The Girl Who Refused to Grow Up
It was the eve of Grace's birthday. (Her birthday was the eve of Christmas Eve, so this was the eve of Christmas Eve.)
She was just about to go to sleep. She was thinking over and over again in her mind that now that she was about to turn sixteen, she did not want to grow up. She went to sleep thinking that growing up was what she wasn't going to do.
It was late at night when she woke up. Her room was dark and her draperies were blowing as if the window was open. She crawled out of bed to see if the window was open. Indeed it was.
She closed it.
Grace was just climbing back into bed when the window flew wide open.
Grace stood up, quite alarmed, clutching her heart necklace.
A boy flew in. A ball of light trailed behind him. Grace knew who this boy was.
"Peter Pan?" she cried with wonder.
"It is I, Peter Pan. I've come to take you away to Neverland."
His voice was lower than she expected. The story books had always told her he was at an age before the brink of adolescence. But the story books were wrong.
Peter Pan was a boy of seventeen. (A wonderful age for Grace.) He was a red head (glorious red head) with a complete set of adult teeth. He was tall. Five nine or ten. The outfit was the only thing the story books got right (bare chest, but defined, and clad with skeleton leaves).
"Are you ready?" he asked, smiling a perfect smile.
"Ummmm…" was all Grace said. However, her feet gave her answer away.
Peter Pan took her hand. "Come away. Come away to Neverland!"
Grace pulled away, thinking of her parents and brothers and sister and all her friends. She floated back down.
Peter reached for her hand again. "Forget them, Grace. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never have to worry about grown-up things again."
Grace sighed. "Never is an awfully long time."
"Come away to Neverland!" Peter coaxed.
Grace paused for dramatic effect. "Well…"
"There are pirates."
"Pirates?" Grace asked.
"There are mermaids."
"Mermaids?" Grace asked again.
"There are Indians."
"Indians?"
"There are fairies, too."
"Fairies? Well, I suppose." Peter was delighted with this answer. And Grace was excessivley excited.
"Tinker Bell! Where are you?"
Tink flew over to Peter's shoulder. An angry tinkle of bells sounded.
"Tink, you promised to be nice."
More bells.
Peter snatched Tinker Bell out of the air in a slight fury and blew fairy dust onto Grace.
He let go of Tink and held out his hand for Grace, backing away.
"Second star to the right and straight on till morning."
Grace reached for his hand and held on to it tight as they flew out her window and into the cold night.
The flight was filled with galaxies and stars and cosmos, laughing and twinkling.
Peter looked ever-so-adorable (in his seventeen year old boyish way), his hair blowing all around due to high speeds they were flying at. Eventually, Peter tightened his grip, yelling to Grace to be ready for breaking into the atmosphere of Neverland.
Their speed accelerated and there was a most wonderful exhilaration.
They spiraled into Neverland.
Neverland was everything and anything you could ever want. A gorgeous blue ocean, a green lagoon filled with mermaids and fish. Just outside the lagoon was a pirate ship. In the middle of the dense forest, Grace could see the Indians' teepees. There was the cave; the cave where Peter had once fought thee Captain James Hook, who had unfortunately met an untimely death.
Grace was entranced. Peter took her to the mermaids where they told her the most dangerous and wonderful secrets of Neverland. (They liked her much better that that Wendy girl that Peter had thankfully forgotten.) Peter took her to the Indians, where she was involved in one of their pow-wows, being accepted into them as a friend. Peter took Grace with him when he terrorized the pirates. And Peter brought Grace to the fairies.
The fairy dance. A tradition among the fairies. No one knew the exact reason why the king and queen fairy danced every year. It was tradition, and tradition must be upheld.
But nevertheless, this tradition was possibly the most beautiful tradition there could ever possibly be. Each dip and twirl and hold was the quintessence of grace and splendor. It could never be duplicated by any of the other fairies, though it could be attempted. And that is what Peter did.
He took Grace's hand as they rose high into the sky, high above the treetops. Fairy dust encircled them, twisting and bending with every step and whirl. Eventually, they were at a standstill.
Grace looked at Peter, and Peter looked at Grace. For a moment, Grace saw Peter as an entirely different person. A person who is also know as a red head. That image quickly disappeared.
"Peter, why am I in Neverland?"
"Why else would you be in Neverland than because you never want to grow up?"
"I don't know. It just feels like I'm missing so much better back home."
"Why? Your home is here, with me, in the big Tree House. And you're not missing anything."
"I meant home. Where I used to live with my parents. My parents and my brothers live; not to mention my friends and cousins and aunts and uncles. The people who love me." Grace stopped short. "Peter, what do you feel for me?"
"Feel? I do not feel."
"Peter, of course you feel. Everyone feels. But what do you feel? Happiness? Sadness? Jealousy? Anger? Hatred? Love?"
