Peter Pan
THE FLIGHT
“Second to the right, and on till morning.”
That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but birds, and them at corners, not have it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head.
At his him implicitly, and so great were the of that they time church or any other tall objects on the way that took their fancy.
John and Michael raced, Michael a start.
They with that not so long ago they had themselves for being able to a room.
Not long ago. But how long ago? They were over the sea this to Wendy seriously. John it was their second sea and their third night.
Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold and again too warm. Did they at times, or were they pretending, Peter had such a new way of them? His way was to who had food in their mouths for and it from them; then the would and it back; and they would all go each other for miles, at last with of good-will. But Wendy noticed with that Peter did not to know that this was an odd way of your and butter, that there are other ways.
Certainly they did not to be sleepy, they were sleepy; and that was a danger, for the moment they off, they fell. The thing was that Peter this funny.
“There he goes again!” he would gleefully, as Michael like a stone.
“Save him, save him!” Wendy, looking with at the sea below. Eventually Peter would through the air, and catch Michael just he the sea, and it was the way he did it; but he always waited till the last moment, and you it was his that him and not the saving of life. Also he was of variety, and the sport that him one moment would to him, so there was always the possibility that the next time you he would let you go.
He sleep in the air without falling, by on his and floating, but this was, at least, he was so light that if you got him and he faster.
“Do be more to him,” Wendy to John, when they were playing “Follow my Leader.”
“Then tell him to stop off,” said John.
When playing Follow my Leader, Peter would close to the water and touch each shark’s in passing, just as in the you may your along an iron railing. They not him in this with much success, so it was like off, as he looking to see how many they missed.
“You must be to him,” Wendy on her brothers. “What we do if he were to us!”
“We go back,” Michael said.
“How we our way without him?”
“Well, then, we go on,” said John.
“That is the thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don’t know how to stop.”
This was true, Peter had to them how to stop.
John said that if the came to the worst, all they had to do was to go on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come to their own window.
“And who is to food for us, John?”
“I a out of that eagle’s mouth neatly, Wendy.”
“After the try,” Wendy him. “And though we good at up food, see how we against clouds and if he is not near to give us a hand.”
Indeed they were bumping. They now strongly, though they still too much; but if they saw a cloud in of them, the more they to avoid it, the more did they into it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a Michael’s by this time.
Peter was not with them for the moment, and they up there by themselves. He go so much than they that he would shoot out of sight, to have some in which they had no share. He would come laughing over something he had been saying to a star, but he had already what it was, or he would come up with still to him, and yet not be able to say for what had been happening. It was to children who had a mermaid.
“And if he them so quickly,” Wendy argued, “how can we that he will go on us?”
Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not them, at least not well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw come into his as he was about to pass them the time of day and go on; once she had to call him by name.
“I’m Wendy,” she said agitatedly.
He was very sorry. “I say, Wendy,” he to her, “always if you see me you, just keep on saying ‘I’m Wendy,’ and then I’ll remember.”
Of this was unsatisfactory. However, to make he them how to out on a wind that was going their way, and this was such a that they it times and that they sleep thus with security. Indeed they would have slept longer, but Peter of sleeping, and soon he would in his captain voice, “We off here.” So with occasional tiffs, but on the whole rollicking, they near the Neverland; for after many they did it, and, what is more, they had been going all the time, not so much to the of Peter or Tink as the was looking for them. It is only thus that any one may those magic shores.
“There it is,” said Peter calmly.
“Where, where?”
“Where all the are pointing.”
Indeed a were pointing it out to the children, all by their friend the sun, who wanted them to be sure of their way them for the night.
Wendy and John and Michael on tip-toe in the air to their of the island. Strange to say, they all it at once, and until upon them they it, not as something long of and at last, but as a familiar friend to they were returning home for the holidays.
“John, there’s the lagoon.”
“Wendy, look at the their eggs in the sand.”
“I say, John, I see your with the leg!”
“Look, Michael, there’s your cave!”
“John, what’s that in the brushwood?”
“It’s a with her whelps. Wendy, I do that’s your little whelp!”
“There’s my boat, John, with her in!”
“No, it isn’t. Why, we your boat.”
“That’s her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the of the camp!”
“Where? Show me, and I’ll tell you by the way they are on the war-path.”
“There, just across the Mysterious River.”
“I see now. Yes, they are on the war-path right enough.”
Peter was a little with them for so much, but if he wanted to lord it over them his was at hand, for have I not told you that upon them?
It came as the went, the in gloom.
In the old days at home the Neverland had always to look a little dark and by bedtime. Then in it and spread, black moved about in them, the of the of was different now, and above all, you the that you would win. You were that the night-lights were on. You liked Nana to say that this was just the over here, and that the Neverland was all make-believe.
Of the Neverland had been make-believe in those days, but it was now, and there were no night-lights, and it was every moment, and where was Nana?
They had been apart, but they close to Peter now. His careless manner had gone at last, his were sparkling, and a through them every time they touched his body. They were now over the island, so low that sometimes a tree their feet. Nothing was visible in the air, yet their progress had slow and laboured, as if they were pushing their way through forces. Sometimes they in the air until Peter had on it with his fists.
