Neverland Read Online Free

my feet and fight my way past Peter and the boy who’s wearing his black hair in a ponytail with an undercut, and off the pillow and mattress nest.
    Peter is at my side in a second again, taking my hand to drag me on. “Don’t be sad. We’ll practice with you every day, and soon you’ll fit right in with us.”
    Practice? Fit right in? Didn’t he just hear me? “I’m not going to live here, Peter. I told you that I have to find my way home.” I pause. “And what was that about the Lost Boys anyway?”
    “We can discuss this later. First, I want you to meet someone.” He grins, the wooden sword still in his hand.
    Even though there were so many windows on my ride down here, I notice that this place is unusually dark for daylight, but tinted in a soft glow. There are no windows in this section, so I scan for the source of the light.
    “Candles?” I burst out as I shoot around to face Peter. “Inside a tree?” Lanterns are placed everywhere. Our shadows are dancing on the wall, and for a tiny second I think Peter’s shadow is mocking me by lifting its shoulders, even though Peter himself just looks at me with his hands in his pockets.
    I’m getting a really bad feeling in here.
    “Relax, Angel.” Peter rolls his eyes. “We might not be grown-ups, but we’re not stupid. We know how to handle fire. Anyway,” he changes the subject and drags me past the mattress playground toward a small door. “This is Tameeka’s room. Let’s hope she’s home.”
    Did he say room? But all this is much too big to fit into a tree. How’s that possible? I stroke my palm across the wall next to the door. It’s made of stone. And mud. Realization begins to dawn; we’re no longer inside the tree. This place is built beneath it, into the earth. What a brilliant idea! Now it’s clear why they need all the candles.
    Peter knocks on the door and I stand back until it opens. A thin girl, maybe eight years old, pops her golden blond head out. As I see her sparkling green eyes and her pointed ears peaking through the locks, I gasp.
    “Tami, meet Angel,” Peter introduces us as Tameeka emerges from her room. “Angel fell out of the sky today.”
    Seeing her full feminine figure, I clap my hands over my mouth. This is no normal child. She wears a short dress made of ivy leaves and there’s a pair of see-through butterfly wings attached to her back. Dear God, am I on some magic mushroom high?
    Tami comes forward, pirouettes on her bare toes and curtseys in front of me. “Nice to meet you, Angel.” Her voice sounds like Christmas bells. “Did you get lost?”
    “Well…yes,” I murmur, shaking her tiny elfin hand. “How did you know?” But considering there’s a house built into a tree, Peter can fly, and she’s something closer to a fairy than a human child, I shouldn’t wonder, really.
    Tami tilts her head and smiles like I missed the obvious. “Everybody Peter brings here got lost somehow.”
    I turn to Peter Pan with quirked eye brows. “Really?” Then my gaze skates across the boys in the room.
    They avoid my look, tuck their hands deep into their pockets, and poke their toes into the ground. All but Sparky. The stout boy just peels a banana and shoves it into his mouth, grinning and shrugging his shoulders. “Neverland is cool. None of us ever want to leave again,” he tells me around the banana mush.
    I face Peter. “You brought all the guys here to live with you?”
    “Well—” He sounds defensive all of a sudden as he jumps backward up onto one of the hammocks, where he swings leisurely back and forth. “I gave them a home when they didn’t know where to go. Toby and Stan were washed up on the shore one day, Skippy was hanging in a tree when I found him, and I had to save Sparky and Loney from the clutches of Captain Hook. It was their choice to stay.”
    There was that name again: Hook. Every time somebody mentioned that name, the boys grimaced. “Who is this captain that Sparky and Loney needed to