The 'Real' Side of a Lost Boy

In the beginning was a Lost Boy.  No, not the vampire type but the original type.  The type who's supposed to be spending the days fighting pirates, playing games, counting stars frontwards and backwards and, most importantly, not growing up.  That's what happens to most of them, anyway, until they move on to the next adventure.  Then there are those like me.  At one time I was the biggest and most craven Lost Boy.  Most probably wouldn't figure those would be things to be proud of, but making your mark as a Lost Boy is something to be proud of no matter what it is.  Or so Peter would tell us and it rang true.  Aside from being hefty and cowardly I also liked blueberries more and could fall out of a tree faster.  I might have been the clumsiest, but there was sort of a toss up over that particular title.

But that was then.  Now is a different time and a different place.  It's awfully hard to force a Lost Boy to grow up who doesn't want to.  Oh sure, there are those who do it accidentally and even a few who do it on purpose.  Some end up as pirates and some end up back in the world where magic doesn't seem to hold sway and most people don't believe in pixie dust.  Then there are those like me.  Once upon a time, there was a Lost Boy named Red.  He didn't have red hair like me but got his name from the fact that he wore a fox pelt... or maybe he got the fox pelt because his name was Red.  Sometimes it can be sort of hard for me to keep things straight.  Anyway, Red was as big a practical joker as I was.  Big in that he did it a lot, not big as in he was as big as me because as I mentioned, I was the biggest Lost Boy.  So one day Red had this awesome idea where he thought it'd be cool to steal Pan's hat and steal Hook's hat and switch them.  It doesn't sound like much now, but when you're trying to come up with something to do two hours past the witching hour, then it sounds like a very good idea indeed.  At least to him it did.  I wasn't real thrilled by the idea, but then again, I figured it was the coward in me talking.  Sometimes it manages to drown out everything else.  Besides, it's hard for me to tiptoe and that's pretty much what you gotta do if you're going to be skulking around The Jolly Roger at a quarter to dawn.  Somehow Red manages to switch the hats (something I'd have surely loved to have seen, but I was sawing logs by then) and the fan hits the mud.  Or the mud hits a hat.  Or fan.  Or something like that.  Whatever it was that hit whatever, Pan has us all standing at attention demanding to know who messed with the hats.  He started with the twins, Leo and Tigger, who naturally enough deny all knowledge.  Then he asks Stumble (my competition for clumsiest) who shakes his head no.  Surefoot is next and he answers no.  The next one that Pan will get to is Roo and then Red and finally me.

Peter is normally a great captain.  He can be a little moody at times and there's been more than one occasion on which he's forgotten my name although he never forgets that I'm the biggest, most cowardly, and possibly clumsiest one of his crew.  Still it's all in fun, the good fun, not the cutting-to-the-bone bad fun.  Then there's the fact that he rescued all of us from the real world and brought us to Neverland.  Today, though, he's more like Hook.  Ranting and raving about the missing hat.  Not seeing the humor in it.  Looking like he's ready to cleave one of us to the brisket.  It doesn't help that he's brandishing his dagger about or that his face is turning purple.  Then there's Red.  When Red pulls a joke he can look innocent as anything.  He can come up with an explanation that even pirates would buy into and can make any of us believe just about anything he wants to.  Any of us except Peter.  He can't lie to Peter to save his life and I have the awful feeling that it might come to that cuz of the stupid hat.  It's not Peter acting this way, it's the hat he's wearing making him act that way I bet.  So he asks Roo if he took his hat and Roo solemnly shakes his head no.  He tries to suggest that it might not be that big a deal, but Peter won't have any of that and turns to Red.  He opens his mouth to ask Red if he took his hat and it's then that my mouth opens up and declares that I did it.  Peter looks at me suspiciously.  Very suspiciously.  While Red's talent is he can make anyone believe he didn't do something (except for Peter), I have the dumb ability to make anyone believe that I did something when I didn't (including Peter).  I forget how exactly I explained it but I do remember there were words tumbling out of my mouth so fast that they started to pile up.  Whatever I said, I was relieved to see that purple had gone to bright red.  Normally that was a good sign and I thought I might be able to breathe again.

