"Are we there yet?" Ella groaned.

I checked the map. It said to turn. Still holding her hand, I turned and she did the same. After a few more steps, we made it to a point of interest that was the only reason I wanted to go to England at all. We stood before a circular platform that led to the famous Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. It was quite a sight. Not as big as the clothespin statue at home in Philadelphia, that's gigantic, but bigger than the Rocky statue that used to scare Ella. After some staring at it, Ella ran up to it and climbed up the decorated platform to stand by the figure in a position about to play the pipe. I smiled at her as she looked around, her face expressing wonder. She was perfect. This moment was perfect. I didn't really want it to end. I didn't want to go back to Grandma's house with my so-so parents, pushy grandparents and downright evil uncle Rick, the reason I hadn't spoken at all for almost six years. Ella looked down and saw a bronze fairy sitting at the edge of the platform bronze Peter Pan stood upon. "I wish that were a real fairy," she said. "I wish she would pop out of the shell and take us to Neverland."

That sounded awesome. I took out my phone, opened a certain app and typed me too. The app read it aloud.

"Do you believe in fairies, Lucy?" Ella asked.

I wish I did. I really wished. I just couldn't. I made my iPhone say for me yes. It made Ella smile, which lifted my spirits. "They say clapping will make dying fairies come to life," she said. She bent and almost slipped. She held onto Peter Pan's arm to save herself as I ran closer to spot her better. She was able to sit at the edge of the platform now and held her hands near the fairy. She began to clap and, of course, nothing happened. She looked up at me. "C'mon, you, too."

It would make my sister happy, so I did. I continued as long as she did until we heard some bells or something. We stopped and I looked back to see some glittering light traveling towards us. With it was a silhouette of something…someone flying. I heard Ella gasp. "Lucy…it looks like Peter Pan."

That, I couldn't and wouldn't believe. That was crazy. We both were hallucinating, I decided. "Peter!" Ella shrieked, waving both her arms. "Peter Pan, over here!"

The sparkles and the silhouette came from the lake across us, flew over the gate leading to the statue and stopped below the steps. I got a better look at the silhouette—a boy, with a mop of yellow hair, green eyes that matched his clothes made of more leaves than fabric, and next to him was a winged little figure with a short green dress and blonde hair up in a bun. Her body sent off a gold sparkly aura, leading me to think she was a fairy, but that wasn't possible. Ella's face, I saw when I took a look, was priceless—her mouth was about as open as it went and so were her hazel eyes.

"A lotta people have tried to make that thing come to life," the boy said. "It doesn't work."

Because I had been silent for a lot of my young life, I didn't say anything. Because Ella was totally awestruck, she couldn't say anything. So the boy did. "Who are you two?"

I looked at Ella. She managed to say, "I-I'm Ella Pennington…" She pointed to me. "This is my big sister, Lucy." She dropped her hand and it bounced against her pants over her leg back to rest. "W-who are you?"

"Peter," he said. After ducking his head and torso, holding his right arm close to his stomach, he continued, "Pan." He stood up straight and pointed to the sparkly light. "That's Tinkerbell."

I squinted a little to see her features better. She had a snooty expression on her tiny face.

"You're really Peter Pan?" Ella squealed. He modestly nodded his head. "Wow," we're huge fans!" She hopped off the statue and looked at me. While looking back at the boy who claimed to be Peter Pan, she said, "Well, she's more of a Captain Hook fan."

He narrowed his eyes a little and bent back a little, looking at me like I was the weirdest thing ever. A lot of people thought so. Ella said, grabbing his attention, "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I heard you clapping while I was on my way to visit Jim and his sons," he said. "Had to stop you from wasting your time."

"Jim who?" Ella asked. "And who are the sons?"

I wrote on my phone, ignoring Peter staring at a seemingly unfamiliar sight, I think he means J.M. Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies boys.

The voice mispronounced the last names I wrote but apparently Peter understood. "Yes…" He pointed to my phone. "what's that?"

I looked at Ella. She said, "She doesn't talk much, so she uses her cell phone to say stuff."

"What's a cell phone?" he asked, his voice matching the curious but weirded out expression on his face.

"It's a thing that you carry around and lets you talk to people when they're far away," Ella explained as I let him look at it. "Hers does all sorts of stuff."

"Like what?"

She replied as I pressed a guitar app and waited it for it to load, "It plays and makes music, movies, has games and…"

I plucked a virtual string, then another and then started to play the theme song from one of her favorite TV shows, Rugrats. Our first favorite was Diff'Rent Strokes and I knew the theme song by heart but couldn't play it. So I played Rugrats. Once she figured out what I was playing, she gasped and smiled. I smiled back and Peter looked amazed. When I finished, Peter said, "The Lost Boys should really like to hear that."

