Always Neverland (6 page)

Peter won the contest, of course. As soon as he hopped onto one of the Never birds, it glided off the branch, tame under his hands. It happened on all three of his turns.

“That's not
fair
,” Prank mumbled, watching Peter fly calmly around the clearing on the back of a Never bird yet again. He rubbed the side of his head, which he had knocked against a thick branch a few attempts earlier.

“All the Never birds like Peter,” Dibs said.

“He saved one of their nests once, a long time ago,” Button explained.

“Then they should really like
me
.” I was sweating, and my pajama shirt was covered in enough feathers to fill a pillow. We had already relocated almost twenty nests. “Since I kept Prank from kicking all the nests out of the tree.”

“I bet my way was better,” Prank said defensively. “I don't see you risking your neck and jumping on any Never birds.”

“She's a
girl
,” Dibs said as we settled the nest on a new branch. “Girls are scared of Never birds.”

They
definitely
had old-fashioned ideas about girls. Very
annoying
ones.

“I am
not
,” I said, hands on my hips. First, they called me stupid. Then they called me a coward. I wasn't going to put up with
that
any longer. “I would've done it right after Kyle, but I've been too busy carrying nests back and forth. Unlike
some
people.”

“The Wendy girl should try,” Peter said, looking at me as he glided by on the Never bird's back. I was especially annoyed that he was so bossy. I didn't see
him
covered in feathers.

“Fine,” I said, flying up.

I almost lost my nerve when the Never bird looked straight at me, very suspicious.

“Remember what Prank wanted to do to your nests,” I told it sternly, and I jumped. The Never bird took flight immediately, and I clung to its neck, waiting for it to start pecking. The feathers were so plush across its back that it felt like a warm pillow. When the wings beat and brushed my legs, they tickled my feet.

“The Never birds like her, too!” Kyle cried, delighted. “Do they always like the Wendy girls?”

I looked up, realizing that the bird wasn't going to try to knock me off.

“No,” Prank told Kyle in a quiet, slightly awed voice.

The Lost Boys watched, gaping; and seeing the jealousy in Dibs's face, I felt a surge of triumph. “Don't forget the nest,” I pointed out smugly, and Button and Kyle rushed to get it.

“That's just one bird,” Prank said, crossing his arms. “Let's see you do it again.”

So, as soon as Button and Kyle settled the nest in the other tree, I flew over the second-to-last nest in the tree. The Never bird squawked uncertainly as I climbed onto its back, but other than that, it flew out of the Tree Home without a protest while the Lost Boys moved its nest.

Before Prank could say anything else, I flew back and leaped onto the last Never bird. It sighed deeply through its beak and took flight, sailing around the clearing.

“Three!” Kyle cried, a little out of breath from transporting so many nests one after the other. “That's just as many as Peter.”

“Yeah,” said Prank reluctantly. “Our new Wendy girl has a talent for Never birds.”

Feeling incredibly pleased with myself, I scratched the Never bird's head. It trilled happily as we lapped the clearing a second time.

Then I saw Peter. His expression was stony.

I remembered how he had acted when I did more cartwheels than he did, back among the stars.

Too late, it occurred to me that he might have liked being the only one who could tame a Never bird. Nobody likes being shown up, especially by a visitor.

“Well,” I said as modestly as I could, “I learn from the best.”

Chapter 8.
The Never Trees Attack Pirates

R
ight after that, Prank started complaining that his stomach was growling, and when Button pointed out that they had missed lunch, Peter and Tink flew off to find us something to eat.

He gave me a weird look as he went. If I didn't know any better, I would say that he was looking at me like I'd just shown up in the clearing—like he was seeing me for the first time. But all he said was “Lost Boys, make sure the Wendy girl doesn't try to befriend any mermaids while I'm gone.”

Most of the Lost Boys laughed like Peter had told them to stop me from making friends with Neverland's crocodile or something equally outrageous. Only Button turned to me curiously. “You tried to make friends with the mermaids?”

I shrugged, flushing a little and wishing Peter hadn't brought it up. I had enough trouble winning the Lost Boys over without Peter making me seem idiotic.

“Wendy girl, we can take a break until after dinner, right?” Kyle asked after Peter left. His shoulders drooped, like he was really tired. “I'm starving.”

“Okay,” I said, more than happy to rest. Remembering how I'd almost dropped Dad's camera earlier, I asked, “Is there a safe place I can hide my camera for the night? I don't want to mess it up.”

“There's the hiding places,” Button suggested as he joined the others.

“You can put it in mine!” Kyle said, flying down a few branches. Then he grasped a knob in the trunk firmly, twisted, and pulled. A big chunk of bark swung on hinges, revealing a locker space behind it.

“Wow,” I said, passing the camera to Kyle. It was a bit shadowy inside the hiding place, and hard to see, but a very worn teddy bear peeked out.

Kyle placed my dad's camera inside with exaggerated care. “We all have one. Button made them.”

I was starting to realize that Button made almost everything around the Tree Home.

But I didn't realize how tired I was until I sat down with the Lost Boys among the lower branches. Or maybe I was just
really
ready for dinner. I hadn't eaten
anything
since pizza the night before.

