Hello again dears! Here's another chapter of the story. I hope that you like it, I had a lot of fun writing it! It actually sort of wrote itself, which was great. The next chapter is already written, but it needs some light to middling revision before I can post it.
Shout-outs:
AnimegirlH – LOL, the situations we get ourselves into! Captured, attacked by mermaids occasionally, and faced down by wolves – at least it's never boring, huh?
ShortAtntionSpaz – Have I ever told you how much fun the little pearls of wisdom at the end of your reviews are? 'Cause they rock! You must have a million of them. I can't fit any more characters in, actually the story is winding down – two chapters to go after this one, and they're really plotted out already. But I bet you could take your idea and make a great Peter Pan fic of your own! : )
Sallie – LOL! : ) I love your version of Sallie and Hook, it was so funny! Thank you for reviewing, and this time I'm updating reasonably quickly. I hope you like this chapter!
Crystalstorm21 – That's fine, it took me forever to update. Thanks for reviewing!
Lyz – I feel your pain. Finals are the bane of my existence. I've had nervous breakdowns when they role around. Good luck, I hope that you do great, and enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: Please just reference the ones in the story before this. Nothing from Peter Pan belongs to me, and neither do most of the orphans. Gracie, Madeline, Falling Shadows, and all the other original stuff is mine. I'm making no money from this. Please don't sue me, 'kay?
"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Kaela asks Peter, skipping along the faint path next to him. "I think we've been down this way before. Not that I mind," she pipes, twirling off in a circle. "It's so beautiful!"
They are currently traversing a very nice part of the island, where friendly little songbirds tame enough to eat out of your hand live. They make their nests in purple jasmines as big as your head. Katrina is delighted when Black catches her one to look at. It gets comfy in the palm of her hand, chirping sweetly, then flies away.
"I know where we are," Peter assures Kaela. "The island keeps moving around. The pieces of it. You see, it's very small," he says, jumping over a large fern in the middle of the path, "but the pieces almost never stay in the same place."
Anna seems excited. "Really? I've read about things like that! How do you keep track of where's where?"
"You don't," Peter says flatly.
"Oh."
"But I can always tell," he adds cockily, with a confident smile.
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"Get down there, lad!" A pirate bellows above deck. "And make it fast, ya bloomin' cockroach!"
A hatch opens creakily, allowing a little early sunlight to spill into the belly of the ship. Up until now the girls have been making do with the light of a small, weak lantern, which they were lucky to get anyway. Someone scampers down a ladder carefully balancing a bucket. He stands in front of the girls.
"I know you!" Charlie says, squinting up at the ship's cabin boy. "You're the one who couldn't shoot."
The cabin boy flushes with embarrassment and anger, turning red to the roots of his blond hair. "I can shoot! I- I wasn't ready," he snaps defensively. "We wasn't expecting you."
"We weren't expecting you," Gracie corrects automatically. She can't even see the cabin boy, since she's on the wrong side of the circle of bound girls.
"Aha!" the boy says triumphantly. "I knew it! Word is the Cap'n said Peter got the boys new mothers."
"How does that prove anything?" Raven asks cynically, eyebrows drawn together.
"Only mothers do that. Correct your language, like."
"I'm not even gonna touch that one," Gracie murmurs to herself, staring into the dark side of the hold.
"Who'd believe it?" The cabin boy says, apparently to nobody in particular. Perhaps he's thinking out loud. "From no mothers on the ship at all to four! Smee an' the crew must be so pleased. But I shan't get to hear any of the stories," he says, a trifle resentfully. "No, it's always, Polish that brass, you bilge rat," and, "up the mizzenmast with you, lad," and,"swab those decks, you idiot boy!"
"That's the trouble with Neverland," Nora whispers, craning her neck so that Raven can hear. "No therapists. This kid ought to be locked up."
After a suppressed laugh, Raven speaks. "You're wrong," she tells the boy firmly. "I am not anybody's mother."
"Me neither," Charlie chimes in.
"Well, what about you then?" the boy asks Nora and Gracie.
"That's none of your business," Nora says immediately, somehow managing to look down her nose at the cabin boy standing above her.
Gracie doesn't answer; she can't tell that the question was directed at her too.
"Not answering? A mother, for sure. Could you…" the pause strings out.
"What's going on?" Gracie asks irately. "Are you playing charades back there or something?"
"Sparky here just can't finish his sentences," Nora says. "Big surprise, huh?"
"That's not my name!" the cabin boy objects.
"You haven't been polite enough to tell us what it is," Charlie points out.
"Y- You haven't said your names!" he replies, clearly rattled by this attack on his manners. His free hand (the one not holding the bucket) moves to his ear, where it tugs at a gold earring. Charlie guesses that it's a nervous habit.
"We're prisoners," Raven says condescendingly. "We don't have to be polite!"
The cabin boy pauses for a moment to let this sink into his mind. "I don't have a name," he says, still messing with his earring.
"Well, what do people call you? And stop that, you'll get an infection!" Nora insists. She bites her lip, realizing how maternal it must have sounded.
"GET ON DECK, YA FILTHY WEEVIL!" A pirate hollers down into the hold. "DOUBLE QUICK!"
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Weevil," Raven laughs.
"Call me Lad," the boy says quickly, hoisting up the bucket. "It's the most civil thing they say to me."
"What's that?" Charlie asks, trying to get a look into the bucket. "Our breakfast?"
"Not hardly," Lad guffaws. "It's just sea water." He unceremoniously dumps the entire lot over her head.
