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It wasn't that scary…

It had been two days, and I was getting absolutely no sleep. I wasn't exactly sure if it was that night on the ocean or my fight with Caroline anymore. I desperately tried to get some z's but nothing would give. I even went as far as heating up some milk and quickly chugging it down, so I wouldn't taste the nasty rankness. I was so freakin' tired. Bad idea, the milk soon came back up and spilling into the porcelain toilet bowl. Which is a great way to start a long night.

When I did get to sleep it was fitful. I'd wake up every five minutes recovering from the same dream weird. I had been flying, twirling around fluffy-white, cotton-candy clouds and was in mid-loop when something hit my chest and I fall. I really felt like I was falling, too, up until I jolted awake with this panicky, jittery feeling that left me all scared and shaky. Eventually, I managed to fall asleep, but was just as soon awakened by the sounds of the Brady Bunch theme song…damn second-hand alarm clock…I sat up.

"AHHHHRGGG!!!"

My door slammed open. "Bea?! What's the matter? Where's the fire?!" Of course my frenzied father is referring to the time when I "accidentally" lit fire to his hideous, favorite chair. Sadly, we lost it. I wasn't completely a pyro, okay. The thing was barf-inducing, especially the cat upchuck on one of the armrests…we didn't even own a cat. Oh, the mysteries of my father.

This time there was no fire, instead monstrous mirror that took up at least half of my wall, and was complete with a mural border placed directly in front of my bed, as if it grew there overnight. It was huge and it took up the whole wall space from the floor to the ceiling, but it wasn't completely hideous like most of the things that found their way inside my room. The border around the edges was beautiful, and the vivid colors seemed to sparkle; but it came to an abrupt stop on its right side, and the mirror seemed to be cut off halfway. Probably second-hand like everything else I owned. "Oh, heh…" my dad chuckled heartily, "What do ya think? Your 'mum told me she found it shopping yesterday, and I know we don't have room for it anywhere else so I put it in here last night while you were sleeping. You woke up a fair few times, so I was worried you wouldn't be surprised this morn'. Speakin' of tha'; Honey, are you sleeping okay?"

Ah, my father. He's always had that weird accent…something like Australian…I asked him about it once and he just half-heartedly agreed with me ("Ya, hun, 's Australeeon…) He was a young-ish man with a tuft of dusty blonde hair that grazed his shoulders, long sideburns, but besides that he had a freakish lack of any facial hair. He was a tall, gangly guy with long arms and legs. It was kind of weird how he looked sort of young enough to be my…ew. I won't even go there.

I screwed up my face into a very deliberately fake grin, "Aw dad. It's really…huge."

Apparently satisfied with this answer he replied, "Well good," and ruffled my hair before walking out of my bedroom. 'Ohhhhh gooodddd', I stared at my once shockingly pink, but now faded hair askew all over my head. My face was tan and splotchy with residual sleepiness. Now actually having something to look at myself in meant I would have to actually start checking out my appearance, which is not something I particularly like doing. I am proud to say that I was very far from a vanity fair. I stared at my hair and tried to help it lie flat a little. Eventually I gave up and resorted to ruffling it all over my head. I was gearing up to hop off my bed when I was rudely interrupted.

"JAMES!" my mother shrieked. I jumped and fell out of my bed, she was such a freakish woman. I crawled over to my drawer and pulled on faded shorts and hot pink tank top that rivaled the pink of my hair. I twisted and fought with my short hair until it remotely resembled two very spiky pink pig tails. My hair was neat like that, and it was the only thing that I thought was really especially notable about my appearance. I had my dad's long gangly body with long arms and legs. I even had his sandy blonde hair, before I dyed it pink that is. My eyes were all my own, though. Neither my dad nor my mom had the light blue catty eyes I inherited from who knows where. Now that I really had something to look at myself in, I realized that I didn't look like my mom at all. She glided on a perfectly proportioned body with long black curls framing a porcelain face set with chocolaty brown eyes. We were completely night and day. She was Vogue and I was Skaters Edge. She was a bitch, and I considered myself a perfectly tolerable person. As you can see, our relationship was…well, estranged…

