Pan's Revenge (9 page)

As soon as the three girls enter the park,
the twins let go of their older sister’s hands and squirm away,
their pink dresses fluttering in the steady breeze. Angel strolls
on.

Hands in the pockets of my new leather
jacket, I amble a safe distance behind her. After another couple
hundred feet, she lowers onto a bench at the side of the pebbled
walkway and fishes a book out of her tote bag. She’s alone,
reading—there might not be a better time to meet her. I pick up
pace.

“Peter Pan!”

Baffled, I
whirl around to the voice of a young girl. “Yes?”

“Stop or I’ll skewer you from the back!” one
of Angel’s sisters shouts after the other, wielding a twig like a
sword.

“You can try, Captain Hook, but you have to
catch me first!” the other yells back over her shoulder. Laughing,
both children scurry in their neat strappy shoes across the lawn,
not cutting so much as a glance at me.

What the heck?

With my brows
pulled down to
a frown, I tear my gaze
away from them—and instead look into the shiny brown eyes of a
smiling Angel. She lowered her book and is staring at me from
across the path, her expression intrigued.

The moment
drags on, because I’m not sure what to do or say now. There’s only
this funny warmth spreading in my chest when I look at her.
Eventually, she breaks the awkward silence and asks, “Your name is
Peter, isn’t it?”

By
the rainbows of Neverland
, she recognized
me! I nod, a smile tugging on the corners of my mouth.

“
I thought
so, because you turned and said
yes
when Paulina shouted that
name. They are my sisters.”

My smile
slips.
“Oh.” But then, it doesn’t matter.
She’ll know who I am in a minute. “So you told them all about
Neverland?”

Angel laughs like this is a joke. I don’t get
it. “It’s actually their favorite story. I think in the past three
years I’ve read the book a thousand times to them.”

“
The book?” I
frown as I sit down beside her. More, how could she tell the story
over three years? It’s only been two months since she left
Neverland. She doesn’t look older to me, so there can’t have passed
more time here than in my world.

“Peter Pan?” she answers with a slight edge
to her voice. Then her face relaxes again. “You probably only know
the movie, right?”

Whatever is a movie?

I shrug, leaning forward to prop my elbows on
my knees, and mumble, “Yeah.”

“That’s alright. Disney did a great take on
the classic.”

My head starts to hurt. What in the world are
we talking about? I need to put an end to this and get down to the
point before she confuses the hell out of me. Slowly, I tilt my
head toward her. “Do you ever miss Neverland?”

Now she makes big eyes at me. “Miss it? Well,
that’s a big word, isn’t it?” She chuckles, and it sounds a little
uncertain. “Of course I’d love to go there somehow, but to miss it
means I’d have to have been there before. Right?”

“
Right.”
Which you
have.
But then it’s only logical that
she’d hold back with a stranger. “You have no idea who I am, Angel,
do you?”

She sucks in a breath, her eyes turning
sharp. “Why did you call me that?”

“Because it’s your name.”

“My name is Angelina. Only the twins call me
Angel. And I don’t remember telling you either of them.”

Now it’s my turn to chuckle about her
defensiveness. “Well, I might have been a little younger when we
last met. I’m Peter.”

“Yeah, I know. You said so before.”

“Peter…Pan.”

“
From
Neverla
nd?” Her tone is flat, like she’s
mocking me.

I straighten and lock gazes with her. “Yes.
James found a way to make me age.”

“James…as in Captain Hook?”

I nod.

“
And he did
something that made you look like twenty instead of just
fifteen?”

“Yes.” Finally, we get there. A surge of
relieve swaps through me and I smile.

A moment later, Angel starts to shake with
laughter, shocking the hell out of me. “Oh, now I get it! It’s a
joke! You’ve been to that one fancy dress party my dad threw for my
thirteenth birthday, right? Are our fathers business partners?”

“My father is dead.”

Immediately, she stops laughing, her
expression turning grave and her cheeks glowing pink. “I’m sorry. I
didn’t know.”

