Jason Slightly looked up quickly as a shadow passed over him. He scanned the sky and the rigging above him, but he saw no one there. Please, please, don’t come back, he prayed. Giving the sky another quick scan, he returned his attention to scrubbing the deck.

He dipped the brush in his bucket of soapy water and scrubbed furiously at yet another red spot on the deck. Peter and the boys had raided the ship that morning. They had mainly caused the usual confusion and mayhem by cutting the rigging and luring the pirates back and forth across the deck. Slightly had stood apart and tried to remain unnoticed, but – as was becoming usual – he was the true target of the raid. Peter had trapped Hook and the pirates below deck while the other Lost Boys surrounded Slightly. Then they all had hurled the rotten Never-berries in their sacks at the hapless boy – as well as some hurtful jeers and insults. Shortly after the boys had left, Slightly (dripping berry juice the entire way) had unlocked the hatch and let the crew out.

“Well, boy,” Hook had growled after taking a hard look at him, “have you got anything to tell me now?”

Slightly had not even bothered to look up. “No, Captain.”

“Then I suggest you clean up your mess. I want every trace of berry gone from my deck. You’d better hurry – the longer it sets the harder it is to clean.”

So Slightly had spent the entire day on his hands and knees, scrubbing at the juice stains on the desk. He’d not even been allowed to eat lunch, and if he didn’t finish soon, supper would be missed too.

Billy squatted down next to him and handed him a cup of water. “You know if you just tell him where you used to live and where they might be now, things will go better. You won’t be his slave and they won’t be able to hurt you like this anymore.”

Slightly drained the cup and went back to scrubbing. “No,” he said simply. Hook called him a boarder, and they had a nice neat little contract signed, but Slightly was really nothing more than a slave. He worked from sunup to sundown, doing the most undesirable chores, and given only basic food, water and shelter in return. Even if Slightly could go back ashore, Hook would never allow it.

“They’ll come back tomorrow and the day after, like they did yesterday and the day before. And you’ll have to clean up the mess every time.”

“Like the Cap’n said,” Slightly answered, “Their mess is my mess for as long as I keep their secrets. Besides, there’s lots of places they could be… if they actually moved in the first place. It’d take a month to search them all.”

“Hook would take a year if he needed it. Tell him,” Billy urged. “You’d become a shipmate – a part of the family! Hook would make you his cabin-boy, he is fond of you. He’s just pissed at you all the time ‘cause he can’t understand how you can still be so loyal. Peter Pan and those brats aren’t worth this.”

“Yes, they are,” Slightly snapped. “I don’t want to be a pirate, Billy. I want to be a Lost Boy. I love Neverland and I don’t want to leave.”

“I’m sorry, cully,” Billy said as he stood up. “But you’ve got to face the fact that Neverland doesn’t love you anymore.”

Slightly stared at Jukes as the boy walked off. “I know, I already have,” he whispered. Not much longer and it will all be cleaned up. He moved to the next stain and put some soap on it. When he went to dip his brush in the bucket, he discovered it was gone. “What the…” Slightly looked around frantically, and Nibs stepped out from behind a crate.

“What are you doing here,” Slightly snapped, but he kept his head down. “I’ll get in trouble if they see you.”

“You haven’t told Hook anything?” Nibs asked quietly.

“Of course not!”

“Why not?” Nibs actually sounded surprised.

“Contrary to popular belief, I was telling the truth. I’m not a traitor,” Slightly replied, staring the boy in the eye.

“So why don’t you run away? You’re not locked up or tied.”

Slightly laughed, and Nibs felt alarmed at the utter hopelessness in the sound. “I tried. But like Billy said (and I’m sure you were eavesdropping), Neverland doesn’t love me anymore. I had a very malicious pixie explain it to me two weeks ago, last time I tried to set foot on the island. She attacked me, called me a traitor and worse. She almost killed me, Nibs.”

Nibs looked shocked, and Slightly continued. “Hook saved me and he carried me back to the ship. But I heard what she called after us. Every fairy in Neverland thinks I’m the most horrible person in Neverland, even worse than Hook, and I’m exiled. If I set foot on the shore, every plant, animal, and fairy will attack me. I haven’t been back since. I did try to swim ashore last week, to try again. The mermaids grabbed me and tried to drown me. Hook saw me jump and dove in after me. He saved me again, hauled me back, then beat me for jumping ship.”

“He beat you?” Nibs gasped.

Slightly shrugged, “Wasn’t the first time. Wasn’t the last. Go away, Nibs. I’m supposed to give the alarm if I see any of you, and he’ll whip me if he finds out I didn’t.”

Nibs ducked behind a crate, but kept whispering to him, “Does he hit you a lot?”

Slightly just shrugged again. “Define a lot. Not every day, and sometimes no more than a couple of licks. It depends on how much Peter pisses him off. He takes your pranks out on me.”

“And you have to clean up the mess we leave behind, because you won’t tell him where you think we live?”

Slightly nodded.

“Where do you think we live?”

“My first guess would be that you never moved, you just had Twins make it so I couldn’t open the trees and closed up the back door. It’s the most secure place. Wendy most likely moved down with you. She’d never live in the other places Peter would want to move to.”

Nibs didn’t reply, too shocked that Slightly had guessed correctly.

“Nibs, where’s my bucket?” Slightly asked, fearing the answer.

“Curly had it – oh, no. I’ll stop him,” Nibs whispered and slipped off.

But Captain Hook at that moment exited his cabin, intending to see if the day’s work had changed the boy’s mind. The bucked of soapy, berry-stained water that was hanging above his door tipped over and doused the man, coloring his hair and shirt pink.

Slightly closed his eyes and began rattling off every swear word he’d learned so far on the ship.

End Chapter 8