“Night, Wendy,” John and Michael call out as they bound into the bathroom that connects our bedrooms.

“Night, boys. Goodnight, Mom.”

“Sweet dreams, honey,” she says with her usual warm smile as she follows after my younger brothers and closes my door, leaving me alone at last.

Normally, I’m not in such a rush to get through story time—a nightly tradition I enjoy sharing with Mom and the boys, despite growing out of the fairytales a long time ago—but tonight is different. Because tonight I saw a boy hiding in the bushes beneath my balcony. I couldn’t see much of him, but I saw his face for a split second before the shadows swallowed him up, and he is most definitely a boy around my age.

The entire time Mom was telling us the end of Cinderella, I barely heard a word she said. Not that it mattered, I can recite that fairytale and all the others by heart. But tonight, I had questions running through my mind as I pretended to listen with John and Michael.

Who is he? Why is he down there? Is he still there? Do I know him from school? Has he been there before? On and on, and when I ran out of new questions, I started back at the beginning, practically vibrating with anticipation for the moment I could get the answers.

And that moment is now.

As soon as I hear my mom’s footsteps pass my door, followed by the creaks of the old stairs as she rejoins my dad for their night of knitting and crossword puzzles while half-watching Law & Order, I throw off my covers and race to the French doors guarding my balcony. Too eager to be slow or quiet about it, I yank them open and rush to the bannister, practically toppling over the edge in the process. Despite my father’s rule of never leaning over the railing, that’s exactly what I do, squinting my eyes like it’ll help me see any movement in the darkness. I look left and right and left again, but there’s no one there. My excitement dies. He must have lef—

“What are you looking for?”

Startled at his sudden appearance next to me, I step back and open my mouth for the involuntary scream I can’t seem to stop. Thankfully, the boy reacts quickly by covering my mouth with his hand to muffle the sound.

“Shhhh, I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispers, slowly removing his hand.

My heart is still racing, and I’m breathing like I just ran a mile. The moonlight bathes him in shades of silver. It’s not the best lighting, but I can tell he has light hair, kind eyes, and a half-smile that looks both innocent and mischievous at the same time.

He’s a dichotomy—something with seemingly contradictory qualities. I learned that word in school last month, and it became my new favorite. I think a person who is different things at once would be incredibly interesting. Dad just raises an eyebrow at me and says they might seem that way, but it’s not really possible. A person is either one thing or another; it’s all black and white with my dad, no gray areas allowed.

But the gray areas are where shadows live, and I think the things inside those shadows are likely the most fascinating things of all.

Now that my breathing is steady and the blood is no longer rushing in my ears, I realize that he’s studying me, too. His head is cocked to the side, and his eyes are cataloging everything about me, like he’ll be tested on it later.

“What’s your name?” I finally ask. A small voice inside my head tells me I picked the wrong first question—that there are other things I should be asking of a boy who is somehow and for some reason on my balcony at night—but it’s the first question I want an answer to.

“I’m—”

The sound of a door opening and closing below us turns us to stone, and my heartbeat picks right back up where it left off. Why is it so loud? The whole neighborhood can probably hear it, for goodness sake. Peeking over the rail, I see my dad taking Nana out. She stops in her tracks and jerks her head up, sniffing at the air. Oh God, if she smells the boy, she’ll bark like crazy. Panicking, I grab his hand and pull him into my room, shutting the doors to the balcony as quickly and quietly as I can.

But now I’m paranoid that my mom will come to check on me for some unknown reason, and if I lock my bedroom door, it’ll look suspicious. The bathroom! It’s the only room I’m allowed—and expected—to lock. Again, I grab the boy’s hand and lead him into the large bathroom that connects my brothers’ bedroom with mine. After locking both doors, I let out a huge sigh of relief. I’m not worried about John or Michael hearing us; tfhey would sleep through the zombie apocalypse.

“Okay, we should be safe in here.”

The boy crosses his arms over his chest and raises his eyebrows. “I could be wrong, but I’m usually not, and I don’t think I’m supposed to be in a closed bathroom with a girl.”

His statement, while not exactly false, surprises me. It’s the way he says it, like he’s not exactly sure. “What makes you say that?”