Why did she say that? James certainly told
her all about the tragedy of our past. Unless…she doesn’t remember.
An odd thought comes to my mind. When Angel came to Neverland, she
started to forget things about her home, about London. What if she
forgot Neverland after she returned to her world?

On the other hand, she and her sisters knew
my name, and they know about Hook, too. What by the rainbows of
Neverland is going on here?

I need time to think this through. Abruptly
rising to my feet, I obviously startle her, but I can’t worry about
that now. “I have to go,” I tell her curtly and spin on my heel to
walk away. Only when I look over my shoulder and find that Angel
and everyone else is safely out of sight, I fly up and back to her
house.

I’m stunned out of my mind when I discover
the pixie sitting on the chimney, her arms folded and legs
crossed.

“Tami! How did you get here?” I hiss.

“I followed you when you left the tree house.
But I can’t walk in the street like you.” She beats her wings a few
times to demonstrate what exactly kept her to stay hidden. “I don’t
think that there are many pixies in this world.”

I agree with her on that. “But why did you
follow me?”

“I was worried about you, Peter. And
obviously with good reason! What exactly are you doing here?”

Oh man, I hate it when Tami acts like a grown
up. It so doesn’t fit her appearance of an eight-year-old girl.

“I’m here to take revenge,” I tell her in a
voice gone frosty. “My plan was to kidnap Angel back to Neverland
and blackmail Hook. But something came up which I didn’t consider,
and it might present a whole new option for revenge.”

“What is it?”

“Angel doesn’t remember Neverland. At least
that’s what I believe after talking to her today, even though she
said some queer things about a book with me and Hook in it. I’ll
try to figure it all out later, when she’s back and I can slip into
her room again at night.”

“Again?” Tami’s pointy ears wiggle with
surprise. “Does this mean you’ve sneaked into her room before?”

“Yes. Last night when she slept.” Heck, why
do I feel the need to justify myself to a pixie? “Go home, Tameeka.
And don’t tell the Lost Boys where I am. I’ll talk to them
tomorrow, when I came up with the perfect strategy to get back at
Hook using Angel.”

Tami gets to her feet on the chimney, locking
gazes with me as we stand nose to nose and smacking me on the chest
wither tiny fist. “Shame on you, Peter Pan! Angel is a nice girl. I
liked her when she came to Neverland. And so did you and all the
Lost Boys. How dare you drag her into your plans of vengeance?”

“She told Hook about the treasure. Is that
reason enough for you?”

“No!” She leans back and crosses her arms
over her chest once again. “You know what I think about the
treasure. Let things rest…at least for a while.” Then her face
turns thoughtful. Not a good sign. I wish I could clap my hands
over my ears before she speaks on, but that would only end in me
getting pinched on the nose by her.

“Have you ever thought of offering Hook to
show him the way here in exchange for the treasure? He’s still
trying to find Angel, isn’t he? It probably won’t work until he
learns to fly, but you could help him there.”

“Shut up, Tami!”

The pixie gasps.

“
Look at what
the bloody codfish did to me!” I lift my arms to get her attention
back to the horrible aged body I’m stuck in now. “And you want me
to be nice to him? No way. If you’re not on my side in this, you
better leave me alone. I don’t need you to spoil this for me.” I
stomp my foot on the roof and pout. Hell yeah, I haven’t
felt
myself
like this since I woke up from my crazy long
sleep.

Tami’s chest
expands with a hurt intake of air. “
You
send me away?” Her angry face starts to glow red like a strawberry.
“You—you ugly old man!” Beating her wings faster than a butterfly,
she takes off to the sky and disappears in the beams of the
sun.

I want to
call after her, make her wait. But it’s not a good idea to shout up
here, when people might hear me. Also, if the pixie wants to be
stubborn, fine with me. I don’t need her, goddammit. And neither do
any of the Lost Boys. I can do this on my own.

