"Where you going, girlie?" Bryan shouts behind me.

I pull my jacket as tightly around my body as I can. "Bryan, leave me alone! I don't want to talk to you!"

"Oh, come on, babe!"

Shaking my head, I turn around and scream, "I am not your babe! Leave me the hell alone before I call the police!"

"What are you gonna tell them?" Bryan asks with that smug smirk. "An attractive and charming guy was giving you compliments?"

"I'll tell them that an obnoxious and aggressive boy wouldn't leave me alone, and I started to fear for my safety."

He scoffs at me. Like I'm in the wrong. "You know, you're just lucky a guy like me will give you the time of day, Cameron."

"You know, it's scary that people like you are allowed to breed."

"And it's scary that women like you are let out of the kitchen."

"You are such an asshole," I tell him. "Leave me alone. I've gotta get home."

Bryan takes a threatening step toward me. I pull my phone out of my pocket and unlock it, pressing the emergency call button.

"Is that really necessary?" he says. "I just wanna talk."

"If you lay a hand on me, I will call the police. And if you don't leave me alone and let me go home, I will call the police. Understood?"

He nods, but continues following me. "Are you going to give me a kiss?"

"No!" I start walking faster, but Bryan's strides are longer than mine. He grabs my arm and I dial the familiar three digit number. "Let. Go. Of. Me."

"You should probably listen to her, laddie," another accented voice hollers down the street. Bryan and I both spin in his direction.

A boy, dressed in brown, ratty clothes stands at the other end of the road.

"And who might you be?" Bryan asks defiantly, gripping my arm more tightly. "I'm having a neighborly conversation with my... friend, Cameron." He gives me a smile that looks almost painful.

"She doesn't seem to think so." The boy looks at me. "Are you having a neighborly conversation, Cammy?"

"No. And please don't call me that."

"And, Cammy, would you say he has been harassing you for about two blocks?" he continues, ignoring my request. He pulls Bryan's hand off my arm.

"Yeah."

"Well, then I think the police would be very interested in this." He smirks victoriously. "Not to mention that I'm fairly certain Bryan- it is Bryan, right?- is at least eighteen years of age." The boy turns to Bryan. "Am I wrong?"

Bryan doesn't reply. Instead, he crosses his arms stubbornly.

"You're right," I say. "He's turning nineteen in two months."

"And... how old are you, my dear Cammy?"

I'm annoyed at the awful nickname, but I can't say anything else because he's helping me. "I'm... I'm sixteen."

"Therefore, with the evidence I've gathered, I'd say you are breaking the law," the boy says. "What you've already done is assault. So you can either walk away now, or I can take care of you myself."

Smirking, Bryan takes a step toward the boy. "Can you, now?"

"Touch her one more time. I dare you."

The boys glare at each other. Bryan's eyes show anger, while the other boy's reveal amusement.

"Fine." Bryan grabs my arm.

I pull back my elbow and shove it into his gut. Bryan keels over, and I hit him in the back of the neck. He falls down to the ground. "Don't ever touch me again," I hiss at him. He moans, crawls to his feet, and runs away.

"I warned you!" the boy calls after Bryan.

"You didn't do anything," I say. "I'm the one who-"

"Yeah, but I was expecting you to get rid of him. I'm not all brawn, you know."

"Thanks for, uh, for helping." I offer him my hand. "Cameron. But you already know that."

"Of course, Cammy. I'm Nigel." He takes my hand and kisses the back of it.

"Real polite, aren't you?" I look him up and down, realizing I don't actually know what he looks like. I mean, I can see him, but I don't know what he looks like. His face isn't memorable.

I also notice that the clothing he's wearing is in really bad shape. And he has a brown hood, like you see in a fantasy TV show.

"I try my best." He flashes me a smile, and offers me my hand. "Do you trust me?"

"What?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Uh, no. I just met you. That doesn't give you the right to go all Aladdin on me."

"Aw, come on. I just saved you from him. You think I did it expecting nothing in return?"

I cross my arms. "I take back what I said."

"So you do trust me?"

"No. No, you're not polite."

He grips his chest like he's just been shot. "Oh! That hurts."

"Yeah. Okay, well, I've gotta get home. Maybe I'll see you around?" I start walking down the street.

"I'll walk you home." He struts confidently beside me. "So. Wanna see something cool?"

"If you're about to pull out your penis, I'll pass."

"Ha. No. No, I'm not gonna do that. I was talking about... this." Nigel pulls something out of his pocket. A coin, maybe? He holds it like it's sacred. "It's a bean."

I chuckle a little bit. This guy is crazy! "A... a bean? Is it at least a magical bean?" I add sarcastically.

"In fact, it is."

"Of course, it is. Because you can't just be nice. You have to be insane, too."

"Look, just trust me. This will take you somewhere people like Bryan will never bother you again."

I take a step away from him. "What if I like it when people like Bryan bother me?" I ask defensively. "You're insane, so why can't I be insane, too?"

"But you're not insane. You're lost."

"Lost? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you don't belong here. You belong in Neverland."

Neverland? "What, like Peter Pan Neverland?"

"Yeah."

Okay. Time to duck out. "Of course, it is. Look, I've humored your insanity for too long. I have to get home. My dad-"

"Is just gonna beat you again?"

"What?" How did he-

"You heard me." He stares at me with a knowing gaze. "And your mom won't do anything about it. She ignores it, like it isn't happening."

"Shut up."

"Come on. Don't you want to get away?" Nigel takes my hand, and I don't have the sense to jerk away. "You will never have to come back. They'll never hurt you again."

For a moment, I find myself hung up on his words. Never come back... That would be great.

I snap back to my senses and pull my arm away. "Leave me alone!" I step into a puddle, groan, and shake the water off my foot. Another thing to add to the list of "Bad Things That Have Happened Today".

"Fine. You asked for it." Nigel drops the bean into the water.

"Really? You had to drop your bean? You just-"

The puddle begins to swirl. "Are you coming?" he asks.

"Definitely not."

Nigel sighs, grabs my hand, and jumps into the puddle.

"Seriously? What are you-"

To my disbelief, we continue to fall through the water. And fall. And fall. The color of the water changes from a muddy brown to purples and greens to a clear blue. The light becomes dark.

The swirling stops and I feel like I might puke.

Nigel wiggles his eyebrows and starts to swim up. I follow him, mostly because I can't do anything else.

Breaking through the surface, I gulp down huge lungfuls of air.

"Believe me now?" Nigel asks.

"Uh, no. You must have slipped me some drugs."

"When?" He seems really interested in what I come up with.

"When you grabbed me. There must have been something on your hands."

"Why am I not drugged then?" His expression is amused.

"You are. You're insane."

"Why are we seeing the same thing?"

I'm running out of ideas. "How do I know you are?"

"We're in the middle of the ocean."

"Yeah? That was just a guess."

Nigel starts swimming. "Come on. We should probably go."

"Go? Go where?" I don't see anything.

"The island's that way."

I don't really have any choice but to follow him. Not if I want to live. This is gonna be a fun night.

Please note the sarcasm.