“We’re not allowed to be in a closed bathroom with Tinker Bell. We’re also supposed to make sure we’re not in the middle of changing clothes when she’s around. It’s why she wears a bell, so we know when she’s coming.”

I frown. “Is Tinker Bell your cat?”

“What? No, she’s not our cat.” He laughs loud enough that I have to shush him. Lowering his voice, he says, “Tink is a little girl. The only one, actually. But I told her she’s a fairy, so do me a favor and don’t tell her any different. It was the only thing I could think of to make her feel better at the time, and after that, it just kind of stuck.”

“A fairy? Now I’m super confused. Maybe we should start at the beginning.”

“Fine by me, Wendy, but I’d feel better if we weren’t in the bathroom.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I heard your mom say it. The storyteller is your mom, right?”

“Storyteller? Oh, yeah, that’s my mom. Um…” I bite my lip and look down at the cool tiles under my feet as I weigh my options.

“You’re thinking awfully hard,” he says softly. A finger raises my chin before his thumb gently pulls my lip from my teeth, causing my breath to catch. “That looks painful.”

“The thinking thing?” I ask absently.

“The lip biting thing,” he answers with a crooked grin.

“Oh.” In the distance, I hear my parents’ voices in the hall outside my room. I hold a finger to my mouth, and we wait in silence, the moment suspended in time, as I wait for the telltale sound of their door closing them in for the night. As soon as I hear it, I exhale and motion for him to follow me.

I climb onto my bed, sitting cross-legged, and pat the center for him to join me. Our knees are practically touching as we lean in to speak in hushed tones. “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. My name is Wendy Moira Angela Darling. What’s yours?”

He sits up a little straighter and says, “Peter Pan.”

“Is that it?”

Peter scowls at me. “It’s a lot longer of a name than most of the others at the school.”

Shoot. I’m so used to everyone having stupidly long names, thanks to an outdated Darling tradition and going to school with a bunch of rich kids, that a normal name sounds almost weird. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that. Peter Pan is a really nice name. Will you tell me about the others? And about Tinker Bell the fairy?”

His eyes—which I now know are the prettiest shade of crystal blue—light up. “You mean like telling you a story? I’ve gotten really good at telling stories to the Lost Boys.”

“Yes, like a story, but a true one.”

Peter shrugs one shoulder. “Okay, but it’s not all that interesting. I live at the School for Lost Boys of Neverland. There’s ten of us boys plus Tink. She’s the only girl.”

“Why is a girl living at a school for boys?”

His brows knit together over his straight nose. “I don’t know, actually. I never thought to ask. Not that Croc would bother answering, anyway.”

“Who’s Croc?”

“He and his wife Delia got the school when her aunt and uncle died in a car accident. I don’t remember them, but James does, and he says they were really good people. Not like Croc who’s a total ass—”

I gasp. “Peter.”

“What?”

“Kids aren’t supposed to swear.”

“They’re not?” He pauses to think. “Huh. That’s not one of our rules.”

“Well, it should be. Or at the very least, you shouldn’t swear in the presence of a lady.”

“Lady?”

“Yeah, you know, like a girl. Gentlemen—a word for boys with proper manners—don’t swear or say bad words in front of a lady.”

“That sounds like something a mother would say. Is it?”

“I don’t know about all mothers, but my mom does. Mostly when my dad gets so worked up about something that he forgets his manners.”

“Moms scold fathers and tell bedtime stories to their kids,” he says, almost to himself, like he’s taking mental notes for a class. “What else do they do?”

He’s only given me small bits of information, but I think I’m finally starting to understand Peter’s situation. “Don’t any of you have moms, Peter?”

“Nope. We have Delia, but she’s no mother. She says it all the time, too. So tell me what yours does and then I can tell the boys.”

I think for a second about all the things my mom does for me and my brothers. Definitely too many to mention, but I can hit the highlights. “Well, she takes care of us. She makes us meals, does our laundry, helps us with schoolwork, makes us feel better when we’re sick or sad, those types of things. And at night, she tells us stories then tucks us into bed with a kiss and—”

“What’s a kiss?”

