The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 9

Ashley turned fast at the sound and found Peter gliding beside her, a few feet off the ground.

"Those are the wild beasts," he said. "Don't go too far away from me. They'll kill you if they can. They're starving."

"Where are the-the Native Americans?" Ashley asked.

Peter gave her a blank look.

"Tiger Lily, I mean, and the others," Ashley said, summoning up the name from the book.

"Most of them died," Peter replied. "The others went away."

Her grandmother had made sure she always had pepper spray under her pillow. Ashley wished now that Grandma Tracy had told her to always dress for an abduction. Bare feet and glittery pink pajamas were not exactly ideal for a trek through Neverland.

She kept walking, though, until they came to Marooners' Rock. The rock was just the same. The lagoon stretched around it, black and viscous, like tar with ghosts moving in it.

It took Ashley a moment to realize that the gray shapes, their ragged fins dragging the surface, their hair like clogged seaweed, were the mermaids who used to toss bubbles to each other and sing. Peter flew over to hover above the lagoon like a huge dragonfly.

"What-" Ashley said, and stood rubbing the goose flesh out of her own arms. "What happened here?"

"There was a Lost Boy who came back," Peter said distantly. "He had-he was a-"

Peter choked trying to say the word "grown-up" with the same trouble other people had talking about death.

"He thought there was a profit to be made of the Neverland," Peter said. "He learned too late that he was wrong."

Peter twisted in midair until he was floating on his back, kicking at a breeze. A mermaid reached up out of the waters to touch his heel: her fingers were withered and gray.

"But the island changed before that," Peter admitted. "Children's dreams were changing."

That was what Grandma Tracy had seen, the spring Peter had come for her. That was what had scared her so badly. The beginning of this.

"I knew that I wasn't wanted," said Peter. "Windows have been barred against me before. I didn't come for the next girl, did I?"

"Yep, thanks for not kidnapping my mom," said Ashley. "Big of you."

Peter came to settle on Marooners' Rock, sitting near where Ashley stood. The mermaids swarmed in the waters about his feet like goldfish wanting to be fed.

"I knew I wasn't wanted," he said. "But... I still need a mother."

He leaned trustingly against Ashley's legs. Ashley, who was a kind-hearted girl, resisted the impulse to push him into the lagoon.

"Times have changed, Peter. A lot fewer girls dream of being mothers. Some of them want adventures of their own."

You will have to forgive Ashley. She did not know Peter very well yet.

She began to know him better when he tilted his head back to grin up at her. His curly hair was against her knee, and his smile was a devil's.

If Satan had all his baby teeth, that is.

"You want an adventure?"

"Peter," said Ashley, with commendable, but much belated, caution. "Peter, noooooo!" noooooo!"

I would not have you think Ashley screamed out of fear. In fact, she screamed because Peter had seized her up and was flying with her through the trees.

Hang gliding is a bit alarming at the best of times. When your hang glider is a flying boy criminal, it is most unnerving indeed.

They zoomed over the trees of Neverland, wind rus.h.i.+ng in their ears. Ashley soon ran out of breath to scream.

"Fly!" Peter yelled encouragingly. "Fly, fly! All you have to do is think happy thoughts!"

He began to let her go when a furious tinkle from Ninja Star, like a dinner bell in a panic, gave him pause.

"What's the fairy saying?"

"Oh," Peter said airily, "zie says that if I don't blow fairy dust on you, you will plummet to your death."

"Plummet to my death!"

"I think you're being most unfair," Peter said to Ashley sternly. "I cannot be expected to remember every little thing."

He detached an arm from around her-I confess she screamed again-and reached out for Ninja Star, who he shook expertly over Ashley's head like a top chef with a saltshaker.

"Suspended in midair with a boy pouring glitter on me," Ashley muttered. "I was really looking forward to being old enough to get into nightclubs. Now? Not so much."

"Nonsense, being old isn't any fun, everyone knows that," said Peter briskly. "Quick, happy thoughts!"

"Peter Pan in jail for kidnap and a.s.sault!" Ashley yelled. "Peter Pan gets a twenty-year sentence! No! Ever so much more than twenty!"

Peter dropped her.

He managed to catch her before she dashed out her brains and broke every bone in her body on the rocks below, but it was a very near thing.

"You idiot!" Ashley screamed, grabbing hold of his shoulders and shaking him. "I nearly died!"

Peter made play with his eyebrows. "Well, yes," he said. "That happens with adventures."

The tree house was very cold at night, and Ashley could hear the mermaids howling like wolves in the moonlight. Peter seemed to drop off instantly to sleep, but Ashley had no plans to escape her captor. For one thing, she had no idea how to get back from Neverland, and for another, she had no desire to have her head bitten off by a wild beast. She huddled under a blanket of flowers and leaves, and tried to sleep.

In the morning Ninja Star woke her by tinkling about her head like a glittery mobile alarm clock. Ashley thought longingly of home, and flyswatters.

Upon further study of Ninja Star, who was a violent blue color and covered in scars, Ashley decided she probably wouldn't dare.

"Zie wants to know if you would like to train with zir team," Peter translated in gentlemanly fas.h.i.+on.

Ashley's brow furrowed. "She-"

"Zie," Peter said. "Ninja Star is inters.e.x. That's what zie prefers."

A line from the book floated through Ashley's head: the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are. the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.

