Peter Pan by James Matthew Barrie

Part I

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she picked up another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this forever!” This was all that passed between them on the subject, but since that time Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

Wendy's mother was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mouth. The way Mr Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr Darling, who took a cab and arrived first, and so he married her.

Mr Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him but respected him. He was one of those who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would make any woman respect him.

Wendy was born first, then John, then Michael.

For a week or two after Wendy was born it was doubtful whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr Darling was very proud of her, but he was very honorable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs Darling’s bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses, while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.

“Now don’t interrupt,” he would ask her. “I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the office. Can we try it for a year on nine nine seven?”

“Of course we can, George,” she cried.

There was the same excitement over John, and Michael, but both were kept, and soon you could see the three of them going to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by their nurse.

Mrs Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbors; so, of course, they had a nurse, As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings took her. She had always thought children important, and the Darlings had become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her spare time looking into perambulators, and was much hated by careless nurses, whom she followed to their homes and complained to their mistresses. She was quite a treasure of a nurse. How careful she was at bath-time; and up at any moment of the night if one of the children made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel was in the nursery. She had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience with and when it needs stocking round your throat. She believed to her last day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and so on. One should see her accompanying the children to school, walking by their side when they were well behaved, and putting them back into line if they strayed. On John’s footer days she never once forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in case of rain. There is a room in Miss Fulsom’s school where the nurses wait. They sat in chairs, while Nana lay on the floor, but that was the only difference. They tried to ignore her; she despised their light talk.

No nursery could be done more correctly, and Mr Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily if the neighbors talked.

He had his position in the city to consider.

Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that she did not admire him. “I know she admires you greatly, George,” Mrs Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children to be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the only servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. The gaiety of those dances! And gayest of all was Mrs Darling. There never was a simpler, happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.

Mrs Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children’s minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning. If you could keep awake (but of course you can’t) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and bad feelings with which you went to bed have been folded up and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.

I don’t know whether you have ever seen a map of a person’s mind? Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become extremely interesting, but imagine them trying to draw a map of a child’s mind, which keeps going round all the time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and these are probably roads in the island, with astonishing splashes of color here and there, and coral reefs and gnomes and caves through which a river runs, and princess with six elder brothers, and one very small lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all; but there is also first day at school, the round pond, needlework, chocolate-pudding day, threepence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and soon.

Occasionally, in her travels through her children’s minds Mrs Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the strangest was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael’s minds, while Wendy’s was scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bigger letters than any of the other words, and Mrs Darling felt that it had a cocky appearance.

“Yes, he is rather cocky,” Wendy said with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.

“But who is he, my pet?”

“He is Peter Pan, you know, mother.”

At first Mrs Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with fairies. There were odd stories about him. She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and had three children she quite doubted whether there was any such person.

“Besides,” she said to Wendy, “he would be grown up by this time.”

“Oh no, he isn’t grown up,” Wendy assured confidently, “and here is just my size.” She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn’t know how she knew it, she just knew it.

Mrs Darling consulted Mr Darling, but he only smiled. “Mark my words,” he said, “it is some, nonsense Nana has been putting into their heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it will blow over.”

But it didn’t blow over; and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs Darling quite a shock.

Some leaves of a tree had been found on the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children went to bed, and Mrs Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a charming smile:“I do believe it is that Peter again!”

“What do you mean, Wendy?”

“It is so naughty of him not to wipe,” Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child.

She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipe to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn’t know how she knew, she just knew.

“What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without knocking.”

“I think he comes in by the window,” she said.

“My love, it is three floors up.”

“Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?”

It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.

Mrs Darling didn’t know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming.

“My child,” the mother cried, “why did you not tell me of this before?”

“I forgot,” said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.

Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.

But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs Darling examined them carefully; they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they did not come from any tree that grew in England.

Certainly Wendy had been dreaming.

But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children begun.

On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It happened to Nana's day off, and Mrs Darling had bathed and sung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and went away into the land of sleep.