My stomach growled, so loudly that all the Lost Boys turned to stare.

“I'm hungry too,” said Kyle with a huge sigh. “Too bad this isn't a food tree.”

I glanced at the branch above us, looking for apples or oranges or lemons I might have missed among the leaves. “I don't see any fruit.”

“A
food tree
,” said Dibs, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Suddenly, he reminded me a
lot
of Peter. “Don't you know the difference?”

“Of course she doesn't,” Kyle said, scowling at Dibs. “Neverland is the only place that has food trees.”

“We have fruit trees,” I said, thinking that they just weren't saying the name right. “Is that what you mean?”

“No,” said Button, Prank, Kyle, and Dibs together.

“Food trees are special,” said Button. “Neverland didn't always have them, but once, a Wendy girl brought a
huge
basket of food to Neverland to share with us Lost Boys. We had a picnic.”

“After we finished eating, there was a lot left over. We started a food fight. It was my idea,” Prank added proudly.

“The Wendy girl got mad—like a real mother would,” Dibs said. “She lectured us. She said, ‘Your mother has worked hard to prepare that meal for you. Food doesn't grow on trees, you know.'”

I wrinkled my nose. I'd heard
that
before. Grandma Delaney said it all the time. Was she the Wendy girl they meant?

“But Peter said, ‘Says who?'” Kyle added excitedly.

“How do you know? You weren't there,” Dibs said.

“I've heard the story.”

“Then Peter scooped up handfuls of crumbs from the food fight, dug holes all around, and planted the crumbs like seeds,” said Button. “After he covered the crumbs with dirt and watered them, he Pretended with all his might.”

“The next day, the clearing where we'd eaten the picnic had become a grove of food trees,” said Prank.

“Can Peter do that?” I said, surprised.

“He's Peter
Pan
,” Dibs said, scoffingly. “He can do anything.”

“I don't know if the Pretending would've worked anywhere else, though,” Button said with a thoughtful frown. “It's part of Neverland's magic.”

“Does that mean that Spot's stone eggs will hatch?” I asked.

“I don't know,” said Button.

“Doubt it,” Prank said. “It takes a strong imagination to Pretend
that
well.”

“Like Peter's,” said Dibs, very proudly.

“Anyway, the grove has a bunch of different food trees,” said Kyle.

“But the trees all bloom at different times,” Button explained. “If we find one ready to eat, we tell Tiger Lily and her braves what it is, and they do the same for us. Tiger Lily actually came by today to tell us that the cheeseburger tree is almost ripe.”

At the word
cheeseburger
, my stomach growled again. I groaned. “Can we not talk about food for a little while? Please?”

Peter came back with dinner at sunset—an armful of huge roast beef sandwiches, wrapped in brown paper. I didn't realize that food trees grew stuff like that, but since the Lost Boys didn't say anything, I figured it was normal.

We ate silently and enthusiastically. The feather on Hook's hat kept falling into Peter's face until he finally lost patience and dropped the hat onto Dibs's head. Dibs looked absolutely delighted.

We sat among the highest branches of the Tree Home. From the next tree over, the relocated Never birds watched us. It actually made me a little nervous. Like they were planning to reconquer the Tree Home or something.

Spot clucked nervously. It was a warning. Peter stood up, a hand on his golden sword, listening intently, and the Lost Boys and I craned our necks toward the ground.

We heard the pirates complaining before we saw them.

“I'm so hungry,” moaned one.

“I can't go on,” replied a second. “I see them little black spots, dancing in front of me eyes.”

“We'll find supper when we find Peter Pan,” said someone else cheerfully.

Button recognized that third voice and whispered, “It's Smee.”

“Cook says Pan's nicked it,” Smee continued.

In the tree, we all turned to look at Peter. He smiled mysteriously and took another enormous bite out of his dinner.

“It were my favorite,” said the second voice sadly. “Roast beef sandwiches.”

“Not sure if I believe Cook,” the first voice grumbled. “Seems to me Cook might have taken them for his
self
and blamed Pan.”

We could see them now. The pirates had wandered into the clearing below, just fifty feet from the trunk of our tree.

“Oh, it was Pan all right,” Smee said. He was a little thicker around the middle than the other two. With his glasses, white hair, and red nose, he looked a little bit like Santa Claus's pirate brother. “I heard him crow with me own ears, I did.”

“Look!” I whispered, pointing at the tallest pirate. “Are his hands on backward?”

Button nodded solemnly. “That's Noodler.”

“The other one looks like Black Patch Pat,” added Dibs.

“They'll be sorry they came here,” Peter said in a low voice, drawing his weapon.

It must've been a signal. Even Tink chimed a little softer. The Lost Boys moved quickly and silently to hiding places like Kyle's in the trunk, where they pulled out swords of their own.

I felt a little left out. I didn't have a sword yet.

“What do we have here?” Smee had found the blankets on the ground. He held up a particularly rumpled blue one, and the other two pirates came over to inspect it. “Someone's been sleeping in this bed, I think. We must be getting closer. The cap'n will be
so
happy when we bring back his hat.”

