After a minute Wendy said, “Peter, do you really know fairies?”
“Yes, but they’re nearly all dead now. You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now, whenever a new baby is born, its first laugh becomes a fairy. Children soon won’t believe in fairies, and whenever a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there’s a fairy somewhere that falls down dead[27].”
Really, he thought they now talked enough about fairies. He looked about the room and it struck him that Tinker Bell disappeared! He called Tink by name.
“Peter,” cried Wendy, “is there a fairy in this room?”
“She was here just now,” he said a little impatiently. “You don’t hear her, do you?” and they both listened.
“The only sound I hear,” said Wendy, “is like a tinkle of bells.”
Peter, who knew the fairy language, of course understood it.
“Well, that’s Tink, that’s the fairy language. I think I hear her too.”
The sound came from the chest of drawers[28], and Peter made a merry face.
“Wendy,” he whispered, “I shut her up in the drawer!”
He pulled open the drawer, and out sprang Tinker Bell, very angry with him.
“Of course I’m very sorry, but how could I know you were in the drawer?”
Wendy saw the romantic figure on the cuckoo clock. “O the lovely!” she cried, though Tink’s face was still distorted with passion.
“Tink,” said Peter amiably, “this lady says she wishes you were her fairy.”
Tinker Bell answered insolently.
“What does she say, Peter?”
“She is not very polite. She says you are a great ugly girl, and that she is my fairy.”
He tried to argue with Tink. “You know you can’t be my fairy, Tink, because I am an gentleman and you are a lady.”
Tink disappeared into the bathroom. “She is quite a common fairy,” Peter explained.
They were together in the armchair by this time, and Wendy plied him with more questions.
“Peter, if you don’t live with the fairies, where do you live?”
“I live with the Lost Boys.”
“Who are they?”
“They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way[29]. If they are not claimed[30] in seven days they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expenses. I’m their Captain.”
“Oh! What fun!”
“Yes,” said Peter, “but we are rather lonely. You see we have no girls there.”
“Are none of the others girls?”
“Oh, no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams.”
“You are very kind,” said Wendy, “so you may give me a kiss. It’s like this.” She kissed him.
“Funny!” said Peter gravely. “Now shall I give you a kiss?”
“If you wish to,” said Wendy.
But suddenly Wendy cried, “Somebody was pulling my hair.”
“That must be Tink. I never knew her so naughty before.”
“Oh! But, Peter, why did you come to our nursery window?”
“You see, I don’t know any stories. None of the Lost Boys knows any stories.”
“How perfectly awful,” Wendy said.
Peter came to listen to the lovely stories Wendy’s mother related to her children, for the Lost Boys had no mothers, and no one to tell them any stories. He also told her how he led them against their enemies, the pirates and the wolves, and how they liked to bath in the Lagoon, where beautiful mermaids sang and swam all day long.
“O Wendy, your mother was telling you such a lovely story!”
“Which story was it?”
“About the prince who couldn’t find the lady who wore the glass slipper.”
“Peter,” said Wendy excitedly, “that was Cinderella[31], and he found her, and they lived happily ever after.”
Peter was so glad that he rose from the floor, where they were sitting, and hurried to the window.
“Where are you going?” she cried.
“I must go back now, the boys will be anxious to hear the end of the story about the Prince and the Glass Slipper. I told them as much as I knew, and they want to hear the rest[32].”
“Don’t go Peter,” she entreated, “I know such lots of stories. I’ll tell you lots more, ever so many stories.”
Wendy begged him to stay. He came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes. Peter gripped her and began to draw her toward the window.
“Let me go![33]” she ordered him.
“Come, Wendy! Come with me and tell the other boys. You can tell us all the stories there, and darn our clothes, and tuck us in at night.”
“Oh dear, I can’t. Think of Mummy! Besides, I can’t fly.”
“I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind’s back, and then away we go.”
This was too much for her. “Oo!” she exclaimed.
“Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you could fly with me and talk to the stars.”
“Oo!”
“And, Wendy, there are mermaids.”
“Mermaids! With tails?”
“Such long tails.”
“Oh,” cried Wendy, “to see a mermaid!”
“Wendy,” said Peter, “we shall all respect you.”
“Peter, will you teach John and Michael to fly as well?”
“Yes, if you like,” he said indifferently, and she ran to John and Michael and shook them. “Wake up,” she cried, “Peter Pan is here, and he will teach us to fly.”
John rubbed his eyes. “Then I shall get up,” he said. Of course he was on the floor already. “Hallo,” he said. Michael woke up, too.
“Peter,” asked John. “Can you really fly?”
Peter flew around the room.
“How sweet![34]” cried Wendy.
“Yes, I’m sweet, oh, I am sweet!” said Peter.
Children tried to fly from the floor and then from the beds, but they always went down instead of up.
“How do you do it?” asked John. He was quite a practical boy.
“I must blow the fairy dust on you,” and Peter blew some on each of them.
“Now just wiggle your shoulders,” he said, “and let go.”
So they tried, and found that they could fly; just a little at first, from the bed to the floor and back again; then over the bed and across the room. “Oh, lovely! We can fly! Look at me!”
“Look at me!”
“Look at me!”
“Let’s fly out!” cried John.
Michael was ready, but Wendy hesitated.
“Mermaids!” said Peter again.
“Oo!”
“And there are pirates.”
“Pirates,” cried John “let us go at once[35].”
“Tink, lead the way!” called Peter. None of the children had time to put on their day clothes, but John snatched his top hat as he flew out of the window, followed by Michael. Peter Pan held Wendy’s hand, and away they floated into the dark blue depths of the starry night.
A minute afterwards Mrs. Darling, who returned from the party, rushed into the nursery with Nana. But it was too late. The children were already on their way to the Neverland.
Chapter 4
The Flight
“Second to the right, and straight on till morning.”
That, Peter told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland. Peter just said anything that came into his head.
They were flying over the sea. Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold and again too warm.
Sometimes they were sleepy; and that was a danger, because they began to fall down. The awful thing was that Peter thought this funny.
“There he goes again!” he cried, as Michael suddenly dropped like a stone.
“Save him, save him!” cried Wendy. Eventually Peter dived through the air, and caught Michael; but he always waited till the last moment.
He could sleep in the air, he was lying on his back and floating, he was very light.
“You must be nice to him,” Wendy told her brothers. “What shall we do if he leaves us!”
“We could go back,” Michael said.
“How shall we find our way back without him?”
“That is the awful thing, John. We must go on, because we don’t know how to stop.”
This was true, Peter forgot to show them how to stop.
“There it is, the island,” said Peter calmly.
“Where, where?”
Wendy and John and Michael recognized it at once.
“John, there’s the lagoon.”
“Wendy, look at the turtles in the sand.”
“John, I see your flamingo!”
“Look, Michael, there’s your cave!”
“John, what’s that in the brushwood?”
“There’s my boat!”
“No, it isn’t. Why, we burned your boat.”
“That’s it, John, I see the smoke of the Indian camp!”
“Where? Show me.”
“There, just across the Mysterious River[36].”
“I see now.”
Children have talked about the Neverland before. Of course the Neverland was a make-believe[37] in those days, but it was real now.
“They don’t want us to land[38],” said Peter.
“Who are they?” Wendy whispered, shuddering.
“Pirates.”
John asked,” Are there many pirates on the island now?”
“A lot of them,” answered Peter.
“Who is the captain now?”
“Hook,” answered Peter, and his face became very stern. “He is the worst of them all.”
“What is he like? Is he big?”
“He is not so big as he was.”
“What do you mean?”
“I cut off his right hand. But he has an iron hook instead of a right hand.”
“Tink tells me,” said Peter, “that the pirates sighted us before the darkness came, and got Long Tom out[39].”