In fact, I really hated my mom. Maybe I shouldn't say hate…I mean, geez, she was my mom. You can't hate someone who went through 24 hours of labor with you; at least that's what my dad had told me, even though he looked as if he had no idea what he was talking about. My mom was a volatile lady, prone to spontaneous outbreaks, and extemporaneous bouts of screaming. Thankfully, she's hardly ever around. She takes our 4x4 to work and out to shop or whatever she does with her time. I could care less. We didn't have a very good mother-daughter relationship, but the woman didn't even act like my mother 99.9% of the time. That .01% of motherly love was given to me when she rescued me from the jaws of a crocodile at age 2, but what would any other self-respecting stranger have done when they witnessed a toddler running towards a razor tooth-filled mouth of doom.

From what I can remember, my dad brought me up. He taught me how to read, the best ways to cure poison oak, and where to hit a crocodile in the head so its K.O'd. You know normal dad stuff. My parents had the strangest relationship, they were always either avoiding each other, or my mom was screaming her brains out at my dad who just sat there looking helpless. I think they had this young-love gone bad thing going on. Technically, they were still young since either of them didn't look a day past twenty-eight, but that would mean…ew. I was throwing that thought far from my mind…gross, when my ears picked up (without any difficulty at all) a familiar screeching sound.

"WHY WOULD YOU BRING THIS HOME? Why would you EVER bring this TRASH into my home?" My poor dad, I could just imagine the feeble and guilty look on his face. He didn't even try to argue back anymore. I do not know why they just won't get a divorce; it would have made things a whole lot easier on all of us. "I will NEVER let Bea see this drivel! It was one thing with you insisting over and over again that we see the moronic moving picture but this…this is too much and I WON'T have it!" Unlike my father's mellow and laid back slang, my mother spoke haughtily. She sounded Victorian and well brought-up.

I attempted to dash as fast as I could out the back door before my eardrums started to throb, but my efforts were thwarted when a very solid flying object hit me in the face. For the second time that morning, I ended up on the ground. My "mother" didn't seem to notice that I had been taken down by her raging fast pitch, "He is completely CRASS! Remember James, it is ONLY a story." She put heavy emphasis on the words James and story as if they were spelled out in bold letters, but I didn't have any time to ponder the meaning why. I grabbed the object that assaulted me and ran out the door, jumped off the porch and landed in the sand below. Still running (hey, I was not taking any chances with that woman), I bolted across the sand and jumped into my rowboat after throwing the thingie in.

I started to row vigorously, and it was not until I was halfway to the small island that I was heading for, that I really looked at the heavy object that knocked me down. It was a book…a thick old book with faded golden writing on the cover. I held it close to my face in order to read the almost diminished title. Peter Pan…figures.

My mother had this weird complex with Peter Pan. I remember when I was about six that we went to go see that really dumb Disney cartoon. My mom didn't even want to go in the first place, but ended up going because my dad literally pleaded for weeks on end. Why it mattered that much, I wasn't sure back then. Throughout the entire movie she clenched the armrests, and sweat glistened her forehead. She really freaked me out as a kid, so I was thoroughly startled when she jumped up and stomped out of the theatre, slamming the door when the cartoon Captain Hook was (cheezily, I might add) chased away by the crocodile. Weird-o. The whole way home she rubbed her right hand shooting malicious looks at me while mumbling something under her breath. I didn't know what she was all worked up about in the first place.

Caroline told me that the book really ends with Captain Hook dying…Caroline was like a six year old genius, and was angry about how the cartoon "wrongfully portrayed the beautiful age vs. youth story that Peter Pan was, and made Wendy so damn annoying". She was a really smart kid back then. Sadly, that had to change. Thoughts of Caroline only brought back the stinging anger from the night before so I quelled the feelings before they worsened and moved on. If they had actually shown Hook dying in that movie…uhg I shudder to think of it.

Those little Peter Pan outbreaks had been few and far between, however. It was only those occasional murderous glances when somebody mentioned flying, anyone named Peter, or dust. I don't really understand the dust thing. I think she's just completely bonkers; one French fry short of a happy meal...if you get my drift.