“They don’t want us to land,” he explained.
“Who are they?” Wendy whispered, shuddering.
But he not or would not say. Tinker Bell had been asleep on his shoulder, but now he her and sent her on in front.
Sometimes he himself in the air, intently, with his hand to his ear, and again he would with so that they to two to earth. Having done these things, he on again.
His was almost appalling. “Would you like an now,” he said to John, “or would you like to have your tea first?”
Wendy said “tea first” quickly, and Michael pressed her hand in gratitude, but the John hesitated.
“What of adventure?” he asked cautiously.
“There’s a asleep in the just us,” Peter told him. “If you like, we’ll go and kill him.”
“I don’t see him,” John said after a long pause.
“I do.”
“Suppose,” John said, a little huskily, “he were to wake up.”
Peter spoke indignantly. “You don’t think I would kill him while he was sleeping! I would wake him first, and then kill him. That’s the way I always do.”
“I say! Do you kill many?”
“Tons.”
John said “How ripping,” but to have tea first. He asked if there were many on the just now, and Peter said he had so many.
“Who is captain now?”
“Hook,” answered Peter, and his very as he said that word.
“Jas. Hook?”
“Ay.”
Then Michael to cry, and John speak in only, for they Hook’s reputation.
“He was Blackbeard’s bo’sun,” John huskily. “He is the of them all. He is the only man of Barbecue was afraid.”
“That’s him,” said Peter.
“What is he like? Is he big?”
“He is not so big as he was.”
“How do you mean?”
“I cut off a of him.”
“You!”
“Yes, me,” said Peter sharply.
“I wasn’t meaning to be disrespectful.”
“Oh, all right.”
“But, I say, what bit?”
“His right hand.”
“Then he can’t now?”
“Oh, can’t he just!”
“Left-hander?”
“He has an iron of a right hand, and he with it.”
“Claws!”
“I say, John,” said Peter.
“Yes.”
“Say, ‘Ay, ay, sir.’”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“There is one thing,” Peter continued, “that every boy who under me has to promise, and so must you.”
John paled.
“It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must him to me.”
“I promise,” John said loyally.
For the moment they were less eerie, Tink was with them, and in her light they each other. Unfortunately she not so slowly as they, and so she had to go and them in a circle in which they moved as in a halo. Wendy liked it, until Peter pointed out the drawbacks.
“She tells me,” he said, “that the us the came, and got Long Tom out.”
“The big gun?”
“Yes. And of they must see her light, and if they we are near it they are sure to let fly.”
“Wendy!”
“John!”
“Michael!”
“Tell her to go away at once, Peter,” the three simultaneously, but he refused.
“She thinks we have the way,” he stiffly, “and she is frightened. You don’t think I would send her away all by herself when she is frightened!”
For a moment the circle of light was broken, and something gave Peter a little pinch.
“Then tell her,” Wendy begged, “to put out her light.”
“She can’t put it out. That is about the only thing can’t do. It just goes out of itself when she asleep, same as the stars.”
“Then tell her to sleep at once,” John almost ordered.
“She can’t sleep when she’s sleepy. It is the only other thing can’t do.”
“Seems to me,” John, “these are the only two doing.”
Here he got a pinch, but not a one.
“If only one of us had a pocket,” Peter said, “we her in it.” However, they had set off in such a that there was not a pocket the four of them.
He had a happy idea. John’s hat!
Tink to travel by if it was in the hand. John it, though she had to be by Peter. Presently Wendy took the hat, John said it against his as he flew; and this, as we shall see, to mischief, for Tinker Bell to be under an to Wendy.
In the black the light was hidden, and they on in silence. It was the they had known, once by a lapping, which Peter was the wild at the ford, and again by a that might have been the of trees together, but he said it was the their knives.
Even these ceased. To Michael the was dreadful. “If only something would make a sound!” he cried.
As if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the most crash he had heard. The had Long Tom at them.
The of it through the mountains, and the to savagely, “Where are they, where are they, where are they?”
Thus did the three learn the an of make-believe and the same come true.
When at last the were again, John and Michael themselves alone in the darkness. John was the air mechanically, and Michael without how to was floating.
“Are you shot?” John tremulously.
“I haven’t yet,” Michael back.
We know now that no one had been hit. Peter, however, had been by the wind of the out to sea, while Wendy was with no but Tinker Bell.
It would have been well for Wendy if at that moment she had the hat.
I don’t know the idea came to Tink, or she had planned it on the way, but she at once out of the and to Wendy to her destruction.
Tink was not all bad; or, rather, she was all just now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or the other, being so small they have room for one only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change. At present she was full of of Wendy. What she said in her Wendy not of understand, and I some of it was words, but it kind, and she and forward, meaning “Follow me, and all will be well.”
What else Wendy do? She called to Peter and John and Michael, and got only in reply. She did not yet know that Tink her with the of a very woman. And so, bewildered, and now in her flight, she Tink to her doom.
