Michael tugged gently on her sleeve, but she ignored him. Her gray eyes held storm clouds and a hurricane was coming.
The boys fidgeted for a moment, unsure of exactly what to do. Then the one who considered himself to be their leader rolled his shoulders back and strode closer to Wendy and Michael.
“Your brother is a retard,” he hissed at her, showing incredible and stupid bravery by speaking this way to someone seven years his senior. “Tell your parents to put him in the remedial program before he stupids-up everyone around him.”
Wendy’s lip twitched and her lovely face became an impassive mask, utterly belying the tempest raging behind her thunder-gray eyes. “But, little boy, if I did that, then the two of you would be together all the time. Is that really what you want?”
The boy’s features went slack for a moment as he tried to figure out what that meant. And then they twisted with fury, his cheeks turning an embarrassing, bright red. At once, as if no longer able to control his actions, the boy lurched forward, his right arm drawn back in a readied punch.
To Wendy’s astonishment, just as she had been preparing to pummel the boy with her own fists and teach him a lesson, it was Michael, and not her, who met the foul child in hand-to-hand combat. With a cry of rage, Michael lunged forward, blocked the boy’s punch, and threw one of his own. His knuckles connected solidly with the boy’s jaw and before Wendy really knew what was happening, they were both on the ground, and Michael was sitting on the boy’s waist, hitting him again and again.
“Don’t you ever touch my sister!” Michael screamed, as his fists rained down on his enemy’s face.
“Michael, stop!” Wendy hurriedly bent and tried to grab his flailing arms. It was difficult work, as for a ten-year-old, he was quite strong. But, eventually she managed to pull her brother off of the other boy, who was now sobbing and spitting blood.
As luck, or the absence of luck, would have it, it was at that moment that the school’s front doors once more opened and two teachers came running out onto the playground, several ten-year-old boys following closely behind. The boys were grinning maliciously and it was clear, now, that as soon as the fight had begun, they had gone back inside for help.
For the second time that afternoon, Wendy’s pirate ship heart sank. For, she knew that the arrival of the teachers could really mean only one thing. Her parents would be notified of this fight. And she highly doubted that Michael, who technically threw the first punch, would be found innocent of guilt.
Wendy grimaced as the teachers approached – one woman and one man.
“Well! Miss Darling! Of all the things!” The woman huffed as her companion helped the bleeding boy off of the ground.
“What is the meaning of this?” the male teacher asked then, his expression grim.
“I didn’t do anyshing!” the boy wailed, his speech slightly slurred. “He punthed me firsh!” The boy pointed a scraped finger at Michael and glared through his tears.
“Really!” the female teacher exclaimed again, apparently unable to speak beneath a certain volume. “Is this true, Michael?” She turned a scrutinous eye on Wendy’s brother.
Michael glared back at the teacher. She blinked. He nodded. Once.
“Well, we’ll just see what your father has to say about this, Mr. Darling!”
The male teacher said nothing, but threw an exasperated look at Michael, and then at Wendy, before he helped the boy walk back across the playground to the school doors. The other teacher followed them, walking briskly and with purpose. Wendy watched them go as a numbness climbed up her limbs and into her heart.
“I’m not sorry.” Michael said softly. Wendy looked down at her little brother. He was rubbing his hands gingerly. She gently took his right hand and peered at it more closely. The knuckles were scraped and reddened. She sighed and looked him in the eyes.
“I’m not sorry, Wendy,” he repeated.
Wendy nodded. “Let’s go home.” The two walked the remainder of the way home wrapped in a synchronized silence that was filled to the brim with words left unspoken.
That night, while Peter Pan slept a fitful sleep, Tinkerbell left their little house in the woods and regained her tiny winged form so that she could fly. The fairy missed flying. In Neverland, she had flown everywhere. It was the way of the pixies. To become human-like was to lose a bit of magic, and so her people never took human form in Neverland. Instead, they remained small and used their wings and their dust.
But here. . . . Well, in this world, flitting about as a fairy was dangerous. She could get swatted flat like a fly or batted about like a bee. Or worse. She could end up squished on the windshield of a human locomotive.