I looked around apprehensibly. The guys were all staring at me, Peter with a smirk on his face.
Hm…choices. Up there with bloodthirsty pirates or down here with sex craved lost boys.
Oh, sure, like that's a hard choice.
"Sure Peter." I smiled sweetly. "I'd love to."
-One Lever Pull Later-
"How…Much-further-Till-We-Can-Fly?" I grunted. We were walking along the jungle. Pan was far ahead of me, waving me on and looking around making sure there were no buccaneers close by.
"Until we can get out of the Rainforest, of course!" He answered cheerfully. I had to restrain myself from strangling him. But that would have been hard, since he was like 30 yards in front.
A little exercise will do you good, Cassie. Work on your running and climbing. You'll need it.
Not bothering to ask Rita what that meant, I trudged on, occasionally brushing leaves off of my face and wishing I had bug spray.
All of a sudden, the Panster stopped. I ran towards him, stopping as he held out a hand behind him to warn me. "Wha…"
"Shh…" He cut me off. "I hear someone. It sounds like pirates, about thirty feet away."
I nodded, trying not to scream and run away.
Pan grabbed my (sweaty, dirty) hand and stood really still. I got the picture that we weren't supposed to move.
I could hear some dudes walking through the forest, boots crunching over leaves and twigs and whatnot.
We heard a voice. "Do ya think Pan is somewheres in here?" It asked.
, The voice's companion said "Nah, it be too thick here. What did Cap'n say? That the reward for catching either the girl or the boys was 20 pence or summmat?"
" I heard it was thirty fer the girl." Voice One said.
The Pirates walked on. They were getting nearer, and frankly I was starting to get nervous. Peter squeezed my hand harder. I thought he was going to break my middle one. Which would be bad, because then I couldn't flick people off for a while.
"Why it be thirty for the bitch?" Voice One asked.
I huffed at that. I was so not a female dog!
Voice Two laughed. "It's important for Hook, that be all I know. We have our orders. Now, what times a we supposed to be back?"
"…Dammit…"
We heard the pirates turn around abruptly, then run back the way they came, cursing all the while. I caught such things as
"&(! Hook is gonna (#$)5 our (#$!"
" I just tripped over a $((#$ tree branch!"
Only, not with symbols.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That had been an abnormally UN cliché close one.
Pan let loose of my hand. By this time, he had squeezed it so hard that I thought ALL my fingers were going to fall off.
I groaned and massaged them. "Oh, my poor fingers…" I mumbled. I glanced at Peter. He was just staring at me, looking kind of guilty. He shuffled his feet. A bird cawed in the distance.
"Afraid of pirates, Pan?"
Tarzan shot his head up. "NO!" He shouted, rather violently for someone who was SO not scared of pirates and was SO brave and was SO cool.
"I just thought you were!" He added.
"Surrrreeeee."
Pan looked offended, like I had insulted his manhood.
"I did!"
"Uh huh." I replied, pretending to look bored.
"Really!"
I just stared at him.
Peter sighed and walked ahead of me, jumping on every twig he came across and breaking the poor thing in half.
"Those sticks are really going to hate you." I commented. Pan looked back, shook his head, and continued walking. Sensing something was wrong. Geez, Cassie, ya think?
I caught up with him and grabbed his elbow. "Wanna tell me what's up?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows together.
Peter shook his head again. "Nothing." He mumbled. He grabbed my hand and threw it off his funny bone, pouting. I narrowed my eyes.
"Yeah, right. You're acting like a two-year-old lesbian, no offense to lesbians. You're not even pouting manly like."
Pan forced out a dry laugh and jogged ahead of me. I rolled my eyes-I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately-and trudged on as well.
About two minutes after that little scenario, Pan announced, "We're out of the forest." Sure enough, we had come to a small beach. A rock was far out from shore, and if you squinted, you could make out large figures sunning themselves on it. Birds flew in the sky, and the pirate ship was to the right.
In other words, Neverland was awesome.
"Can we fly now?" I whined. Peter nodded, and messed with a pouch that I hadn't noticed before. He drew out some yellow powder and inquired, "You know what to do, right?"
"Yes." I said, nodding my head. He grinned.
"Happy thoughts!" He yelled suddenly. I shut my eyes and thought of chocolate, feeling fairy dust land on me. The stuff felt like sand.
I thought of chocolate, thinking of the yumminess it possessed. I thought of Godiva, of Hershey, of Oreos. And nothing happened.
I opened my eyes. Peter was hovering above me. "Come on, slow poke!" He screamed. "Think of something!"
I closed my eyes again and remembered the feeling I had felt the first time I had seen Rent on tour. Pure happiness. Pure and utter happiness.
Finally, I felt my feet leaving the ground. I opened my eyes and looked down. I was about twenty-five feet up from where I had started. I recognized the beauty of flying and then…started getting dizzy.
Gasping, I turned around wildly and looked for Peter. I had forgotten about my sickness to heights. He was staring at me, his eyes looking confused.
"I hate flying!" I gasped, before promptly falling to the ground.
WOOOO! Another chapter, done! Please, Rinse and Repeat!