¥ - Lost and Found - Peter Pan (Robbie Kay) - ¥

¥ 2 - The Piper ¥

The next day Aria decided to go back. After she had finished all her work, more research for her project, she wandered out again. She left her parents a note about her whereabouts and continued her adventure from where she had left off. Emerging from the bushes she had hidden behind the night before, she walked over to the travellers with a nervous smile.

She regretted her decision as soon as she had revealed herself, but now she could not turn back. The fear of looking stupid overrode her thoughts and she forced herself to face her fear of all things new and people related. Her movements were small and rigid, you could barely see her twiddling thumbs underneath the baggy jumper she had drowned herself in. The material hid her clenched fists and conveyed nothing of her that she believed to be negative.

"Hi, can I-" she had to pause in between, her voice was weak in her nervous state, "can I join you?" She asked. The teen playing the music stopped and the boys around the fire continued their party like the music was dancing on in their eardrums. "You can hear it?" the boy with the panpipes asked.

"Yeah? Why? Shouldn't I be able to hear it?" This put Aria on edge again, was she not supposed to hear them? She hoped she hadn't upset the boy.

"Oh, no it's fine. I didn't think you'd be able to hear it," he commented. "Y'know because we're quite far away from any villages or towns," he added quickly after.

"Oh, yeah. I heard you on the way home."

"You're from the village?"

"Yeah, though I don't get out much. You probably won't catch me around."

"What's your name?"

"Aria, what's yours?"

Aria felt it was only courteous to return the boy's question but he ignored her completely. Instead, he began playing the pipes again, his mysterious eyes watching her as she sat by him to listen to him play. She wanted to know his name, but felt that perhaps it was maybe because he was paranoid she would rat him out to the police. She believed it to be true, this being the only way she could stop her desire for learning the young boy's name from pestering her thoughts any longer than she knew it would. Instead, she listened to the music and smiled with joy as she watched the boys dance around the fire, carefree and full of youth.

As the night grew darker Aria decided it was best if she went home. She got up from the log she was sat on by the Piper and adjusted her jumper. Once she had wrapped herself up in its warmth again she turned to the Piper and gave him a smile and a wave. He beckoned her over, sparing one of his hands from the panpipes and plucked something from behind him. He raised it to her and she took the flower in her hand, smelling it briefly before taking it home with her.

When she got home her parents were in the living room watching tv. "I'm back," she called out.

"Hi Ari, have a nice walk?" Her father asked.

She smiled and went to join them, sitting by her mother on the sofa. She twirled the flower in her hand and sniffed it again.

"Where did you get that?"

"Oh, I just found it," Aria easily lied. If her parents knew she'd been with the travellers they wouldn't let her out with the same confidence in her.

"It's nice, a forget-me-not isn't it?" Her mother asked.

Aria didn't have much knowledge of flowers so trusted her mother's evaluation of its azure and lilac petals. "Forget-me-not huh? I just thought it looked pretty."