Wood Sprites

“It should have sword fights,” Jillian said firmly.

“Robots. Dinosaurs.”

“Elves.”

“At least try to think like a boy,” Louise said.

“It has to be a real play, not something we write, that boys will like.”

“Do you think they made Lord of the Flies into a play?”

“All the characters in that are boys. There has to be at least one or two girl parts, just so we can sway the girls that don’t fall under Elle’s spell. If we can get a couple of the girls on our side, it would work.”

They thought for a moment. Louise found herself eyeing Tesla sitting statuelike inside their locker. Their mother had thought he looked liked Nana, the Darling’s Saint Bernard nanny.

“What about Peter Pan? Pirates. Sword fights. Indians.”

“Native Americans,” Jillian muttered, frowning as she thought through the casting. “Elle would want to be Wendy. That would leave Mrs. Darling or Tinker Bell for me.”

“You’d be Peter. He’s usually played by a girl.”

Jillian’s face lit up. “Oh, God, that’s perfect. Elle wouldn’t want to be a boy, and I would have the lead!”

* * *

They had Library as their first-period class, so they spent the hour digging through what had been produced for Peter Pan.

“God, I’m starting to understand why Mom never showed us the cartoon. What the hell happened? You take the most manly of boys — he runs around naked except for some leaves, and he fights pirates — and you turn his story into this.” Jillian turned her tablet to show off the big-busted blond Tinker Bell. “In the novel, Tinker Bell dies a year after Wendy goes back to London, and Peter forgets all about her.”

Louise had forgotten that twist. “Ignore her. She’s poison to the boys having any interest in Peter Pan.”

Jillian nodded. “We stick to the original play and focus on Hook and the pirates and the ticking crocodile.”

“But what format are we going to use for the pitch? Boys don’t like to read. And most of the movie versions are girly.”

Jillian flopped back from her tablet. “How about a music video? We do all things that are cool with Peter Pan and this ‘I’m a tough guy, don’t mess with me’ fight song with a heavy bass beat.”

“Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor.” Louise sung the first song that same to mind.

“Exactly.” Jillian opened up a file on her tablet and started to take notes. “Or at least something like that.”

“So the Lost Boys, the tree houses, the island, the pirates, sword fights. .”

“Yes, a swordfight on the pirate ship!” Jillian called up her storyboard app. “Start with Peter and the Lost Boys at the tree houses, run to the beach, look at the uber cool pirate ship in the moonlight. Then the Lost Boys board the ship and there’s a big swordfight.”

“In two weeks?”

“We can — could crank out a full episode of The Adventures of Queen Soulful Ember in a month, and those have a lot more to storyboard, full original animation, dialogue to dub, sound effects, and a music score.”

“We blew up our studio with all our sets and all our models.”

“We’ll work around that. I can act in front of a green screen for Peter’s part. We can base Hook off of. . hm.” Jillian considered the boys in their classroom with narrowed eyes. The plays were a combined effort of both classes of their grade. With the exception of “the Prince,” the boys usually had minor roles like dwarves and mice. Reed normally played the Prince for the same reason Elle got to be the Princess. He was tall, blond and handsome. Unfortunately, he was clumsy and as much a social wallflower as the twins.

If they needed all the boys, though, they should win over the boys’ leader.

“Iggy,” Louise said. “Iggy should be Hook.”

Iggy’s real name was Ignatius Martin Chen. He was apparently named after a baby of a movie star. His first-generation Chinese parents obviously didn’t realize how uncommon the name was. He was in Mr. Howe’s classroom across the hall, only sharing lunch, recess, and class play with them. He was the acknowledged leader of the boys, perhaps because he was also the tallest boy in the fifth grade and naturally athletic.

Jillian tilted her head, thinking. “Iggy does like to be in front of an audience, and he remembers his lines when he actually gets something to say.”

“We should use all the boys in the video. It wouldn’t be too hard to model their pictures onto CGI skin. We can do half for the Lost Boys and the other half as pirates.”

Jillian was nodding. “We can put the Lost Boys in war paint. Make them look cool. We’ll have to take pictures of all the boys without them noticing us.”

“Or we could tell them we want to cast them for a music video. They’ll be more vested in the end product.”

Jillian winced. “Actually talk to them?”