Peter Pan

A Different Wendy

Chapter Ten

Marie woke up thinking it must still be the middle of the night because it was so dark, but then she remembered they were sleeping underground in a tree, and she better get up to see what time it was. Violet was still asleep, sucking her thumb. Marie looked to the bed next to theirs and saw Ethan asleep still, too. So she tiptoed out of the room and saw Tootles scrubbing the dishes.

He looked up when she walked in and smiled, "Good morning, Marie."

"Good morning, Tootles." Marie sat down beside him and picked up a pan, "I'll help."

"Thank you." Tootles handed her a sponge.

She started to wash the pan and hummed a little tune as she went. She just sat in silence for a while, forgetting everything else but the pan she was cleaning, as she used to do when she was set to work at the orphanage and she would pretend she was really at home doing chores for her mom. So she looked up a little startled when she went to reach for another dish and found Tootle's hand there too. She let him have it and she took a different one. "So, did my mom have a little fling with you, too?"

"No, but I think she had a crush on Nibbs for a while." Tootles answered.

"Oh, well she just had all the fun, didn't she?" Marie said glumly and scrubbed furiously at the dish she was holding.

"Marie, you can't be angry at your mom, she…" Tootles started.

"She's dead, I know." Marie interrupted. "But if she was supposed to be in love with Peter, she wouldn't have had a little crush on Slightly and Nibbs even if she was mad at him."

"She was just being a kid, like you are right now." Tootles said. "And I wasn't going to say she's dead, I was going to say she was just a girl."

"Tootles, you don't understand. You're only thirteen, and you're a boy. Boys just don't get things like this, but I'll tell you, my mom can have whoever she wants, because I'm never falling in love." Marie looked away.

"I'm sorry I'm a boy then." Tootles smirked. "You're not at all like Wendy. She was sweet."

"Hey, thank you for not calling me sweet!" Marie playfully slapped him.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Tootles laughed. "I meant she was shy, she didn't really talk, she was proper. Well, she wasn't that way in Neverland, but once she got home she was."

"That's the way young ladies are supposed to act." Marie told him. "But since I didn't have a female role model I will never be a lady, as Miss Winglet used to tell me. I honestly couldn't care less."

"You're a lady. You might not sit with your hands in your laps and your head down, and walk a few steps behind males and never say your opinions like a 'real lady' is supposed to, but you are one, believe me." Tootles assured her.

"Thank you, Tootles, you're a real gentlemen. None of the other Boys are as sweet as you." Marie smiled.

"So you're not upset about your mother anymore? Because, you should know, it only lasted for a few days between them. A week before we left she told him she thought he was beginning to look like a handsome young man, and then she sort of guessed he liked her. I'm not sure what the whole story was, like, I don't know if he liked her back. But I know he thought of her as a sister, because he's told me that before. And when he told her he wouldn't leave was one day after school when she wanted to make sure he'd be there for her all the time, and I don't think he knew she meant it like that. That picture you saw, I'm sorry I looked, that was one Aunt Millicent took of them on her fiftieth birthday just four days before we left." Tootles rushed to explain to her before any of the other Boys woke up and came in the room.

"Yeah, well, I guess I can't really be upset with her since she is dead and she was my mother. As for Peter and Slightly, I guess I can't really blame them either, because I wasn't yet born, but if they do anything now I can be mad at them, right?" Marie sighed.

"No, not unless you love one of them and don't want them to be in love with anyone but you, so do you?" Tootles accused.

"No, I most certainly do not. So I'm not mad at either of them." Marie said.

"I think the Boys are waking up. I better get started on breakfast." Tootles stacked the plates on the table and started to prepare breakfast. Why don't you wake up Violet and you two can go get ready by the river, so the rest of the Boys can, you know, get ready here."

"Oh, right, right, right. I'll go now." Marie went back into the bedroom and found herself in darkness again.

She strained her eyes to see where her bed was and headed over to where she saw Violet's little body curled up in a tight ball with the blankets wrapped around her. When Marie sat down next to her she stretched out her legs and whispered, "Marie, where did you go?"

"I was helping Tootles with the dishes." Marie replied. "Is anyone else awake?"

"I think some of them were moving around and a few got up and went to others' beds to talk." Violet informed her.

"Okay. We're going to go to the river to wash up and get ready. So come on." Marie said.

Violet got out of bed and rubbed at her eyes while Marie shook out the blankets and made the bed. "Should I wake the rest of the Boys up, or leave them?" Violet asked her.

"Hmm…we'll just tell Tootles to wake them up on our way out. Grab your bag." Marie said and headed back out the door.