All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and sat down by the fire to sew. The fire was warm, the nursery lit by three night-lights and the sewing lay on Mrs Darling’s lap. Then her head nodded. She was asleep.

While she slept she had a dream. She dreamed that the Neverland had come too near and that a strange boy had arrived from it. He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before. And she saw Wendy and John and Michael.

The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the floor. He was accompanied by a strange light which darted about the room like a living thing; and I think this light wakened Mrs Darling.

She gave a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once he was Peter Pan. He was a lovely boy, dressed in skeleton leaves, but the most charming thing about him was that he had all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he grinned at her.

Mrs Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened, and Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled and dashed at the boy, who jumped lightly through the window. Again Mrs Darling screamed, this time she was sorry for him, for she thought he was killed, and she ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it was not there; and she looked up, and in the black night she could see nothing but what she thought was a shooting star.

She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy’s shadow. As he ran up to the window Nana had closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had time to get out.

You may be sure Mrs Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was the usual kind.

Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow. She hung it out at the window, meaning “He is sure to come back for it; let us put it where he can get it easily without disturbing the children.”

But unfortunately Mrs Darling could not leave it hanging out at the window; it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the house. She thought of showing it to Mr Darling, but she knew exactly what he would say: “It all comes of having a dog for a nurse.”

She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer, until an opportunity came for telling her husband.

The opportunity came a week later, on that never-to-be-forgotten Friday. Of course it was Friday.

They sat night after night remembering that fatal Friday.

“If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at 27,” Mrs Darling said.

“If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana’s bowl,” said Mr Darling.

“If only I had pretended to like the medicine,” was what Nana's wet eyes said.

They would sit there in the empty nursery, remembering every smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so uneventfully, like a hundred other evenings, with Nana putting on the water for Michael’s bath and carrying him to it on her back.

“I won’t go to bed,” he had shouted, like one who still believed that he had the last word on the subject. “I won’t, I won’t. Nana, it isn’t six o’clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan’t love you any more, Nana. I tell you I won’t be bathed, I won’t, I won’t!”

Then Mrs Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-dress. She had dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her evening-dress, with the necklace George had given her.

Mr Darling, too, had been dressing for the party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his tie. It is a strange thing to tell, but this man, though he knew about stocks and shares, could not tie his tie.

He came rushing into the nursery with a tie in his hand.

“Why, what is the matter, father, dear?”

“Matter!” he yelled.

“This tie, it will not tie. Not round my neck! Round the bedpost! Oh yes, twenty times have I made it up round the bedpost, but round my neck, no! Oh dear no!”

He thought Airs Darling was not quite impressed, and he went on, “I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my neck we don’t go out to dinner tonight, I never go to the office again, and if I don’t go to the office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the streets.”

Even then Mrs Darling was calm. “Let me try, dear,” she said, and with her nice cool hands she tied his tie for him, while the children stood around to see their fate decided.

Mr Darling thanked her carelessly, at once forgot his anger and in another moment was dancing round the room with Michael on his back.

The dance was ended with the appearance of Nana, and most unluckily Mr Darling, collided against her, covering his trousers with hairs. Of course Mrs Darling brushed him, but he began to talk again about its being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.

“George, Nana is a treasure.”

“No doubt, but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the children as puppies.”

“Oh no, dear one, I fee! sure she knows they have souls.”

“I wonder,” Mr Darling said thoughtfully, “I wonder.” It was an opportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the boy. At first he ignored the story, but he became thoughtful when she showed him the shadow.

“It is nobody I know,” he said, examining it carefully, “but he does look a scoundrel.”

At that moment Nana came with Michael’s medicine. Strong man though he was, Mr Darling behaved rather foolishly over the medicine. If he had a weakness, it was for thinking that all his life he had taken medicine bravely; and so now, when Michael dodged the spoon in Nana’s mouth, he said, “Be a man, Michael.”

