 Sassafras lives and writes in Brooklyn with her partner and five furry beasts. Her latest is the novel Lost Boy, a gorgeous queer punk re-imagining of the classic Peter Pan story. And like, what took everyone so long? We were waiting for Sassafras. Here is Sassafras Lowry. Thank you. I'm super excited to be here and to be in San Francisco and to be a reader. I am going to read a chapter from Lost Boy It's the third chapter. What do you need to know? The narrator is a lost boy named Toodles, who is Pan's best boy. I guess it's probably all you need to know. Chapter three, run away, run away. This wasn't all Pan's doing. Wendy might have looked sweet, but she knew she would have a powerful spell with her stories. They spilled onto paper late at night when the darlings thought her asleep and shot from her drugstore pink lips on open mic stages. The way Pan told it, he just wanted to hear how the story about the princess ended. It was the stories that made him secretly follow her home that night for Wendy didn't see Pan and Erebus trail, her downed sidewalks, and threw back alleys back to 14 London Street. Pan later told me that he almost turned around then, seeing that she lived in such a nice house. It sat in the middle of an average suburban neighborhood at the corner of Kensington Avenue and London Street. Money was tight, but the darlings had done well for themselves, and the house with the manicured yard that Mr. Darling mowed on Sunday afternoons was their prized possession, the proof that they were respectable community members. It was everything that Pan hated. It was almost enough to make him walk away from the pretty girl, but then on the mailbox he read the darlings' home for girls, and he knew his plan would work. Pan watched Wendy go into the house, and a few minutes later a light came on upstairs. He left Erebus on the ground and climbed a tree that reached to the second story. Then he waited. He should probably have felt a little creepy watching through the window as Wendy undressed, but he enjoyed the show. He didn't mean anything disrespectful. He never analyzed pleasure, just appreciated it. Wendy's room was tidy and organized with light pink walls and books neatly lining the shelves. Black and white photo booth strips and concert tickets precisely arranged to look haphazard were taped onto the mirror of the white vanity that stood next to her bed. The room looked like a clipping from a decorating magazine. Only the two kids with their ragged edges were out of place in the pretty little room. Watching Wendy slip into her nightgown and comb her long dark brown hair, Pan wanted to take her away to show her another world. Erebus, who is his dog, who I should have said, had fallen asleep on the foot of the tree, and Pan's feet were tingling, but he waited. Finally, the nightlights went out, and only then did he creep to the window ledge and into the room. Pan had been surprised to see John Michael, and for a moment thought Wendy had a boyfriend or a boy. Then he remembered the group home sign out front. Later, he told me how he'd almost walked away when he heard Wendy wish John Michael good night. Whatever their relationship was, it was clear they were a package deal. But what is one more boy, especially if that deal is sweetened by a girl? John Michael must have been a deep sleeper because she later swore that she never stirred as Pan cracked the window open and slipped past her bed. But the rustling of feathers and Pan's tears that he will deny, having shed, woke Wendy. Tink, of course, had followed Pan all the way to Wendy's and flown into the bedroom. Then, finding herself trapped inside the room, she began to panic, throwing herself into the walls, looking for the window. Tink crashed into the framed poster of white kittens and disappeared behind a dresser. Pan convinced Tink was dead, couldn't stop himself from crying, and it was that sound that woke Wendy, who switched on her bedside lamp and gasped when she saw Pan sitting at the foot of her bed more alive than the dream she'd just awoken from. Tink would peck my eyes out if she thought I'd gotten this far in the story without properly introducing her. Tink is Pan's fairy. Unlike loyal and obedient Arabos, Tink is a jealous creature. Pigeons are so small that, unlike dogs, they can only hold one emotion at a time, and with Tink it's usually not a very nice one, especially if a girl is involved. She wants to be the only girl in Pan's life. When she gets in a mood, there's no reasoning with her, no reminding her that she's a bird and no one will ever take her place. I see that confused look. Fairy? Pigeon? There is magic everywhere around you, but most people are too busy being grown up to notice it. I'm not sure how Pan first met the pigeons. They must have been the pharaoh ones nesting in the rafters of Neverland back before Pan was leader of the Lost Boys. He was alone with no one to talk to except for the pigeons. It didn't take long for them to adopt him into the flock. Now, when a boy is brought into Neverland, he's given a pigeon. It's part of how you know your home and it means you're never alone. Starting when they hatch, us boys keep the fairies close so they know how to find us. Sometimes they follow us out on our adventures. Pan taught us how to make small leather leg bands where their names can be embossed. Tink