The Grown Ups' Crusade Page 5

  Peter glowered at the rocky beach. Gwen looked between him and Starkey. What the captain proposed would solve every problem with the children's plans. They couldn't do this alone. Neverland was never meant to exist with such a dwindled population of magical beings. They needed help, and it seemed the only contingency willing to support them would be tenuous allies, not trusted friends.

  “Peter,” Gwen began. “We need help.”

  Too haughty to respond, he turned his head even farther away from her.

  “We can't do this alone, Peter. Don't sacrifice Neverland for a point of pride.”

  Starkey's face lit up and he plopped his tricorn back on his head. “Now there's a smart girl!” he said. “That's the voice of reason. Listen to that, Peter. Hear your mother out.”

  “She's not my mother,” Peter snapped.

  He held up his hands in deference to Peter's objection, but his tone was not without a note of sarcasm. “Pardon my presumptuousness.”

  None of this improved Peter's bitter mood, but he must have cared, and he must have had some command of common sense, because he ceded, “This isn't my decision to make.”

  His arms crossed over his chest, he looked at Twill.

  “I told you before, Starkey, I won't hold any boy back from Neverland,” Peter reminded him. “And I won't keep any here, either.”

  Twill shifted on his feet, uncomfortable with all the attention he had garnered. His wide eyes, like crisp, brown leaves caught in an unfavorable wind, darted everywhere. His hand stayed clamped on Rosemary's.

  “What do you think, Twill?” Gwen asked him. “Do you think it might be time to go home with your Dad?”

  “No!” Twill cried.

  “Theodore William Starkey,” his father reprimanded him, “haven't you any love for me?”

  “I don't want to go home.” Twill sniffled, starting to cry at the very thought of it.

  “Oh, Twill,” Starkey coaxed, “we won't go home.”

  The boy smudged his eyes dry on the sleeve of his shirt. “We… we won't?”

  “No, of course not. We'll sail the whole world over, all seven seas, and back to Neverland whensoever your heart desires. We have a ship, and will never have to return home again.”

  “No more school?”

  “None. I'll teach you to know directions by the stars, rig sails, and steer a ship in storm.”

  “No more math homework?”

  “All the math you'll ever need to know you'll learn, in time, with coastal navigation and naval trigonometry.”

  “No more chores?”

  “That's what our swabbie, Grouse, is for. A pirate captain's son doesn't do chores.”

  Twill's motivations made a sudden and visible shift. He looked again at his friends and saw some of them even looked envious of the offer. Smiling and excited, he looked like he might bolt to his father… until he remembered his hand.

  His smile faltered; his grip did not. “What about Rosemary?” he asked.

  Starkey gave a sad nod. “You'd have to leave her behind. Pirates and lost children don't get along.”

  “Rosemary could be a pirate, too!” one of the boys suggested.

  “She can't be a pirate,” another boy objected, “she's a girl! Girls aren't mean enough to be pirates.”

  In response, Jam walloped him upside the head and Blink gave his arm the meanest, prickliest pinch he'd ever had in his life. He quietly redacted his statement.

  “I don't want to be a pirate,” Rosemary said, morosely leaning into him. “You're my best friend, Twill.”

  “Rosemary's my best friend!” he cried.

  Starkey's confidence started to fold, Peter looked vindicated, and Gwen realized this plan and Neverland's defenses needed quick thinking and fast saving.

  “Well, you know,” Gwen began, “if Twill were a pirate, he could be your nemesis. Everyone has a best friend. It takes something special to have a nemesis.”

  Twill and Rosemary looked disarmed by this idea, but curious all the same. Hushed chatter moved between the other lost children. None of them had a nemesis.

  “Is that as good?” Twill asked.

  Gwen shrugged, feigning indifference before giving an excited elaboration, “Maybe even better, just in the opposite direction. You'll never have to worry about picking teams again, you can plot against each other, and whenever you see each other you'll get to exchange antagonistic banter.”

  The lost children buzzed with this idea.

