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blood had beaded. Siren started to laugh.
    â€œIf this grrrl wants us to believe she’s not some sort of snitch, then she has to prove it. She has to swim with the Crocodile.” I knew that this strange grrrl couldn’t know what she was consenting to. But then I thought of Pan. I thought of how proud he would be of me if I, in his absence, protectedNeverland. I left her on the floor and sat at the dumpstered table with Siren.
    This was not the first time that Neverland had been discovered by an outsider. Every couple of years, it seemed, some poser kids would sneak in or befriend Pan and worm their way inside. It never took long for them to be discovered as frauds, but it was always a great nuisance, and dangerous too, because grownups could have followed them here, maybe even parents, the worst kinds of grownups, the ones who have the ability to destroy everything for all of us.
    That was why I didn’t question Siren when she said, “What would Pan do? Remember, he fed Hook to the Crocodile. I bet he would want you to shoot this pretty grrrl up, to jump her in.” Siren’s words rang true, and I was not the kind of boi to question Pan.
    By now we weren’t alone. News has a way of travelling fast in Neverland, in part on account of the lack of walls. Us bois are always climbing over each other; Pan likes it that way. He doesn’t like to be alone, and I’m pretty sure that’s why he has us bois in the first place. There isn’t much privacy at Neverland. A grrrl, especially one who had broken in, was more than any of the bois could resist. They had all gathered around the little table, watching me and Wendi, who still knelt, silently pleading as delicious tears trailed her rounded cheeks. I can’t imagine what Wendi thought of me, of us, a tangle of dirty denim, leather, ink, and steel shoved through various appendages. We all wore the same thrift-storeworkpants, and whatever T-shirts, hoodies, and flannels fit us best from the pile of clothes that lived in the corner of the sleeping room. None of us had anything of our own, except for Pan’s cuff, and that belonged to him and not to us. I don’t think Wendi had ever seen bois like us. We weren’t like those guys at the GSA spouting “born in the wrong body” bullshit stories. All she could see was a pack of bois ready to take her down, and Siren reapplying her lipstick.
    Wendi’s eyes darted from boi to boi, studying us. Nibs was the dandiest one of us, always trying to get us to fold our clothes and reminding us to shower. Slightly was a strange boi whom Pan pulled from a bus stop where she’d been left slouched over and overdosing on ecstasy after a rave. She sobered up and decided to stay. Slightly and I didn’t get along all that well, though we were forbidden from ever really having it out with each other. Curly was handy to have around because he enjoyed punishment and would always take the fall for things, even when he didn’t do them. When Pan was in a mood, Curly was always the first to volunteer himself for punishment—greedy pig of a boi. Of course, this sometimes backfired on us, because Pan is anything but stupid, and while he loves to punish a boi, he is (at times) a fair leader and prefers (when possible) to punish the boi who deserved it. When he caught us, we were given a lashing twice: first, for not having volunteered and second, for letting another boi take the punishment that we should have been grateful to receive. The Twins must have had a particularlytroubled past, because they fell from their pram together, and have never left each other. They even slept in the same hammock. Pan used to punish them for it.
    All this time, as Wendi’s eyes darted from boi to boi, I struggled with how best to defend Neverland. I didn’t know yet that Pan was on an adventure hidden in the Pirate’s dungeon with John Michael or that he meant this grrrl to be our