“Won’t, won’t,” Michael cried naughtily. Mrs Darling left the room to get a chocolate for him.

“Michael, when I was your age I took medicine without complains,” Mr Darling said. He really thought this was true, and Wendy believed it also, and she said, to encourage Michael, “That medicine you sometimes take, father, is much nastier, isn’t it?”

“Ever so much nastier,” Mr Darling said bravely, “and I would take it now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn’t lost the bottle.”

He had not exactly lost it; he had climbed in the dead of the night to the top of his wardrobe and hidden it there. What he did not know was that Liza had found it, and put it back on his washstand.

“I know where it is, father,” Wendy cried, always glad to be helpful. ‘I'll bring it,” and she was off before he could stop her. “John,” he said, “it’s that nasty sticky, sweet kind.”

“It will soon be over, father,” John said cheerfully, and then in rushed Wendy with the medicine in a glass.

“I have been as quick as I could,” she said.

“You have been wonderfully quick,” her father answered with a strange politeness. “Michael first,” he said doggedly.

“Father first,” said Michael, who was of a suspicious nature.

“I shall be sick, you know,” Mr Darling said.

“Come on, father,” said John.

“Hold your tongue, John,” his father insisted.

Wendy was quite puzzled. “I thought you took it quite easily, father.”

“There is more in my glass than in Michael’s spoon,” father replied. “And it isn’t fair.”

“Father, I am waiting,” said Michael coldly.

“It’s all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting.”

“Well, then take it.”

“Well, then, you take it.”

Wendy had a splendid idea.

“Why not both take it at the same time?”

“Certainly,” said Mr Darling.

“Are you ready, Michael?”

Wendy gave the words, one, two, three, and Michael took the medicine, but Mr Darling slipped his behind his back.

There was a yell from Michael, and “O father!” Wendy exclaimed.

“What do you mean by “O father’?” Mr Darling asked. “Stop it, Michael. I meant to take mine, but I — I missed it.”

It was dreadful the way ail the three were looking at him, just as if they did not admire him. “Look here, all of you,” he said as soon as Nana had gone into the bathroom. “I have a wonderful idea. J shall pour my medicine into Nana’s bowl, and she will drink it, thinking it is milk!”

It was the color of milk; but the children did not have their father’s sense of humor, and they looked at him reproachfully as he poured the medicine into Nana’s bowl. “What fun,” he said doubtfully, and they did not dare to say anything when Nana returned.

“Nana, good dog,” he said, patting her, “I have put a little milk into your bowl, Nana.”

Nana wagged her tail, ran to the medicine, and began drinking it. Then she gave Mr Darling such a look, not an angry look: she showed him the great red tear that makes us sorry for noble dogs, and went into her kennel.

Mr Darling was ashamed of himself, but he would not show it. In a horrid silence Mrs Darling smelt the bowl. “O George,” she said, “it’s your medicine!”

“It’s only a joke,” he tried to explain, while she comforted the boys, and Wendy hugged Nana. “Much good,” he said, “my wearing myself to the bone trying to be funny in this house.”

And still Wendy hugged Nana. “That’s right,” he shouted. “Hug her! Kiss her! Nobody kisses me. Oh dear no! I am only breadwinner, why should I be kissed, why, why, why!”

“George,” Mrs Darling told him, “not so loud; the servants will hear you.” Somehow they got a habit of calling Liza the servants.

“Let them,” he answered. “Bring in the whole world. But I refuse to allow that dog to stay in my nursery for an hour longer.”

The children wept, and Nana ran up to him, but he waved her back. He felt he was a strong man again. “In vain, in vain,” he cried, “the proper place for you is the yard, and there you will be tied this moment.”

“George, George,” Mrs Darling whispered, “remember what I told you about that boy.”

Alas, he would not listen. He seized Nana rudely, dragged her from the nursery. He was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It was all owing to his nature, which longed for admiration. Then he tied Nana up in the back yard.