  “What's antagonistic banter?” Oat asked in awe.

  “I don't know,” Goose answered. “It sounds important.”

  “Could we be arch-enemies?” Rosemary asked her sister, now that Gwen had established herself as an expert on adversarial relationships.

  “Of course,” Gwen answered. “Or even mortal enemies, if you wanted.”

  Rosemary began bouncing with joy at the prospect. “I've never had a nemesis before!”

  Twill seemed overwhelmed. “Um, well, neither have I…”

  She let go of his hand in order to grab his arm and shake him. “Will you be my nemesis, Twill?”

  “Well… okay, Rosemary!” he decided.

  He shoved her.

  She seemed taken aback, but only for a moment. She smiled and pushed him back. They pushed back and forth—poking, tickling, and pinching as well—until they had worked themselves into a fit of laughter.

  “I wish I had a nemesis,” Jam mooned, glum and disappointed.

  “Come here, Twill!” Starkey called. His son's happy feet pattered across the rocky shore and sent him running into his arms. Starkey picked him up and swung him around, to the boy's utter glee.

  The pirate captain set him back down as the boy's laughter subsided. “It seems we have a truce then, Pan.” Approaching the boy, he extended his hand. “Allies until the last of the do-gooders have left Neverland and her waters. Let's shake on it and seal the deal.”

  Peter did not uncross his moody arms. He nodded to Gwen with an impetuous jerk of his head. “I appoint Gwenny my emissary. She can shake for me,” he replied, immature to the end.

  “What's wrong, are you afraid of making a level deal?”

  “I won't shake a pirate's hand,” Peter insisted.

  “What's wrong with my hand?”

  “What's wrong with Gwenny's?” he countered. “Her hand is my word. You can ask Piper.”

  “That's an awful lot of trust to put in another,” Starkey remarked, eying Gwen, “but very well.”

  Gwen did not appreciate having this ceremonial gesture hoisted onto her. She remembered a similar sense of discomfort when she'd cut their deal with Piper. Why did Peter always thrust these mature responsibilities onto her? But of course, the question answered itself. Sheepishly, she accepted her speech and debate teacher's hand, and shook it with a healthy strength.

  “It's a smart and dangerous girl that's willing to make such deals,” he remarked.

  “It's a stupid man who needs to remark on the obvious,” she retorted.

  Starkey smiled at her.

  “You scabby scalawag!” Rosemary interrupted, yelling at Twill. “You won't get away with this!”

  In response to such a vicious insult from his nemesis, Twill squinted his eyes, wrinkled his nose and hollered the loudest “Arrrrrrrr!” he could muster.

  Starkey leaned over and swept his son into his arms again. “You're going to be great at this, Twill.”

  Chapter 9

  Twill boarded the red dinghy with his father, the snake-necked pirate, and the kidnapped janitor. He looked doubtful as the boat pushed off, but then Rosemary shouted more insults at him. He shook his fist menacingly at her, his confidence returned. A few lost boys ran down and started chucking rocks at the nefarious traitor, but the dinghy had already escaped their range, and the show of hostility was all in good fun.

  The children returned to their preparations, except for Rosemary who felt adamant that she needed to plot against her nemesis first.

  Evening wadd
led forward like a fat, old pig, eventually collapsing the day into darkness. This went much against the children's desires, but their stomachs called them to dinner by rumbling as much as Inch and Scout called them by ringing dinner bells. Afterward, they settled down with full tummies and contented spirits to hear the next installment of Gwen's story, to know what happened next to Margaret May.

  By the time the youngest children started snuggling into each other and letting their eyes droop, Gwen had only just reached the part where Margaret May found the raven tree. A few months back—or some short infinity ago—Gwen had been forced to stop there by her mother. Back home, her mother had reprimanded for keeping Rosemary awake. Back home, she hadn't suspected anything would come of planting such fantastical and adventurous ideas in Rosemary's head.

