Chapter Nine –
Still annoyed at himself for yielding to Wendy so easily, Peter clambered out of the large, oversized tree that concealed is hideout from prying eyes. Brushing more of the dirt from his person, he looked around to make sure the coast was clear before turning back to find Wendy climbing the steep slope that led to the exit of his hideout. He stooped down and offered her a hand in assistance, which she blatantly refused to accept, preferring to struggle up the precipitous incline on her lonesome. Sighing, Peter resigned himself to the fact that Wendy was going to keep up her frosty demeanour until she acquired the information she wished to obtain.
When she finally reached the top, Wendy ignored Peter completely and stalked past Peter over towards a rather large wooden stump. Delicately taking a seat on the stump, Wendy surveyed her surrounding and inhaled deeply. The forest was in full bloom and Wendy found herself surrounded by a stunning array of flora, and the clean, fresh air of Neverland was ecstasy to her lungs compared to the smoke-filled atmosphere of inner London.
"We should... umm, we should probably get going," said Peter, snapping Wendy out of the trance she had drifted into.
"Excellent," Wendy replied coldly, rising from her recline and turning to face him. "The sooner we get this mess worked out, the sooner you can stop accusing my brother of being a murderous, bloodthirsty pirate."
"No, the sooner we can get you to accept the truth, the sooner we can begin your training to kill a murderous, bloodthirsty pirate!" riposted Peter.
Wendy just glared at him. 'How can he really think that John is capable of slaughtering hundreds of people in cold blood?' she thought furiously.
"Look," said Peter calming down slightly, "bickering isn't going to get us anywhere. Let's just go, you can hear what Galahad has to say, then you can decide whether to believe me or not. But please, keep and open mind to what he has to say. It may be difficult at first for you to accept, but eventually you will need to come to terms with the fact that your brother is going to become Captain James Hook."
"Stop saying that!" yelled Wendy. "My brother is not Hook! You are indubitably misinformed."
Peter sighed again. 'So much for not bickering,' he thought pessimistically.
"Come on, we should go," said Peter.
"Good, let's go then."
Peter bent down to lift Wendy into his arms; however, he was rather surprised when she jumped back from him.
"What exactly do you think you are doing?" Wendy inquired petulantly.
"Well... umm... see... umm... in order to get there, we need to fly," said Peter, rather confused by her objection.
"Is there any reason why I can't fly there myself?" retorted Wendy, insubordinately placing her hands on her hips.
"Well, yes... umm... there is," replied Peter, a smile threatening to invade his lips. "As it happens, you have a severe lack of fairy dust. This does make it difficult for you to get off the ground without plummeting back down a few seconds later."
"Oh," exclaimed Wendy softly, looking at the ground in an attempt to hide the red tinge that was beginning to appear in her cheeks. Peter laughed; he loved getting one up on Wendy. 'Honestly,' he thought, 'flying without fairy dust, it's lunacy.'
"Actually," said Peter suddenly remembering something important he'd forgotten to tell Wendy. "There is something I need to tell you before we leave. Galahad's lair is guarded--"
"Lair?" interrupted Wendy, desperately trying to suppress her laughter. "He has a lair."
"Hideout, home, palace, call it what you will, it's a minor detail and doesn't matter so let's move on. A terrifyingly horrific beast guards Galahad's liar. The malignant creature is feared more than any other in known species in Neverland, so watch your step, and for goodness sake, stay near me unless you wish to be ripped limb from limb by sharp pointy fangs!"
It may have been her imagination playing tricks on her, but Wendy could have sworn that Peter's voice growing louder and more Scottish as he reached the climax of his speech, he even used hand gestures to imitate the motion sharp pointy fangs had when they ripped you limb from limb.
"What an excentric performance," she muttered, wondering if the boy who refused to grow up had finally lost his marbles.
John had spent a good part of the last hour explaining Wendy's supposed predicament to the other boys. Then, just as he had been told to, John explained how Tinkerbell had come to escort them back to Neverland. The ex-lost boys among the group were shocked to hear that their mentor had kidnapped their sister and were all eager to get to Neverland and rescue her. Though one of them saw a flaw in John's proposed course of action --
"Excuse me gentlemen, but I'm afraid that there is a small problem with this plan."
"What is it now Slightly?" Asked John irritably.
"Well, since you asked... As it happens, Neverland can only be accessed from this world at nighttime. This particular rip in the fabric of the space-time continuum only appears in the dead of the night and can only be found by those who already know where it is."
"This particular rip?" queried John, intrigued by where this conversation was headed.
"Well, yes." Replied Slightly, lapping up the attention everyone was paying him. "There are many more gaps that lead to different places throughout time and space. People stumble across them regularly." Slightly looked around at the other boys who all appeared to be lost, though John seemed to be following and nodded at him to continue with his explanation.
"Well the most well known rip would probably be the Bermuda Triangle. There have been many known cases of ships passing through there and never make it out the other side. They just disappear and are never seen again."
"Are you saying that the Bermuda Triangle is another entrance to Neverland?" Asked John, trying to keep his excitement from reaching his voice.
"It's the only other one I know of," replied Slightly. "And it's rumoured that the Bermuda Triangle is how the pirates initially arrived in Neverland! The only problem was, that the Bermuda Triangle is a one way point, you can only enter Neverland, you cannot leave."
"What about the 'it can only be found by those who already know where it is' part?" Inquired John.
"Well all you know that the rip is the second star to the right, but to the right of what?" said Slightly cleverly answering John question with a question.
"Oh, right, of course," said John clearing his throat in an attempt to sound indifferent to the valuable information Slightly had unwittingly just handed over to him. If he wasn't very much mistaken, Slightly had just told him how to enter Neverland in twenty-years-time when he reintroduced himself to the world ask Captain James Hook.
"Thank you for that delightful tale, Slightly, but we're hardly going to travel to the Bermuda Triangle. We shall wait until dusk. Then, with the help of a certain fairy guide and her dust, we will be well on our way to rescuing our sister, and cousin, from the clutches of Peter Pan."
A/N: OK, what do we all think? I know nothing much happened but I had to get the whole thing about the space-time continuum in there and I also had to put Monty Python quote in. Just incase you guys haven't seen it, in which case I'm very disappointed in you, the Monty Python quote in there was the 'sharp pointy fangs' from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also, I need to put a disclaimer on the 'it can only be found by those who already know where it is.' It's not mine, that's Jack Sparrow all the way, oh the brilliance of Jack. I'm sorry a lot of you didn't understand what I was going on about before with the whole John being Hook, but I will go into it in more detail when Peter and Wendy meet Galahad. Now, replies to reviews: bigreader, I'm sorry I couldn't let them kiss, but it would have destroyed my story plan... plus I like tormenting you all -insert evil laughter here-.Draechaeli, it seems I've stuffed up. I didn't make it clear that he wasn't supposed to tell Wendy that he loved her, that what he was thinking. I'll go back and remedy it later. Dreamless-mermaid, yes you're right! Well done! I think 2 billion points are in order! I'm sorry you're confused as well but I going to fix that, I promise. Zeldy, thanks for the encouragement, I do try. TigerLily130, yeah I know he isn't making sense, again I'm going to try to fix it. kasmira36, sorry I kept you waiting so long and it seems I've done it again. As for the connection to the other chapter, I promise I will make sense of it all soon. Alison! Yes, you found it! Congrats! Did you love the movie? can you now see my obsession with it? Don't worry, I won't yell at you :). Right, I think that's about it. Wow, look at my AN. Ok, I'm leaving now, hope you enjoyed the chapter,
Toodles kids!