Peter and the Power of Twins

By: Book and Music Lover

Author's Note: I can't believe it! I'm finally posting this! Yay for me! I really hope that you like my story; it's my first story, and I've been planning this for a long time! I wrote this first chapter a while ago, so I apologize for anything that seems incorrect grammar-wise. I tried to look it over, but I may have missed something. I know there are a lot of versions of the original Peter Pan story out there, and I guess mine is a mix between the Disney movie, the 2003 live action movie, and the prequel series Peter and the Starcatchers. If you have any questions about what version something is from, or need background information to understand something, please let me know.

Disclaimer: This applies to my whole story so I do not have to post this with every chapter. I do not own any part of the Peter Pan franchise. I only own the DVDs that let me watch the movies someone else made. I only own the paper that the stories are printed on that someone else wrote. I do not own the original ideas. I do, however, own the characters Melody and Harmony Harris and their story because the ideas came from inside my head.

If you could read my mind
You might see
More of me than meets the eye
And you've been all wrong
Not who you think I am
You've never given me a chance
Outside Looking In ~ Jordan Pruitt

Chapter 1: Melody

I walked quickly down the hall to my locker, keeping my eyes averted from the other students standing around. I really didn't want more of a confrontation than what had happened a few minutes ago at the end of the previous class. I knew that if I didn't draw too much attention to myself, most of the time I was left alone like the 'freak' everyone thought that I was.

When I reached my locker, I started opening my padlock as quickly as I could do it without making a mistake that would cause me to start over and spend another thirty seconds in this hallway. I was able to successfully open my locker, throw the books I wouldn't need again back into their proper places, and take out my piano books in under a minute. Trust me, I've had a lot of practice to get to that speed. Almost everyone else deliberately spent two or three minutes at their lockers so they could catch up on the latest gossip with their friends. It drove me nuts that anyone could act that way, gossiping all the time. I mean, aren't there much better things to spend our time on in life? I could name about fifteen off the top of my head right now. Luckily, I didn't have to continue that train of thought because my twin sister, Harmony, had just come up behind my locker door. She leaned against the locker to the right of mine and waited for me to start walking before we would talk, just like every day. She knew that I wanted to spend as little time in the hallways at school, so we did most of our talking when we were walking to our next class, or in my case, the music wing.

"What's wrong, Melody? Usually you last at least two more classes before you blow the rest off," she asked, confused, as we headed to the music wing.

"I'm just not in the mood to take any more of this crap that people throw at me today." She gave me a questioning look. She knew that the things people said usually didn't bother me because I was able to ignore most jibes at my self esteem. "I didn't sleep well again last night. I had that dream again."

"Ah. Now I get it," Harmony nodded in understanding. Lately, I had been having this dream - well it was more of the nightmarish variety - practically every other night. When I woke up, it was almost always in the middle of the night and I didn't want to go back to sleep again for a long time after. The dream was just so lifelike I could have sworn in front of Congress that it was a memory. The only problem was that I have never been that sad in my life. Trust me, if you felt as sad as that dream made me feel, you would remember if it had actually happened.

"Don't look now, but here comes the Head Jerk," Harmony told me in an undertone. I tucked my chin into myself even further, hoping that John Allen, captain of the football team and Head Jerk extraordinaire, would not notice me. Of course, Harmony didn't act like me at school in the least, so her head wasn't down and John recognized her, and by association, me.

"Oh, look, Miss Wimp and her bodyguard. I wonder what she's going to do to us," he said to his cronies on either side of him. "Oh, that's right. The worst she could do would be to put us to sleep talking about stuff no human cares about!" He started laughing, which meant that whoever was within hearing distance would start laughing if they didn't want to get pounded into oblivion. But, my sister was the exception.

"Well, she may not be able to take you on in a fist fight, but I sure can." She crossed her arms and leaned her weight on one leg casually, as if this were a normal day to day activity. Come to think of it, for her, this was. "In fact, I seem to remember the last fight we had, John. Didn't you run away crying after I broke your finger?" I really wish my sister would stop being so aggressive toward everyone that made fun of me. She had already gotten three detentions last week for getting into fights. If it weren't for her almost perfect grades, the teachers probably would have gotten rid of her by now.

"Oh, that's it!" John started toward Harmony, but his cronies held an arm each to keep a fight from breaking out in the hallway. They may have been meatheads, but they knew what trouble their leader would get in again if he started another fight. "Lemme pound some sense into her!" he exclaimed at his followers.

