Waiting for the Stars | ✓

Chapter Two

A/N: Song above is Peter Pan by Nicole Zefanya :)

---

Then one night as I closed my eyes

I saw a shadow flying high

He came to me with the sweetest smile

Told me he wanted to talk for a while

He said

Peter Pan

That's what they call me

I promise that you'll never be lonely

---

Margaret Darling, for she, like the other Darling women, had kept her maiden name, firmly secured a red scarf about her daughter Cara's neck.

Cara had grown to be a lionhearted girl of five years, with a pretty, heart-shaped face, and the customary Darling kiss on the corner of her mouth. She had wild, unruly dark curly tresses, hair like her father's, her mother would say fondly, and eyes like honeyed gold. They were bright and intelligent; and one could not simply look into them and then forget about them.

"But I don't want to go to school, Mama," said Cara, pouting.

Her mother looked at her sternly. Margaret Darling was still a beautiful woman, but she had streaks of gray in her hair and wrinkles near her eyes. In her eyes was the deepest of sadnesses, one acquired from the death of her husband only a month after Cara was born.

"Cara, you must go to school. How else are you to ever learn?"

"Can't I just come to work with you, instead?"

Her mother laughed. "And grow up so quickly? Goodness, what ever would Peter Pan think?"

Cara scowled. "It's not growing up," she insisted. "Peter never wanted to go to school either!"

"Now, why don't you pay as much attention to your maths as you do to my stories?" said Margaret in amusement. "Now, come along, you shan't be late."

So Cara did end up going to school, wearing a frown and a resigned expression.

Now, Cara Darling was not weak nor lazy, but had very different reasons for wishing to skip school. It was not that she disliked learning, but that she disliked her classmates.

Moreover, her classmates disliked her very much, and they weren't the kindest students either.

She hung up her coat and scarf up on the rails, and dragged her feet into her classroom, mentally preparing herself for her horrid day.

"Good morning, Miss Darling," said her teacher, looking down at her sternly. "Hello," replied Cara half-heartedly, going and sitting down at her seat.

They learned maths and science, and then it was time for lunch and recess.

Cara had always been a fast eater, so she went and sat upon the swings, swinging back and forth and back and forth. Slowly, she began to smile, just as she went higher and higher. It was almost as if she was flying.

The sky looked so near to her that she could reach out and touch it, and maybe grasp hold of the tail of Neverland island. At this revelation, her eyes brightened, and stared up at the sky, wondering if she looked hard enough she would find it. Her eyes darted across the blue, taking in the clouds and sunshine, and she wished it was night. Maybe then, Peter would come and be her friend. No one else really wanted to.

"Hey, everybody, look! It's Cara Darling!"

Cara squeezed her eyes shut. Freedom was only temporary.

Her horrid classmates started lobbing rocks at her, calling her ugly and liar and all sorts of terrible things you should never say to a child.

She crashed to the ground, praying for them to stop, for the day to be over.

See, it had all started when she first started going to school.

Cara was already rather strange, having only a mother and no father. The other children whispered about her behind her back, and it only got worse when Cara started telling them about Peter Pan, desperate to make friends.

She was a different kind of girl, too. Instead of playing princesses and fairies, she wanted to swordfight and play pirates. She wasn't afraid of the big slide in the playground, or the swings, or getting dirty. She wasn't afraid of anything. She didn't brush her hair, she never wore dresses, and she yelled and screamed and wrestled with the boys.

She was different.

Cara quickly got up and started to run, the other students chasing after her and throwing things. Oh, how she wished she never tried to make friends. Friends were overrated, anyway.

She hid behind a huge oak tree, sitting on the grass and hugging her knees to her chest, breathing hard. She waited, her heart beating so loud she was sure it would give her away.

But it didn't, and the children left. All she was was a funny pastime, something to make them laugh.

Cara picked up a stick from the base of the tree and hastily scrawled a note into the dirt.

Dear Peter Pan, it said.

Please don't leave me alone anymore.

She took up a dandelion weed and gently blew the fluff over the scratched letters, pretending the seeds were strands of pixie dust, ready to float her message up to the heavens.

She stayed there for the rest of recess.

---

"How was school, Cara?" asked her mother kindly, unaware of her daughter's turmoil.

"Fine." Cara replied curtly. "I'm going to bed."

Margaret blinked. "Oh. Oh, alright."

Cara ran up the stairs to her room and locked the door behind her, throwing herself to her window and trying to hold back the sobs she had held back for so long.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she gazed up at the sky, filled with a longing so deep and profound it echoed through her bones and reverberated through her soul.

"Oh, Peter Pan," she said softly. "The boy who forgot."

Heavily, she changed from her uniform to her nightgown, and crawled into her covers, feeling cold on a summer night. She shivered, pulling the covers around her.

And when her eyes had almost closed, and dreams were about to take over her mind and relieve her of her memories, a shadow, sat on the windowsill. Cara's eyelids were suddenly seized with a terrible tiredness, and she yawned.

"I never forgot."

She smiled sleepily for a second, and then her eyes closed.