Another Pan (39 page)

Peter crouched outside Wendy’s window, listening, waiting for the family to come home. It was night, but Peter didn’t feel anxious. He didn’t feel any doubts or regrets or other night creatures creeping back into his soul. He felt happy, exhilarated, powerful. For the moment, the night didn’t seem so endless. It seemed exciting, because in those last few minutes with Wendy, he had had more happy thoughts than in all the previous decades.

Wendy fell into her bed, exhausted. Her father had just left her room after an hour of nonstop yelling. He had paced back and forth across her pink fuzzy rug, red-faced, sweating, pointing his index finger in Wendy’s and John’s faces. She hadn’t seen him so physically wrecked since that time he’d gotten food poisoning during a dig in Egypt. He looked even worse now. His gray hair was ruffled — sad, thinning chunks poked out in every direction, woefully inadequate for the task of covering his scalp.

Through their father’s entire rant, John sat quietly at Wendy’s desk with his hands in his lap, picking at a torn nail and glancing at Wendy once in a while. He was trying to figure it all out in his head, to convince himself that it wasn’t true — that his own dad hadn’t been an errand boy for the arrogant prick. But however you looked at them, the pieces fell into place the same way. John tried to work out the math. If his dad, who was fifty-eight years old, had been a stooge for Peter when he was, say, fifteen, then that would mean that for at least forty-three years, Peter had stayed the same age. And that’s the minimum, because who knows if John’s dad had been in the first batch or the twentieth batch of LBs? John thought about all the old men living all over the world who had worked for Peter — all the geezers who were written off as insane or senile for telling nutty adventure stories to their grandkids. All the wrinkled old ladies who had been the sultry Tinas of Peter’s past.

“Gross,” said John out loud, thinking of his sister kissing someone that old. No one heard. Professor Darling was in the middle of a particularly effusive part of his speech. In the back of their car, on the way home, Wendy had nudged John and passed him a note scribbled on a gum wrapper with lipstick.
Elan. Just toe?
She had written. She didn’t have to say any more. Peter had found Elan at least forty-three years ago. He must have found a whole lot more of him than that. He must have used the mummy all this time to stay young until he could find all five parts of the immortal bonedust. He must have waited for decades for the book to fall into obscurity and go somewhere unguarded, somewhere easier than the British Museum.
What a loser,
thought John,
searching for one stupid thing for all that time
.

During Professor Darling’s very loud, very dramatic monologue, Wendy had interrupted to ask if their father had been with Peter when he had found the first bone. She hinted at it without giving away too much, because after all, Professor Darling had no idea that the gates of the underworld were now attached to the underside of Marlowe. He had no idea that the
Book of Gates
was the key to it all. He just knew that the legends were real and that Peter was living proof. Of course, he couldn’t tell anyone that. So he had worked and researched, trying to pinpoint the one artifact that opened the door, and talked and talked till he was old and dry and branded a kook.

“Were you there,” Wendy asked carefully, “when Peter found . . . you know?”

“Wendy Darling,” he shouted. “Do not interrupt me.”

That was all he said.

Then, after he had gone through the full roster of their crimes (damaging a priceless artifact, embarrassing him in front of his colleagues, burdening him with extra work, and most likely catching a lip fungus) and doled out their punishment (grounded indefinitely, no television, no phones), he dropped his tired head and started to leave. But before he left, he turned to Wendy and said, “That boy is dangerous. But if you do know something . . . about what he’s found . . . I would hope that you would tell me.”

After a moment, Professor Darling gave a resigned nod and turned toward the door.

Before leaving, he paused momentarily, his hand on the doorknob, a look of nostalgia on his face. Slowly, a small smile crept onto his lips. “No, Wendy,” he said. “I wasn’t there when he found the first mummy. He had already had it for twenty years.”

Wendy shot John a look, and they both sat up. Their father continued.

