“Save us, it looks like we’re saving you.”
“Ohhh, isn’t that cute.” A voice rings down from above. “You were coming to each other’s rescue, how noble,” the lieutenant mocks, peering down on the now-free captives.
“I hate to disappoint,” he coos. “But no one is saving anyone ON MY AERO-SHIP.”
“He’s in a poor mood,” Oc mumbles, “also why is he covered in food?”
“We poured his pièce de résistance over his head and tied him up with his own fine tablecloth.” Poise grins cheekily. “It was a waste of excellent cloth.”
Avit grins. “I like her. After all, a misfit does not assist in their own capture.”
“A what?” Poise asks.
“Speaking of which,” Oc says, “we need an escape plan.”
“I call being the distraction!” Avit signs excitedly.
“And I’ll call…someone.” Oc sighs, before signing, “oh and Avit—”
“Yes?” the other misfit asks, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Just don’t go overboa—eh, never mind.”
Avit takes off in between the sky sailors, dashing through the crowds, causing mayhem and confusion.
Meanwhile, Oc spits a whistle into the air. It’s raspy like a pan pipe, held long then pulled back in. She pauses, then repeats it again. And as she does we can see it echo a bright flash of violet as it shoots upward.
“What was that?” No One asks, confused, as Oc pushes them towards the edge of the aero-ship. “The misfit call, I’ll explain later.”
She pulls out what looks like a telescope, leans over the side of the ship, peering out in all directions, before checking her wrist contraption against the sky.
All the while Avit continues to thwart the lieutenant.
He shoots his pistol a few more times, as Avit ducks and dodges.
“We should help,” Deter says, getting up.
“Wait,” Oc insists, pushing her down by her shoulders, “this may seem like a game, but the stories go that the Lieutenant is—”
“GET THE CANNONS, what are you scared sack of beans waiting for? SHOOT THIS FLYING VERMIN OUT OF THE SKY.”
“Hot-tempered,” Oc sighs. She turns to the others and commands, “EVERYONE GET DOWN,” as Avit flies towards the misfits as quickly as possible.
“I might have gone a little too far,” she admits.
“Eh, he started it,” Oc replies, continuing to peer over the edge of the ship with her telescope.
“Why are we hiding?” Brave asks. “Let’s dodge the cannons and fight them head on. We took him down before.”
“Still nothing.” Oc grimaces, flattening the telescope and re-attaching it to her hip.
“We could always fly away,” Deter suggests, and although her voice is strong, her body jitters sharply into my side.
“Oc and I could,” Avit signs. “The rest of you look like river fish flopping on dry land. They’d have you back on deck before you knew you were flying.”
“Then maybe we should try listening to me,” Brave retorts sharply.
Oc turns her head towards her quickly, squinting her eyes as she looks at her funny.
“You want us to fight them? We have two snot machines and a stinkshot. If you hadn’t noticed, they have cannons. Did Piper not explain that you can still die here in Neverland?”
“Not my best moment,” Oc admits, glancing over at Brave from her hammock as Witt continues to tell the tale.
“Eh.” Brave shrugs, leaning over to grab the fruit Oc offered up as a peace offering. “I was being a…what’s the word…pickle brain?”
“Why don’t we just jump?” I suggest. “We can probably fall faster than they could descend this whole huge aero-ship.” I look down through the clouds to the water below. “It looks like the mist down below would make us harder to find. So, we don’t need to be good at flying, right?” I sign to Avit. “Just good enough not to hit the ground.”
Avit raises a brow, impressed. “I like it.”
“Then it’s probably a bad idea,” I reply, without thinking.
Avit’s eyes go wide as she reads my lips. She exhales as if she just got the wind knocked out of her, then laughs.
“I may be the fastest flyer,” she signs, “but you, you’re a quick…” She suddenly stops and grins. “I got it—”
“A plan?” Poise chimes in hopefully.
“No, no, a name—Witt, that has to be it.”
Deter chuckles. “You are clever with that sharp tongue.”
Witt, I think it over, as I sign it out. I had never been called that before. Disrespectful, sure. A know-it-all, disruptive, sneaky, and rude. I heard those too.
But never clever, never witty, never Witt.
“It’s better than bookworm,” I reply nonchalantly. But Avit sees the grin on my face and winks.
“Told you I’d find it.” She turns to Brave. “And you, what’s your name?”
“Brave,” she says while signing.
“More like stubborn,” Oc mumbles.
“Two sides, same coin,” Avit signs. A cannon whizzes past, just missing them as it flies over the edge of the ship.
Another barrels above their heads, sending debris into the sky.
