Hi, y'all! This is Scratch O'Brien, who does not own Peter Pan, but does own this story. If you steal it, I will find out and report you! I'm, sorry for being gone so long but you must forgive me because my teachers have nothing better to do with their time than cook up gargantuan homework assignments! Here is the second chapter of My Converse Match Your Tunic; as always, please read and review :)
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Late afternoon tea was a putrid affair. Aunt Jane believes that sugar is too sweet for children, (she denies the existence of "teenagers") and that adults should not use the atrocious stuff due to the need to protect their teeth. To make matters worse, artificial sweetner is too "New Age" for Aunt Jane's table. If the woman wanted New Age, she should go check out the Essence Hut -- central supplier of patchouli oil, incense, and weed to the local hippies all the way back in New England.
Dinner was even worse. After unpacking myself and Michael's bags while listening to John blather on and on about some guy from Don Quixote who tilted at windmills (whatever tilting is)I got to sit right next to my darling Aunt Jane, who perpetually smelled of mothballs and the noxious fumes of her floral old lady perfume. The fact we had to "dress" for dinner didn't help matters. I wore a hideous white knee-length skirt and an itchy pink sweater set my mother had bought me. John and Michael wore slacks, long-sleeved button-down white shirts and ties that looked uncomfortably tight. Aunt Jane wore a beige sweater that matched the paint on her car perfectly. My sandal-clad feet ached for my Converse.
After dinner, I ducked into the nursery to grab some normal clothing that hadn't been soaked in starch and ironed a quazillion times by my mother. I changed into jeans and a yellow shirt, then grabbed my imatation iPod whatchamacallit. I threw myself onto my bed and listened to my music.
"Wennnn-dyyyy, I can't find Barrrrr-neeeey."
Dangit.
Barney the Bear has been Michael's treasured companion since he got it for his first birthday. Michael had either skipped the imaginary friend phase or was going to go through it late in life (and I really hoped it was the former). Barney the Bear had curly brown fur and wore a bright purple rib-knit sweater. Barney the Bear was also about the size of a morbidly obese weiner dog and pretty freakin' hard to miss.
I started hypothesising. Maybe Mother hid it. She was forever trying to wean Michael of the childhood habits he had rights to, which is why I hater her so much. Wean isn't even thr right word. She just tried to take everything away cold turkey --"tried" being the operative word. Binky, nightlight, bedtime guard rails. Only the binky had Michael given up. All this thought put me in a crappy mood. "Try harder," I said and turned up the volume.
"Bu-bu-but..."
Wendy, you will not look at his puppy face this time. Don't look! No looking! Don't look at the puppy face... I turned my head just a little to my left but promptly turned it back. Don'tlookdon'tlookdon't...
I looked at him. And his big puppy eyes. His really freakin' big, sad puppy eyes. I sighed and turned off my imitation iPod whatchamacallit. As soon as it was on my nightstand Michael grabbed my hand and cheered as I was dragged on the search for Barney the Bear, knowing that if we didn't find him I would not get any sleep tonight because I would have to sleep with Michael in his twin-sized bed with the guard rails.
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Barney the Bear was found to be shoved inside a dresser drawer in the nursery filled with dust, sewing supplies and glitter. At least, that's what I tried to tell myself it was at first; but there was no denying it. This wasn't average craft-store glitter; it wasn't rough -- on the contrary, it was finer than the finest sand. It didn't sparkle; it had more of a very soft sheen. And it wasn't gold or red or blue or white or green or what have you. It was... well, I don't know. I didn't even know that color existed, and if I did I would have guessed that human eye could see it. But I guess it can.
And, another odd thing about that glitter: you touched it, and you felt like you were almost floating. Not quite, but almost. I turned to Michael; his mouth hung slightly open as he brushed the specks off of Barney the Bear's sweater. I turned to place my hand once again onto the very thin film of this ethereal dust...
SLAM! Aunt Jane had shut the door and, with a fervor I had no idea existed in her, began brushing and then slapping the not-glitter off myself, Michael and Barney the Bear.
"Why were you in that drawer?" She said in a shrill voice that was more than stern. It was angry and scared.
"We were looking for Barney the Bear, Aunt Jane, now will you please quit slapping us?" She paused, her hands poised in Michael's unruly tuft of red-gold hair that she had been smacking the not-glitter out of. She had an unreadeable face.
Moving her hands from Michael's hair, she began to speak, the same unreadable look on her face and the same tone of voice in her words. "You two will not ever go in that drawer again. And you will both take a bath, shampooing your hair twice. Scrub behind your ears and use the homemade lye soap under the kitchen sink. And then you will put these clothes and Barney the Bear into a plastic grocery bag that you will leave on the floor of the laundry room. Then you will change into your pajamas, go to bed, and you will not mention a word to John or your mother, do you hear?"
Michael clutched Barney the Bear to his chest as Aunt Jane glared at us, trying to hide the fear in the depths of her eyes.
"Do you hear me?" She murmered in a dangerously low voice that caused me to take an involuntart step back as I grabbed Michael's shoulders. I felt a shiver slide down his spine the same time another one went down mine.
"Yes Aunt Jane," we whispered, and scampered off like as quickly as we could to do her bidding.
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A meek and mild voice called out "Wendy?"
"Yes, Michael?" I sighed, as I turned from the book Mother was making me read.
"I don't have Barney." He was once again wearing his puppy face.
"You couldn't find him?" John interuppted.
Michael turned to John with big, sad brown eyes. "We did, but-"
"But Aunt Jane insisted on washing him," I finished.
"Yeah. Aunt Jane wanted to wash him," Michael echoed.
"Children! Light's out!" Aunt Jane said, her voice trilling up the stairs like the feet of so many Lost Boys.
"Yes Aunt Jane," we three children chourused like a well-rehearsed choir as we began the unfinished bedtime preperations. After marking my page, I lifted up Michael onto my hip and put him to bed. I turned off all the lights and plugged in Michaels night light. I was on the way to my bed when...
"Wendy?" The tiny, pitiful voice asked.
"Coming, Michael," I said, then grabbed an extra pillow from my bed so I could maintain some level of comfort squeezed in between the guard rails of Michael's bed with Michael himself, all over some sort of freaky not-glitter.
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'Twas short, I know. I will try to make them longer but I really liked where this one finishes! Please review!