In the meantime, Mrs Darling had put the children to bed in silence and lit their night-lights. They could hear Nana barking, and John whispered, “It is because he is tying her up in the yard,” but Wendy was wiser.

“That is not Nana’s unhappy bark,” she said, “that is her bark when she smells danger.”

Danger!“Are you sure, Wendy?”

“Oh yes.”

Mrs Darling went to the window. She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. They were crowding around the house, as if curious to see what was to take place there, but she did not notice this.

Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was disturbed, and he asked, “Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?”

“Nothing, precious,” she said; “they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children.”

She went from bed to bed singing songs to them, and little Michael put his arms round her. “Mother,” he cried, “I'm glad of you.” They were the last words she was to hear from him for a long time.

Part II

Mr and Mrs Darling left the house. A moment after the window was blown open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He jumped at the drawers, throwing their things to the floor with both hands, as kings toss halfpence to the crowd. In a moment he found his shadow. He tried to stick it on with soap from the bathroom, but that failed. Peter sat down on the floor and cried.

His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed to see a stranger crying on the nursery floor, she was only pleasantly interested.

“Boy,” she said politely, “why are you crying?”

Peter could be extremely polite also, having learned the grand manners at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to her beautifully. She was much pleased, and bowed beautifully to him from the bed.

“What's your name?” he asked.

“Wendy Moira Angela Darling,” she replied with some satisfaction. “What is your name?”

“Peter Pan.”

She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem such a short name,“Is that all?”

“Yes,” he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a shortish name.

“I’m so sorry,” said Wendy Moira Angela.

“It doesn’t matter,” Peter replied.

She asked where he lived.

“Second to the right,” said Peter, “and then straight on till morning.”

“What a funny address!”

Peter thought a little. For the first time he felt that it was a funny address.

“No, it isn’t,” he said.

“I mean,” Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was hostess, “is that what they put on the letters?”

“Don’t get any letters,” he said.

“But your mother gets letters?”

“Don’t have a mother,” he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very over-rated persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a tragedy.

“O Peter, no wonder you were crying,” she said, and got out of bed and ran to him.

“I wasn’t crying about mothers,” he said rather angrily. “I was crying because I can’t get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn’t crying.”

“It has come off?”

“Yes.”

Then Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so untidy, and she was frightfully sorry for Peter. “How awful” she said, but she would not help smiling when she saw that he had been trying to stick it on with soap. How exactly like a boy!

Fortunately she knew at once what to do. “I shall sew it for you, my little man,” she said, though he was as tall as herself; and she sewed the shadow on to Peter’s foot.

“I dare say it will hurt a little,” she warned him.

“Oh, I shan’t cry,” said Peter, who was already of opinion that he had never cried in his life.

“Perhaps I shall iron it,” Wendy said thoughtfully; but Peter, boylike, was indifferent to his appearance, and he was now jumping about. Alas, he had forgotten that he owed it to Wendy. He thought he had sewed the shadow himself. “How clever I am,” he boasted, “oh, the cleverness of me!”

For the moment Wendy was shocked.

“Of course I did nothing!”

“You did a little,” Peter said carelessly, and continued to dance. When people are introduced, it is usual for them to ask each other’s age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct thing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question to ask him; it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when you want to be asked about Kings of England.

“I don’t know,” he replied. He really knew nothing about it. “Wendy,” he said, “I ran away the day I was born.”

Wendy was quite surprised, but interested.

“It was because I heard father and mother,” he explained in a low voice, “talking about what I was to be when I became a man. I don’t want ever to be a man,” he said with passion. “I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long time among the fairies.”

She gave him a look of great admiration, and he thought it was because he had run away, but it was really because he knew fairies. Wendy had lived such a home life that to know fairies struck her as quite delightful, and he told her about the beginning of fairies.

“You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And so,” he went on good-naturedly, “there ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl.”

“Ought to be? Isn’t there?”

“No. You see, children know such a lot now, they soon don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.”

