Tig, Leo, Stumble and I were sitting at the common room table, each of us with a pile of strawberries in front of us. It wasn't often there were strawberries for breakfast and it was even more uncommon that they didn't end up in stew somehow. You haven't really lived until you've tasted fish stew with chunks of strawberries floating in it. There was a thump as Surefoot stumbled out of his trapdoor and landed on the dirt floor. "Hey Tig, that elf you wanted is outside. She says if you're buying you'd better do it now."

Tigger looked at his strawberries and then at Surefoot and back at his strawberries. Surefoot gave an elaborate shrug and disappeared back through his trapdoor to the outside world. "Don't worry, I'll guard your strawberries," Leo said to the anxious expression on his twin's face. Tig shot him a look of gratitude and started off towards his trapdoor. He'd only gotten a few steps when he turned and ran back to the table and carefully licked each strawberry.

"What'd ya do that for?" Leo demanded.

"Oh… you know," said Tig in a vague way before heading back towards and through his trapdoor.

Leo watched as Tigger disappeared through the door and then stared at the pile of now slightly damp strawberries. He was down to the last two of his own. Stumble and I exchanged grins as we watched Leo. "Like that's going to stop me," Leo muttered just loud enough for us to hear and started scarfing his brother's strawberries down. I couldn't feel too sorry for Tigger, he should have known better. Last week half of us were playing 'Dragon Hunt' and we'd come across a real dragon. Fortunately it was a young one. Unfortunately it was a young one with a cold. Leo had been leading and ended up covered in dragon snot. If that hadn't been a problem, I doubted that a little brotherly spit was going to be.

I'd finished my strawberries first, so I was sitting there pondering about what I should do with the rest of the day. There was something I wanted to avoid doing, but couldn't remember exactly what it was. I was still waiting on Red to talk to his pirate friend before doing anything else about finding out who owned the dragon pelt. It'd been awhile since I'd gone blueberry hunting and there was a great place next to a cool swimming hole that I could look. I started to get up when Roo walked into the common room. I looked at him and ducked under the table suddenly realizing what it was I'd been trying to avoid.

"Nice try, Furball, but I already saw you. C'mon it won't be that bad. You might even like it."

"What's wrong with you?" Leo asked, looking under the table.

"Nothing," I grumbled. Leo had figured that Roo was getting ready to dose me with some sort of medicine or maybe sew up a wound. "He's decided to show me how to fish."

Leo looked confused. "What's wrong with that?" he asked as I crawled back out from under the table.

"Nothing if you like to fish." I'd been coerced into it once upon a time when I was still in the real world. It was some sort of school thing and we all went to this brook to 'wet a line' as the headmaster was so fond of repeating over and over again. After two minutes I was bored silly. By the end of that afternoon I had been pretty sure there was an area of purgatory that involved poles, lines and hooks. Leo rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. He was pretty much used to the fact that I made my way to the beat of a different piper—even for a Lost Boy.

A few minutes later I was carrying and dropping a couple of fishing poles. There was a bunch of string tangled up in one of my pockets and I was pretty sure that I'd managed to get a hook snagged in the back of my right thigh. There had been no sign of Tigger or Surefoot when we'd gotten outside so I couldn't beg either one of them for help. Roo was carrying a bucket of something that sloshed as he walked as well as an empty bucket and was telling me about ranges and tides and things like that. I nodded whenever he paused and tried to look as interested as possible. "Worms."

Roo stopped his monologue. "Huh?"

"Worms. Don't we need to dig up some worms or something to put on the end of the hooks for bait?"

"No, we don't need worms. That's what this stuff is for." He shook the filled bucket causing whatever was in it to slosh again.

I looked down in it, dropping one of the poles I was carrying in the process, to try to see what it was. "Phew. That stuff stinks. What is it?"

"Got me. I asked Stumble if he had anything I could use for bait and he gave me this."

"It's not stew is it?" I asked suddenly feeling very green.

"Who knows. As long as the fish like it, that's all I care about."

We continued on to the beach and I spent what seemed like a lifetime following Roo up and down looking for the exact perfect spot. He did pick one that had a couple of palms for shade, so I figured at least I wasn't going to die from heat exhaustion. He put the dodgy bucket down and asked me for the string/twine. I pulled it out from my pocket and gave it to him.