Ella took a hint. She took a few steps closer and said, "Are you gonna take us to Neverland?"

"If you want," he said.

I noticed Tinkerbell didn't seem too happy about this but Ella grabbed my attention before I could take a better look. "Lucy, Lucy, we're going to Neverland!"
I still sorta thought this was a figment of my and Ella's imagination or just some dream, but Neverland sounded super awesome. But I remembered we had to fly. I'm not good in the sky. I pointed up and then opened my mouth, sticking out my tongue a little and making a scratching motion with my index finger an inch away from my tongue.

"Oh, that's right," Ella murmured. She turned to a confused Peter. "S-she gets airsick. Really airsick."

That was a way of putting it. I never got motion sickness, but being in airplanes or flying reminded me of a very dark period almost six years ago that led to my eternal deliberate silence. I wanted to go, but I feared flying would give me what I diagnosed myself as post-traumatic stress, which could lead to vomiting. Or crying. It did a few hours ago. "Don't worry," Peter said. "We can go slow."

Ella turned back at me. "C'mon, Lucy, please?"

I realized a trip no more painful than the plane ride to London would help me escape Uncle Rick, my grandparents trying to make me talk and my parents having a lot of sex because they're on vacation. I gave him a thumbs-up and a smile. Peter Pan went about to grab Tinkerbell but she started to fly away. Peter levitated a few feet to catch her. He flew a little towards us and shook her over both our heads. "Now just think happy thoughts, and follow me to Neverland!"
I put my phone back into the pocket of my black Blugengel Monument hoodie. When I looked up, Ella was giggling as she flew up to Peter. She looked down at me and called, "C'mon, Lucy! Puppies! Skittles! Blue Angel!"

She meant Blutengel. None of that did it for me. I closed my eyes and forced thoughts that made me the happiest but didn't fix any of my problems. Uncle Rick being convicted. Death penalty. Freedom. Going to Neverland. Pirates. I felt someone grab my ankle. "Not that high, you'll reach the ceiling," a boy's voice laughed. I opened my eyes and saw Peter Pan holding my ankle to stop me from going higher. He pulled me down and said when he let go of me, "Okay, follow me!"

"Not too fast!" Ella called as she followed Peter and Tinkerbell. I had to speed up to make it closer to them. It was hard to think of more thoughts that would keep me up. I mixed in some actually nice stuff with the evil things I wanted to happen to my uncle, and that kept me close to them. We flew above the sky and into what seemed to be space, because of all the stars and planets around. I couldn't concentrate on them. I was holding my breath but I still felt able to breathe. Peter slowed down a little to be closer to me. "Why don't you talk, anyway?"

If he expected a verbal answer for that, he was screwed. My hands were too busy helping me fly to pull out my phone and tell him or improvise sign language to get it across. I didn't have a truthful answer for him, anyway. So I let Ella answer. "No one really knows. She's not doing anything bad, she's still the same Lucy, but…different."

That summed up her innocent point of view, which was good enough for Peter. He looked forward and said, "Almost there! Grab my ankle, Lucy!"

His foot was dirty and a little smelly, I noticed as Tinkerbell gestured to it like a chick on a game show presenting a prize. I'd seen grosser things. I willingly grabbed it and he called, "Ella, grab onto Lucy's!"

Lucy's hand hooked onto the inside of one of my Converse hightops with stars printed on it. She pulled a little to use her other hand to go inside the hem of my jeans to grab my ankle, and then she let go of the hand that was in my shoe. "Okay!" She called.

We were flying against a heavy wind that blew my hood off when I tried to put it on with my free hand. He shouted over the sound of the wind, "Whatever happens, don't…let…go!"

Ella screamed like we were on a roller coaster as we flew past the stars and planets until it got darker and the stars became silver dots on a glossy black surface. We slowed down and I let go of Peter's ankle as Ella let go of mine. Peter turned to face us and touched the surface. It was water. I looked up and saw the sky. The water was reflecting the sky that became lighter and lighter as we flew closer to an island. An island I had seen in different shapes on many different screens, but imagined in only one book. It was exactly like my imagination but it was right there and I was coming closer and closer to it. "Here we are," Peter Pan said. "Let's head home."

They were flying a little too fast. The wind was flying inside my hoodie and I remembered what I felt while in the air that caused me to become mute. I lost all my happy thoughts and began to plummet onto the shore.