietly. One of them, little with blond hair down to his shoulders, goes and sits by himself by the fire, puts his feet up, and closes his eyes instead of eating.

  I like that it feels free to do whatever you want here. I like that no one treats me differently, staring at how I look or eat or talk. I’ve never felt so able to do what I feel like. If Clover weren’t watching me I wouldn’t feel different at all.

  “Where are the pixies?” I ask.

  “Oh, they don’t like it down here,” Peter says. “Ever since Tinker Bell…” He makes a face. “Pixies don’t live long, you know. Since Tinker Bell left us, a long time ago now, the other pixies won’t come underground. But they have their own home, not far. Pixie Hollow.”

  The stew makes me sleepy, and I start to blink hard, to stay awake.

  “Peter,” Clover says. “I think Fergus and I need to sleep.”

  There it is. I knew she’d start telling me what to do.

  “Don’t want to sleep,” I snap. “You sleep.”

  She blinks at me, her mouth turned down. “Fine, I need sleep.” She rolls her eyes. I hate it when she does that.

  Peter points out two beds near each other, near the tree I came down. Clover stumbles to one and collapses, curling up under a blanket. I fold my arms. I don’t want to go to bed just because she did. I can stay up at least five minutes longer. I count.

  I make it two and a half—one hundred and fifty seconds—and then go lie down. I am tired. The bed is bumpy, though, and smells musty and strange, and I don’t like it. My body tenses up, and for a while I feel like I might need to scream or run or go back in the tree.

  But I don’t want Clover to come help me. I don’t want to need help. I’m in a different place now, a new place. Everything’s different.

  I’m in a story.

  I focus hard on my breath, on listening to the fire crackle and the Lost Boys chatter, and before I know it my body relaxes and I fall asleep. I don’t know how it’s peaceful, with no one even being quiet, but it is.

  I wake to Peter standing over me. “Clover,” he says, and I can tell it’s not the first time he’s said it. “We must go.”

  I sit up, rubbing at my cheeks. “What time is it?”

  Peter shrugs. “There are no clocks in the Neverland anymore, not since the crocodile’s tick stopped. But it’s time to get out of bed. Our adventure has begun.”

  “Adventure?” I yawn. “Okay.” I look over at the bed next to me, but it’s empty. I get an instant burst of worry. “Where’s Fergus?”

  “He is already aboveground, making ready with the others.”
He smiles, his baby teeth showing. “He is easier to wake.”

  I snort. Not usually. Usually I’m the one up first, to the alarm, making sure we’re fed and ready for school. Or Mom gets me up with a kiss, and then we have to drag Fergus out of bed.

  Does Mom know we left? Is she panicking back at home? Did we ruin her peaceful studying time? I didn’t think of that before. I just followed Fergus, and Peter, without considering Mom enough. How long will we even be here?

  I stand, brush off my wrinkly clothes, and redo my bun. I decide not to brush my teeth, since they’re waiting for me. I’ll have to make sure I do it later.

  “Fergus has eaten already, but we have food for you up there. Come up soon,” Peter says from the bottom of the ladder. He tilts his head. “Wendy was always up first.”

  I groan. Of course she was.

  “Wait,” I say. “What’s the adventure? Is it a good one?”

  For a second his cheerful expression drops. “Not a good beginning, no. One of the mermaids has gone missing.”

  * * *

  —

  When I pop up only a few minutes later, my backpack on my shoulders and Fergus’s in my hand, everyone else is standing in the middle of the clearing, ready to go…wherever we’re going. The sun is directly above us, blindingly bright, so if it works the same as at home, I guess it’s around noon. I was asleep for a long time. I hate sleeping in that late. I wonder what they were all doing while I was asleep.

  I hope I don’t have a mustache drawn on my face or anything.

  “Fergus,” I whisper, “here.” I try to hand him his backpack, but he ignores me.

  “Don’t you want your backpack?”

  He doesn’t answer, just looks up at the sky, bouncing on his heels.

  I set the backpack on the ground at his feet. He won’t leave it there, not with his books in it.

  Friendly hands me slices of some sort of sweet melon and smiles. “Happy thoughts,” he says softly.

  “Form up!” Peter calls. “To the lagoon, quickly!”

  They get in a line so easily I can tell they must do it all the time. Peter, then Friendly, Shoe, Jumper, George, Rella, and Swim. Fergus goes next—his backpack on his back—then me at the end. I wish I knew what we’re going to do when we get to the lagoon, but it is an adventure. I guess you don’t plan an adventure.

  I munch on the melon, which is delicious. It drips all over my hands, though, and there are no napkins. I wonder how Fergus dealt with that. He always likes to have his hands clean. I wipe mine on my jeans.

  Two pixies come rocketing down from the sky and hover by Peter. From the way they’re moving, I think they’re talking to him. Maybe the pixies are upset about a missing mermaid too.

  “It’s like we’re Odysseus,” Fergus says over his shoulder. “The Odyssey. Odysseus.”

  “Doesn’t that take ten years?” I ask.

  Fergus nods happily, his hands flying. “Odyssey. Ten years to get back after the Trojan War. Odysseus kept getting lost, or the gods threw him off track.” Peter whistles, and Fergus marches forward with the others. I look at the backs of the Lost Boys, then at the forest and the mountain rising above them. This place is pretty amazing. But I definitely don’t want to be here for ten years.

  “We follow the North Star!” Fergus hollers.

  “Quiet march!” Peter calls back in a hoarse whisper. “We don’t know what beasts are about today.”

  “We follow the North Star,” Fergus whispers.

  “We follow the North Star,” Swim, a small, scraggly boy with blond hair, repeats with a smile.