"What the heck happened?" he asked as he stared at the string that had somehow morphed into a single very large knot in my pocket. I shrugged. "And what's that?" he asked as he pulled something off of it that kept stretching and stretching and stretching.

"Ooooohh! I wondered where that had gone. That's my pine sap gum. Here." I grabbed the side not attached to the string and started pulling. After a few feet most of it came flying off the string and I popped it in my mouth and started chewing. This time it was Roo who looked a little green, but all he did was shake his head and start muttering about something I couldn't make out. I really didn't think it took that long to get the string untangled and we only had to use the knife twice. We finally had two pieces of string of decent size and attached one to each of the poles.

"It'd be tons better if we actually had reels, but this'll work if you're careful. You just gotta cast out as far as you can and make sure the line doesn't get tangled up when you do. Then," he said, taking out a couple of wood rollers, "you just use this to reel the fish in by turning it." I must have looked really skeptical. "Aw, it'll work. The fish that come here aren't real big so you shouldn't have any problem using it. Now watch how I do it."

I stood and watched as Roo took a piece of… something out of the bucket and quickly attached it to the hook he'd tied to the string. He carefully laid the string back in a straight line behind him then picked up the pole, which was facing towards the land, made a whipping motion with it, and I watched as the weight of whatever caused the hook to sail out beyond the breakers. "But that's impossible," I said. "The line is too long and you shouldn't be able to get enough momentum to even begin to do that."

"You saw it happen," he said with a shrug. "Now you try."

I gave a long suffering sigh and tied the hook to the string. It promptly came untied and fell into the sand. After crawling around to find it, I tried again with the same result. I finally tied it with a couple of square knots, a granny knot, and a couple of knots that I don't think had existed before then. It didn't look real good, but I figured it probably added some weight to it. With the hook firmly attached, it was time to add bait.

One All Hallows Eve I'd had the opportunity to put my hand in a bowl of 'eyeballs'. It was really only runny gelatin and tiny marshmallows. That was exactly what this bucket of bait felt like. Except this was warm. The 'eyeballs' hadn't made a sucking sound when I'd pulled one out either nor did it leave a grey stain on my hands like this stuff did. The piece of bait was light and dark grey in colour and felt really slimy. I stuck it on the end of the hook, piercing both the bait and my finger with it. There was blood. I ripped the hook out of my finger, turning the puncture into a cut and without thinking stuck my finger in my mouth. After all, everyone knows that's how you clean a cut. Big mistake. I gagged on the taste that was so foul I couldn't even come up with anything it might have possibly tasted like. Roo looked way too amused as I spat on the ground until I didn't have anymore spit to spit with. The taste was still horrible and seemed to be getting worse. The only solution was water. There was only one quick source for water.

It took all of Roo's strength to pull me back from the sea. I gagged on the seawater too, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the taste of the bait was. "Are you crazy? You can't drink seawater. You'll get sick."

"Promise? Even used seawater has got to taste better than whatever is in that bucket. Besides it's not like I was swallowing. I was just rinsing."

Roo shook his head and returned to his fishing pole which fortunately hadn't washed away or anything. I went back to my pole and started pulling on the string so I could try baiting the hook again. I was pretty proud of myself that I didn't throw everything into the sea when the hook fell off the line as it rose from the sand. I double and triple tied, used granny knots, square knots, bow knots, half-hitches, whole-hitches, double-hitches and when I was done took the gum out of my mouth and folded it around the knots. No way was that hook falling off now. I carefully pulled a piece of bait out of the bucket and managed to put it on the hook without impaling myself or causing another food disaster. I gently placed the line just as I'd seen Roo do it, grabbed the pole and gave it a mighty swing.

"What happened?" I said when I didn't see the baited hook sail into the water. There'd been some resistance, so I knew that it'd moved. The line was still attached to the fishing pole but instead of heading towards the water, it seemed to be headed up and behind me. I looked up in the air just in time for the baited hook to bounce off my nose and hit the ground. I tried several more times and failed just as miserably, although I made sure not to look up so it was my hair that got pummeled by falling bait.

