Well, I am finally breaking away from Newsies to start a Peter Pan fan fiction. This probably means all my Quicksilver readers are going to be mad at me :-P but when inspiration comes a-knocking, I am not one to keep the door shut.
So, here it is: My Converse Match Your Tunic -- a Peter Pan story.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Peter Pan or any of the original Peter Pan characters as created by the brilliant Sir James M. Barrie. The Great Ormond Street Hosipital does (that's right; Mr. Barrie gave them the rights so that the money would all go to them. You can't put on a play of Peter Pan without having to pay royalty fees to them.)
On with the show!
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I looked up at the big white house. It had not fallen derelict in the ten years since last I was here. The paint was bright as ever, and the geraniums in their terra cotta pots were blooming.
"That's a big house."
I glanced sideways at my little brother. He could never stand silence for too long.
My other brother looked up from Don Quixote long enough to add "Well, of course, Michael; it was built during the Victorian Period. They were really quite lavish back then."
I felt like being snippy that day, as I had been dragged all the way from our own cozy little Victorian home in Rhode Island to this one in London, so I turned to him snapped "Shut your little 4.0 GPA trap, John," before walking up the path that led to the porch stairs.
I reached the three-step staircase leading up to the porch. My suitcase was a rollaway, so I had to press down the long, sliding handle before picking it up by the short, stationary one and carrying it up the steps. I set it down to ring the doorbell. My brothers had caught up to me.
"Can I ring the doorbell?" Michael asked with Bambi eyes full of hope.
"Go for it," I said. He smiled happily up at me before turning to the door, giving me an excellent view of his blue backpack. He rang the bell, pressing the button with a chubby finger. He stepped back and reached up to grasp my gloved hand with his mittened one.
Michael melted my heart, even though I wasn't feeling very kind today; as I mentioned before, we all three had been shipped off here to England (and me without coffee), and I was carrying Michaels Crayola Crayon duffel bag, which contained the majority of his clothing... not to mention the very attractive boys my age who were also unaccompanied minors whose first impression of me was a very frazzeled girl carrying said duffel bag, trying to keep track of her kid brother while another boy apparently related to her sat calmly and read to the end of Moby Dick and began on his present occupation, Don Quixote. He even tried to start up a conversation with one of them about how Don Quixote was published in 1612 and is one of the oldest novels ever or something. And John's victim of choice just happened to be the only guy who paid any interest in me. He actually started a conversation with me about the annoyance of little siblings -- his little sister had a fetish with Hello Kitty and the color pink.
The door opened. It was our cardigan-clad Aunt Jane. "Ah, hel-lo, darlings!" She chirped, swelling the hello into a crescendo. She kissed each of us on the cheek.
"Hello, Aunt Jane," I replied. I made sure to say "Ahnt" because my mother told me that Great Aunt Jane could not stand being called an "Ant". And I left out the Great, because that bugged her too. No bad puns intended.
"Oh, please, darlings, come in! The tea's already started; it should be done brewing after we get you settled in your room. I'll get this suitcase," she said and leaned toward the (much) larger rollaway. Ha. No way was I letting my Great Aunt carry that up the flight of stairs. I pretended not to notice she was going for that one and picked it up before she could get to it.
"Upstairs?" I asked.
"Yes; in the nursery." She led the way up the stairs and to the second door on the right. Which I have always found a coincidence, as my mother and Aunt Jane tried to convice me (though my mother gave up when I was seven) that this house is the original Peter Pan house, complete with pictures of twelve Nanas ranging from sepia to color and the living example of the twelfth picture.
Nana XII (known just as "Nana") was waiting in the nursury. When Aunt Jane and I walked into the room, she was using her teeth to pull on the quilt atop the cast iron bed to smooth out the wrinkles. She gave me a kind bark in greeting and trotted over. I patted her head, covered with a white cotton mob cap with blue ribbons. Very Peter Pan Disney. At least she doesn't dose us with castor oil, whatever that is besides disgusting.
I'm sure it looked almost exactly as it did when my great-great Grandmother Wendy was a girl; it was a house that had passed the test of time (and the bombings of WWII) with only the windowpanes being replaced and the addition of electricity. Oh, and one more thing:
Aunt Jane started locking the window.
Oh, don't play dumb; you know the window. The one that Peter Pan supposedly always flies through to take a girl from each generation of the Darling family bloodline to Never Never Land: Wendy, my great-great grandmother; then my great Aunt Jane (her daughter), then her daughter Angela, then her niece Ivy (my mother).
And I think that's why we got sent here. Because our family is freakin' obsessed with Peter Pan. Especially my mother. No joke. Her checks have a picture of all three Darling children from the Disney movie hiding behind John's umbrella. Not to mention she named her three children after the "original" Darling kids. My littlest brother is Michael, as you already know; he's six and still sleeps in Thomas the Tank Engine footie pajamas. Next up is John; the intellectual middle child who is twelve and has an IQ of 153. And OCD. Yes, OCD. I have to keep my bedroom door shut always (not that that bugs me) because if he caught a glimpse at my fire-hazard of a room, he would go ballistic. Give him two hours or so and my bed would have fresh sheets, my dirty clothes would be in the hamper, and my CD's would be arranged in alphabetical order: first by band name, then by album. Yes, Rubbermaid containers are John's best friends.
And me. Wendy Moira Angela Darling. It used to be Wendy Moira Angela Wyndam, but then my parents got divorced, and my mother changed her surname to Darling (even though it wasn't her maiden name; told you she's obsessed) and Michael, John and myself followed suit. John got really ticked about it... probably because under that Einstein IQ he is just immature enough thinks his "manhood" is challenged by a last name like "Darling".
"Well, I'll leave you three to get settled, then," Aunt Jane said. "Come back down for tea!"
As soon as she left I rolled my eyes. A fifteen year old girl sharing a room with her kid brothers?
I'm planning on changing in the bathroom.
I dumped Michael's bag on the bed with the wooden side-guards. Most kids his age would complain, but they made him feel safe. Our "emotionally detatched" (those would be John's words) mother tried to take them away from him cold turkey and he had a panic attack. She never bothered about it again.
I caught sight of John heading to the bed on the other side of the room. I motored over there and plopped down on it before he could reach it. He only paused to look at me for a few moments with raised eyebrows before turning around and heading over to the other bed on the same side of the room as Michael.
I hate it when he's so... so... passive.
Grr. More John rubbing off.
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Well, there's the end of that (truly teaser) chapter!
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Scratch O'Brien