  I walk closer to Fergus and keep checking behind me, remembering the mountain lion. I wish I weren’t last. We follow a path that goes through trees for a while, then turns and goes uphill, toward the mountain. The trees are closer together here, and darker. Almost black. Lots of them are old and dead, their branches stretching across the path. A wind cuts through, colder than it should be on a tropical island. I shiver. “What is this place?” I whisper to the Lost Boys ahead of me.

  Swim half turns and whispers back, “Shhh! This is the Haunted Forest. There are ghosts everywhere. The ghosts of pirates have been bad lately. George was grabbed right off the trail, and the rescue took us weeks.”

  George glances back at us, face serious, and I frown at Fergus. Ghosts of pirates? For real? “Be careful,” I say.

  Fergus frowns and keeps marching. I hunch my shoulders and follow. A cloud comes over the sun and it instantly gets twice as dark, twice as cold. I squeak, but no one hears me. I really don’t like being at the back. The trail winds on, the trees reaching out for us with their bare branches like pointed fingers.

  I see something move to the right, in the brush. Was that a mountain lion? A ghost? What do I do if a ghost grabs me? Will anyone even notice? I walk faster, almost at a trot, and bump into Fergus. He jumps away and keeps going.

  There’s a long, low howl close by. I freeze, but the rest of them don’t stop, so then I have to go faster again to keep up. We go up again, another steep hill. One at a time the others reach the top and disappear, until it’s just me and Fergus I can see. Then Fergus crests the hill, and it’s just me.

  The howling comes again from behind me—“ooooooOOOOO.” I run, my legs pumping.

  At the top, everything changes in an instant. From here you can see it all, straight downhill to the ocean. The scary trees suddenly end, becoming tropical bushes and plants with huge leaves, and a few palm trees. The sun pops out too. The water dances in the distance, sunlight sparkling on every wave. It’s all bright and clear and beautiful, a postcard picture of an island.

  I look over my shoulder at the Haunted Forest, dark and menacing, lurking behind us. It would be easy to think I imagined it, imagined the fear, once I got up here. As soon as it was behind me.

  Everyone else is already halfway down the hill, not looking back at all, so I follow, stepping carefully on the steep slope down. I still slide on the little rocks.

  After the hill the path curves back and forth, like a snake, and then we come to a creek. It’s too wide to jump over, fast and foamy. If I squint I can see the waterfall it comes from, far off to the left, bursting out of the mountain. Peter and the rest turn right and walk alongside the creek, toward the ocean. The creek dumps into one of the lagoons, far down. “Is that where we’re going?” I ask.

  This time Rella turns around. “That’s Dragon Lagoon. We don’t go there much during dragon season, unless we want a Real Adventure, or the dragon starts hunting pixies again and we have to stop her. We’re going to Mermaid Lagoon.”

  “I liked it when we fought the dragon,” Jumper says over her shoulder. “That was fun.”

  “Dragon Lagoon,” Fergus says. “Dragon Lagoon.”

  “Too hard to say, right?” I reply. “It should be Dragon Lagon. Or Dragoon Lagoon.”

  Rella tilts her head but doesn’t answer. She keeps walking.

  “Dragon Lagon,” Fergus says, and smiles.

  “I like that one too.” I smile back.

  “Hush!” Peter calls. “Quiet march!”

  We hush and keep going.

  After a while we come to a partly flat log that hangs dangerously over the creek. A bridge, kind of. One by one Peter and the Lost Boys walk across, as easy as if it were nothing. No one looks back. Jumper hops across. Rella skips. I hang by the side, watching. I hate bridges. Even driving over the Coronado Bridge at home with Mom makes me nervous. I have to sing under my breath the whole time to distract myself.

  Fergus crosses fine and waits for me on the other side. So I have to go. I have to follow everyone else.

  I set one foot on the log, then take it off. I can’t. I might fall.

  I look at Fergus. He doesn’t say anything, just watches me, blinking. He knows it’s hard for me. But then he looks over
his shoulder at the rest of the Lost Boys already moving down the trail. He wants to go with them. We need to go. I need to be brave and do this.

  Wendy would have done it, no problem. She’d already have been over the bridge. Mom probably would have too, if she had ever come here. She’s brave. Grandmother probably ran across it.

  I put my foot back on, and the log wobbles. I take a deep breath and put my other foot on, then take a step. It’s okay. I can do it.

  I try to run across, so I won’t be as scared, like Grandmother would. Except I slip halfway, bang my leg on the log, and smash down, down, down into the icy water.

  I stand still for a second, not sure what to do. She fell into the creek. It’s fast and full, and it’s pulling her down already, tumbling her over. Do I jump in? Try to pull her out?

  It’s only for a second. Then I yell.

  “Help!” I call as loud as I can. “Help us!” At the same time I run down the creek to try to catch Clover. I reach out as she tumbles past, but the water pulls her away and I miss. “Help!”

  Then Peter is there, with the cluster of Lost Boys. The two pixies dive for the water, skimming above Clover. She spins around again onto her back, the backpack pulling her down, and screams.

  “Friendly!” Peter commands. “Here!”

  They run a few paces downstream and position themselves—Friendly’s feet are in the creek—and each of them grabs one of Clover’s arms as she goes by, neatly pulling her out of the water. I can tell they’ve done it before, probably lots. They pull her onto the grassy bank. She lies there with her arms stretched out, gasping and shivering. The water pours from her onto the ground.

  I go and kneel next to her, the grass wet on my knees. “Are you all right?” I say, the words sticking in my throat. She doesn’t answer, so I try again. “Are you okay?”

  She nods, her eyes closed. Her hair is almost as dark as mine now, fallen out from her bun and dripping into the ground.

  “Come now, Clover,” Peter says, his fists on his hips. “That was a waste of time. I told you we had a mission. We do not have time to ride the stream down to the lagoon.”