Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,35
shrug: Why? Perhaps to make motions to get a fuller explanation…but Wendy’s guilty conscience was way ahead of her.
“I traded it to Captain Hook in return for my passage here,” she said calmly.
Her shadow did a sarcastic little curtsy, as if to say, Thank you. Now we’re getting somewhere.
The seconds stretched out to infinity as Wendy watched the fairy register what she had said. She could feel the tropical sun on her back, feel the breeze from the sea lift the little hairs off her forehead, smell Luna’s clean but doggy fur scent as she waited for a reaction.
When the fairy’s eyes had widened further than it seemed possible, she dove at Wendy again.
Here and there and everywhere at once—pinching, pulling, yanking hair, biting.
Wendy covered her face and flung herself around the clearing, trying to get away from the creature without hurting her. It was like being attacked by an angry swarm of bees or a dozen fairies at once.
“Oh! Stop! Please!”
Luna leapt up and bit at the air, snapping and growling and trying to grab the annoying flying thing that was hurting her friend.
As she slapped madly at the air around her, Wendy prayed that neither one of them actually injured the fairy.
Finally Luna’s muzzle smacked the creature hard on her tiny behind, and she went tumbling head over feet, straight into a tree. She slid down it, landing in a heap among the roots.
“Oh no, are you all right?” Wendy cried, immediately running over despite the myriad pinches and tiny cuts she had suffered from the attack. She knelt down and cradled the stunned fairy carefully in her hands. The fairy sat up, swaying woozily. Then she leaned over and sank her teeth into Wendy’s thumb.
“Now stop that this instant,” Wendy said sternly, gripping her a little more tightly around the middle. “Let us try discussing this like adul—ah, like civilized people. I take it you are a friend of Peter’s?”
For yet again, this creature—this particular fairy—wasn’t one she had invented in her Never Land tales. And she didn’t imagine her brothers could have come up with anything like her.
The tiny girl pouted and frowned and crossed her arms sullenly. It was so adorable Wendy had to work very hard not to giggle.
“Well, I’m very sorry about what I did. I’m not proud of it. I messed up,” she admitted. “But look here. Your friend Peter left his shadow in my bedroom. Ages ago. Four years, in fact.”
The fairy blinked at this. Wendy couldn’t be sure how intelligent the fairy was; she took quite a bit of time to process this new information, and with surprise.
“Yes! Four years I’ve kept it safe, free from dust, awaiting Peter’s return. Of course, I had every intention of giving it back! I’m not a thief. But he…never returned.”
The fairy looked uncomfortable. Her eyes darted to the side and she squirmed a little in Wendy’s palm.
“For years I waited for him,” Wendy continued, trying not to sound too sorrowful. She was in the wrong, after all. “Every night I told stories about him, watched the night sky for him.…Then they moved me out of the nursery. Michael and John went to school. I was left all by myself, alone and waiting. And still he never came.
“I grew a bit despondent, I suppose. The boys didn’t want to hear my stories anymore. If it wasn’t for the shadow I would have begun to think I had imagined every last moment of Never Land. Life was just so dreary and dreich.…And then my parents bought me this stupid dog.…Not you, Luna,” she added before the wolf could even react. Luna wagged her tail happily. “And then they decided to send me away to Ireland. Ireland! They only want to see me settled down with some nice boy with a nice job at a nice office somewhere, or as a spinster governess in some remote location, and I don’t want either of those things. Not yet, anyway.”
Despite her anger, the fairy made a questioning tinkle that wasn’t too hard to interpret.
“Well, I don’t know what I really want. I want to see Never Land, obviously,” Wendy answered, indicating the world around them. She opened her fingers, loosening her grip on the fairy. “I want adventures. I want…I don’t know, other things. Certainly not to do laundry aboard a pirate ship for the rest of my life.
“Yes, I’m ashamed of what I did. It was a bad deed. But Peter can’t have missed his shadow much,