“Really?” Preston asked, and though this was all very strange, it excited him.
The fairies returned. Preston saw them, lights blinking, as he turned his head and looked up. The other boys didn’t seem to notice as they went on talking; it seemed to Preston that they were still explaining things, and he thought it might be a good idea to listen, but he couldn’t with the lights flashing right in front of him and he wondered how long it took to get used to these fairies that buzzed around like bugs.
“And there are a whole bunch of other people Here, they’re not even all kids and most of them play with us, or we play with them—” Starky was saying as Preston turned from them, shifting all the way around to see what the fairies were so excited about.
A boy was standing behind them, his hands playfully on his hips, a smile spread across an impish face. It was as if he had always been there, as if they’d walked up to him, not the other way around. Preston watched him and the boy, who had shaggy, messy, dark blond hair came closer, still smiling. There was something about his face, it was the same as every other face and yet it wasn’t. He had a small, pointy nose and dimples, his chin jutted out just a little bit and his ears were shaped funny, not so much abnormal as a little bit pointy. He wore green, dark green shorts with leaves and twigs jutting out of them and a green shirt cut in a long, low V at his collar. He had tied around his neck with a thin braided rope a kind of flute, crudely made of wood with large, jagged holes chiseled into it. The boy, who stood a few inches taller than all the others, seemed to walk on tiptoes, as if he were dancing, though his feet were planted firmly on the ground. The other boys, sensing Preston’s suddenly waning interest, turned around as well.
“Hi,” the boy said and the way his voice hit the air it seemed to crack the molecules in it and the four others got very quiet. He didn’t stop the fun, most of the boys playing on the Ferris wheel and merry-go-round were still doing just that, but there was a certain something in the air, as if it had all changed. “Hi,” the boy said again, holding out his hand for Preston to take. “Nice to meet you.”
“Hi,” Preston replied. There was something about him that made Preston ask, “You’re the leader?” He looked like a boy, an older boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen, but a boy and not a married man like they’d said.
“I’m the leader,” the boy announced and the others rushed to him.
“We found him in the woods, just like you said you found the other one. . .” Starky started and Dilweed hit his arm once more. “And we brought him here. I don’t think he’s a cowboy, he’s too young, or an Indian, I don’t think he’s a pirate either.”
“Well of course he’s not a pirate,” the boy said, laughing a belly laugh as if genuine happiness were a part of his physical makeup. “He’s not a mermaid or a cowboy or an Indian. He’s a little boy like all of you. A little lost boy.”
“Am I lost?” Preston asked, hoping that wasn’t the case, since being lost, he knew not from where, meant that he was to be found and brought somewhere else.
“That you are my friend, that you are,” the boy replied. “You’re lost and Starky is lost and Dilweed and Clover and Oregano. They’re all lost. And they’re all going to stay Here for a little while, just until certain things happen in certain other places and then they’re going to go somewhere else. But for now, you’re Here and I’m going to take care of you, the fairies are going to take care of you and the other boys, we’re all going to take care of ourselves. Even this place is going to take care of you.” “How long do I stay?” Preston asked as the leader moved seamlessly with him, draping a wiry arm around his shoulders as the others ran off. Preston turned to look for them and they were playing; Starky with a pair of jacks while Dilweed and Clover ran toward the Ferris wheel and Oregano picked up a toy gun and started firing at trees.
“You stay Here until things are better where you came from,” the boy explained as they walked up to an opening in the trunk of the giant tree house. Once inside they shot up as if on air and Preston grabbed the leader’s arm, holding tight. “It’s all right, that’s just how we get up to the house. It all happens when we want it to happen, like the Ferris wheel and the merry-go-round, no one takes care of them, they just are. Nothing goes wrong Here, nothing stops working. Even when things change, even when the boys bring video games and magic moving carpets with them, even then it’s all the same.”
“Okay,” Preston replied cautiously once they reached the inside of the tree. There was a large room with a red carpet where pictures flashed on movie screens and boys handled video game controllers or jumped on mechanical pads.
“This is where we live. Some of the boys like to play inside. It’s only been a little while since the inside boys have been Here, the ones who only want to play with TV sets and video games. But you can do whatever you want Here, bring whatever you want. It all just comes,” the boy explained. “But you’ll remember more later. Your first day you forget, the second day more starts to come and by the time you’ve been Here a week. . .but I am always forgetting the time, but by about a week you understand everything but it doesn’t matter because you’re so busy playing.”
“Is that it, is that what I do, I play?” Preston asked. The boy walked him through the large room and out a small wooden door that led back outside. They weren’t on the ground anymore, but several feet up on one of the branches. Preston could see the forest before a blue-mooned night, the music from the Ferris wheel and merry-go-round rang in his ears as they watched the boys playing below.
“Let me take you to your room, it’s on this floor,” the boy offered as they kept walking across the long, wide branch. “You can do whatever you want,” he went on as they walked down the sturdy wooden limb of the tree. “I just want to say that you’ve been cheated out of something, you’ve been cheated out of something good and so have the others who knew you, especially your Mom and Dad. That’s why you’re Here, so they can grieve. You see, the people who loved you, they need to mourn, and it’s different, I mean, whenever someone goes away, whenever that happens obviously the loved ones need to grieve, but when a child goes away and doesn’t come back there’s a certain intensity to the grief, especially for the Mom and Dad, and you have to stay Here, in Neverland, for a while so they can get used to your being gone. It’s not the Before, you’re not with them, but you’re still in the Universe, they can still feel your presence Here at least in the backs of their minds, and they need that for a little while. If a child’s presence simply disappeared right away from the Universe, which is what happens when you go from Here, without giving the parents time to mourn, it would be very bad, the parents would be too sad, they’d do crazy things with their grief, which is why you come Here first, to give them time.”
“Why?” Preston asked and the boy laughed as they kept walking, past other doors, some painted red or white or green, some with posters hung up, others with music blasting from them. “Go away from where? Not coming back from where?”
“It’s all right, I’ll explain later,” the boy said. “But this is where you live now. And you can go out with Starky and Dilweed and Clover and Oregano all you want and you can play on the swings or hunt Indians and cowboys and—“
“Pirates!” Preston cried, excited since somewhere, somehow he had heard of pirates.
“No,” the boy cautioned. “No, we do not associate with pirates, we do not hunt pirates or provoke pirates or play with pirates. They keep to themselves and we do not go and find them.” He raised his voice slightly and, seeing the terror in Preston’s eyes, the boy reached out and rustled his hair, calming down. “It’s all right. Just stay away from pirates is all. But don’t worry, they won’t come after you and you’re not going to accidentally run into them, okay?”
“Okay,” Preston replied still a little shaken by how upset the leader had gotten.
“It’s