"Banishment!" Peter declared.  Then I knew I could breathe.  Peter had banished most of us at one time or another and it usually consisted of anywhere from a half-hour to a few days.  I nodded steadfastly but it turned out I nodded a bit too early.  "Forever!" Peter added.  There were gasps from all my friends and I suddenly felt sick.  I looked at Peter hoping against hope that it was some sort of joke but such was not the case.  Then Red decided he wanted to get all dramatic and opened his mouth to say something.  Before he could, I fainted and happened to land on him.  Whatever he'd been going to say got lost.  The really bad thing about being banished, besides the most obvious, is that it can't be taken back.  There ain't many rules in Neverland, but that's one of the ones that is there.  Peter swept Hook's hat off his head and proceeded to turn it into confetti with his dagger before it touched the ground.  Once it left his head, his red face went to sort of off green, but than it might have been his tunic too.  He took a look around, said something that I didn't catch and fled Hangman's Tree.

It took a lot of convincing to make sure Red didn't do something dumb like tell Pan what had happened.  He'd been a Lost Boy a heck of a lot longer than I had and it made more sense for me to go back to the real world.  Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer to have lost a leg or two and maybe an arm and an eye than be forced back to the real world, but there was a lot of stuff that had come along since Red had become a Lost Boy and not nearly as much since I had.  A few days later I got all my goodbyes said.  The elves were waiting to take me in tow for my journey back to the real world (elves always do admin stuff like that).  Peter took me aside, made sure no one else was in earshot, and told me he knew that I hadn't been the one to pull the hat stunt and that he wished he hadn't banished me.  It was pretty much the biggest apology I'd ever gotten in my life.  I asked if that meant he'd try to find out who had done it and he said it was forgotten which made me feel a little better.  Then he gave me a small sack of pixie dust and a coin.  He said there was somehow that I could find my way back to Neverland but that I'd have to find it on my own and that even if I was sort of muddle-minded, I was a Lost Boy through and through and I'd find it one day.  The elves took charge, let me know that I'd never be able to come back (but they'd say that even if I could), and that when I woke up next I'd be in the real world and "grown-up".  At least I'd look grown up.  I'd remember everything including a lot of stuff I'd forgotten about the real world.  I'd be the same goofy kid but taller.  And of course I'd be just as craven, fat and clumsy (somehow that didn't quite seem fair).  I then received an elf-touch which put me to sleep.  I didn't dream.

The next time I woke up was some guy named John who was yelling at me that I was going to be late for work and why the heck was I wearing "bear costume pajamas" anyway?  I muttered something in response and went into the bathroom.  Bathroom.  It'd been awhile since I'd been in one of these.  Looking in the mirror I saw the same red hair, blue eyes and chubby freckled cheeks looking back at me.  They were just a couple of feet higher than they had been.  Fortunately the bear pelt I'd been wearing in Neverland had grown with me so that hadn't created any new problems.  Hanging over a towel rod was a green apron with white lettering and a mermaid on it.  There was also a name tag attached to it.  I flipped it over, hoping it would say "John" (who I somehow knew was my roommate) and not at all surprised when I found it said "Cubby".  That could have been the worst surprise of the day except that honor was reserved for the green and purple miniature dragon that popped out from the apron pocket.  She looked at me, gave a grin that had malice written all over it, and informed me that she "was from the elves and was here to help."  The good thing about having a muddled mind is that when too many things start to muddle it, it just sort of goes on autopilot.  I decided the first thing I'd better do is get out of the bear pelt and see if whatever had brought me here had been nice enough to leave me some other clothes too.

Thus begin the adventures of a Lost Boy who has found himself in the "real" world.