"Dude, no. You heard what the principal said he'd do if he caught you fighting again in the hallway between classes!" At these words, John stopped fighting his friends for control and started to right himself.

"Yeah, you're right," he said grudgingly. "We'll continue this after school, Harris. After the second bell in front."

"I will so be there," Harmony said through clenched teeth. She whirled away, grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me to our destination.

"Harmony, I hope you were kidding about being there to take John on," I said futilely. I already knew the answer: she meant every word she had said to him.

"Of course I wasn't kidding! If I don't stick up for you and teach that jerk a lesson no one will. And he definitely needs to be taught a lesson!"

"You know you'll get into trouble. Again. And what will all this fighting solve? People were just meant to insult me. I don't know why it's meant to be that way, but it is. You need to stop getting in trouble because of me."

By now, Harmony had slowed a little and lessened her vise grip on my wrist, allowing the blood flow to return to a somewhat normal pattern. "I know people pick on you, but it's for no reason. You are the nicest person anyone could ever hope to meet! They just never give you a chance."

And here Harmony started on her soap box. We had discussed this issue many times, but it never resulted in anything new. I was picked on. No one wanted to be my friend or risk getting to know me because 'I was inhumanly smart'. It's not that I have a super-sized brain; I like learning, and it just happens to be that since no one else except Harmony tries in school, it seems that I'm a freak for knowing the curriculum. Sure, I'm able to remember stuff, but I still study before tests and presentations. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a robot.

"I know, Harmony. We had this conversation yesterday. It's not that I don't agree with you; I would love to have friends." By now we were almost to the music wing, and Harmony had cooled down enough to walk beside me. "I also think that people would like me if they gave me a chance. But they can't get past stereotypes and what they see on the outside." And what they saw wasn't as pretty as Harmony.

I had long blondish-brown hair, more blonde than brown. I didn't style it; usually, I wore it down, but if I was warm, I would put it in a pony tail. It got frizzy when it air-dried after my shower in the morning, so it didn't look very nice as the day wore on. My blue eyes were pretty enough, but everyone saw the pretty blue eyes on Harmony as well, so they didn't really count for me. My face wasn't super pretty. It was impossible for me to get as tan as most girls because I burned so easily. But the biggest thing was the way I dressed. I liked being comfortable in what I decided to wear each day, so most days it was a t-shirt and either shorts or jeans (depending on the weather). So to sum it up, I was an unattractive, super-smart girl with no sense of style. At least, that's what people who didn't know me saw.

I didn't see myself that way at all. I liked my hair. I had never had more than an inch cut off at one time, but I had it trimmed once in a while, so it easily hung down to my waist. Sometimes it decided to have waves in it after it was passed the frizzy stage, but that never happened during school. When I was outside, my hair would have gold streaks in it and would not be tangled at all, but considering I never was outside with my classmates, they never saw that. I was also proud of my eyes. They were my favorite shade of blue. I thought my face was very pretty. Sure, it didn't stick out in a crowd, and I didn't have looks like famous actresses, but I liked it. I didn't have problems with acne, which was nice. Put it all together, and I thought I was good looking. The clothes I wore fit nicely, and they weren't old and worn, but they weren't expensive designer clothes either. Like I said, I liked to be comfortable, and that meant physically and mentally. I didn't want to dress like the other girls. Their clothes looked so tight that I'm surprised more of them didn't pass out on a daily basis (it always happened to at least one person every week). I have no idea how they breathe in those, but apparently it is possible. If it wasn't, half the school would be in the hospital.

Harmony's voice pulled me from my train of thought and back to our conversation. "I know. I hate stereotypes…even though I've been known to make a couple myself," she admitted, and anyone could tell that this wasn't something she was proud of. "But, unlike these heartless jerks, I like to prove mine wrong," she added to clarify that she would never sink to their level. Harmony and I stopped walking because we had reached the hall to the music practice rooms. "I'll see you after school, Melody."