“Now we really will have to move again,” Kyle murmured to Button.

Move? After all the nests we'd relocated?
I
didn't want to have done all that work for nothing, and I definitely didn't want to end up sleeping on the ground somewhere while pirates roamed the forest.

“What if we
don't
go out there?” I asked suddenly.

This was the wrong thing to say. Thinking I was scared, the Lost Boys all turned to me with scornful looks.

“Don't worry, Wendy girl.
You
don't need to do anything,” Peter said, suddenly very superior and smug. He swung his sword magnificently. “We'll protect you.”

I glared at him. If
he
was going to fight, I wasn't going to hide in the tree, but that wasn't what I'd meant. “No, what if we did something
else
? Something where they never saw us?”

“Like a trick?” Prank asked, suddenly interested.

I nodded, and Prank turned to Peter with a bright, begging look.

“Smee! There's something here!” Black Patch Pat had stumbled upon the photos the Lost Boys had left in a pile on the grass. The pirate picked up one and squinted at it in the dusky light. “It looks like Pan, sir, but very small.”

The rest of the Lost Boys watched Peter with that same hopeful look.

“We can make it seem like Neverland itself is defending you,” I whispered to Peter, “but we have to act fast.”

Peter glanced at all the Lost Boys and nodded deeply.

I whispered my plan. Prank caught on first and began climbing down to the lowest branches.

All three pirates had gathered around the Polaroids. Smee took the photo from Black Patch Pat carefully. “It does certainly look like Pan,” he said after inspecting it through his glasses. “How did he get in this little flat square?”

“Something the fairies cooked up?” Noodler suggested. “One of their pixie-brained plots?”

Tink hissed, outraged, and Peter hushed her.

“Has Pan been imprisoned at last?” Smee said.

Then it was up to me to keep Peter from going out and defending his reputation. “The great Pan is never caught,” he said, not quietly enough.

I held on tight to his sword arm and whispered, “Just think how you'll trick them—how you've already tricked them.”

That was when the attack started. Prank pulled a branch so far back that when he let go, it whistled through the air and smacked into Noodler's side. Noodler jumped and looked around wildly as the Lost Boys spread out among the lower branches right above the pirates.

Smee and Black Patch Pat didn't look away from the photos. “If he's imprisoned, then why is he smiling?” asked Black Patch Pat. “Here's another little Pan!” he added, picking up a second photograph.

Prank found another branch, a larger one, and aimed at Noodler again. The poor pirate yelped when it struck him.

“Quiet, Noodler,” Smee said absently. To Black Patch Pat, he said, “We'll have to show 'em to the cap'n.”

“Something's been hitting me!” Noodler said, starting to sound mad.

At this point, all of the Lost Boys had gotten the hang of it. They each let go of a branch at the same time, pummeling the pirates. Smee got leaves in his beard, and Black Patch Pat started saying words that Mom once grounded me for repeating.

“It's the trees!” cried Noodler, drawing his sword. “They've come alive.”

The Lost Boys could barely keep themselves from laughing. Kyle started snorting softly through his nose.

“Such a thing has never happened in Neverland before,” Smee said. His voice wobbled with fear. He pushed up his spectacles to examine the tree, but he couldn't see the Lost Boys. The light was too dim, the leaves on the lower branches too thick. “We must tell the cap'n.”

Tink flew down and started her own barrage, slapping them with light branches so fast that they looked like an endless blur of green.

“To your weapons! To your weapons!” cried Smee, sounding really scared now. “Fight the tree to the death!”

My plan was working! While the Lost Boys distracted the pirates, Peter and I zipped up to the top branches, and then over to the tree next door, where the relocated Never birds still sat in their nests.

“Go out there,” Peter told the closest one. “All of you. Chase them away.”

The Never birds glared at him, as if he had gone crazy. Peter's eyebrows rose really high. He'd expected them to follow his orders immediately.

Below us, Black Patch Pat wailed. “My eye! My one good eye!”

“
Now
,” Peter said in his angriest, most commanding tone.

I tried a different approach. Looking straight at Spot, I said, “They're a threat to your nests.”

“Oww!!!” shouted all three pirates at once. Tink had pulled back another branch, one so big that it knocked the pirates to the ground. Fairies must be really strong for their size.

Inspired by her success, the Lost Boys started to team up so that they could pull back bigger branches too.

“Do you know what they'll do if they find your eggs?” I told the Never birds, who watched
me
now instead of Peter. “They'll
eat
them.”

That
got the Never birds' attention. Several clucked in a threatening way. Spot's feathers started to ruffle.

I dropped my voice to a whisper, like I was telling a secret. “I thought you should know—I heard them talking about Never bird
omelets
.”

That did it. The Never birds burst out of the tree, squawking and furious. They swooped down at the pirates and pecked at their heads. Spot even tore a chunk out of Smee's hat.

Noodler and Black Patch Pat both screamed, throwing up their arms to protect their faces. “Retreat!” Smee shouted, and the pirates ran out of the clearing and into the forest.