While I was busy trying to get my first cast into the water, Roo had been busy pulling fish in as soon as his line had hit the water. The fish, as he'd said, weren't real big, but he'd gotten enough that the empty bucket he'd filled with sea water was probably a third full. "Hey Cub. I think I forgot to mention something. You need to put just a pinch of pixie dust on the hook before you cast it. That helps it when you snap the pole forward."

"You forgot? You didn't think that might have been important or anything?" I tried to take a close look at Roo's face, but there wasn't any sign of smirk or smile so I figured maybe he really had forgotten. Of course I couldn't get the best view because he was busy pulling in another fish. I put some pixie dust on the hook, made a mighty cast, and watched as the hook sank six inches from the beach.

"You need to go out a little bit further than that," Roo said, completely deadpan. The bad part about it was I'd swear he wasn't trying to be funny or anything. He really was letting me know I hadn't cast it far enough. Three casts later I finally got it beyond the breakers. I'd used more than a pinch of pixie dust which seemed to have helped. I stood there with my pole waiting for a strike and watched as Roo pulled two more fish in.

"This isn't funny." Roo was pulling in another fish and I had yet to get anything. I figured as long as I was going to be stuck here, I might as well make myself comfortable. I took off my pawmocs and sat in the sand, keeping my pole at the approved angle while wiggling my toes in the sand. The sun, heat and sound of the waves took their toll and I slowly slipped off to that place between waking and sleeping. I was pondering a place where kids with antenna were riding very large dragonflies and shepherding huge floating blueberries when the daydream was shattered by Roo yelling my name and telling me to move quick. I figured I'd caught a fish and instead of moving, tried to stand up. That might have worked, except when I stood up, I put my foot right in front of the claw of the crab that Roo had been warning me about. I yelled in both pain and surprise and gave a mighty yank on the fishing pole while trying to jump, move, and kick at the same time.

I looked at Roo who was looking at me upside down. "How the heck did you manage to do this?" he asked in awe. There were a bunch of stars circling in front of my eyes and for some reason I was drooling. The stars weren't so bad, but instead of dripping down my chin, the drool was going up my nose. It wasn't too hard to work out after that, that he wasn't really upside down, I was. Somehow when I pulled back on the fishing pole and tried to get away from the crab who was busy amputating my big toe I'd managed to get the line twisted around myself and the palm tree we'd been near. Now I was hanging upside down from my right foot which had somehow gotten lashed to the palm tree with the string attached to the fishing pole. I was getting hit in the face by a goldfish size fish blowing in the breeze from the other end of the line . "At least you caught a fish," Roo said, hastily backing away from my reach and trying not to laugh. He shook his head. "That line wouldn't even hold me up like that. It should be impossible for you. You must've used too much pixie dust or something." Before I could answer, there was a musical 'ping' and the string that had been holding me up was no longer holding me up. Fortunately it was sand that I landed in so the stars in front of my eyes didn't last as long as they normally did.

"This isn't working," Leo observed. I could have told him that before we'd even started but he wouldn't have believed me. "Let's try something else." He grabbed what I'd thought was another fishing pole, but it wasn't quite as long as the others and had a sharp point on one end. He gestured at me to follow him and I ended up standing in the sea a couple of feet from where the waves were breaking on the sand. The water was a little above my knees. "All ya have to do is stand real still until the fish get used to you." We stood there for a few minutes, Roo with the stick held poised above the water with the pointy end down. The sun was beating down on my head and I wished I'd brought a hat or something. I could've put the hood up on my pelt, but there's something about a fur hood in hot weather that just doesn't work real well.

"See?" Roo whispered at me. I looked down and saw some rather large fish swimming below where we were standing. Faster than I could follow, Roo took the pointed stick and speared a fish. "It's easy. You can try it here and I'll move down a bit to fish." He handed me the stick and waded back in to throw the fish in the bucket at to grab his fishing pole.

I carefully stood as still as I ever could, holding the stick as Roo had shown me. The fish finally reappeared and I waited for them to approach my legs. As one was almost perfectly placed I sneezed and watched as the fish disappeared in an instant. "You can't sneeze, Cub. You'll scare the fish." I thought of about a million responses to that but didn't say anything. I shifted my legs and stood motionless once again.

