Escaping Neverland by Lynn Wahl Read Free Book Online

girls.”
    His words stung, and I turned around to face him,
but he was already across the clearing. He smirked at me and winked before
turning back to dragging a little kid out of his blankets.
    “I am not a useless girl,” I said.
    Jasmine kicked the bottom of the staff I held. It
banged into my shins, bringing tears to my eyes.
    “Then prove it. Stop complaining and let’s go.”
Her voice was harsh, but her eyes were sad, as if she secretly agreed with me
but couldn’t say anything.
    “Besides,” she said. “If you stay here, you’ve got
to dig another privy.”
    She walked away. She was right. I’d rather go and
hit things with a stick than dig another hole. I followed her to where she
stood next to William. The rest of the kids had already lined up at the edge of
the clearing. Most of them were yawning and rubbing sleep out of their eyes.
Their ages ranged from six to fifteen, and every single one of them looked too
young to be carrying the weapons they were. When I saw an eight year old
caressing a mace with what looked like dried blood on its spikes, my stomach
rolled and I tried to fade back away from the line.
    A burning touch at my shoulder stopped me, and I
turned to find Pyro giving me a happy grin.
    “Don’t like digging, huh?” he asked.
    I nodded, pretending that I hadn’t been trying to
sneak away. “What are we doing?”
    Pyro shrugged. “Who knows. William will tell us
when we get closer.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that. Caught up in the
group, I couldn’t stop myself from being forced forward when William thrust out
his arm and marched off into the jungle. When my bare feet splashed through the
stream, I tried to stop and was shoved forward into the kid in front of me.
    “Wait,” I cried. “What about the spiders?” The
kids snickered and ignored me and kept marching. Pyro, reappearing at my side,
gave me a friendly pat on the arm that left a little patch of burned skin. I
winced and pulled away from him.
    “The spiders only come out at night. Unless you
fall in one of their traps, you’re fine.”
    “Traps?” I asked.
    He led me a few feet into the woods and pointed at
the patch of ground in front of us.
    “They dig a hole and then cover it with web and
leaves. When you step into the hole, the web breaks and you fall in. If you’re
lucky, you land on the spider, crush it, and just climb back out.”
    I swallowed hard and stared at the ground. It looked
just like the rest of the forest floor. “What happens if you don’t land on the
spider?”
    Pyro shrugged. “The spiders’ venom is paralyzing.
It only takes a few seconds, and then they eat you. Alive. Let’s see if there’s
something in this one. Sometimes they dig the trap and then forget where it is
when they come back at night. If you’re really lucky, the trap will be empty.”
    He grabbed my staff and stabbed it through the
webbing. From below my feet, I heard a nervous shuffling and then a soft
hissing noise that sounded like steel wool on glass. I shuddered and waited for
the monster to explode up out of the hole, but when nothing happened, Pyro
pulled the stick up and handed it back to me. The light colored staff was dark
and glistening at the bottom. Deep gouges had been scratched into the wood.
    “Don’t touch that end,” he suggested and wandered
away.
    I stood there for a few seconds more, afraid to
turn my back on the pit, before hurrying to catch up with the group.
    When we emerged into a natural clearing ringed
with giant moss-covered trees, I sank onto a log with a groan after checking to
make sure there weren’t any centipedes. I’d never walked so far in my life.
Every part of me was soaking wet and caked with mud. All I wanted was a hot
bath and a plate of spaghetti. At the thought of spaghetti with steaming,
cheesy garlic bread, my mouth started watering. William was giving some stupid
speech about snakes and cutting off their heads when I came out of my Italian
food fantasy.
    When I looked