“Didn’t he?” Harry asked.
Peter shook his head side to side, a long, slow “no” that had all the boys peering at him in confusion.
“What’s all this duck business about, then, if he didn’t turn into a ghost? Where’s the bloody ghost in the ghost story?” Harry asked, but there was no rancor in his voice, just confusion.
“The mother duckling stood at the shore of the pond, weeping and weeping for her little lost one. Her tears were so great and so many that the waters of the pond rose and flooded around her feet and ankles, and she sank deep into the mud there until the water covered her to her knees. On and on she wept, for she knew it was all her fault for letting her little boy get lost in the first place. After a very long time her tears ran dry, but by then her legs had turned into stems and her yellow hair into the petals of a flower, and so she stands there until this day, crouched over the crocodile pond, hoping forever to see the face of her little duckling again. And sometimes, if you go to the crocodile pond late at night, you can hear her voice on the wind, crying his name.”
Peter said this last bit very quietly and dramatically. I didn’t know what the rest of the boys would make of this tale—they mostly looked confused and slightly disappointed—but I knew that Peter meant it for me. But was I the little duckling’s mama in the story, or was I supposed to return him to her before something happened to Charlie? I wasn’t sure.
Peter’s eyes were dark and full of blood, but the wet on my shoulder was from Charlie’s quiet tears.
chapter 3
After that strange little interlude, the boys were full of energy and ready to run, so Peter decided we ought to set off for the pirate camp though the sun was lowering. As usual, my objections were overruled.
“The sun will be up for a while longer,” Peter said. “Anyhow, the boys are already gone.”
It was true. As soon as Peter had given them leave to go, all the boys had collected their supplies and weapons (following the lead of Nod and Fog, who were always happy to order the new boys about). Then the twins whooped and hollered and ran into the woods, and most of the others had followed them with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Del’s face was less pale than usual, and I could tell he still felt some lingering pride at having fought Nip off at lunch.
Maybe he would make it. Maybe he wouldn’t die slowly coughing out blood. Maybe.
Everyone left except Nip, who was still passed out where I’d left him, and Peter and Charlie and me. Charlie had one hand attached to the tail of my coat and the thumb of his other hand was stuffed in his mouth.
Peter eyed the little boy with distaste, though after the story he’d told, Peter could hardly expect Charlie to scamper happily after the others.
“Go and kick Nip,” Peter told Charlie. “If he doesn’t get up he’ll have to stay here on his own while we raid the pirates.”
Charlie looked up at me, which I could tell bothered Peter no end. He was used to having his wishes granted without question.
“I’ll do it,” I said. I didn’t want Nip to wake up swinging and punch Charlie in the face, although I was pretty certain that was precisely the goal Peter had in mind.
“I’m not minding him while you’re about it,” Peter said, just as if Charlie weren’t there at all.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Come with me, Charlie.”
Peter frowned, this outcome apparently not at all what he’d wanted.
“Go on after the others,” I said to Peter, and his frown became fierce. Not only was I taking the risk of harm away from Charlie but I’d just dismissed Peter like one of the other boys. Like he was ordinary.
And Peter never wanted to be ordinary.
“I don’t want to go yet,” Peter said.
“As you please,” I said, and hid my smile as I turned away.
Charlie kept his hand on my clothes, but as we approached Nip he tugged at the hem. I glanced down at him and he shook his head at me.
“You don’t want to get closer to Nip?”
Charlie’s thumb popped out of his mouth. “He scares me.”
“Do you want to go back to Peter?”
Charlie shook his head no again, but didn’t offer any explanation this time. I had a fair idea that Peter’s “ghost” story had taken some of the shine off the other boy for Charlie.
“Just stay here, all right? I’ll just go give Nip a kick and come right back for you.”
Charlie shook his head, his eyes big and blue and full of feelings he couldn’t put into words, but I could see the story of the lost duckling swimming around in them.
“I promise I’ll be back,” I said. “I don’t want you to get hurt if Nip wakes up like an angry bear, right? And you can see me all the time I’m gone.”
Charlie turned this over in his mind, and finally nodded and let go of my clothes. He snagged one hand firmly in his own shirt hem and put his other thumb back in his mouth.
Peter stood near the fire where we’d left him, his brow creased as he watched us.
Whatever trouble Peter seemed to think Charlie might cause, it was nothing, in my mind, to the trouble Nip would cause. He was that kind of boy, the kind who’d always be slugging the others and taking their food and generally disturbing the peace. Not that there was so much peace, really, with more than a dozen boys about, but the roughhousing was usually in a friendly spirit.
I’d seen Nip’s eyes when he went for Del at lunch. There was a piggy kind of meanness in them, a cruelty that didn’t have a place in our little band of lost boys—at least I thought so, though clearly Peter didn’t, else he wouldn’t have chosen him.
That made two mistakes Peter had made in the last collection—Charlie and Nip. I knew what he thought he’d get in Charlie—a sweet little toy to play with. I wondered what he thought he’d get out of Nip.
All this was drifting around in my brain as I stood over the prone boy, and so I didn’t do any of the things I might have done with one of the others—shake him awake, or roll him over so that the sun on his face made him open his eyes. No, I did exactly as Peter had told Charlie to do—I kicked him.
I kicked him good and hard in the ribs and if I didn’t crack any bones it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Nip rolled over with a cry and came to his knees. His face was smudged with dirt and ash from the fire and his eyes were reddened from the coals. It took him a moment to realize where he was, what had happened and what I was doing there. When he did he stood up—staggered up, really, and his hand went to his head like my last blow was still ringing there.
None of this stopped him from putting up his fists in clear invitation.
I hadn’t wanted to fight him earlier, so I’d sent Nip off with Nod and Fog. Now I wanted to fight. It’d been boiling in me all day.
First the dream, and Peter’s insistence on a raid that would probably kill half the boys, then Nip’s bullying of Del and that thrice-bedamned story about the duckling that Peter told to terrify Charlie half to death. I’d been holding back so as not to scare the little boy who trailed behind me, but now Nip offered a chance to beat him good and bloody and I was going to take it.
It wasn’t fair of me, not really. Nip was about the same height as me, and he had more weight on him, but he was still staggering-stupid from before. It wasn’t an even fight.