Hunched
against the chimney, I wait until Angel and her sisters return from
the park. It’s a lot louder inside the house after they’re back. As
soon as dark falls and the streets are empty of those funny coaches
and people
walking, I take a flight
around the neighborhood to stretch my spine and get some blood back
into my limbs. On my return, all windows of the house are dark and
no sound is to be heard inside. Angel closed her balcony door
tonight but she’d left the window open. Lucky me.

Hovering a few inches above the floor
prevents my feet from making any sound which might wake her. Up on
the roof, I had a lot of time to think about her story of this book
about Neverland. It’s the one thing I’m after right now. There’s
nothing on her desk, and the chest of drawers only holds framed
photos and some boring books without pictures.

Sneaking over to her bed, I’m once again
tempted to touch Angel’s soft face while she sleeps. This
unfamiliar longing starts to get on my nerves. I want to shake it
off, but it stays, so I decide to ignore it and tear my gaze away
from her. With quite some surprise, I catch a glimpse of a book on
her nightstand then. There’s a smiling boy portrayed on the front
cover, his eyes big and ears pointed like those of a pixie. He’s
flying with a bunch of kids following him. At the bottom of the
cover stand two words.

Peter Pan.

A sneer
creeps to my face as I lift the book and skim through the pages.
Many pictures of pirates, a girl in a blue dress, mermaids, and
even Tami is in there. Amazing! I slide the book under my jacket
and fly out through the window again. Back on top of the roof, I
settle down and start to read.

It’s a story
about Peter Pan visiting a girl named Wendy. Funny thing, she lives
in London. He takes her and her brothers to Neverland for a big
adventure. They meet the Lost Boys—man, they do look a lot like the
guys in my tree—Tinker Bell, who seems to be a replica of Tami, but
with a jealous nature that is totally unlike the pixie I know, and
of course, Hook. He’s a hilarious character. Totally describes my
brother, minus the hook on his hand.

In the middle of the book, I happen across a
name I haven’t heard in a very long time. Tootles. In this story,
he’s one of the Lost Boys and marbles seem to play a special role
for him.

I remember
how I saved a boy called Tootles from Hook’s plank once. He never
became one of us though. Actually, I thought he headed off to the
port to live the
re. Now I’m forced to
rethink that easy assumption. After everything that happened
lately, here and in Neverland, is it really farfetched to assume
Tootles could have returned to his real world? Maybe he was the one
writing this story? But why in the world would he invent lies about
me and this Wendy girl?

I scratch my head. Things turn weirder by the
minute. Snapping the book closed, I put it aside and study the
stars. Angel knows about Neverland, but she doesn’t remember that
she’s been there. She knows who Peter Pan is, but she doesn’t know
who I am. For all it’s worth, she might not remember that not so
long ago, she fell in love with Hook.

Oh, the possibilities that come with
that!

If only I can
convince Angel that we’ve met before. That—a nasty shudder surges
through my body—she was in love with me and not with Hook. It would
kill him. And the pain would be worse than a sword through his
chest. My mouth curves up and I snicker.

Hook will
never find the way to London. Even if he does, it’ll be too late.
By that time, I’ll have planted the idea of him being the ruthless
pirate from this very book in Angel’s mind. Everything will be
perfect.

I fly back into Angel’s room and return the
book to its former place. Then I think about what I could take with
me to tease Hook when I see him next time. Maybe a piece of her
clothes to prove I really found her? No…I have a better idea. A
lock of her hair.

Cautiously rummaging through the drawers at
her desk, one by one, in search for scissors to cut a strand from
Angel while she sleeps, my hand touches something that makes me
stiffen.

A gem in the shape of a heart.

“PULL IT IN!” Smee shouts to the crew, but I
already know the net will be empty. Trying to catch a rainbow with
a fishnet when it lands on the ocean’s surface was a waste of time.
Just like running after them to capture one with a bucket or a
gunnysack which was our brilliant plan last night.

The men haul
the net on board, just to prove my hypothesis. There’s nothing in
there. Not even the ropes bear a single stain of rainbow
colors.
“Dammit!” It’s incredibly
frustrating to know what could help me get to Angel and just not
being able to collect it. I rake a restless hand through my
hair.