It took a little longer for the fish to reappear this time. Finally one got in the perfect position. I stuck my tongue in the corner of my mouth, held my breath, and slammed the pole down on top of the fish. At least on top of where I thought the fish was. I didn't come close to the fish, but I did manage to spear something else. Pain blossomed in my right foot. Red swears that he heard the sound of my yell back at Hangman's Tree, although I think he's just joshing. It did clear the beach of seagulls for about a minute. I came out of the water hopping on one foot trailing blood with Roo telling me it was a good thing there weren't any sharks around. I think he was kidding.

I collapsed on the sand and looked at my foot which had an impressive amount of bloody water on it. Roo looked at it. "It's not too bad. It just looks that way. You scraped a bunch of skin off but didn't go too deep." He bandaged it up with a strip of cloth. "Whoa."

"What?" I asked, waiting for him to tell me I'd managed to stick a hole in an artery, although I wasn't sure there were any arteries in the top of a person's foot.

"You broke the point of the spear off. Leo's going to have to make another one now. Wait 'til he hears how this one got broken. I don't think that's ever happened before."

"Can we be finished now?" I asked plaintively.

"I guess so. We got plenty of fish and your pole and the spear are broken. Anyway, maybe you were right. Maybe it's better if you don't go fishing anymore. You can dig clams or oysters or something next time." That made me happy enough that I even carried the bucket of fish back to Hangman's Tree. Surprisingly enough there weren't any mishaps on the way back and both bucket and fish arrived intact.

"You get in a pirate fight or something?" Red asked, staring at me. I'd just given the fish into Stumble's care when Red had popped into the common room.

"Naw. I got to go fishing."

Red looked as though he really wanted to ask a question or two but instead settled on ignoring that and whispering, "Tonight."

"Tonight? Tonight, what?"

"Shhhh. Keep your voice down." He looked around even though the only other person around was Stumble who was busy rendering fish into stew. "You know. Those questions you had about a certain thing for a certain someone? He left a note saying he could meet tonight in the usual place."

"Oh. Yeah. Tonight? Why tonight? Why can't it be during the day?"

Red sighed. "He's the ship's cook. It's the only time he can get away without anyone being suspicious."

"But didn't you say he met you during the day before?"

"Yeah, he did. That doesn't have anything to do with now, though. He could do it then but can't do it now because now he's not gathering anything like he was then so if he does it during the day then it'll look funny but won't if no one sees him going out at night so it's better that way. Get it?"

I didn't but finding out who had owned that pelt was still bugging me big time so I figured it didn't matter if I got it or not. "I guess so. You're sure he can be trusted and everything, right?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?" Red demanded. He was still whispering and the words weren't loud, but they were said with enough force I could practically feel the dirt walls shake with the intensity.

"Because I'm scared," I said honestly.

"Aw Cubbs. You're scared of everything. Even your own shadow. If you don't want to come, you don't have to. I thought you wanted to find out about the pelt."

"Don't worry. I do. I'll come with you. But I got one more question."

"What now?" There was an exasperated tone to the question.

I pointed to where Stumble was still working on the fish. "Aren't you supposed to clean and take the bones out of those before you put them in stew?"

"C'mon," Red said, pulling me away from where I was staring at Stumble's food preparation. "Sometimes it's just better not to know about things at all."

The rest of the day went by smoothly and quickly. I won at "King of the Hill" as I normally do and lost at "Tag" which was also where I usually place. I scarfed as many berries as I could find during the day too since I wanted to avoid the stew that evening. I climbed into my pallet early but no one was suspicious. They just figured I was trying to get away from hearing about my fishing adventure for the zillionth time. Stumble said he was pretty sure the whole thing would become some sort of Lost Boy legend for the future. I was glad I was able to provide so much amusement for my friends.

"C'mon, Cub. Man, you're impossible to wake up." I opened my eyes to see Red's worried face peering down at me. "About time. I've been trying to get you up forever." We both listened but only heard snoring and a few moans and whimpers. Unfortunately the moans and whimpers were as normal as the snores were when it came to sleeping. Lost Boy's dreams weren't always the best. After deciding that no one was actually awake, I grabbed my wooden sword and we each took to our own trapdoors and tumbled outside of Hangman's Tree. The night sky was alive with a zillion stars but there was something missing and the night was darker than just the mist rising from the woods would cause.