  She brought the story installment to a close—to the disappointment of some, and the yawns of others. In short order, all the lost children stomped away to bed, ushered by the fairies, who knew they children would need all the energy they could muster for one last day of preparations tomorrow.

  Gwen had never had insomnia before reaching Neverland. Always sleep-deprived from the demands of high school, she leapt at every opportunity to cuddle into the comfort of her pillow and whatever vague dreams awaited her. Now, she counted Rosemary's muffled snores like sheep and tried to clear her mind. The same questions kept returning to her.

  She sat up in bed, the quilt slumping off her. The heart inside her chest seemed to pound harder with every minute she remained in the dark underground home with her thoughts. She had no one to talk to. Everyone had fallen asleep, and even in the daylight, all they could only distract her from these complicated troubles. Even Peter was too invested in his childish identity to give her worries a serious audience. Once she had used Lasiandra as a sounding board, but Lasiandra had transformed into just another concern circling in her head.

  Of course—the thought tip-toed into her mind—there were people in Neverland that she could have a serious, adult conversation with. One in particular, who she had trusted and respected back when they both lived in reality. Gwen sat in bed a minute more, entertaining that thought. Ashamed of herself, she lay back down in bed and resolved to calm herself and fall asleep on her own.

  After fifteen minutes of compulsive worrying and no progress, her resolve started to falter. By the time half an hour had passed, she found herself slipping out of bed. Creeping through the cavernous halls of the underground home, she passed all the children lost in the murmuring dreams of Neverland. Moving even slower through the main room where Peter still hung his hammock and slung himself into sleep, she slipped up the big oak tree and out into the warm night.

  No breeze fluttered her dress. Neverland itself seemed to sleep as if it, too, wanted to rest and prepare for what lay ahead. “Do I really trust myself this much?” Gwen muttered. Talking to fairies had become so second-nature, and they always seemed to be around. When they weren't, Gwen talked to herself to vent her musings.

  She had always asked herself that question though. All at once another, opposite question occurred to her: what if I'm not trusting myself enough? On an impulse she decided not to question, Gwen stepped off the oak tree. She did not lift off. She did not jump into the air. She stepped, and fell.

  Her heavy, cotton nightgown fluttered in fear, but she embraced the free fall. She closed her eyes. She listened to her heart beat and her blood pulse, but she didn't mind them. It was only fear, and she wouldn't indulge it.

  With a deep breath, Gwen opened her eyes and saw the ground as she hurtled down. With instinctual swiftness, she started flying and curved up, pulling out of the dive with grace and adrenaline. Redirecting her downward momentum slung her in a beautiful arc that sent her flying faster than she ever had before. Soaring over trees, she cut across Neverland. Her bird's eye view directed her toward the edge of the island where Starkey's ship sat moored in the moonlight.

  Flying lower, she dropped toward the water and misjudged how far away it was. She recoiled when she felt the water's spine-chilling cold on her bare feet. She still wasn't used to not having a shadow. It had been a small loss during their suburban battle. Sliced free by Starkey's sword, it had fled into the night. She missed it in an abstract way, but her lack of shadow only troubled her when she tried to make spatial calculations at night. Her wet feet dried as she flew, and she did not make the mistake again.

  She approached the Grammarian, its reddish timber glowing with the ghostly shine of its wood wax. Gwen landed on the proud ship and paused before floating across the deck. Sails overhead beat like a slow, thumping heart in the maritime wind. She heard profanity-laced chatter from the other side of the deck while a few mates discussed mermaids in very vulgar terms. Dipping into the shadows, Gwen flew over to the wall of the ship. Out of sight, she waited until the crew's voices drifted further away, toward the bow of the boat.

  She didn't know what would happen if a pirate caught her sneaking around. She only wanted to talk to Starkey. Would this be construed as espionage? Would they take her hostage? She couldn't waste energy worrying about these problems. Whatever happened, she would deal with it. Pirates couldn't be that unreasonable. They were adults, after all.