"Happiness? When I'm dueling pirates. Sadness? When I have to leave the Indians. Jealousy? That's saved for Tink whenever I don't spend enough time with her. Anger? When the pirates try to beat me at my own game. Hatred? When the mermaids tell me of the pirates' schemes. But love? I do not know the meaning of it. I feel no love!"
"Oh Peter! You are so incredibly wrong." Grace had slowly been floating down back to the forest floor as she filled with unhappy thoughts.
"Why am I so incredibly wrong?" Peter demanded as he reached Grace.
"There so much more than Tink and the Indians and the mermaids and the pirates. Don't you love Tink? Don't you love the Indians? Don't you love the mermaids? Don't you love fighting the pirates? Don't you love me? Even just a little like that sister you never had?"
Peter was speechless. He had no idea what to say. That was due to the fact that he couldn't say anything. Grace had already told him all the things he already knew; the things he never wanted to admit, because that would mean that he cared and that he was growing up. And growing up was not an option for him.
Obviously, Grace took Peter's answer as a no. "Maybe you would have learned these things if you hadn't refused to grow up."
"Well, I will not grow up. You cannot make me. I wish to forever be a boy and have fun."
"And yet Peter, you don't realize that being a grown up can be fun too."
At this, Grace realized herself that though growing up was filled with dealing with money and having a career and making plans, there can be fun and there can always be that inner child.
"Peter, I've decided that I want to go home."
"But…"
"This will be my first order of business of growing up. Making the first big decision of my life."
"If you wish it," was all Peter said as he flew off into the night.
"Peter! You can't be a child forever!" she called out to him, positive that he could hear her.
Grace returned to the Tree House alone. She missed Peter already. And she knew he wasn't coming back anytime soon. She packed her things: the "thimble" Peter gave her, her feather from the Indians, one of Tic Toc the Croc's teeth on a piece of string, and her pirate's hat.
Tink had gone to get her a fairy guide so she could return home. She just left the Tree House and met her fairy guide when Peter Pan rejoined her.
"Grace, I want to, well, apologize. Though I will never grow up, you can and should. But I will miss you." Peter bent down and kissed Grace on the cheek.
Grace smiled. "Peter, I want you to have this." She removed her necklace and put it in Peter's outstretched hand. "This is so you won't forget me."
"Me? Forget? Never."
Grace smiled, knowing that he would obviously forget. "Are you going to take me home?"
"I'll escort you. Yes."
Peter let the fairy guide leave and he took Grace to her house.
The window wasn't barred. It was just as open as before.
They flew in. Grace's room didn't look like it had changed at all.
"Peter, I don't think I will ever forget you," Grace said.
"I hope not."
Grace stood on her tip-toes and kissed Peter.
"Goodbye Peter."
"Goodbye Grace."
"Remember, life is just the next great adventure."
"Who said that?" Peter asked.
"A very wise person long ago."
"Then life is just the next dreat adventure. I'll never forget you."
Peter flew away. Grace climbed into her bed, setting her things on her nightstand. Quickly and quietly, she fell asleep.
Grace woke up the next morning. Her mother and father were standing beside her bed.
"Happy birthday Grace!" they cried.
"Happy birthday?"
"Of course! It's Christmas Eve, and your birthday! Hurry up, your brothers are finishing up your breakfast!" Her parents left her bedroom.
Grace looked to her window. It was shut tight. She never closed it and she would have heard it otherwise. She looked at her nightstand. There was her "thimble" and her feather, and the tooth, and the hat.
"Thank you Peter Pan."
The day Grace returned to school, she had a new aura. She knew that she was going to take chances that day. He friends saw it, her enemies saw it, her teachers saw it.
That day, Grace went up to that red headed boy she liked ever so much and she told him. And he said he liked her too.
On her way home, she thought she saw a little ball of light and heard that crow belonging only to one plausible person.
"Thank you Peter Pan."
The years flew on, literally, and Grace grew up and became a successful doctor with a loving husband (surprisingly the same red headed boy she liked so much in high school) and three gorgeous children. Her children, properly named Margaret, Peter and Benjamin Junior, lit up her life and filled it with such joy. But the day came when her oldest, and only daughter, was on the verge of growing up, and the Peter Pan came.
And much to Grace's surprise, he was wearing her necklace and he vaguely remembered a girl who had come to Neverland, wishing to never grow up. However, her name seemed to fail him, like most names did.
Grace let her daughter leave, though with a heavy heart, with Peter Pan.
As they flew off into the night, she cried out, "Life is but the next great adventure!"
AN: R & R. Tell me what you think.
It was originally going to be a birthday story for my friend (with her name instead of Grace), but it morphed into something else and I had to start all over for her story.
But please, tell me what you think!
Yours truly,
honestlyme