Stop gawking and close your mouth before I decide to use it as a trash receptacle.

Yes, yes, it’s true. Jocelyn’s fierce, fighting pirates were nothing more than banished lost boys, all grown up.

As such, they couldn’t come with Jocelyn, but remembering the havoc they’d caused with the cannon, she didn’t feel comfortable leaving them alone. She commanded Dirty Bob to stay behind and keep an eye on things. Because they were now down to two dinghies, after the loss of the first in the cave, Smee rowed her to shore in the spare, tying it at Plunder Point. From there it would be only a short walk through the forest to Tiger Lily’s village.

Though it felt like a pleasant spring day, the trees and ground were dusted with white. Jocelyn reached down and grabbed a handful of snow. She expected it to be warm, like the snowflakes had been in her dream, but it was as cold and dull as English snow. She dropped it in disgust.

“What’s the matter, miss?” Smee asked.

“Nothing,” she said as she wiped her hand on her jacket. “I just thought the snow would be warm.”

Smee laughed. “Warm, she says! Warm snow on the ground. Have you ever heard such a thing, Johnny?”

Jocelyn scowled at him. “I don’t see what’s so funny. This island is full of surprises. Why not warm snow?”

“Of course it’s warm when it falls, but the longer it sits, the colder it gets—like when you’re called to dinner and you don’t come in right away.” Smee stuck his finger in a snowbank. “This here has been sitting out all night or longer. It’s stone cold now.” He pulled his finger out, sticking it in his armpit to remove the icy sting. “Oh, and it probably goes without saying, but mayhaps I should remind you: if you see any snow lizards, don’t pick them up, unless you want to get yourself frostbit.” Smee continued chuckling as he ambled up the path. Jocelyn followed, keeping an eye out for the cold-blooded creatures.

If her expedition had been planned in order to explore the Neverland and see some of its creatures, it would have been a raging success. In addition to snow lizards, she spied a pair of brown-faced gnomes, a large herd of pooka, and the uncommon bare-fronted hoodwink.

Jocelyn almost resolved to take time to explore, simply for the sake of exploring, once she finished with the crocodile, but then she thought of her father. He would not have been likely to go on a nature expedition unless there was blood or treasure at stake. When the girl saw a red-feathered serpent sunning itself on a rock, she made a point to yawn at it, set her face toward the Indian village, and march on.

A short while later they arrived at Tiger Lily’s camp, only to find it deserted—populated with empty tipi frames and cold fire pits.

“Begging your pardon, miss,” Smee said, “but it looks like they’ve gone on the hunt. There’s no telling when they’ll return.”

Jocelyn could not believe their terrible luck. She had no idea how to find the crocodile now. There was nothing to do but return to the ship. This task proved to be rather difficult as well, for when they got back to Plunder Point, they found that their spare dinghy had been chopped full of holes. A dull ax lay in a patch of nearby sea grass. Clearly, this was the work of Peter Pan or his lost boys.

Jocelyn felt certain that Blind Bart would hear them and send the spare-spare if they called out for him to do so, but Smee insisted on swimming back for it while she waited. She didn’t have the heart to argue.

Jocelyn sat with her back to a tree and threw rocks at the useless boat. They made a satisfying bang as they crashed against its wooden sides.

The whole day had been so infuriating!

Bang!

A useless hike. No warriors. And now this.

Bang! Bang!

What a stupid waste of time!

Thud.

“Ow! Come on, fellas, we’re under attack!” a boyish voice called out.

In her anger, Jocelyn had pitched the last rock wild. It had discovered its target in an overgrown berry patch beyond the boat. Before she could even get to her feet, Jocelyn found herself being pelted with a volley of overripe blackberries. Sticky, purple juice stained her face and body.

“Stop that this instant!” she commanded.

The berries immediately stopped raining down on Jocelyn.

“Did you hear that, Ace?”

“I heard it. Did you hear it, Fredo?”

“Yeah. It sounded like a girl. What do you think, Twin?”

“Sure did. How about you, Dodge? Hey, where’s Dodge?”

“I think he went to pick more berries. We used all the mushiest ones from this bush.”

While this conversation went on, Jocelyn crept closer to the berry patch. After parting the foliage, she saw four dirty-faced boys crouched on the other side. They smelled of camp smoke and were dressed in animal skins. Jocelyn had found the lost boys.

“I thought that was a pirate’s rowboat. What’s a girl doing with a pirate, Fredo?” asked a small boy dressed in jackalope fur. He didn’t seem to notice that his antlers were tangled in the brambles.

A chubby boy wearing a too-small jacket, pieced together from squirrel skins, answered him. “Perhaps she has been captured. We should rescue her.”

“Yes, let’s, Fredo!” agreed a pair of boys dressed alike in skunk shirts and hats, long black and white tails dangling down their backs. “Won’t Peter be pleased with us?”

Jocelyn wrinkled her nose, as much at the mention of that cocky boy as at the ripe scent coming off the boys’ furs. “Look here,” she said. “I’ve already gone over this with your Peter what’s-his-name. I don’t need rescuing.”

The boys hardly looked at Jocelyn. They went on with their discussion as if she weren’t there. “The girl said she didn’t need rescuing, Ace.”

Jackalope shrugged. “That’s what I thought she said, Fredo. I wonder why not, Twin.”

“I don’t know. Let’s ask Dodge when he gets—”

“You two are twins? And both…named Twin?” Jocelyn interrupted. Aside from their skunk-skin clothes, the two boys couldn’t have looked more different. One was short with freckles and ginger hair and the other tall and dark-skinned. “You don’t look anything alike.”

“Yes we do,” the smaller twin said.

“Peter said so—right, Ace?” the larger twin continued.

Ace nodded, shaking the bush with his tangled jackalope horns. “Right, Twin. Peter said we need twins. You two got the short straws, so you are it.” He pointed at each boy in turn. “Twin and Twin.”

“That’s right, Ace,” the skunk boys replied in unison.

“Oh, Peter said so, did he?” Jocelyn really disliked that boy. “Of all the stupid—ouch! What was that?” Jocelyn felt it again, a sharp tug on the back of her head, ripping out several hairs. She slapped at whatever it was that was attacking her, but missed.

The chubby boy laughed. “You’ll never catch her like that; she’s too quick.”

A streak of light flashed across the girl’s vision. “Who’s too quick? What was that?”

“She’s Peter’s fairy, Tinker Bell,” the tall twin said.

“Tink doesn’t like girls much,” the short one added.

“I can see that,” Jocelyn replied as the fairy gave her a pinch on the back of her leg. “Can you get her to stop?”

“I dunno; we’ve never tried,” the chubby boy said. “Tink. Stop.” The fairy ripped a button from Jocelyn’s jacket and hurled it to the ground. “I guess not.”

“Not for a lack of effort, I’m sure,” Jocelyn said. “What does she have against girls?”

“She’s either jealous that they like Peter—”

“Or angry that they don’t. Right, Dodge?” The twins addressed someone behind Jocelyn. She turned in time to be hit full in the face with a handful of rotten berries.

“Right!” the new voice replied.

Jocelyn wiped juice from her eyes, trying to get a better look at the berry flinger.

The boy stood in front of her—dressed not in skins but in dirty and torn clothing, with burs in his curly hair and streaks of dried mud on his face—sporting a very familiar grin. Jocelyn could hardly believe her eyes.

“Roger?”