Everything Changed

Untitled Part 1

            I groaned as I combed my long, black hair.  I was sick and tired of school, but I had to go.  Every.  Single.  Stinkin’.  Day.  Including today.  It was way too early for anyone to be up, including me.  It was nearly six-thirty.  Too early.

            I wove my hair into a braid and sat on my bed listening to the tree branches tapping against my window.  Then I remembered that there were no trees near my window.  Of course I began to freak out.  I was a sixteen year old girl, home alone, unarmed, in my second story bedroom, without my cell phone.  I felt my heart stop and surprisingly, so did the tapping.  I thought that was that, but as soon as I relaxed, the tapping began again.  Slowly, cautiously, I walked toward my bookshelves and reached for the heaviest dictionary I owned before tiptoeing toward my window and moving the curtain.

            Outside my window was a young boy, about ten years of age, peering in, green eyes twinkling and a wide, pearly white smile on his face.  When he saw me, his smile grew even wider and he waved frantically.  I took a startled step backward, dropping the curtain as I stepped back.  Then, just as quickly as I had stepped back, I stepped forward and peered out my window once more.  I felt the large dictionary fall from my hand.  The boy had nothing to stand on.  He was levitating right outside my window.  His smile grew a tad fainter when he saw I wasn’t opening the window and he tapped it again, mouthing the words, ‘let me in.’

            Nervously, I opened it a crack.  “Who are you?”

            He laughed merrily, as if it was the funniest joke he had heard, “Don’t you know?”

            I shook my head, wondering if I was supposed to know him.

            “I’m Peter!  Peter Pan!  Can I come in?”

            “He’s just a fictional character!”  I protested, sure I had lost my mind.

            “Evidently he’s not.”  The boy threw his head back and laughed.

            “Yes he is.  I just read about him in a book.”

            He gasped.  “You can read?  Oh, I wish I could read!  Come and read to me and the lost boys!”

            I shook my head.  “You’re crazy!  What do you take me for?  An idiot?  I have a 4.0 GPA and plenty of common sense to go with it.”

            “What’s a GPA?”

            I began to wonder if he was telling the truth.  I’d always loved Peter Pan.  “Are you really Peter?”

            The boy nodded.  “Yes and I want you to come with me!  Please, please, come with me!”

            “But I can’t fly!”  I protested sadly.

            “Of course you can’t right now.  Let me in and I’ll put the fairy dust on you.  Then you just think happy thoughts and you can fly!”

            I opened my window all the way and the boy graced in.  “Oh thank you so much!”  He reached in a little pouch held to his waist with a woven grass belt and brought out a fist.  He opened his fist and acted as though he was blowing a kiss to me.  Shimmering dust flew from his hand in tiny particles and settled over me like a glimmering film.  A little bit of it went up my nose and I sneezed it out onto my carpet.

            “Now think lovely thoughts….”  He whispered in a sing-song voice.

            I did think lovely thoughts.  In my mind.  To be a child again.  To be able to fly.  No school.  A million dollars.  To go to Neverland.  To have money for as many books as I want.