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I am definitely not going to that spot, Sallie resolves, doing her best to keep up with the group. Let Peter handle this his way. That way if he dies, it's his own fault.
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"This is lousy," Alicia says, sulking in the lost boys' cave. "Everyone else is off being captured or scouting out pirates or on a rescue mission, and where am I?"
"Hidden in a secret cave and recovering from a mermaid attack," Falling Shadows says playfully, sticking his head into the cave's opening.
"Hey, buddy! I didn't think I'd see you again. How'd you know where this is?"
"Peter has long been our friend," he explains. "He saved my sister's life."
Alicia nods. "That's right, I keep forgetting! Well, Tiger Lily's brother, come and have a seat. You know, it's not fair. Your name means something."
"Every name means something."
"Well, mine is just Alicia," she objects.
"It means you."
"I'd like a better one. Can you think of something for me?"
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"Ahh!" Charlie splutters, spitting water like a fountain. "What was that… blehh… for?"
"What happened?" Gracie asks earnestly. "Guys, what's going on?"
Lad takes the bucket with him and goes back on deck.
"That little punk just totally soaked Charlie," Raven says for Gracie's benefit. "I got a little wet too."
Quick as a wink, Lad is back in the hold again. He dumps a bucket of water over Nora's head, then goes back up. This happens again and again until all the girls are soaked and mad as heck.
"Why are you doing this?" Nora demands.
"Just washing the pixie dust off," Lad explains.
The girls sit in dumbfounded silence.
"We could have flown," Raven says hollowly. "Why didn't we think of that?"
"It would have been pretty hard with all these ropes, anyway," Gracie says.
"We're new to this," Charlie says, trying to alleviate the group's feeling of stupidity. "I'm sure we'll learn."
"Unless, in all probability, we get killed by pirates before the day is out!" Nora says sharply.
"Well, that's finished," Lad says, dropping the bucket and wiping his hands on each other. "Uh… mothers, could you-"
"Don't call us that," Nora interjects. "It's creepy."
"Do you think you could tell me a story?"
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Peter leads them through the trees and all kinds of weather. Madeline doesn't have time to stop and make a proper snowman while they march through winter, but she grabs a handful of snow and takes wild delight in tossing it at Katrina once they get to a summery spot. Eventually they come to a glade that Sallie is frightened to see looks terribly familiar.
"Almost there," Peter says.
Switch looks up from helping Anna over a log at the forest's edge. "Nice place for an ambush," he says sociably. The girls cluster a bit closer together, and Madeline grabs the hem of Anna's pajama top.
"Be careful, the pirates prowl through here all the time," Peter says. "They might be close." His eyes scan the forest's edge across the glade. "All clear. Maybe," he adds with a small laugh.
"Isn't it exciting?" Blue asks Kaela. "We could be attacked any second!"
Peter walks into the glade. Sallie finds herself close behind, rather appalled to realize that she's instinctually getting closer to the best fighter for purposes of safety.
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"Your name should be everything you are," Falling Shadows says.
"My name should be a blue-eyed brunette?" Alicia jokes.
"You are happy and resilient. And…"
Tinker Bell chooses this moment to leave her apartment and say just what she thinks Alicia is. Fortunately for her, Alicia and Falling Shadows can't understand her incredibly creative and ill-spirited insult, so they don't start chasing her around the cave with blunt objects.
"And pretty," Falling Shadows says at length, once Tink has cooled off a bit and shut herself into her apartment again. Alicia flushes happily. "I like Painted Bird."
"Uh…that's nice, I guess."
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"Why would we tell you a story?" Nora asks. "You just dumped buckets of very cold water on our heads!"
"Orders," Lad answers lamely, fingering his earring again. "I had too!"
"Why are you even with these people?" Gracie asks Lad, twisting around uncomfortably and trying to see his face in vain.
"I couldn't fall out of my pram," Lad says sadly. "When I was a baby I heard about Neverland, and it sounded so wonderful that I thought I'd try to get there. But my nurse never looked away long enough for me to fall out of my pram the proper way. All I could manage was knocking over my high chair. And when you knock over your high chair and aren't claimed in seven days, they make you be a cabin boy," he sighs. "I never wanted to be a pirate. Can you please tell me a story? I haven't heard one in so long. I could be your son, if you need that for the story to work," he offers helpfully.
"I will never be your mother," Nora says harshly, and with a downcast look Lad goes back up on deck.
"That was cruel," Charlie says lightly. "Why'd you say that?"
"Because I'm too attracted to him to be his parent," Nora says sheepishly.
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Once the last of the lost boys steps into the glade, a sharp whistle is heard. Pirates swarm up almost from nowhere, like a sudden fog with tattoos and bad breath.
Peter and the lost boys spring into action; the girls clumsily draw their weapons and do their best to fight off the buccaneers. They do surprisingly well, since although they're certainly not as strong as the pirates are for the most part they're a lot quicker on their feet. Katrina and Anna even have the sense to follow Peter's lead and get some height, counting on pixie dust and happy thoughts to give them an edge. This doesn't occur to Sallie, however. She does manage to slash at a few of the pirates with her dagger, but eventually numbers overwhelm her. They start to carry her off.
"Let me go, you imbecile drunkards!" she screams. She scratches them, slashes, kicks, and does whatever else she can think of to get loose.
"Stop fighting so hard," one of the pirates hisses in her ear. "It just has to look like you're fighting!"
"But I am!" she screams. "HELP! PETER!"
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Cliffhanger, LOL!
Please review! Reviews are like watching your favorite couple kiss in the best romantic movie ever! But no flames, flames are like watching your favorite guy character kiss a girl that you don't like!