Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,102
They’ll help me out. They’re the best. Even Slightly. He just wants…he just wants…Ohhhhhh!”
He spasmed, contracting over his stomach again.
“Tink! Where are you? Tink!”
Peter put his hand up to feel for her like a blind man. The little fairy took his thumb and squeezed as hard as she could. His face was pale and glittering with translucent beads of sweat. His breath came in thin-sounding rasps.
Tinker Bell hesitantly leaned over. She kissed him ever so gently on the lower lip.
A fairy kiss, invisible and seemingly ephemeral, whose effects and existence would last as long as pixie dust.
Perhaps his breathing eased. Perhaps he looked a trifle more peaceful, despite his eyes rolling beneath their lids.
She wondered what it meant, the touch of human lips on her own—if it left any trace on her.
Hurry, Wendy, she jingled.
Wendy found the trufualuffs and the clearing with Hangman’s Tree in the middle of it fairly easily. Were men ever actually hanged from the nooses that dangled from its branches? She had never given it much thought when telling stories to the boys.…
Her landing was far more graceful than the first time there. Also more prepared for the slide down this time, she managed to use some pixie dust power at the bottom of the ramp to pop back up on her feet like a jack-in-the-box, immediately and somewhat unbelievably.
Luna, who had been lounging near the fire, leapt up joyfully and stuffed her nose into Wendy’s hand.
“Good girl! Miss me? I’ve had the most extraordinary adventures. What’s it been like here?”
The Lost Boys, figures of her tales of swashbuckling adventures under their leader, Peter Pan, seemed to be having a rare quiet moment. The older ones, Slightly, Skipper, and Cubby, were reclined in various supine positions on different furniture stand-ins: mushrooms, ledges, roots. The twins were playing some sort of game like jacks which involved swiping the other person’s jacks. They looked almost demonic with their quick movements and shiny white teeth bared in grins that contrasted starkly with their black masks. Tootles had what looked like a bright pink dormouse that he was petting and whispering baby-nothings to.
“Wendy!” He put the dormouse in his pocket and smashed into her, wrapping his arms around her legs, squeezing in next to Luna.
“Did you find Peter or his shadow?” Slightly asked, hopping down from his root.
“I—we—found Peter, yes. Can I have this?” Wendy asked, suddenly distracted by the honeycomb on the table mushroom. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten.
“I was saving it for—” Cubby began.
“Thank you,” Wendy said, for the first time in her life being a little rude. And why not? Everyone else in Never Land was. She couldn’t be expected to civilize an entire island of barbarians. “I’ll just take a piece.”
She broke it in two and immediately shoved half into her mouth, closing her eyes at the glorious golden deliciousness. It tasted like summer and flowers and something exotic. When she opened her eyes Slightly was regarding her with an amused expression.
“That’s lovely,” she added primly, not even bothering to look for a napkin. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Even without a bit of toast. Anyway, yes, we found Peter. He’s at Pegleg Point with Tinker Bell. Seems a bit peaked. As for his shadow, Hook still has it and is doing something unspeakable to it, maybe using it to find Peter. Hook wants Peter in hand—excuse me, hook and hand—before he destroys Never Land so that Peter is forced to watch it. Or something. According to the First. Pretty over-the-top villainy there. Anyway, it’s only a matter of time before the pirates reach him and Tinker Bell. Our job is to lure the pirates in, grab the shadow, and return it to Peter.”
The boys—and girl—all stared at her.
“Maybe she should be the new leader,” Skipper ventured.
Slightly raised a foxish eyebrow. “D’you mean to tell me you plan on using Peter as bait to catch old Codfish?”
“Yes. I’m just going to grab one of these apricots here. Before we go. Maybe three.”
She wished she had a bag to tuck them into instead of being forced to pop them all into her mouth at once. She was so hungry and they were so good there was a danger of the juice spilling from her lips and running down her cheeks. Which, again, would not have caused much of a scene in the den of the Lost Boys, but she wanted to keep up some appearances.