Ashley wondered why she'd never noticed that line before.

She also noted that Ninja Star looked pretty sure of what she was.

She was right. Fairies, as you and I both know, only ever feel one feeling at a time. Ninja Star spent 99 percent of zir time feeling fierce.

"Why is-um, zie-called Ninja Star?"

Peter looked rather shocked at Ashley's ignorance. "Because zie is the best ninja, of course."

Ashley chose her next words with care. "Are... all your fairies ninjas, Peter?"

"Naturally," said Peter with a lofty air.

Ashley was left with a dilemma. On one hand, these were the survivors of Neverland, the battle-scarred companions of Peter Pan, fierce and deadly warriors. On the other, they were about three inches high and glittery.

"I'd be very honored to train with you," she told the blue blur that was Ninja Star.

From then on Ashley trained most mornings with the ninja fairies on the sh.o.r.e. She tried her best, but I confess sometimes Ninja Star despaired: she was so big and clumsy, it was hard to teach her to be stealthy like the ninja. And, of course, not being able to fly, Ashley could not perform the ninjas' very best trick- aggressive skydiving at the enemy's eyeb.a.l.l.s.

Nevertheless, it cheered Ashley up. She was a girl who liked to keep busy.

She was also growing more used to Peter. He has a way about him, it must be admitted. If Peter awake fails to charm, Peter asleep is a heartbreaker.

On the third night in the tree house he woke Ashley, crying and shaking in his sleep. Ashley remembered his dreams-the sore shaking dreams of a boy who had lived through a hundred childhoods and a thousand lost, dark memories-not from her grandmother's stories but from Wendy's book. Wendy had loved him.

He had more dark memories now than in Wendy's day, and he was older, at last. Ashley could not hold him, but she did her best. She stroked his wild curling hair until he was quiet.

"What did you dream last night?" she asked the next day.

"Dream?" said Peter, and laughed a blithe sweet laugh. "I have so many adventures when I'm awake, I never have to dream!"

"You dreamed something last night," Ashley persisted, following him. He was playing a game of leapfrog from one toadstool to the other. You would think they might break under Peter's weight, but they never did.

Peter spun on his toadstool, and Ashley found herself staring down the length of his blade.

"No, Ashley lady," he said. "I never dream."

Ashley stepped back. Peter sheathed his sword and performed a cartwheel in midair.

"What adventure shall we have today? Do you want to-"

"No, I don't," said Ashley. "I've told you. I don't want to be your mother, and I don't care for Neverland!"

She turned on her heel and then found Peter hovering before her. He was very irritating that way.

"Oh well," he said. "Why didn't you say so? Would you like to go on one of my missions for the Queen?"

I am afraid to tell you that Ashley was not what you might call a trusting soul. She did not believe a word of Peter's tale about being a spy for Her Majesty's government.

In her defense, Peter did tell the Taj Mahal story.

Of course she did not believe him, but she did see an opportunity.

"If I go with you on this adventure," she said, with great cunning. "Shall we play a game? Shall we have a bet, between us?"

Peter's eyes lit. "Yes!"

"Great," said Ashley. "If I don't like this adventure, and if, after it, I still want to go home-you have to take me."

Meeting the Queen of England is an important event in a girl's life. The social niceties should be observed. Little things like using the correct fork, dropping a deep enough curtsy, and not breaking into the royal boudoir while wearing pink pajamas.

Ashley found herself rather embarra.s.sed before she realized that the Queen was responsible for her kidnap.

"Doesn't that strike you as a bit of a terrible thing to do?" she demanded, cutting her off as the Queen briefed Peter about a new mission.

The Queen had taken the break-in with great aplomb, sitting up in bed and reaching for her spectacles with one hand while waving away her killer butler with the other. A little thing like being accused of a criminal act was hardly going to faze her.

"My dear child, I do a hundred terrible things before breakfast, that is the role of the monarchy." She directed her spectacles toward Peter again. "Do you understand the situation, Mr. Pan? I would like you to apprehend the person who has invented this device to multiply the ma.s.s of objects by ten."

"You can rely on me with absolute confidence!" said Peter, who was perched on the edge of a priceless Ming vase.

The Queen rubbed her royal brow. "May I stress that 'apprehend' means 'bring to me,' Mr. Pan? We need this person's brain in her head, rather than-I pick this example purely at random-impaled on one of the clock hands of Big Ben."

Peter rolled his eyes in protest at this senseless rule.

"I am forced to trust in your discretion, Mr. Pan," the Queen said. "Remember that the fate of the free world rests in your hands."

It was very unfortunate that at that precise moment Peter aimed an idle kick and shattered the Ming vase into a thousand pieces.

"Oh my G.o.d, you-you... Your Majesty," exclaimed Ashley, not quite outraged enough to insult royalty. "I beg your pardon. But are you insane? The fate of a boiled egg shouldn't rest in his hands! Isn't there some other agent you can send?"

"Another agent with the power of flight and little helper ninjas?" the Queen asked, her brows lifting above the frames of her spectacles. "I regret to say, no. Please close the window on your way out, Mr. Pan: last time there was a shocking draught."

"So will we have to stake out the town?" asked Ashley, who was beginning to get enthusiastic about being a spy. Being personally given a mission by the Queen of England is very motivating. "To see which house is the crazed inventor's-oh!"