“But I
was
there to witness another event. Do you want to know something about your friend Peter? He is the most single-minded creature I’ve ever met, Wendy. He doesn’t love you. He never will.”

Wendy blanched. Her father had never been so cynical. Even after her mother left, her father had assured her that Mrs. Darling still loved her children. Wendy didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to know about another person who didn’t love her. Her father didn’t notice the look on her face, and so he went on with his story.

“On my last day as Peter’s friend — we were living in London then — Peter came to our hideout near Leicester Square, and he was raving. He turned over all the card tables. He threw things around. He basically destroyed the place. He punched my best friend in the face so hard that his nose gushed with blood. And then he turned on me. I stood up to him, of course. I asked him why he was behaving like a loony. He had just come back from the British Museum. He was very vague about what he had done. He never told us anything back then. Back then, he didn’t trust any of us with the details of his mission. All he said was that he had found something he had wanted for years and that he’d lost it again. He said he’d been poking around the museum, that he had it in his hand, and that some
guard
had found him too soon. He said he dropped it and ran out and that he’d never be able to find it now. After that, I left Peter’s gang. He was too dangerous, and life with him was pointless. I went back home to my parents. I wanted to do something with my life, so I went to college, and I studied Egyptology — Peter’s favorite subject. Only then did I understand what Peter was doing, what his life’s goal was all about. Only then did I realize that, on my last day, Peter had lost another mummy.”

So now her father had left the room, and Wendy was lying on her bed in her nightgown, torn between the people she cared about most, and as emotionally spent as a sixteen-year-old can be. On the one hand, she was still riding the high of that long-awaited kiss. On the other hand, her father had been the only person she had ever really trusted. How could she lie to him now? She kept thinking about the Peter her father had described. Sure, he sounded terrible, but he had a right to be mad, after all he’d been through. Besides, after dumping Connor and hurting Tina and doing so many underhanded things that made Wendy hate herself, Wendy was not ready to believe that it had all been for the sake of a person who didn’t love her — who didn’t care about anyone but himself. She wasn’t ready to admit that she had deluded herself about Peter. John was sitting at Wendy’s computer in his pajamas, surfing the Web. “I can’t
believe
it,” he kept saying, over and over. Wendy closed her eyes and replayed the scene outside the Four Seasons over again in her head. She decided that, for the moment, she would just be happy. She lay back and tried to think happier, more relaxing thoughts. . . .

That lasted for exactly two minutes and fifty-nine seconds, because three minutes later, the window blew open and Peter popped his head in, looking unruffled and relaxed, as always. He straightened his hair and gave them his classic upturned nod, as though climbing to the second story of a house in New York City was as easy as walking in through the front door. Wendy jumped out of bed, and John spun the computer chair around to face Peter. They were both stunned speechless.

Peter swung his long legs over the windowsill and hopped inside, not bothering with greetings or explanations.

“All right, where is it, then?” he said.

“Are you insane?” asked John. “If our dad sees you, he’ll have you arrested.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, “because
we
are not going to get caught.”

“We?” said Wendy, flush with excitement.

“As in, the three of us,” said Peter. “When we steal that book and go after the fourth mummy. Come on, now — Marcus Praxis awaits!”

“We can’t steal the book now!” said John in a shrill voice. “It’s in my dad’s room. And besides, do you know how much trouble we’re in already? We’re grounded till we’re a hundred, and some of us don’t have bonedust to make the time worthless.”

“Time’s not worthless to me,” said Peter quietly. “I don’t have all five yet.”

“It looks to me like one’s enough,” said John. “It kept you the same for sixty years.”

“I haven’t stayed the same.” Peter laughed. “I was thirteen when I found Elan. Now I look, what, eighteen? Without all five, growing up doesn’t come to a full stop. Elan just slowed it down for me.” He looked at John’s face, still hard and unsure. Then he added, “Come on, man, I need your help. I can’t do it without
the Johnny
.” He took out his handheld and shook it in front of John like an invitation.