Darling - K. Ancrum Page 0,24

you mind showing them, Darling?”

Wendy dug in her shirt and pulled out the acorn necklace.

Curly gasped and Tootles jumped to his feet.

“That’s a good one, miss!” Tootles shouted.

Even Slightly looked surprised. First and Second, on the other hand, were having some kind of wordless argument and were entirely focused on each other.

“Pardon me for asking, but why … are you here?” Prentis said, fiddling with his glasses.

“Um. Peter invited me to a warehouse party,” Wendy said.

“Oh.” Prentis put his chin in his hands. “I’ve heard those are very nice to go to. I haven’t been able to attend as of yet, but I’m sure when I’m a bit older I’ll get to go.”

“You definitely will,” Peter said, then turned to Wendy. “We don’t do super-underage drinking in this house. Gotta keep things on the level, you know?”

Wendy blurted what she’d been wondering since the minute she’d been untied: “Are you their dad?”

There was a long silence, and then everyone began to laugh. Curly doubled over and began wheezing alarmingly, and Second slapped him hard on the back.

Slightly shook his head, chuckling as he ladled his soup into some bowls. “I really hope not.”

“He’s more like our manager,” Prentis answered earnestly. He was the only one not actively guffawing. “Or perhaps our squad leader.”

“We have ranks, actually,” Peter said, wiping his eyes. “When I find them on the streets, I bring them home, get them to fit in. I’m the commander, and everyone else is ranked in seniority by age, just so we have something concrete to go on when it comes to who makes the rules. But anyway, I take them in. Give them what they need and all that. The only one who has somewhere else to go is—”

“Tink,” all the boys said in unison.

“I hear she has real parents out there somewhere,” First said dreamily.

“If they were really parents, she wouldn’t be here,” Second replied, crossing his arms.

“Oh, speaking of which,” Peter said, “Tink has some things you can change into. Proper party clothes. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you borrowed something. Curly?”

Curly scrambled to his feet and stood waiting for instruction.

“Can you take Darling to Tink’s room? Make sure she gets there safely?”

Wendy thought about Tinkerbelle’s size and considered her own. Tinkerbelle was at least five inches shorter than her and maybe a size double zero, whereas Wendy was probably a size ten. There was no way anything that tiny person had in her closet would fit her.

“Peter, I don’t think—” she started.

But Peter shook his head. “Don’t worry about it—she won’t mind. I’ll call you for dinner in a bit.” Peter slapped Curly on the shoulder, then crouched down to pick up Tootles, clearly considering this conversation over.

Curly and Wendy locked eyes.

“So. Uh … this way,” he said, ducking beneath the doorway.

Wendy followed Curly into a living room just as exceptional and beautiful as the kitchen. There were crates adhered to the walls. Each one was either crammed with books or odds and ends, organized by color: white light bulbs with white figurines and white marbles together, yellow rulers and yellow pencils and yellow figurines in their own crate, and so forth. The glass bottles on the ceiling continued from the entryway into the living room. They gave way to light bulbs speckled between them, throwing brown and green light over the room like a stained-glass mobile. The bottles were close enough that any wind from open windows in the house made them clink together. She also noticed nails and washers at the bottom of some of them that made an even crisper twinkling, filling the space with constant industrial music. The bottles even matched the color of the decor in the rest of the apartment, and were arranged with an eye for design: lighter brown bottles fading to darker brown bottles, mixing with darkest green and fading out to lighter green bottles. They hung in lengths that varied in millimeters and produced a textural wave like an ocean made of glass. They had a television here as well, and to Wendy’s surprise, a few game systems neatly arranged in crates.

There was a large old couch with haphazardly patched corduroy, and a few recliners that didn’t match. Nibs was sitting in one by the window, focused very hard on finger-knitting what looked like a large blanket.

“Hi,” Wendy said softly.

Nibs looked up, startled away from his work. He paused for a moment, as if to settle himself, and said, “I’m sorry. For scaring you earlier.”

Wendy almost