The cannons go off one after the other in continuous succession, and the captives’ ears begin to ring and ache from the sound.
But under that ring, quietly, is the dull hum of laughter.
It starts singular and low pitched, then continues to grow and grow and grow into the loudest, most unapologetic, most hysterical cacophony.
The cannons finally stop and we all look up, trying to pinpoint the exact place where the sound is coming from.
And finally, the music draws our collective gaze towards her, standing precariously and arrogantly on the tip of the aero-ship’s nose, as the smoke of the cannons billows around her, Piper.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant, or should we say scalawag, or maybe pickled brains,” she mocks, dodging the cannons as the crew of the aero-ships lock their focus onto her.
She weaves in and out of the flying projectiles ducking some and jumping over others, while gliding past the crew members as they attempt her capture.
“What are you imbeciles doing?” the Lieutenant yells down frustratedly.
“She’s standing right in front of you.”
“I know,” she tsks, appearing beside him, shaking her head and clicking her tongue. “It’s so hard to find good help these days, very, very disappointing.”
The Lieutenant snaps back and grasps at her quickly, but he is left with wind as she leaps backwards away from him, playing her pan pipe as she dances through the sky.
“AaaaaGGGGHHH,” he yells. “Shoot her down, SHOOT.HER.DOWN. Do you hear me? A whole ship and crew, half the goods in my personal collection, for whoever BRINGS ME THE MAESTRO.”
“Lieutenant, lieutenant,” she calls, wearing one of the crewman’s hats while waving her hands frantically about.
“I don’t think they can hear you. I think, I think they’ve fallen asleep.”
“This one, and this one, and this one too,” she says, shaking each fainted crew member. She grabs one’s face and moves his mouth like a puppet.
“A whole crew and a ship, for the Maestro, I’ll capture her. I have to,” she puppeteers, turning to the lieutenant with a knowing sigh.
“Alas, delusions of grandeur, but what can we say. Dreams should be sweet.” She yawns, then grabs her hat in exaggerated panic.
“Oh no, the Maestro’s tune. It’s got me too, I’m feeling drowsy…sleepy, maybe all the goods from your personal collection, and perhaps half, no your entire fleet, could save…me,” she reaches out dramatically as she falls flat on the ground.
“Lieutenant, please, only you, only you can…save me. Say you’re…say you…say you,” she begins to snicker. Say you’re a half-baked pickle brain, maybe that will wake me.”
The lieutenant stares out in devastated humiliation at his fleet.
“Get off of my aero-ship,” he seethes through gritted teeth.
Piper sits up, furrows her brows as she puts her finger to her lips and reprimands. “Shhh, they’re sleeping.”
“LEAVE!”
“STOP TAKING MY MISFITS,” she shouts back, her voice acidic and spidery.
The lieutenant’s glare goes dead as his voice drops into a warning.
“Don’t test me.”
The Maestro shoots back a sinister grin, before putting her pan to her lips.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he growls.
“Oh?” She grins, eyes dancing, pan to her lips, as the rest of her disappears into the shadows.
“Who’s testing who?”
Suddenly, a melody, dark and woody, begins to splinter and crack the ships.
The lieutenant stiffens in panic as his ships moan and creak. “I’ve called the cavalry!” he spits out in a last-ditch effort.
The Maestro stops, pulls her pan from her mouth, and flies over to the new arrivals turned captives. She does a quick head count and frowns.
“Hey, that’s not fair, your team’s like…a billion times bigger.”
“And?” he asks.
“Well if we’re going to play a game—”
“This isn’t a game,” he interrupts.
“Then what is it?” Piper asks, head tilted in confusion.
“It’s a matter of propriety.”
She grimaces. “Between you and me, you should have called it a game, it sounds more fu–”
“It’s not about fun, it’s about knowing your place.”
“Hmm, hate to break it to you,” she says, resting her cheek in her palm, “that doesn’t sound any better.”
He lunges at her, desperate and clumsy with anger, as the Maestro slips from his grasp.
She snickers.
And the sound lingers after her as she jumps into the air and rides the current away.
I watch as she disappears, the most perfect description of her poised on the tip of her tongue.
She moves like…wind. I think.
Like wind on a summer night.
Brave grabs my hand, pulling me off the edge of the ship.
“Come on, Witt, there’s a flying island! We have to check it out!”
“Yes,” I answer, lost in thought. “It’s where they—or I guess we, the misfits, live.”
But Brave isn’t listening, which I don’t mind as I’m too busy thinking. Someone had described her once to me.
A girl like the summer night’s breeze.
But who she was or is I can’t quite remember.
Or so the story goes…