Stars (Wendy Darling #1)(55)

“I have one question before you go, Oxley—how exactly does one become a General?”

He looked down at her, his brown eyes glistening under his ebony skin.

“When you become a Lost Boy, you start at the bottom. You are a Pip, which means you have one of two duties: kitchen duties or chamber duties.” That made sense—it was always younger boys who had been coming to fetch Wendy’s mortifying toilet bowl. “Once you have put in your time as a Pip, you move up to a Lost Boy. That’s the vast majority of the boys here. They go on occasional raids and live on the island doing various chores here and there, and they get to have a watch on the Moon Tower. You may be a Lost Boy for ten years before becoming a General. Only a General has the right to Peter’s ear.”

“And what makes someone worthy of being a General?”

Oxley’s eyes focused on Wendy’s face. “You arrive with a pretty sister?” The annoyance in his voice was palpable.

“I didn’t tell Peter to do that. And John didn’t have anything to do with that either.”

He sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was rude. Here.” He plucked a small pink flower from an overhanging branch and handed it to her. “Forget that I said that! Okay? Please don’t be cross.”

She patted his arm. “I know, Oxley. You’re the nicest person here. I could never be angry at you.”

“In that case, where was I? Ah yes. Becoming a General. You must show extreme loyalty to Peter and not have any fear. When he feels you have mastered these things, you become a General. And then after General . . .”

“There is something above General?”

“Yes. Once you move up from General, then you become . . . a Swift.”

“A Swift?”

“Peter is the only Swift. It means that you have flight, forever, always.”

Wendy gasped. “That can happen?”

“No one knows how the gift is given. But once you move up from General, Peter gives you the gift. You become a Swift, like him.”

“Has anyone become a Swift?”

Oxley nodded, pushing a leaf out of his way and into Wendy’s face. “Felix. Felix became a Swift. But the night he got the gift from Peter, he flew too fast and plowed into the side of a mountain. He died there. That’s why you must be a General for a very long time before becoming a Swift—it’s a gift, but a dangerous one. Peter does not give it lightly.” Oxley dropped his voice. “Felix was my friend.”

Wendy gently placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Oxley. It must hurt to lose someone.”

“An all-too-frequent occurrence, unfortunately.”

“What do you mean by that?” The banging of the drums ceased suddenly, and then the sound of the moon bell clanged through the air. Oxley sighed.

“That’s Pan, he’s calling us to assemble. I was hoping to eat first. Mind seeing what’s in here with me?” Wendy nodded, her own stomach growling. They scampered into the Table, scooping up piles of nuts, cheese, and berries that lay scattered on the table. Oxley grabbed a half-eaten egg left on the round table and slid it down his throat. Then he handed one to Wendy. She had to swallow a gag first but then did the same. She was hungry.

“Ready?” he asked, wiping a smear of yolk off his face. She nodded. He grabbed her wrist, and then they were soaring up out of the Table, up into the great jade canopy of the tree, climbing up past her hut, soaring past Peter’s hut, up and up through a hole cut into the thick canopy at the tip of the tree. Wendy saw the branches around her thinning out, becoming short and brittle. The leaves of the tree gave way into small clumps of silverish gray berries that dotted the increasingly bare branches. Finally, Oxley pulled back, and they cleared a bramble of twigs, so thick that only the tiniest of creatures could slither inside. As they rounded the top of the bramble, easily ten feet high, Wendy gasped as a concave bowl as large as a building opened up underneath her feet, made entirely of intertwined fawn-colored branches. Dozens of Lost Boys were milling about underneath her, looking up as Oxley took her down to the base of the bowl, Peter’s yellow moon marking its center. Wendy worried briefly about her nightgown and the boys underneath them, but she was thankfully distracted by the whimsical beauty around her. She had increasingly less time for modesty in this magical place.

“Where are we?”

Oxley gave a joyful grin. “Right above Centermost.”

“Oh, oh!”

She had indeed seen this bowl before, but from below it only looked like an incredibly thick swatch of branched canopy. Oxley set her down gently on the branches.

“Welcome to the Nest!”

Wendy let out a girlish laugh, absolutely enchanted. It was indeed a nest, a giant bird’s nest, only just the right size for the Lost Boys. The Nest was woven with thousands of different types of branches: white crackled branches with fingerlike knuckles, thin dark brown spindly branches that curled into elegant whorls, red branches that were marked with black pocks, seemingly unbending, one thousand branches forming a perfect circle. Tucked into its openings were thousands and thousands of tiny scraps of paper and pale blue scraps of linen. Wendy walked over to the side of the Nest (its walls towered at least ten feet over her head) and picked out one of the scraps of paper. She carefully unfolded it. Scrawled in messy writing was a tiny wish: “I wich Peter to make me a swuft.” She smiled and put the note back, picking another right above it and unfolding it. “More meat at dinner & that Abbott would be nicer to me.” The next paper made the hairs on her arm stand on end. “I wish that I could remember who I was before.” She tucked it back, feeling guilty for reading the intimate wishes of the boys and alarmed by the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her chest, which was threatening to take over her joy.