Pan's Revenge by Anna Katmore

Peter Pan! Angel is a nice girl. I
liked her when she came to Neverland. And so did you and all the
Lost Boys. How dare you drag her into your plans of vengeance?”
    “She told Hook about the treasure. Is that
reason enough for you?”
    “No!” She leans back and crosses her arms
over her chest once again. “You know what I think about the
treasure. Let things rest…at least for a while.” Then her face
turns thoughtful. Not a good sign. I wish I could clap my hands
over my ears before she speaks on, but that would only end in me
getting pinched on the nose by her.
    “Have you ever thought of offering Hook to
show him the way here in exchange for the treasure? He’s still
trying to find Angel, isn’t he? It probably won’t work until he
learns to fly, but you could help him there.”
    “Shut up, Tami!”
    The pixie gasps.
    “ Look at what
the bloody codfish did to me!” I lift my arms to get her attention
back to the horrible aged body I’m stuck in now. “And you want me
to be nice to him? No way. If you’re not on my side in this, you
better leave me alone. I don’t need you to spoil this for me.” I
stomp my foot on the roof and pout. Hell yeah, I haven’t
felt myself like this since I woke up from my crazy long
sleep.
    Tami’s chest
expands with a hurt intake of air. “ You
send me away?” Her angry face starts to glow red like a strawberry.
“You—you ugly old man!” Beating her wings faster than a butterfly,
she takes off to the sky and disappears in the beams of the
sun.
    I want to
call after her, make her wait. But it’s not a good idea to shout up
here, when people might hear me. Also, if the pixie wants to be
stubborn, fine with me. I don’t need her, goddammit. And neither do
any of the Lost Boys. I can do this on my own.
    Hunched
against the chimney, I wait until Angel and her sisters return from
the park. It’s a lot louder inside the house after they’re back. As
soon as dark falls and the streets are empty of those funny coaches
and people walking, I take a flight
around the neighborhood to stretch my spine and get some blood back
into my limbs. On my return, all windows of the house are dark and
no sound is to be heard inside. Angel closed her balcony door
tonight but she’d left the window open. Lucky me.
    Hovering a few inches above the floor
prevents my feet from making any sound which might wake her. Up on
the roof, I had a lot of time to think about her story of this book
about Neverland. It’s the one thing I’m after right now. There’s
nothing on her desk, and the chest of drawers only holds framed
photos and some boring books without pictures.
    Sneaking over to her bed, I’m once again
tempted to touch Angel’s soft face while she sleeps. This
unfamiliar longing starts to get on my nerves. I want to shake it
off, but it stays, so I decide to ignore it and tear my gaze away
from her. With quite some surprise, I catch a glimpse of a book on
her nightstand then. There’s a smiling boy portrayed on the front
cover, his eyes big and ears pointed like those of a pixie. He’s
flying with a bunch of kids following him. At the bottom of the
cover stand two words.
    Peter Pan.
    A sneer
creeps to my face as I lift the book and skim through the pages.
Many pictures of pirates, a girl in a blue dress, mermaids, and
even Tami is in there. Amazing! I slide the book under my jacket
and fly out through the window again. Back on top of the roof, I
settle down and start to read.
    It’s a story
about Peter Pan visiting a girl named Wendy. Funny thing, she lives
in London. He takes her and her brothers to Neverland for a big
adventure. They meet the Lost Boys—man, they do look a lot like the
guys in my tree—Tinker Bell, who seems to be a replica of Tami, but
with a jealous nature that is totally unlike the pixie I know, and
of course, Hook. He’s a hilarious character. Totally describes my
brother, minus the hook on his hand.
    In the middle of the book, I happen across a
name I