Do you believe in fairies?

March 28, 1998 | Oxford, England

*

Whoosh!

Oliver had barely registered movement out of the corner of his eye when something suddenly crashed into him at full force and clung to him. It took him a moment to understand what had just happened.

"Bea!" Oliver exclaimed, hugging her as tightly as he could.

Before Bea could say anything, Helen was already approaching them with her arms outstretched and promptly pulled them both into a hug.

"Olli, we missed you!" Helen said, giving him one last squeeze before letting go.

"I missed you too! I'm glad you could come," he said, ignoring the slight sting in his eyes.

Oliver had written to them regularly over the past few months, but that had done little to change how much he missed them. He hadn't expected being away from them to be quite this difficult.

Bea seemed to feel the same way. She still hadn't let go of him, and by now Oliver could feel his shoulder slowly growing damp. Either she was crying...

Or she was drooling.

"Bea?" Oliver said eventually, when he noticed the first amused looks and the never-ending hug was starting to get embarrassing. "People are staring. You can let go of me now."

Bea finally released him and wiped her face with her sleeve. Oliver glanced down at his shoulder and grimaced in disgust. The fabric was now smeared with a mixture of tears and something whose origin he would rather not think about too closely.

Thank God he wasn't wearing his costume yet.

Bea gave him an accusing look and signed, "Have you learned the song yet?"

Oliver stared at her in disbelief. "You only sent it to me two weeks ago. And I still have to learn how to play the guitar first—how exactly do you expect that to work?" he signed back.

"Obviously you have enough time to tutor other people!" Bea signed, looking at him as though that settled the matter.

It didn't take Oliver long to understand what this was really about. His little adoptive sister was jealous and apparently thought he had completely misplaced his priorities over the past few months.

"I'll play it for you and your friends during the summer holidays when I come visit you in Nottingham," he promised her.

"Where's Sister Margaret?" Oliver asked aloud this time.

"She ran into someone she knew. She said she'd catch up with us," Helen replied, looking back in the direction they had come from.

"Tell her I said hello. I need to go get ready. I am the star of the show, after all!" he announced dramatically.

Bea rolled her eyes while Helen merely shook her head with a laugh. Oliver grinned at them one last time before turning around and disappearing backstage.

Oliver was used to performing in front of people, but somehow this felt completely different.

He stood behind the heavy curtain and took one last look at the auditorium before it closed again. The place was packed.

Oliver wiped his damp palms on his trousers. When he played the piano, he could focus on his fingers, the keys and the music. Eventually, he would almost forget about the audience entirely. Today, there was nothing for him to hide behind. Today, his hands weren't what everyone had come to see.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Today, it was him.

The lights in the auditorium slowly dimmed, and the conversations among the audience gradually died away with them. Backstage, there was one last flurry of activity. The final props were put into place, someone hurried past Oliver, and Arthur gave them one last signal before the stage went dark as well.

A few moments later, the performance began.

The nerves didn't disappear immediately. During his first few scenes, Oliver was still far too aware of the packed auditorium beyond the stage lights, with hundreds of people watching his every move.

But with each scene, it became easier.

The weeks of rehearsals began to pay off. Eventually, he no longer had to think about when his next cue was coming or where he was supposed to move.

He argued with Wendy, mocked Hook and heard the audience laugh at moments that had always been silent during rehearsals. It was a different feeling from playing the piano, but it felt incredible.

Oliver had almost forgotten about his nerves by the time they reached the scene that had given him the most trouble during rehearsals.

Tinker Bell.

He knew Peter was supposed to be desperate. He knew Peter was terrified of losing Tinker Bell. The problem was that no one had ever really believed that fear when Oliver tried to show it.

When Tinker Bell collapsed in front of him, Oliver knelt beside her, and for a moment the old problem returned. He knew exactly what he was supposed to do, and already he was thinking about how he was supposed to do it.

Think of something you're genuinely afraid of, Arthur had told him.

Then he remembered the dream—the man's voice—and the memory hit him harder than expected.

"No..."

"Please..."

The trembling voice. The desperation in it. The way it had broken again and again until the man had finally lost control completely.

But more than anything, Oliver remembered how it had made him feel. The sense that something terrible was happening while he could neither see nor move. Fear—no, it had been sheer terror.

Oliver felt his chest tighten as the memory brought the old feeling rushing back. For a moment, he no longer had to imagine what it would be like to lose someone and be completely powerless to stop it.

He remembered what it felt like. What Peter Pan had to be feeling.

Oliver looked down at the girl in front of him. At Tinker Bell.

***

POV Unknown Fan

She had seen Oliver perform once before.

Back then, he had been sitting at a piano, and although she knew little about music, even she had been able to tell that the boy was exceptionally good at it. Today, there was no piano in front of him to disappear behind. Just a stage, a costume and an auditorium full of people.

And yet she had barely recognised him.

Not physically. Oliver Bennett was still the same little boy she had met a few months earlier. But on stage, he seemed different. Louder, cheekier, and with a natural confidence that suited Peter Pan remarkably well.

She had found herself laughing more than once. Beatrice apparently had too.

The girl was sitting beside her mother, with Sister Margaret between them, and followed the play with an enthusiasm that was almost more exhausting than what was happening on stage. More than once, Beatrice had grabbed Margaret by the sleeve and pointed at Oliver as though there were any danger of someone in the auditorium failing to notice who was playing Peter Pan.

But the mood on stage had changed when Oliver knelt beside Tinker Bell. No, not Oliver. Peter. The thought came so naturally that it took her a moment to realise what was strange about it.

Until then, she had been watching Oliver Bennett play Peter Pan. He had been good, surprisingly good even, and his cheeky, carefree manner had suited the role perfectly. But now all of that had suddenly vanished. His entire posture had changed, and as he stared at the fading light beside him, goosebumps ran along her arms.

"Her light is growing faint, and if it goes out, that means she is dead!"

The desperation in his voice caught her completely off guard. For a brief moment, she found herself looking at Tinker Bell as though she needed to make sure there really was only a girl lying there on a stage. When her gaze returned to Peter, she had almost forgotten about the packed auditorium around her.

He leaned closer to Tinker Bell and listened to her faint voice. Then he raised his head and looked out at the audience.

"Do you believe in fairies?"

This time, it wasn't only fear in his voice. There was hope too, but it was a desperate, almost pleading kind of hope, as though whether Tinker Bell survived the next few seconds genuinely depended on the answer of everyone in the auditorium.

"If you believe, clap your hands. Please, help us!"

Beatrice immediately began to clap. Helen followed, then Sister Margaret, and within moments the applause around her swelled until the entire auditorium had joined in.

She clapped too.

Of course she knew Tinker Bell wasn't going to die. She knew the girl would get back up and the play would continue. But as she looked at Peter and heard the almost desperate plea in his voice, none of that seemed to matter for a moment. The boy in front of her was asking for help—and she wanted to help him.

The entire auditorium erupted into thunderous applause. No one held back. The performance wasn't over yet, but in that moment, nobody seemed to care. The applause continued to swell, mingling with cheers from the back rows until it filled the entire hall.

The boy had asked them for help.

And the entire audience had answered.