wears a green one around her ankle that matches the thick leather cuffs Pan makes for each of us Lost Boys and locks onto our wrists the day we swear our loyalty to him and to the principles of Neverland, the most important of which, of course, is to never grow up. I'll never forget the day that I met my pigeon, Washington. He had the most brilliant purple blaze of feathers right above his wings. When Pan handed him to me, I was nervous. I'd never held a bird before and I certainly never thought I would hold a filthy pigeon. I held out my hand, palm up, and he hopped onto it. I thought my heart might break out of my chest as Washington fluttered and found his footing on my arm in our new home. The grown-ups' army used to use pigeons, but people have forgotten how smart they are. They learn where home is and magically they can always find their way back. We send messages to each other tucked into special little leather harnesses we make to fit each of them. Anyway, Tink appeared from behind the dresser, feathers askew, but still very much alive. Relieved that Tink wasn't hurt, but knowing how jealous she would be, Pan sent her out of Wendy's bedroom window into the stars and back to Neverland to tell us Lost Boys he would be home soon. Pan had been gone all day and he knew we would worry that the pirates had gotten him tied up and he might forget to come home to us. Pan's message just said that he was on his way home, not that he was bringing a girl. That's where the trouble started, but here I am getting ahead of myself again. Boy, you don't have to cry, Wendy whispered. She was now sitting up in her little bed. She let the pale pink comforter slip away, revealing her thigh. Had Pan been paying attention, he would have seen the cross-hatching of pink and red slashes. Her responsibly coral-tipped nails toyed with the buttons of her nightgown and her throat as she began to slowly undo them in a way that almost looked accidental. Again, she whispered, boy, what's wrong? Pan rubbed his tattooed knuckles across his wet eyes, drying them on the tattered and frayed cuff of his green sweatshirt. Face twisted into his most charming smile, he turned and whispered in his husky voice, I've come to hear the end of the story. Wendy stalled, wanting to know more about this stranger she'd fantasized about. She licked her lips and pulled her hair up into a bun, a gesture that revealed the curve of her breasts under the clingy white nightgown, sticky with sweat in the warm spring night. Whispering so as not to wake John Michael, she patted the mattress next to her and tried to ask him the kinds of questions grown-ups ask. Wendy was not a grown-up, but even then, she was the kind of girl who could turn at any moment. She made the mistake of first asking about mothers. That is about his. She should have known better being a foster child, but her world was so straight back then. I can picture how Pan must have prickled at the question. He told her coldly that he found mothers to be overrated sorts of persons. Wendy pushed him when Pan said he had no last name when he told her that Pan was the only name he had. If it had been me, I would have gone back out the window. Wendy was a good girl, always on the honor roll with plans for going to college. Even though she didn't have them, she was convinced that everyone should have parents or at the very least want them. Wendy believed no matter how badly the grown-ups had treated her, that they could be good. It had never occurred to her that she didn't have to become one. Finally, not getting useful answers out of Pan, Wendy asked him where he lived. Pan's eyes glittered as they always did when he talked about Neverland, about us boys. He told her that we had our own warehouse, a paradise where we were always working on, patching the shot-out windows, hanging swings and slings, and about the day we added hammocks for each of us to sleep in amongst the raptors with our pigeons. Wendy, that he had a pack of boys who jumped at his command and who swore themselves to him and wore his cuff. He told her that we too loved stories. I don't know exactly what Pan promised Wendy in that little pink bed. Probably nothing more than adventure, with his crooked grin and the way his eyes twinkled when he talked about the things they could do together. But he locked the cuff around her wrist that night. It had been enough for me. For a reason to think it wouldn't have been enough for her. Later, Wendy said that he told her about girls, how there weren't any of them in Neverland, and how lonely that made him, us. How there was something special about a girl like her, something she could give him, us. Pan talked of how we would cherish and worship her, how she would always care and feed her boys. I love the way you talk about girls. Wendy whispered through glossed lips, placing her hand on Pan's denim thigh. She tried for a kiss, but Pan was already distracted, looking out the window to check on Erebus. Pan didn't want a girlfriend. He wanted a mommy to tuck him in and put him in his place. But he would have never said that last part. Thanks. Thanks, Sassafras. Thanks for wearing that dress also. Very important. Sassafras has copies of Lost Boy over there, so we'll end a little early so that y'all can buy a copy. Our next reader is Sarah Fontaine. Sarah Fontaine asks questions and experiments.