The Accident: A Tinker Bell Fanfiction

2. The Accident

The Accident

2.

"Ready?" she asked him from her seat behind the controls of The Pixie Dust Express.

"Ready!" he said from his canoe, oars in hand.

"And Terence," she said with a sly grin, "try to keep up."

Tink and Terence teased each other often like this. They had a strong and durable friendship. When she returned from her adventures with Peter Pan these two were able to slip back into their old ways very easily.

During a previous test of a different prototype, the little pixie boat zoomed off the water, went on land and got tangled up in a cluster of cat-o-nine tails. Terence went looking for her to make sure she was all right. Tinker Bell always was, but still.

When he started searching where The Express landed, he couldn't find her anywhere.

"Tink?" he called out. "Tink, where are you?" He searched through the reeds and the plants and the water lilies alike. The dust keeper looked high and looked low. He was getting worried, the timber of his voice changed reflecting that growing concern and anxiety.

Terence started yelling out her name. He was flitting above some broad leaf plants when Tink suddenly jumped out from under them and yelled "ROWR!"

"AAAHHH" he squealed, completely startled. She couldn't help but laugh. That look on his face was priceless. Of course, he wasn't too happy about it at first, but then he settled down and laughed right along with her.

Tink released partial tension on the wound up stretchy thingy she employed as a substitute engine. The rubber band powered three playing cards Tinker Bell had fashioned into a large paddle wheel on the back of the Express and two sets of walnut shells that rotated on either side of the boat. With all three spinning, the vessel moved across the placid waters at a good clip.

"Now for Hydro-Drive," she announced to herself. Tinker Bell said it every time she engaged the drive system that had given her so much grief in the past. She always thought it was for good luck. With a pull of a lever the three skis descended from the boat's hull while the full tension of the rubber band was released. The new Pixie Dust Express shot down the stream like a bat out of hell. Somehow The Express was travelling faster than any previous model she had built. It barely skimmed across the surface of the water and Tinker Bell had to hold on for dear life. The air plowed into her and nearly knocked the dainty girl off her feet. She dare not let go or risk being thrown from the boat. If that happened, the craft would outpace her fairy flying.

Terence was nowhere in sight. His little canoe slipped quietly along. He had given up trying to keep up several prototypes ago. He rowed his little boat to the shore and flew off after his best friend.

"Wow, she is really moving," he commented, a smile across his face.

Tinker Bell wrestled with the control stick. She pulled and pushed to dodge obstacles in the stream: Water Lilly's, frogs, hollow reeds, cat-o-nine tails, rocks, roots and logs. They rocketed past her as blurs. She was anxiety stricken and her heart raced. It was too fast now. A small part of her tinker mind tried to find a reason for it. Maybe it was the gourd she chose. Maybe she put too much tension on the stretchy thingy. Maybe it was the third ski. Whatever reason, this was no longer test run. It had become an exercise in survival.

Maybe I should let go.

Tink noticed that when she turned the boat it tended to go too far in that direction, forcing her to pull the other way and over correct. But each time she would pull and push the boat kept moving right and left farther and farther. The Pixie Dust Express started to bob and weave and then it fishtailed wildly. Then it turned sideways. When it did the water rushing passed underneath grabbed the edge of one of the skis and flipped the boat over. The Express didn't plow into the water and stop; instead, it flipped wildly over and over and over again. Bits and pieces shearing as it did and whistling past any little marine creature nearby. With the world tumbling over itself in her eyes, Tinker Bell shrieked in stark terror. She would be lucky come out of this unscathed.