I rowed up to a small dock set in the tiny harbor of the island. It was just a very itty-bitty island. One of those small isles that never make appearances on even the most detailed maps. Despite its remoteness there was a single inhabitant. He was a very quirky but young hermit whose only wrinkles were his clearly etched laugh lines. He was one of my only friends (including Caroline…that makes 2) and had a name as unusual as mine, Nibs Boy. Really, who names their kid Nibs? Pot-heads, that's who…

I ran down the beaten path with my new book in hand. I came to the small adobe thatched roof house, and had to stop and take it in for a second. It was like I was on one of those discovery channel shows and I was going on an expedition to meet this crocodile hunter who lived in the middle of the jungle. Nibs was really like a crocodile hunter, too. He always had a new story about his friends and him going on some crazy adventure. He told a different story every time I came over, but it was always the same group of friends; some kids named Peter, Slightly, Curly, Tootles, and the Twins. It amazed me at how much this guy packed into a single childhood.

I walked through his beaded-curtain door and saw he was by the stove cooking something that smelled extremely rank. "Hey Nibs!"

"Bea!" He greeted without turning around. By the way, to clear up some confusion that's what most people call me. It's pronounced Baya with a long 'a' NOT Beeeeeya with a long 'e'. God forbid someone to actually call be Beatriz…barf. "I'm making some stewed 'coon. Would ya like some?"

Ew. I was hungry, but not desperate; knowing way better than to trust my manners I replied, "Ah, no thanks."

He stopped stirring and turned around. He smiled and his laugh lines deepened. Back in his prime this guy probably was a stunner. He was about my dad's age and had a nice smile, shaggy brown hair, and freckles that smattered his nose and cheeks. Not to mention some weird accent that sounded a bit Australian. "What can I do for ya?"

"I just decided to stop by. My parents were having a little hissy-fight." I hardly ever mentioned my parents, but when I did Nibs always scowled.

"Parents…I hate 'em. You should run away," he said this with such a straight face, for a second I thought he was serious. I laughed, but I did it unsurely. "What do ya got there?

Remembering the book in my hands I said, "Oh, this was what my parents were arguing about," I handed him the book. "My mom has got some weird complex and she threw it at me so I just took it and ran." I really wasn't sure why I took it, really. Maybe it was my overwhelming desire to have everything that was forbidden by my mother. Nibs was turning the rickety book over, running his hands across the worn binding.

"This is a book right?" I nodded with a smile, what a kidder. "What does it say? I don't know how to read…"

I was speechless, shocked even. For a guy who was this walking encyclopedia of stories, illiteracy wouldn't ever seem to be a problem.

Slightly concerned I replied, "It's called Peter Pan." His eyes widened as he was opening the book and fanning the pages.

"What? Peter Pan…" he looked even more shocked than I was about discovering his lack of hooked-on-phonics as a child.

"Yea…it's about this kid who can fly, and he takes this girl Wendy with him to this cool place called Neverland where they fight this pirate called Captain Hook and stuff. They made a movie about it and everything" That's about as far as my Peter Pan knowledge stretched. Books weren't really my area of expertise. Why waste my time reading a dumb book when I could be out on the beach surfing or at diving practice or whatever?

"What's a movie?"

'You've gotta be shitting me', "Uhh…moving pictures…" It's what my 'rents always called them…I wasn't exactly really sure why.

He nodded with a look of blind understanding. "Peter, and…and WENDY?! I know this story!! Mind ya, it's not really a story it's very true in fact. Do ya want me to tell ya?" He seemed really enthused about it, and it's not like I had anything else to do so I said sure and he soon launched into the story. This guy had a really vivid imagination…Peter Pan real…yea right. Something picked at my mind, but I ignored it. I mean that was impossible wasn't it?

"It all started this one day when Pan came back from one of his visits to the Other World. He brought this girl with him, Wendy. She was beautiful with blonde hair and these deep blue eyes. They looked a lot like yurs…Anyway, well ya see, she was our mother…she got really excited about the mermaids…" It was almost instantly that I went numb. My vision went black and suddenly it was like I was watching a movie on my eyelids.

