Straight On Till Morning (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,96
know how—”
But she was interrupted by a loud crowing, a resounding cock-a-doodle-do from Peter’s wide mouth.
He was grinning and spinning, hands on his hips, laughing, dancing.
“I get to fight the pirates for it!” he sang. “I get to battle old Codfish to get my shadow back! Oh, I’ve been meaning to give him another hook! This is a perfect opportunity! Well done, Wendy! You’re brilliant!”
He grabbed her hands and spun her around, causing Tinker Bell to go flying head over heels through the air and then land with a hard thump on the sand.
Wendy should have been over the moon that the legendary Peter Pan was delighted by her antics and was now dancing with her. She should have felt a happiness and satisfaction in her heart that she had never known before. Rather than earning his scorn or hatred, she had impressed her hero. It was a glorious, greedy feeling. One that Peter Pan particularly inspired; she could see herself doing anything to recapture that feeling, to make him feel that way about her again and again—if he couldn’t feel about her any other way.
But…
She looked over to where Tinker Bell had landed. The fairy was a little stunned and a little rumpled and glaring furiously.
At Wendy.
Not Peter.
If her eyes had been coals, they would have lit what was left of Wendy’s dress on fire.
Wendy quickly dropped Peter’s hand.
“Well, yes, but I’m still sorry. The shadow was never mine to trade. It was terribly selfish of me.”
“Oh, it’s all fine,” Peter said, waving his hands at her. “C’mon! Let’s go get the pirates!”
He turned and went to dive into the air, but paused on the ground in a ridiculous tiptoe pose.
“Little help here, Tink?” he asked.
The fairy shook her head forcefully, crossing her arms and pouting.
Wendy felt weariness descend upon her. This was the sticking point? This was where their quest ended? Despite the evolution of her and Tinker Bell’s friendship, Tinker Bell remained very much a fairy: prone to sudden passions, savage angers, swift tears, and whatever one moment demanded but the next moment forgot.
Just like Peter Pan.
Just like characters in story after story who never change because you don’t want them to. You want them to stay the same forever, like you wished your best friends or your relationship with your mother would.
Wendy watched the two of them bicker with a strange mixture of feelings. They were both like children. Wendy wasn’t really, not anymore. Despite living in her parents’ house and taking on tasks like Mother in a game of pretend and dreaming out the window and making up stories no one wanted to listen to. She had started to want other things, even if she couldn’t name them yet, and had grown tired of her current life.
But was that change so terrible, really?
Would it be better to stay in Never Land forever and never change?
To be the same talky, nervous Wendy forever? To always have the same desire to make others like her by taking care of them? To always be the same lonely girl who never fit in any world? To always dream and never do?
Sometimes stories needed to be pushed along. Things needed to happen. People needed to accomplish things. And as long as Peter and Tink were somewhere in the world, never changing, and Wendy knew that, she would be happy with whatever happened to her. As someone who changed in the course of a story.
As someone who changed the course of a story.
“Actually, she’s right,” she said, her wonderful, storytelling mind coming up with a useful plan that would make everyone happy—and behave.
“I mean, you should still give him the fairy dust, but he should really stay where he is. The pirates have been running all over the seas looking for him—it would be much easier to work this out by just having them come to us, don’t you think?”
Peter and Tinker Bell frowned almost identically in confusion.
“I’ve said this before: I really don’t think the three of us can go up against the pirates all by ourselves. I’m not that handy with a sword—a real one. I’m sure Tinker Bell can be quite dangerous in her own way. But as someone who has been actually captive to those seafaring hoodlums, I don’t know how much good fairy dust does against gunpowder and savage bloodlust.”
“I don’t need help!” Peter protested. “All I need is to be able to fly! I can take on old Hook by myself!”