"It's a new moon," I said accusingly to Red. "We can't go out there. We have to do this some other time."

Red looked around too, the ears on his fox pelt bent over giving him a uncharacteristic defeated look. "I didn't know there wasn't a moon out. It doesn't matter though. You haven't been a Lost Boy that long and I… I'll just have to deal with it."

Neverland has a very interesting and usually pretty cool lunar system. There's almost always a moon ranging from a crescent to a full moon. Sometimes there are even two of them floating through the night sky. Every now and again, about twice a year, there's no moon at all. Anywhere else it wouldn't be a big deal whether the moon was there or not. Neverland, however, isn't like anywhere else at all. When there is no moon in the night sky the boundary between Neverland and the 'real' world tends to run and fade a little. It's a time when it's easiest to move between the two places without benefit of happy thoughts and pixie dust. Even then it's still bloody hard for physical things to go from one place to the other. It's other things that move between the two places almost without pause. Memories. Feelings. Wishes. Thoughts. One of the best things about being a Lost Boy is that when you get to Neverland you start to forget about the 'real' world and especially those things that happened there that caused you to need to be rescued and become a Lost Boy in the first place. It's not exactly falling out of prams that cause a boy to become a Lost Boy. But on the night of a new moon those memories can come tumbling across the border and those things you thought you'd left behind forever are suddenly there once again just as horrible and terrifying as they were the first time. I'd been told that Midnight Walks were a frequent thing when there was a new moon. Of course it wouldn't be Neverland if there weren't some good that came of it too. Thoughts and wishes on our side of the border found themselves in the 'real' world and were picked up by those who were receptive to it. Why do you think the name Peter Pan is so well known in the 'real' world?

Normally the best way to combat a new moon was to sleep through it. The nightmares would be worse than usual, but nightmares were always better than having the memories of stuff haunt you when you were awake. Since I hadn't been a Lost Boy that long I still pretty much remembered why I'd come to be here. Red had been away from the 'real' world a lot longer and probably just had the vaguest idea of what had happened to him or caused him to become lost. "Let's just forget about it tonight," I said with as much feeling behind it as I could. "We can find out some other night or something."

Red shook his head. "Naw, it's okay. I can handle it." He gave me a grin that looked both false and ghastly in the starlight.

"Maybe you can handle it, but I'm scared and not just of my shadow which I can't even see. C'mon, it ain't worth it."

Red stubbornly shook his head. "I'm going with or without you, so if you want to find out if Cookie knows anything about that pelt, ya might as well come with me." The problem with Red was he figured if he didn't go it'd make him look like a coward. Even if I'd been nutsy enough to think he was cowardly for not going, I'm the last person who'd have mentioned it to him or anyone else. He'd end up thinking that he hadn't been brave enough and that would eat at him for ages. Fortunately, as craven as I am, I didn't have any such problems with being chicken. I just wasn't going to be able to use it to stop him like I normally could.

Red started off through the woods and I watched until he almost disappeared among the trees. With a sigh and a curse for myself, I took off at a gallop until I caught up with him. He flashed me a grin which told me he'd never been in doubt that I'd be right behind him. I decided I'd figure out later whether that irritated me or made me sort of proud.

The trip through the woods was worse than normal. It wasn't the hills this time but the fact that with only the light of the stars to see by I tripped over every root, branch, and hole imaginable. Not to mention I was pretty sure that my tramping could be heard all over the island. There would be no sneaking up on anyone tonight. Red suddenly came to a stop and I almost ran over him. I stood there breathing heavily with sweat dripping off my face while Red looked around. "I'm not used to it being this dark," he said uncertainly. "Maybe we should have turned… naw, that's not right. It's over here I think, but…" He gave a low uncharacteristic moan and suddenly spun around twice, continuing to moan as he turned.

"Red, what's wrong?" I'd never seen him like this before and had no clue what was wrong or what to do. For a moment he cowered from something I couldn't see and then turned to me.

