Wood Sprites by Wen Spencer

the world to hell and back and then needs him to kill the villain while she’s helpless someplace else. Oh, God, I’m so sick of these wussy princesses and evil women. We’ve done the evil witches of Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel, the evil queen of Snow White and the evil stepmother of Cinderella. Is this some kind of campaign against femininity? Our choices are the evil and usually ugly powerful female or the helpless princess, desired just for her beauty? And what the heck is this shit about evil stepmothers anyway?”
    “Well, it’s following a biological imperative that a female devotes all her attention to the children that carry her DNA as opposed to the DNA of another female.”
    “Oh, shut up, monkey girl, we are not cuckoo birds, tossing eggs out of nests and getting someone else to raise our chicks. We’re humans!”
    “Okay, Wilbur. What are we going to do about Elle and these damn mermaid zombie chicks?”
    Jillian giggled. “Oh, it would be worth it if I could rewrite it to zombies.” She grinned. “The boys would love it if it was a zombie play.”
    “They’re never going to let us do a major rewrite of a play again.”
    Jillian nodded, thinking. “Too bad there are more girls than boys. That way, if we found a play that the boys liked, they could just outvote the girls. Something cool. Like Macbeth .”
    “Like Macbeth but in plain English.”
    “It should have sword fights,” Jillian said firmly.
    “Robots. Dinosaurs.”
    “Elves.”
    “At least try to think like a boy,” Louise said.
    “It has to be a real play, not something we write, that boys will like.”
    “Do you think they made Lord of the Flies into a play?”
    “All the characters in that are boys. There has to be at least one or two girl parts, just so we can sway the girls that don’t fall under Elle’s spell. If we can get a couple of the girls on our side, it would work.”
    They thought for a moment. Louise found herself eyeing Tesla sitting statuelike inside their locker. Their mother had thought he looked liked Nana, the Darling’s Saint Bernard nanny.
    “What about Peter Pan ? Pirates. Sword fights. Indians.”
    “Native Americans,” Jillian muttered, frowning as she thought through the casting. “Elle would want to be Wendy. That would leave Mrs. Darling or Tinker Bell for me.”
    “You’d be Peter. He’s usually played by a girl.”
    Jillian’s face lit up. “Oh, God, that’s perfect. Elle wouldn’t want to be a boy, and I would have the lead!”
    * * *
    They had Library as their first-period class, so they spent the hour digging through what had been produced for Peter Pan .
    “God, I’m starting to understand why Mom never showed us the cartoon. What the hell happened? You take the most manly of boys—he runs around naked except for some leaves, and he fights pirates—and you turn his story into this.” Jillian turned her tablet to show off the big-busted blond Tinker Bell. “In the novel, Tinker Bell dies a year after Wendy goes back to London, and Peter forgets all about her.”
    Louise had forgotten that twist. “Ignore her. She’s poison to the boys having any interest in Peter Pan .”
    Jillian nodded. “We stick to the original play and focus on Hook and the pirates and the ticking crocodile.”
    “But what format are we going to use for the pitch? Boys don’t like to read. And most of the movie versions are girly.”
    Jillian flopped back from her tablet. “How about a music video? We do all things that are cool with Peter Pan and this ‘I’m a tough guy, don’t mess with me’ fight song with a heavy bass beat.”
    “Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor.” Louise sung the first song that same to mind.
    “Exactly.” Jillian opened up a file on her tablet and started to take notes. “Or at least something like that.”
    “So the Lost Boys, the tree houses, the island, the pirates, sword fights . . .”
    “Yes, a swordfight on the pirate ship!” Jillian