The Neverland Wars by Audrey Greathouse

Author:Audrey Greathouse [Greathouse, Audrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fairy Tales & Folklore, Peter, Pan, Neverland, Fairy, tale, retelling, adaptation, young, adult, fairy, tale, folklore, myths, fantasy, adventure, childhood, growing, up, books, about, fairies, fae, teen, high, school, modern, fairy, tale, lost, boys, party, kidnapping, contemporary, romance
Publisher: Clean Teen Publishing
Published: 2016-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

The week was wearing thin when Peter declared that they were going to track down Old Willow. This announcement seemed to be entirely spontaneous. It evoked the most enthusiastic response from the lost children. The morning had been dull and uneventful, so Peter rightfully deemed it time for an adventure.

The children scrambled and redressed. The boys flung off their shirts to go bare-chested as the girls helped each other put their hair into braids. The underground home was turned upside down in an attempt to find the bows, arrows, walking sticks, and other tokens they had collected from Old Willow and her tribe. Hollyhock and Dillweed proved to be especially good at turning up the long-lost relics and toys, which were hidden under beds, in drawers, and strangely stuck to the ceiling.

“Come on!” Peter rallied. “If we want to find them before dark, we’ll have to start tracking the redskins now!”

Spurt ran yelling across the room, hooting and hollering, pounding his palm against his mouth.

Gwen was incredibly uncomfortable with this. “Don’t you think that’s, you know, inappropriate?” Gwen asked. “I mean, calling them… redskins?”

“No,” Peter answered as he scaled a rope up to his hammock. Gwen watched him as he dug through his things. Alongside the hammock in which he slept, Peter had woven nets of twine that hung from the ceiling, full of the many trophies from his previous adventures. He found his headband, an embroidered leather band that he slipped proudly onto his head before climbing back down.

“But, referring to them, just by a color, don’t you think that’s… offensive?”

Peter shook his head, flinging his hair out of his face. “They call us kids. That’s just an age.”

His mind was completely untroubled by an issue that Gwen had spent the past few years tiptoeing around, for fear of falling into its contentious and controversial pit. “I just don’t think we should call Native Americans that.”

Peter laughed, and Gwen could tell it was at her expense. “Do you think you’re in America right now, Gwen-dolly?”

“Well—no.”

Peter’s smile stayed strong. “Then they aren’t Native Americans, are they?”

As usual, Gwen was without answer.

Once they had dressed, the children gathered gifts for the redskins. Jam neglected this part of the process so that she could cover her face—and everyone else’s—in war paint. She even forced Gwen to sit down so she could smudge lines of bright red pigment all over the older girl’s cheeks and forehead. As Jam smeared it on, Gwen couldn’t help but think of Claire and all the times she had forcibly applied makeup to Gwen’s face. Claire’s mascara brush and eyeliner pencil were much more uncomfortable than Jam’s warm fingers.

With all the hubbub, Bard was the only one to ask, “What are we going to see Old Willow for?”

Peter took down the stars and bones flag they had recovered from Rackham’s ship, which had been nailed up to the wall of the underground home for the past few days. “Because we’re expecting an ally,” Peter replied, “and she’ll be able to help us find him.

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