to be blushing, exactly, and there was little wonder or fear in his eyes. He grew nervous under her scrutiny.
“Come on, you can tell me,” Wendy prodded. “Is it that you actually want to join me and Tinker Bell? Looking for Peter Pan, I mean?” She tried to keep the hope out of her voice.
“No!” he cried. He immediately looked down and lowered his voice to its usual mumble. “I don’t want to see Peter right now. Maybe not even after he’s finished being angry or whatever. Maybe not ever.”
His voice…
It hit Wendy all at once. Skipper’s constant staring at her and his reluctance to speak. The especially baggy clothing he wore and soft, almost babyish face he had despite his height. The obvious desire not to be noticed by the new girl while being unable to take his eyes off her.
“Skipper, you’re a girl!” Wendy exclaimed.
The Lost Boys all turned around at her cry.
Skipper swallowed and hardened her look, but that was all.
“Sort of,” Slightly said with a shrug.
“What do you mean, sort of?” Wendy demanded.
“She ain’t like you,” Cubby said.
“Not like me? She’s exactly like me!”
“She doesn’t wear…” one twin began.
“…dresses and ribbons,” the other one finished.
“She don’t talk like you.”
“Her hair’s short.”
“She don’t feel like a mother.”
“Yes, yes, but those are all just externalities!” Wendy protested. “She and I both have…”
Well, nothing that could be said aloud in mixed company.
How old was Skipper? Old enough to be reminded of these things once a month?
Skipper’s eyes were tortoiseshell, her eyelashes short and black. Wendy found herself imagining the Lost Boy with long hair in a proper girlish curl down her back, a ribbon round her neck, and a simple but fetching strolling frock…
And realized it would have been ridiculous.
This girl was perfectly at ease and comfortable in her jacket and animal getup. Anything less freeing would have forced her to stand weirdly or made her look like a clown.
“But…how are you a Lost Boy?” Wendy finally asked, baffled.
“Always wanted to be one,” Skipper answered, voice strong now that she had decided to speak. “I saw Peter come and take boys away from the orphanage. Only boys. Everyone knew that. Only boys could become Lost Boys. So I became a boy. The nurses forgot. They hated me—they hated who I was when I was a girl. They could barely read, so I changed my name in the books. I was a boy. And then, when Peter came, he took…me.”
Everyone was quiet during her little speech. As if it were as natural and acceptable an escape plan as selling Peter’s shadow.
“But why did you want to leave the home? Did they…” Wendy leaned in close and lowered her voice. “Did they hurt you…as a girl? Is that why you wanted to leave?”
Skipper gave her a look of shock and revulsion. “No! I just wanted to be free. Like all of us. To not have rules and not brush my teeth and hunt and fish and have fun all day. To never grow up. Ever.”
“Right on, Skipper!” Cubby cheered. “That’s my Lost Boy!”
“But she’s not…” Wendy started to correct.
Slightly smiled at her confusion.
“She is a Lost Boy,” he said gently. “One hundred percent. Like all of us.”
“But that’s the problem,” Skipper said sorrowfully. “I’m not exactly a boy.”
“All right,” Wendy said uncertainly. “But…if it’s always been like this, why are you worried about it now?”
Skipper shrugged but looked a little desperate. “Peter don’t know. Not really. And Peter wants to kick Slightly out ’cause he wants new things. Peter’s always talking about silly girls. Stupid girls. There are so many…all over Never Land…and you in London.…And I guess Tink says he likes you, but you’re not like him, you know?”
Wendy considered this. True: Peter would never ask someone like Wendy to be a Lost Boy. He never did, in fact.
What would happen if she suddenly popped up in his crew?
“I see your point,” she said slowly. “I think, however, we can get this all straightened out. No need to worry about it right now. We’ll find Peter, retrieve his shadow, beat the pirates, have him make up with Slightly, and…then deal with you, however you wish. All right? But we’ll wait until things are a bit calmer and he can see things with a clearer head.”
Skipper nodded a little unhappily, but she had the look of a child who has just cried and is in the feeling calm and being mollified stage, tears having been sniffed away. Wendy wondered if the