"We gotta get outta here. Right now." Before I could begin to ask what we had to get away from, Red bolted.

"Red! Wait up," I yelled as I started to trot after him. I knew if I lost sight of him they'd probably find my partially eaten body in the middle of nowhere, although I'm sure someone would have come up with a pretty good tale to explain it. I hadn't taken more than a couple of steps when something clamped on my left shoulder and squeezed so hard that I collapsed to the ground. I'd felt pain before, but nothing like this. The hand that had grabbed me released it's grip. In the darkness I could see three or four forms, but couldn't make out anything beyond the fact they were vaguely man-shaped out.

"Where ye think ye be going, maggot?" a voice that sounded as though it was coming through a throat made of rusty iron pieces asked.

"I don't believe this one be liking our company," a second voice of smug satisfaction declared. "No matter, ye'll find our company grows on a body in one form or another." There was grim chuckling at that announcement and I went from being merely terrified to horrified. "You're pirates," I said in one of the more unnecessary sentences I've ever uttered.

"Pirates? Us? G'wan. Ye must be kidding. What be givin' ye that idea, maggot? Could it be these powerful sharp swords we be carryin'?" There was a rasp as a cutlass was pulled from it's sheath and playfully poked at me a couple of times before being returned. "Or pehap it be the fact that we could be making you walk the plank and go swimmin'. A swim ye never be returning from, eh?"

"Belay that bilge," a voice that I hadn't heard yet called out. "The cap'n be wanting to ask this brat some questions and ask them swiftly. Ye can be terrifying 'im later."

Amateur. I'd passed terror awhile ago. While there was a verbal fight going on about the parentage of one of the pirates, I sprung up as fast as I could and took off in the opposite direction. It was a daring escape. One that the elves tell tales about, that dwarves toast, and that bards sing about. Funny, they never mention what happens when one bounces off a tree they don't see in the dark. I did a brilliant job of that and the night suddenly exploded into millions of lights as my head hit the trunk. Before I could hit the ground, I'd been grabbed by three sets of hands.

"He be a runner, that one. Tie 'im up, hands and ankles. If we don't get back soon, all of ye'll be the ones takin' their last swim. Within a couple of minutes my wrists and ankles had been tied tightly together.

"Now what?" one of the pirates asked the one I guessed was the leader.

"Now you swabs pick him up and carry him back to the boat. Be quick about it. No tellin' when his friend'll realize what happened."

"Pick 'im up?" one of them asked in astonishment. "He looks 'eavy."

"Then it'll be you that tells 'im why he ain't with us when we get back to the ship." There was some general cursing at that thought and after a couple of minutes I was hoisted over someone's shoulder which created a great deal of specific cursing. I stuck my tongue out at the pirate following which only resulted in getting a nasty tasting piece of cloth stuck in my mouth. After what seemed like forever but was probably only about half an hour or so the woods became a beach that I didn't recall ever seeing before. Of course it was still almost pitch black and I wasn't exactly in the best position to see anything. The pirate carrying me casually dropped me into a rowboat that had been pulled up on the beach.

"Ye great lumberin' idjit," one of the pirates said to the person who'd dropped me. "Get 'im out o' there. It be bad enough dragging the rowboat without him bein' in it." With a curse, I was pulled back out of the boat and dumped on the beach which I quickly discovered was gravel and not sand. The pirates dragged the boat into the water and while two of them held it, the other two came back and dragged me by my feet to the water's edge. I was picked up again and 'accidentally' dropped into the water by the boat. I was beginning to be convinced I was going to drown before one of them hauled me up by my hair and dumped me in the boat. "That's for bein' so bloody 'eavy."

"Enough," the leader said. "Start rowin' ye dogs." There were a few grumbles and then I heard the splash of oars on the water. I'd landed face up and all I could see where the stars above me. They were suddenly blotted out by the leader's head looking down at me. "T'would hate to be in your shoes, lad," the man said in almost a whisper. He didn't look very happy at matters at the moment. "Ye made the cap'n very upset with ye and that normally be a very fatal condition." He pulled the cloth out of my mouth and tossed it overboard.

"That was me best one, Mr. Smee," one of the pirates objected. There was no answer, just the splash of the oars.