Chapter 6

Second Star to the Right

With the wave of seagulls sweeping towards them, urgency spurred the rodents to act fast.

"Get in here! NOW!" the red rat commanded.

Remy pressed his muzzle against the blue sphere, but he couldn't penetrate it.

"It's a bubble! How am I supposed to get in?" Remy asked.

She slapped her palm against her face. "Right! Good point. Uh, you gotta create a circle with your paws and press it against the surface."

He did as she instructed.

"Great!" the red rat continued. "Now, here's the tricky part: carefully expand the circle, stretching the surface as if you're making an opening, but keep your paws symmetrical in relation to each other. Hold that position for three seconds."

He attempted to follow her command. Two seconds later, a green circle appeared between his paws. However, on the third second, the circle turned red and suddenly shrank, pulling his paws back together before turning blue again.

"What happened?" asked Remy.

"Your paws weren't symmetrical enough!" she explained.

"Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!" the birds chimed as they grew far too close for comfort.

"Try again!" she shouted.

Remy created another circle, this time more carefully. The green portal between his paws appeared once again.

"Good! Now dive through it!" she instructed.

He pushed his nose into the green and fell through both layers of the Up Berry, tumbling to a stop beside her. Meanwhile, the seagulls' beaks were seconds away from puncturing the bubble.

"Brace for acceleration!" she warned.

The female rat poked a hole through the Up Berry with her tail and it released a rush of air, jetting out of the birds' reach in a burst of speed. A moment later, the opening sealed shut by itself and the bubble floated to a stop.

The seagulls flapped about with a few confused "mines" before changing course and heading for the bubble.

She leaped to the top of the Up Berry and used her tail to prod it, creating a spurt of escaping air that pushed the bubble towards the city below. When the birds dove after them, she changed course with another poke and the seagulls missed the bubble, passing in a rush of wind.

Bit by bit, she piloted the Up Berry towards the city for a safe landing while evading the birds. Every time she made a hole and the balloon's air reserves rushed out, it healed and refilled as best it could by absorbing and repurposing the atmosphere around it. Despite the fact that she was using air faster than it could renew itself, it shrank slowly enough to get them to the ground safely until …

*peck*

"Mine!"

One of the birds' beaks had breached the bubble. Almost instantaneously after that word was uttered, the larger-than-usual hole made by the beak jetted the rodents across the city's sky. By the time the Up Berry came to a stop, it was small - way too small to make another move. The rats looked down at the ground.

"Think we could survive that fall?" Remy asked.

"I may be a bit pessimistic by habit, but I don't think so," she answered downheartedly. "Well ... I guess this is it ... I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"Are you kidding?!" Remy exclaimed. "I should be thanking you! I haven't had this much fun in ages!"

She smiled half-halfheartedly. Well, at least he was happy.

Just as the birds were on the verge of popping their bubble for good, there was a rush of green, a flash of gold, a slash of a knife and the rats were whisked to safety. For once, the seagulls' single'mine'ded chants died down as they watched their target being carried away by ... a boy in green, dressed like an elf, flying as fast as the wind itself?

The red rat's nose twitched in confusion (one of her little quirks). First sharks, then seagulls, and now a flying boy? Her perfume was bringing the strangest people out of the woodwork. On the other hand, Remy (literally grasped in the hand opposite to the one that held her) didn't seem as confused as she was.

"I can't believe it ... the stories are real! You're Peter Pan!" Remy exclaimed.

"You got that right!" the boy confirmed with a chuckle.

"And you can talk to rats?" Remy asked in awe. "The books never mentioned that!"

Peter shrugged. "Rats, fairies, you name it. It just comes with the territory of being awesome."

"Hey! Don't forget Tinker Bell!" chirped a fairy who flitted in front of Remy, casting a golden glow. "I know, I know: my beautiful brilliance is a little intense. It's like staring into the Sun, am I right? The books could never prepare you for that, but you'll get used to it."

"What books?" asked the red rat.

The fairy darted to the raspberry rodent and folded her arms, her radiance flashing to raging red. "What kind of cave have you been living in to have never heard of Tinker Bell and Peter Pan?!"

The red rat winced, intimidated. It didn't help that Tinker Bell's belligerent glow actually burnt a bit at that distance.

"I'm sorry!" the rat apologised. "I don't usually read books pertaining to anything but chemistry, perfumery or science in general!"

"Ugh, ignorant and you're a female too!" Tinker Bell insulted. "Usually, I'd try to get rid of you in a fit of jealousy, but I can't hate you when you smell so amazing! Somehow, your scent reminds me of all the things that make me happy: fruits, flowers, pumpkin muffins and sweaty animal suits!"

The raspberry rodent blinked. "Um ... sweaty what?"

"When you hang out with the Lost Boys as long as I have, you sort of start to love their horrid little stenches," Tinker Bell explained.

The red rat nodded, not knowing what else to do. Then her inquisitive eyes drifted to Peter Pan, and back to Tinker Bell. Several times, she glanced between the boy and the fairy, as if comparing them.