“The big gun?”
“Yes. Be careful.”
The pirates fired Long Tom at them.
“Are you alive?” John whispered.
“I dont know yet,” Michael answered.
Wendy disappeared. She followed Tinker Bell, but she did not know that Tink hated her.
Chapter 5
The Island Come True[40]
Peter was on his way back, and the Neverland woke again into life. Far away in the Neverland the Lost Boys lived in the depths of the forest, on the banks of a lake. The trees were bare without their summer dress, and wolves prowled and howled in the distance, and wild beasts snarled in the undergrowth, and pirates sailed villainously, and Indians, who were friends of the boys, lived secretly in their wigwams in the woods. In Peter’s absence things are usually quiet on the island. The fairies take an hour longer in the morning, the Indians eat and drink heavily for six days and nights, and when pirates and Lost Boys meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other[41]. But with Peter, who hates lethargy, everything is different.
On this evening the Lost Boys were looking for Peter, the pirates were looking for the Lost Boys, the Indians were looking for the pirates, and the beasts were looking for the Indians. They were going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were going at the same speed.
The boys wanted to see their Captain, they were six. The first one is Tootles[42], not the least brave but the most unfortunate of all. Poor kind Tootles, there is danger in the air for you tonight. The fairy Tink wants to play a joke with you. Beware Tinker Bell!
Next comes debonair Nibs[43], followed by Slightly[44], who cuts whistles out of the trees[45] and dances. Slightly thinks he remembers the days before he was lost.
Curly[46] is fourth; he is a pickle. Last come the Twins[47], who cannot be described. They are so much alike! Peter never knew what twins were, and his band were not allowed to know anything he did not know.
They lived like moles under the ground, for fear of the Pirates and the wolves. Each one had a special staircase hollowed in a tree-trunk, so that they could easily run down among the roots of the trees into their home.
Next come the pirates. They sing a dreadful song. Here, a little in advance[48], comes handsome Cecco[49]. Here is Bill Jukes[50], every inch of him tattooed; and Cookson[51], and Black Murphy[52], and Gentleman Starkey[53], who was a school teacher; and Skylights[54]; and Noodler[55], and many other scoundrels.
In the midst of them, the blackest and largest, was James Hook[56], or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook. You could not imagine a more dreadful-looking villain than that man was. He had two most evil-looking black eyes, his face was marked with his wicked thoughts, his hair was long and black, and it hung around his face in greasy curls. He was singing a horrible song about himself. Instead of a right hand he had the iron hook. That man was the most wicked pirate who ever lived. Even his own crew dreaded him and obeyed him as dogs. And he was the biggest enemy of Peter Pan.
The Indians disappear moving like shadows, and soon the beasts take their place, a great and motley procession: lions, tigers, bears, all the man-eaters, they are hungry tonight.
“Where is Peter?” said the boys nervously.
“I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates,” Slightly said, “but I want to see him and learn more about Cinderella.”
The Lost Boys darted like rabbits to their cave.
Captain Hook most of all wanted to find Peter Pan, for it was Peter who, a long time before, in an encounter between the Pirates and the Lost Boys, had cut off his right arm and flung it to a passing crocodile. The crocodile liked the taste of it so much that ever since he began to wander from land to land and from sea to sea and to look for the rest of the Captain.
The Captain had naturally some reason to hate Peter, because he had a dreadful time. The crocodile followed him on and on and on wherever he went.
Fortunately for Hook, the crocodile once swallowed an alarum clock. It ticked so loudly that the Captain could always hear it, and it was the signal for him.
Hook sat down on one of the big forest mushrooms (in the Neverland mushrooms grow to a gigantic size) to rest a little. He felt his seat getting not only warm, but much too warm.
The pirates examined the mushroom; they tried to pull it up, and it came away at once in their hands, for it had no root. The pirates looked at each other. “A chimney!” they exclaimed.