Neverland, the Lost Boys and the First Lost Girl

Sick

Over the next few years I had numerous other exciting excursions with the Lost Boys but no

particularly thrilling adventures. In fact the next most noteworthy activity was a very scary and

sad one. Grandchildren we had what is called an epidemic go through the island. An epidemic is

where a sickness or a disease runs rampant throughout a town, city, or even a whole country.

The sickness started with the weak or sick but then soon pulled down the strong and healthy.

We had heard reports that a nasty bug was going through the pirate town, but did not think

that it would reach the Lost Boys or the Indians. Tuck was the first among the Lost Boys to get

it. For several days he had been sort of mopey and tired. Then one morning he would not get

out of bed. I had a little skill in medicine and swiftly went to Tuck. He had a raging fever and

was hot to the touch but was shivering uncontrollably. My eyes widened in fear when I saw

how bad he was. I immediately sent off a pigeon to the Indian village to call for the Wise

Woman. When she arrived I was horrified to hear that Tuck was not the first case she had seen

and that others in the village were also sick. She recommended that Tuck be quarantined and

to keep as many people as possible away from him. She gave me a bag full of healing roots to

boil down into a paste to help ease the fever. Once Tuck received some of the paste his fever

lifted but he continued to be weak with many hot and cold spells. The next day Rags came

down with the same thing. And the day after two more boys became sick. Within four days over

half of the Lost Boys were sick. Everyone who was not sick spent all of their time either

searching out more healing plants or were tending to the sick. Those who were sick displayed

flu like symptoms along with strange bouts of hallucinations and the worst cases would

eventually slip into a coma like state. Between the Wise Woman and I, we could find no reliable

cure for the strange sickness and soon it began showing signs of being deadly. In the Indian

village the first victim of the virus was an old woman, but it did not stop there. The first Lost

Boy to lose the fight against the illness was Rags. Sam was watching over the sick boys and had

taken a short nap. When he awoke and checked over the boys he found that Rags had slipped

away while he had been napping. He rushed to tell the Lost Boys and I about Rags' death. We

were all stricken with the news and redoubled our efforts to find something that could cure this

horrible disease. The next day two more boys, Fox and Matt, died. We buried them and Rags in

a special spot under a great willow tree and mourned sadly for our lost friends. As the week

wore on more and more of the Lost Boys became sick. David was the next to fall ill and then

Sam. Soon all of the Lost Boys were overcome with the virus and I alone was left to take care of

them. The majority of the boys were critically ill but Sam was the sickest of them all. I spent a