My mouth drops open for a second before I snap it shut. I wait for him to laugh and tell me he’s joking, but he’s just staring at me, waiting for an answer. How loveless and sheltered would a child’s life have to be for him to never have heard the word before? And how on earth do I explain what it is without a demonstration or an example to show him?

I rub my damp palms on my comforter and clear my throat as delicately as possible. “Well, a kiss is,” I start slowly as I try to think of what to say, “it’s something special you share with someone you care about.”

He seems to think about that for a few seconds, then says, “That sounds nice. Can I have one?”

Again, I’m speechless. I’ve often daydreamed about what my first kiss with a boy would be like, but this is not how I imagined it.

“Wendy?” he prods, holding his hand out between us. “Will you give me a kiss?”

Panicking, I open my nightstand drawer, grab the first thing I see and place it in his palm. He looks down at the Monopoly game piece—the stupid thimble of all things—then lifts his gaze to mine. My cheeks flush with embarrassment. This has to be the lamest moment of my life. He’s going to think I’m so dumb. Ohmigod, I want to die.

“Thank you,” he says, closing it in his fist. “No one’s ever given anything to me before.”

Whoa, that’s…not what I expected him to say. “Never?”

My heart breaks for him when he shakes his head solemnly. But his mood changes as fast as flipping a switch, and just like that he’s excited again. “I should give you a kiss, too.”

“Oh, um, I don’t think that’s—”

He digs something out from his jeans’ pocket and holds it up for me to see. “It’s called a high crown acorn nut.” The mirror finish reflects the lamplight almost hypnotically as he turns it this way and that. Its name makes sense, it really does look like a small metal acorn.

“I got it from a car I took apart today.” I’m about to ask what he means about taking a car apart when he continues as though he didn’t say anything out of the ordinary. “Usually they’re stainless steel or the fancier ones are chrome, but this one is gold. I liked that it was different. Special, you know? Like you said, a kiss is something special. So I want you to have it.”

I hold out my hand, and when his fingertips graze the center of my palm, it feels like a thousand fairy wings beating in my stomach. “Thank you, Peter. This is very sweet of you.”

Peter smiles. “I think I’d like being sweet to you, Wendy. Can I come back tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

He glances at the digital alarm clock on my nightstand. “Yeah, I’d better get back. The boys’ll be waiting to hear about the prince finding Cinderella. Guess it was a good thing she lost that shoe, huh?”

I chuckle softly and nod. “Yeah, I guess it was.” He gets up and crosses to the balcony doors. “Where’s the school?”

Stepping outside, we stand at the bannister as he points off into the distance. “Second star to the right and straight on till morning.”

My jaw drops. “It’ll take you until morning to get there? It’s that far away?”

He laughs. “Nah, I’m just kidding. It’s only about a mile or so that way, just past the city limits.”

“Oh, that’s not bad then.”

Despite it sharing a border with London, I’ve never been to Neverland. I’ve never even been east of Hampton Street since Dad says it’s not safe. The two cities couldn’t be more different. London is a large metropolis with a picturesque skyline known for its downtown shopping and 5-star restaurants, all surrounded by a suburban area where people’s social calendars are filled year-round with parties, cookouts, and charity events.

We’re on the less-affluent east side where middle-class families try to keep up with their upper-class friends on the west. But even London’s lower-class is levels above Neverland. I’ve heard it’s a pretty barren place that’s more industrial than it is residential. Its only perk is that it’s not far from Topsail Beach on the coast, but so are a ton of other towns, so it’s not like that’s much of a selling point.

“Well, goodnight, Peter Pan.”

“Goodnight, Wendy Moira Angela Darling.”

One second he’s standing next to me, the next he disappears over the edge, and a second after that I hear a thump as he drops to the ground. When he steps into the light of the streetlamp, I call out to him in the loudest whisper I dare. “Peter!” He stops and turns to look up at me. “My answer is yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, you can come back tomorrow.” Suddenly I’m unsure of myself as I realize he didn’t ask a second time. Maybe he changed his mind. “If you want, I mean,” I tack on quickly.

He grins wide and says something that sounds like, “Definitely my adventure,” and then disappears into the night.