I saw still water reflecting blinking stars of the heavens above. These constellations, however, were very foreign to me. I leaned over the edge feeling like something was waiting for me just below the surface of the water. The reflection I saw didn't startle me one bit. I had never seen the girl that stared back at me before…but she was familiar somehow. She was younger than me, and had longer blonde hair but…she had my eyes. I studied my face in the inky water. Yes, those were the same catty blue eyes…I spied a small disturbance in the water and my eyes held the rippling for just a moment…

Mossy green hands shot of the still water and pulled me under, but this time I didn't come back up. My eyes were burning with the murky green water, and I kicked at the slimy, but strong grip that was pulling on my ankles and dress. I finally broke the surface. I gasped for air as strong hands gently laid me on the craggily piece of rock I had been perched on seconds before. I was rolled onto my side where I could feel my lungs contracting to expel the dank, salty water. I heaved it up then rolled onto my back and was startled to see a boy perched directly over my head. My heart leapt to my throat where it beat wildly. I'd never met him, but somehow this boy frazzled my nerves more than anything I had ever experienced. He was young with wild dirty-blonde hair and dazzlingly blue eyes. "I told you they would pull you in," the boy said with a cocky grin. My heart fluttered and raced, I tried to think of something to say…but the boy faded away, I came to, and found myself staring into Nibs' deep brown eyes…

"Bea…Bea," he was slightly shaking my shoulder. "How didja' know all tha'?"

"Wh-what?" Know what? What could he mean? My heart was still fluttering and I attempted to try and force it back into my chest by swallowing very deeply. The only thing I accomplished with this was choking on my own spit. I started to cough and Nibs patted my back. When in hell does this help choking victims?

"Bea you just told me all about the time Wendy and Peter visited the mermaid lagoon…only you were talking like you were there! Like you were Wendy! Actually you sounded just like her, and I was wondering how could you know all tha'…I didn't even know all tha'. It was like ya were there somehow, but tha' can't be true…"

He said the word "that" exactly, dead-on like my dad. Desperately attempting to change the subject I said, "Nibs, what part of Australia are you from, because my dad says the word 'that' exactly the same as you do and you had to have lived near each other and my dad never tells me about where he's from so I just wanted to know…." I said all this kind of fast so I thought by the puzzled look he gave, that me he didn't understand what I had said. I took a breath to repeat it, but Nibs interrupted me…

"Australia…where? Wait…" he narrowed his eyes. Right then he seemed to realize something. "Who are your parents, Bea?" It was a queer question coming from him, but I complied.

"Yea, well my parents are Morgan and James Indy. Uh…well my dad, he's kind of tall with long arms and he's got longish sandy brown hair. And my mom she's got really curly black hair and is kind of medium sized with pale skin and really brown eyes…my dad has brown eyes but they're not as dark as my mom's. They're kind of like yours…" I looked up from my babbling and realized he wasn't listening to me anymore. Nibs had a really weird and almost violent expression on his face. His eyes were out of focus and were staring at something just past my left shoulder. He was mumbling something very fast and the only words I caught were, "Slightly…damn whore…Morgan…" He said Morgan louder than the rest, like it was a curse. I was thoroughly weirded out.

"Uh…Nibs. I think…I gotta go. Yea…I hafta…fish for…dinner, now. Yea…bye." So I wasn't the greatest actress, but it would suffice. I ran out of there as fast as I could. I dived into my boat and paddled fervently away from the island. I wasn't going home…no way, anywhere but there. Some part of my intuition told me that home wasn't a very good place to hang right at the moment.

Instead I rowed to this small cove near my house. It was surrounded by all of these weeping willows and was all nature-y and Pocahontas-y. It was the coolest place to just sit and think and stare at the little fish that swam past the boat. It was a very mystical area. I expected a mermaid to just flop into my boat and start chatting it up with me. ' But Mermaids aren't friendly though. They pull my hair and get me wet. They're just jealous of me and,' the thoughts poured into my brain from seemingly nowhere…where was this coming from? I stared at the little bit of sky I could see through all the tree branches. It felt like something was taking over my mind. Whenever something like the incident at Nibs' happened and my thoughts drifted off, it was like they were no longer my thoughts. They felt like residual memories. But they weren't mine…definitely weren't mine. When had I been almost drowned by an unknown sea-creature and saved by a spunky, blonde-haired boy?

And that is how it began, the moment I thought myself to sleep in that cove of nightmares.

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