"I'm coming." Violet ran after her, but when she got to the door she turned around and yelled, "Wake up, Boys, its morning!" And then smiled like an angel when Marie looked at her.

"Violet, you are just like me." Marie laughed.

"How come?" Violet asked.

"Because I was about to do that same thing," Marie said. She turned to Tootles and questioned, "So, like I asked yesterday: how do you get out of this place?"

Tootles laughed, "The door, of course." And he pointed to the corner where there was a door.

"Oh, yeah, that would probably be the way out." Marie said, "But how did you guys get out yesterday? That was definitely not the way."

"We climbed up the ladder over there, and there's another one over there, and then there's two more exits we hardly ever use that are in the back of our bedroom." Tootles pointed out the other places.

"Wow, you guys are pretty good." Marie nodded. "We'll take the door, though. See you later. And you better make sure they're all up and getting ready, because they better be wearing clothes when we come back in here." Marie laughed.

"Eww! That would be disgusting!" Violet stuck out her tongue and giggled.

"Ha, I'll make sure they're awake." Tootles said.

Marie and Violet pushed open the bark door and squinted at the new day. It was bright and sunny and warm. Marie shut the door behind them and pushed through the bushes to the little river.

"We can't get dressed in the middle of everything!" Violet declared.

"No, we can't. We'll go over here where the trees block everything, and no one will come out. The Boys are all inside, and they won't come out, so you have nothing to worry about." Marie said and they went into the shelter of the group of trees. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah, this is good. If we can't see out, then no one can see in." Violet said. She took off her shoes and put her toes in the water, and she pulled it quickly back out. "It's freezing!"

"You'll get used to it." Marie took off her shoes too and dipped her feet in. "It's not that cold." She commented.

"Fine," Violet jumped in the water and came up, teeth chattering. "Yes it is!" She splashed Marie so Marie got in too.

"You were right, it is a little chilly." Marie got goose bumps on her arms. "Hurry and wash your hair and everything so we can get out." Marie ducked under the water and scrubbed her hair clean.

"Marie…" Violet sounded close to tears and Marie whipped around to see if she was alright. She looked fine, but she was making an awful face and was staring at the water up the stream a little.

"What's the matter?" Marie swam over to her little sister and tried to follow her gaze to see what she was looking at.

"What is that?" Violet asked as if hoping for an answer even though she already knew.

Marie finally found what Violet was shock frozen staring at. It was a faerie, blue and cold, lying face down in the water and Marie knew the instant she looked at it that it was dead. "Sweetie, close your eyes." Marie ordered and Violet clapped her hands over her eyes.

The faerie floated past them and Marie picked it up gently. She turned her over and looked away when she saw the beautiful faerie's silver eyes open and staring at her. Marie carried her to the edge of the stream and placed her down on the soft dirt. She turned back to Violet and said softly, "It's okay; you can open your eyes now."

"Why did she die?" Violet asked. She was still at the age of questions and most of the time Marie didn't know how to answer them.

This was one of them, "I don't know, baby, but don't you worry about it, because I'll tell Peter and he'll find out what happened to her. Come on, let's go back and lay in the sun, or these clothes will never dry." Marie pulled at her wet dress which was sticking to her shoulders and making her itchy.

"I think you packed me some pants and shirts, right?" Violet dunked under the water for a second and came back up again.

"Yep, I packed all of us some extra clothes." Marie said. "We left our stuff downstream a bit more, I think." Marie pointed to their bags a little ways away.

"Oh no, my ribbon fell out." Violet touched the top of her head where there used to be a bow.

"I see it." Marie spotted the blue ribbon and dove after it. She brought it back to Violet and tied it around on her head again.

She felt something bump into her back and she pushed it away, thinking it was a little stick, but it was soft. She turned around slowly, dreading what she would see. The river was filled with dead faeries. Marie gulped, she felt like throwing up. She had to get them out of there before Violet noticed, but Violet turned around to see what Marie was doing.

Her mouth dropped open and she made a strangled sound. A faerie floated by her and rubbed against her arm. She let out a scream of pure terror. Marie held her frightened sister against her tightly. There had to be more than thirty dead faeries floating down the stream right by Marie and Violet. They were surrounded by them and couldn't get out without having to touch them. A male faerie went by and got tangled in Marie's hair. This time she screamed and pushed the faerie away from her. Violet took a breath and screamed too, and this time neither of them stopped. They kept screaming until they saw Peter and the rest of the Lost Boys run to the stream and stop dead in their tracks.