The S.U.N. and The Peter Pan Project

Chapter 1

A bulky man wearing a dark suit was standing next to a black SUV. With his sunglasses and the hand-free headset in his left ear, he looked like a younger version of Josh Brolin in Men in Black.

I gulped loudly as the reality of the situation I had been thrown into, sank in.

I was in a foreign country, on my way to a new school where I didn’t know anyone.

I didn’t have a clue about how I had got there and the last thing I remembered was going to bed in the flat I shared with my four brothers in Anglet, France.

So what was I doing, all dressed up in a fitted white shirt and a skirt that looked far too short to be part of a respectable school uniform?!

To be fair, I was meant to wear a tie which did make the uniform look more respectable, but having never worn one before, I didn’t manage to knot it properly, so decided to simply stuff it into the front pocket of the dark blue blazer that had also been left for me in the spacious bedroom I woke up in that morning.   

 “Miss Cook.”

His deep voice brought me back to reality.

He had opened a door, and was waiting for me to get into the car.

“Don’t look, don’t ask, Maya. Just do what you’re told.”

The familiar words started playing in my head.

The voice belonged to my older brother, Nick. He’d been the one to lead them all.

Them being my brothers and their friends.

I was supposed to stay in my room whenever they met at the flat. However, the rules stopped applying as soon as their stomach demanded food. I’d thus be allowed to go to the kitchen where I’d don my apron to cook lasagna or roast chicken for up to ten starving boys.

Once they all had a steaming hot plate full of food in front of them, I was invariably asked to go back to my room.

“Don’t look, don’t ask, Maya. Just do what you’re told.”

I had grown up hearing these words.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t some sort of damsel in distress, constantly locked in her bedroom by her abusive brothers. Far from it! Our flat was on the ground floor, and my room had a French window that opened on a garden with a small gate through which I could come and go as I liked.

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“Miss Cook.”

There was a new edge to his voice that prompted me to do just what he wanted me to.

So I did.

Dressed in my uniform and holding a messenger bag in one hand and the brown envelope I had found on the kitchen table in the other, I climbed at the back of the car.

There was no word to express how scared I was, getting into a car with that scary man.

Yet, a few minutes later, I couldn’t help the tinge of excitement that coursed through me as I took in the unfamiliar scenery extending in front of me as the car was now going at full speed on a narrow road.

A never ending white sand beach bordered by palm trees on our right, and a forest on our left. No sign of civilization.

After a few minutes, a huge iron gate came to view. The driver slowed down and pressed a button on a controller which opened the gate right as we reached it.