  She suspected the captain's quarters would be—as it often was in novels and movies—above the hull. The dark body of the ship with its tiny porthole windows stored goods, cannons, powder kegs, and the crew. Starkey, she felt, would settle for nothing less than quarters as bright and well-lit as his old classroom. He was not a dark man, Gwen thought.

  She spied a flickering light at the top of the front mast. In the crow's nest, some studious pirate read by lantern light. Gwen took care to move slowly and evade his attention as well. She crept toward the back of the deck, along the cabin wall. When she rounded the corner, she noticed a faint light seeping out from underneath a door on the side. The light suggested someone inside and awake. She froze, half-convinced a rummy pirate would stumble out into the night and find her. The petrifaction passed, and she moved closer to the door.

  She heard music, but it played too quietly for her to tell what style. In bright, blood-red letters, an elaborate cursive script labeled the door G.M.S., which she assumed was Starkey's monogram. Gathering her courage, Gwen knocked, her nervous fist stuttering at the door.

  With casual ease, Starkey called in response, “Come in.”

  Chapter 10

  No less apprehensive now that she was invited in, Gwen pushed the door open and then closed it behind her. Starkey, expecting one of his crew, did not look up. He sat with his feet on his desk and his attention on several parchment papers—old maps and archaic documents—while he gnawed on a lump of sourdough bread.

  Candles hung on the walls, dripping wax onto their mounted holders and casting a warm light onto everything. An ancient gramophone filled the room with mellow chamber music. A massive Persian rug carpeted the floor, and Starkey sat at a noble desk, his dinner sitting beside an outdated globe and the same stained glass lamp he'd always kept on his desk at school. Too tongue-tied to say anything, Gwen stood at the entrance to his quarters, waiting for acknowledgement.

  Eventually, Starkey looked up. His eyes went wide and he set his fountain pen back in its golden stand. He took his feet off his desk and straightened in his plush leather seat. “Well hello, Miss Hoffman,” he greeted her, his curiosity and surprise melding in a happy expression. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Starkey,” she replied. “I was wondering if you might have a moment to talk.”

  “Always, Gwendolyn,” he said, his cheer and demeanor as agreeable as Gwen remembered from her time in his class. “Come, have a seat.”

  She walked over, the Persian rug feeling like cashmere against her cold, almost numb feet. As she sat down in a chair opposite Starkey, he offered, “Can I get you something to eat? Would you like a glass of wine?”

  Seized by this spirit of hospitality, he grabbed the wine bottle and a second glass before s
he could object, “Mr. Starkey, you know I'm a minor.”

  He cast her a questioning look, but saw she was serious. “I suppose if you were the drinking sort, you wouldn't have ended up in Neverland, hm?” Pouring half an inch of wine into the glass, he set it in front of Gwen. “Regardless, a small celebration is in order. You did some clever thinking this morning to manipulate everyone into our deal.”

  The compliment struck her like an accusation. She hadn't thought of it as manipulation. She didn't manipulate her friends. She had just done what she always did in Neverland: she had spun the story to make it amenable to everyone. Peter, especially, made it a point of pride to never listen to reason or let anyone else have their way. She had learned early on that if she needed anything from Peter, she had to convince him it was his idea… Was that manipulation?

  Her face must have betrayed how this thought troubled her, because Starkey told her, “You must understand I say that with the utmost respect—you did a very good thing in very clever way. A shrewd mind is one of the best virtues a soul can have.”

  “Maybe for pirates.”

  “And the girls who sneak out to meet with them,” Starkey added. He sat back and kept his eyes on Gwen as he remarked, “I can't imagine Peter knows you're here right now.”

  “Um, no,” she answered. There were quite a few things Peter didn't know about her, she realized. Fidgeting, she put her hands on her wine glass and let her fingers run over the carved surface of the crystal.

  Starkey picked up his glass. “To smart deals and victories to come,” he proposed, but Gwen didn't lift her glass for the toast. Instead, Starkey pulled back and told her, “I hope you know this puts things right between us. I have to admit, I was fairly furious with you after Twill disappeared. I appreciate you facilitating his return.”