"How are you flying like that?" she finally asked Peter. "I mean, Tinker Bell's got wings, but you don't seem to need any. Are you a 'super' like The Incredibles?"

"Well, I am pretty super," Peter boasted, "but it's just a matter of faith, trust and a touch of pixie dust. That last part is the twinkly stuff trailing behind Tinker Bell, by the way. Bind those things together with the happiest thoughts and flying's as easy as one, two, five."

"Three," Tinker Bell corrected.

"Huh? What was that, Tink?" asked Peter Pan.

"You said 'one, two, five'," the fairy went on. "Three comes after two, not five."

The boy almost choked on his own shock. "T-Tink?! That sounds like educated stuff, and educated stuff sounds like SCHOOL! You know I've banned school across Neverland! Have you been BREAKING THE LAW?!"

"NO! Of course not, Peter! HONEST!" she frantically exclaimed.

He gave her a suspicious stare. "Alright, Tink, but I've got my eye on you."

So, Neverland was a place where common sense was borderline illegal? The red rat wandered what it would be like to live there. She shuddered: a nightmare (for her, at at least). The rodent decided to think about something else, like pixie dust. Could such tiny, glittering particles really bestow the power of flight? How did it work? What made it tick? She decided to subject it to a thorough, chemical analysis when she had the time. Tinker Bell was just ahead of her, which made it easy to open her crossbody bag and collect some of the twinkling trail behind the fairy. Suddenly, Tinker Bell looked back at the rat, causing her to self-consciously withdraw.

"Nice bag!" the fairy commented. "Did you make it?"

The rat began to answer: "A Barbie gave it to-" then she paused, realising how unbelievable her Toy Story would sound. "I mean, I salvaged it from an abandoned Barbie doll and tinkered with it to suit my needs."

The fairy grinned. "Tinkering, huh? You'll fit right in."

"Fit in where?" asked the rat.

"Neverland, of course!" Peter Pan explained as he pointed into the sky. "You can't really see it in the daylight, but it's the second star to the right and straight on 'till ... well, I can't say 'morning', 'cause this is morning, so let's just say it'll take us until evening to get there. We're gonna make you the first of the Lost Rats."

"Yay!" Remy cheered.

"Sorry, not you," Peter clarified. "We're gonna make you our Father. As a single parent, that basically means cooking, providing for the family and you're real small and easy to take advantage of, so we'll have no respect for your authority. Basically, you're gonna be kinda like a slave."

"But I get to cook, so still yay!" Remy repeated all the same.

"That's very nice of you, but I sort of live down there," the raspberry rodent declared as she pointed at the Earth below.

"Not anymore, you don't!" Tinker Bell happily informed.

"Hmm ... I see," the rodent calmly commented.

With that, she pulled a new, chemical sphere from her bag. Emanating an ecstatic glow, it was gold with flecks of blue hue rising from the top like sparks from a fire.

"Oooh!" Tinker Bell squealed. "What's that? It's almost as pretty as I am!"

"I call it a 'Joy Berry'," the red rat explained.

"So if I eat it, it will make me happy?" asked Tinker Bell.

"No, and no," the rodent answered. "You can't eat it, and it ain't gonna make you happy."

Without warning, the rat hurled the chemical ball ahead of Peter. He caught up with it, crashed into it and the ball exploded into luminous, golden mist bursting with what appeared to be blue firecrackers. Stunned, the boy stopped mid-flight and dropped the rodents.

"Ha ha! They never saw that coming!" Remy commended as he fell alongside the red rat. "Now you can save us with another Up Berry, am I right?"

"Um, well, you see, here's the thing: I only had one of those," she explained.

He shrugged. "Oh, well. I'm sure you'll figure something ou-"

"Tigger Berry!" she interjected. "I can save us with a Tigger Berry!"

Remy looked upwards. "Will the 'Tigger Berry' stop that flying metal fist from smashing us to ratatouille?"

"Of course it will!" she went on. "All I have to do is time it right and- Hold on, what did you say?"

She lifted her eyes just in time to see the speeding fist a few feet away, but at the last second it spread its fingers, enveloped the rats and everything went black.

The panicked red rodent had closed her eyes, assuming the worst. "I'm dead ... I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I died, I'm dead ... Wait a minute ..."

She dared to crack one eyelid, glance around, then open the other. There wasn't much light, but her eyes adjusted as she began to examine the fingers of the massive fist that encased them with little, investigative sniffles.

"Did I ever tell you your mannerisms are adorable?" asked Remy.

"Huh? Uh, no, but it's a welcome complement," she responded, only half focusing on him before returning her attention to their surroundings. "This metal hand ... It's familiar somehow. I recognise the design from my travels, but I can't quite place it. If only I had a little more info to go on ..."

They wobbled as they briefly lost their balance when the metal hand connected with something.

[I have caught them, Hiro,] declared a synthetic voice.

The one to respond sounded considerably more human. "Good job, Baymax!"

As usual, thank you for reading! Aside from the obvious seagulls, was anyone able to pick out the more subtle Finding Nemo reference in this chapter? What do you think of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell joining the party? How do you think they will react to Hiro and Baymax?