"Alright. See you," I responded as I reached for the doorknob to the first practice room. It was big enough to hold a good-quality piano and bench and a music stand for other instruments. Two people was the definite capacity, though. I pulled out the piano bench, put the first book on the piano music rack, and started to play. I thought of how lucky I was to have this privilege. My parents had contacted my principal and set up a system where I was allowed out of class whenever I felt necessary because of all the teasing. I was able to keep up in the daily school work, projects, tests, etc., and that was the only condition for me to be able to continue with the arrangement. My grades were always good, so I could continue "skipping" classes. It didn't take me long to finish the daily work because I tried to stay ahead a little, so most of my time outside school was just that: my time.

I loved reading, so I was able to do that a lot. My house had this huge library full of empty shelves when my parents bought it, so we've had a lot of fun filling up the shelves over the years. Most of the shelves were home to a wide collection of fantasy/science fiction books. I even had a section of Spanish books because I liked the challenge of reading in a second language. Just one of my many talents that set me apart from everyone else. But it definitely wasn't the biggest.

Ever since I could remember, Harmony and I had these special powers. We still didn't know all the limits of our powers after fifteen years of living. We could levitate things, transform things, become invisible - basically the most common super powers everyone has known since they were young. It was a little kid's coolest dream. Nobody knew about our powers except for our parents. Harmony and I were very careful at guarding our secret; we only used our powers at home, and that was safe because we didn't have any houses around us. I also never used my powers to cut corners in school. I knew before my first day of kindergarten that doing that would go against everything I believed in because my parents had raised me well. To date, I've never used my powers at school.

Soon, I realized that I had finished playing through my first piano book, Breakout, by Miley Cyrus. I loved listening to pop music like that. It was so easy to sing to. My family said I had a beautiful voice, but I had never tested that theory on a public audience. I was way too scared. But I still practiced singing every day, just in case I ever overcame that fear.

The next book in my stack was Don't Forget, by Demi Lovato. I still had four or five more that I could play through. I would have loved to stay here all day until everyone was gone but I never was able to. This was mostly thanks to Harmony because of all the fights she got herself involved in on my behalf. I still had to try to stop her from fighting John today. I hated violence like that, especially when it was Harmony trying to defend me. It was like déjà vu every week: John's mean to me. I don't care, but Harmony does. One of them challenges the other. They fight, they both get detention as a reward. As I stated before, if Harmony's grades weren't as good as they were, the principal would have probably gotten rid of her a long time ago. Her fights got very old very quickly.

'Yeah. It gets old for you.' And that was Harmony. I forgot to mention that we could also read minds. It was foolproof unless somebody figured out a way to block us, which only our parents could do after living with us.

'Yes. It does,' I thought back at her. 'Will you please not fight John today?'

'If I don't fight him, he'll think I chickened out. And no way would I ever back down from fighting that meathead.'

'Fine. I'll just have to hope that a teacher walks by before either of you throws a punch.'

'You do that.'

Harmony went back to paying attention to her class, and I went back to playing the piano. I stared down at my purple-tinged hands (my hands always had a purple tinge when I was cold) flowing over the mixed up black and ivory keys, creating the songs I knew so well that always brought me comfort. It was amazing how the only concept of time I had when I was playing was how many books I had gone through. It was so calming. Before I knew it, the alarm on my watch went off, signaling that it was time to go. I couldn't wait to go find a teacher to stop the fight and then head home with my aggressive sister. I gathered up my books and left the practice room.

It must have been my lucky day because just as I was closing the door, I heard my favorite teacher, Mrs. McDonald, great me with a "Melody! How are you today?"

"I'm fine, thank you, but Harmony and John got into another argument today, and you know what that means." I said this hurriedly as I didn't want any casualties.

"Oh, dear. I better go stop them from fighting again. Why don't you head on home? I can handle it from here." She must have read my mind! (Not really, of course.) I agreed and turned to head to my locker. Mrs. McDonald turned the other way with her curly red hair bouncing around her as she walked with the click-clack of her heels on the hall floor. A few seconds later, I heard her yell the names of the soon-to-be fighters and "My classroom. Now!" Ah, good ol' Mrs. McDonald, saving the world one fight at a time.

Author's Note: So...in an ideal world, everyone that reads my story would also leave a review for me. However, since I myself do not abide by this, I do not think it is fair to expect this of someone else. As much as I would like it if everyone reviewed, I will take what I can get and not beg for them. Although, I cannot improve my writing if no one tells me how to do it. (Hint, Hint!) I hope to write the next chapter soon. I do not know how long soon will turn out to be, but I definitely have the ideas to keep me going. Thanks for reading!