“All right then.” He sighs as he sits back down in his chair. “Bring me a cuppa, would you?”
I roll my eyes at him but am quietly delighted by the request.
“What kind?”
He looks offended by the question. “English breakfast.” Then he casts another line, muttering under his breath, “What kind? What other kind is there? British—the nerve of—”
I catch my cloud home, and I love my little cloud. Of all the things Peter’s given me—and there’s been a few things now （jewels, a crown, the water breathing thing, a map, a baby bird that I insisted we give back to its mother）—the cloud is by and large my favourite （aside, perhaps, from the bird）。
Neverland is so beautiful from the sky, especially at dusk and dawn. When all the fires are lit and the lights start turning on and the fairy dust starts to twinkle, the entire island looks like a Christmas tree.
The cloud drops me off at the net balcony of the top floor of the tree house, where Peter and I sleep.
The boys aren’t home. That’s the first thing I notice.
It’s quiet. It’s never quiet here.
I wonder where they are? They know I like them to be home by dark. I peer around and nothing.
Nothing, and then—
I hear a moan.
Did I? Did I hear that, or am I imagining things?
I take a step deeper into the tree house.
And then I hear it again. Unmistakable and rather close by, a deep groan.
“Peter?” I call, feeling nervous, and I worry quickly that something’s happened, that someone’s hurt or maybe worse. Maybe someone （not naming names） hurt someone smaller by accident, and I swear at myself in my own mind for wondering it, and I tell myself it’s wrong, that it couldn’t be true. He loves them. He’d never— And then, from under a blanket, Calla’s head pops up, shortly followed by Peter’s.
“Oh” is what I say as I stare at them.
She’s straddling him, naked, I think? Or mostly so. His hands are on her—on her, you know. He keeps them on her as he looks over at me.
“Daphne!” He looks surprised but not entirely inconvenienced by the interruption. He gives me a big smile.
Me? I stare over at him in disbelief. “What are you doing?”
He stands up and climbs out of the bed we share. His bed, not ours. He is always very specific about that.
He is, in case you were wondering, fully naked.
I’ve never seen him fully naked before. Partially naked, many times, of course. The boy lives his whole life partially naked. But here he stands, entirely nude, and I feel strangely light-headed.
“We figured out what the more was!” he tells me with a lazy smile.
I’m definitely going to be sick.
I blink at him. That’s all I do.
“It’s so good,” he tells me, stretching his arms up in the air before extending his hand to me. “Come join us.”
Calla’s head rolls back, sullen. “No, Peter.”
Peter gives her a look like she’s silly. “She can play too.”
“Are you mad?” I shake my head at him a tiny bit. I feel like I’m in a dream. “You said you wouldn’t see her again.”
Pan looks over at Calla and rolls his eyes, scrunches his face up, and nods his head back at me. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“You said that!” I yell at him. “Thirteen days ago, you said that.”
His face folds to a scowl. “How do you know about days?”
I ignore that strange question and instead counter it with a different one. “What are you doing with her?”
“This.” Peter shrugs, then nods his head towards the bed. “You’ll like it. Come! Lie down here with me.”
“No!” I yell, shaking my head.
“Why are you upset?” Peter frowns for a second before his face fractures into a strange laugh. “Your face goes funny when you’re sad.”
“I’m not sad.” I glare over at him. “I’m revolted.”
Peter shrugs and sits on the edge of the nest. “Maybe you wouldn’t be if you would have just done it with me when I told you to.”
I put my hand on my cheek and nod a lot, my mind racing, thinking about what I’m to do from here. I flick my eyes over at him. “How long have you been doing this?”
He scratches his neck, then shrugs. “The mermaids showed me at the ball, so just all the time since then.”
I press my lips together and let the mental image of Peter doing this with Calla and the mermaids in every spare moment he had without me soak through every good memory and feeling he gave me since then also.