They were together in the arm-chair by this time, and Wendy asked him more questions.

“Do you still live in Kensington Gardens?”

“Sometimes I do.”

“But where do you live mostly now?”

“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. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Neverland. I’m captain.”

“What fun it must be!”

“Yes,” said cunning Peter, “but we are rather lonely. You see we have no female companionship.”

“Are none of the others girls?”

“Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams.”

This flattered Wendy immensely. “I think,” she said, “it is perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls.” She was just slightly disappointed when he admitted that he came to the nursery window not to see her but to listen to stories.

“You see I don’t know any stories. None of the lost boys know any stories.”

“How perfectly awful,” Wendy said.

“Do you know,” Peter asked, “why swallows build their nests under the roofs of the houses? It is to listen to the stories. 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, and he found her, and they lived happily after that.”

Peter was so glad that he rose and hurried to the window. “Where are you going?” she cried.

“To tell the other boys.”

“Don’t go, Peter,” she asked him. “I know such lots of stories.”

Peter came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes. “Wendy, do come with me and tell the other boys.”

Of course she was very pleased to be asked, but she said, “Oh dear, I can’t. Think of mummy! Besides, I can't fly.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“Oh, how lovely to fly.”

“I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind’s back, and then away we go.”

“Go!” she exclaimed."Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.”

“Oo!”

“And, Wendy, there are mermaids.”

“Mermaids! With tails?”

“Such long tails.”

“Oh,” cried Wendy, “to see a mermaid!”

He had become cunning.

“Wendy,” he said, “how we should all respect you.”

“Oo,” and her arms went out to him,

“And you could darn our clothes, and make pockets for us. None of us has any pockets.”

How could she resist? “Of course it’s awfully fascinating!” she cried. “Peter, would you teach John and Michael to fly too?”

“If you like,” he said indifferently; and she ran to John and Michael and shook them. “Wake up,” she cried, “Peter Pan has come and he is to teach us to fly.”

John rubbed his eyes. “Then I shall get up,” he said. Of course he was on the floor already.

“Hello,” he said,

“I am up!”

Michael was up by this time also, looking as sharp as a knife with six blades, but Peter suddenly signed silence. They were all listening for sounds from the grown-up world. All was still. Then everything was right. No, stop! Everything was wrong. Nana, who had been barking all the evening, was quiet now. It was her silence they had heard.

“Out the light! Hide! Quick!” cried John. And thus when Liza entered, holding Nana, the nursery seemed quiet and dark, and you could swear you heard the three children breathing quietly as they slept. They were really doing it from behind the curtains. Liza was in a bad temper, for she was mixing the Christmas pudding in the kitchen, and had been drawn away from it, with a raisin still on her cheek, by Nana’s absurd suspicions. She thought the best way of getting a little quiet was to take Nana to the nursery for a moment.

“There, you suspicious animal,” she said,

“they are perfectly safe, aren’t they? Every one of the little angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their quiet breathing.”

Here Michael, encouraged by his success, breathed so loudly that they were nearly detected. Nana knew that kind of breathing, and she understood everything. But Liza said, “No more of it, Nana,” and pulled her out of the room. “I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight for master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then, oh, won’t master whip you, just.”

She tied the unhappy dog again, but do you think Nana ceased to bark? Bring master and missus back from the party! Why, that was just what she wanted. Unfortunately Liza returned to her pudding, and Nana, seeing that no help would come from her, pulled and pulled at the chain until at last she broke it. In another moment she had burst into the dining room of 27. Mr and Mrs Darling knew at once that something terrible was happening in their nursery, and without a good-bye to their hostess they rushed into the street. But it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing behind the curtains; and Peter Pan can do a lot in ten minutes. We now return to the nursery.

“It is all right,” John announced. “I say, Peter, can you really fly?”

Instead of troubling to answer him Peter flew round the room.

“How wonderful!” said John and Michael.

“How sweet!” cried Wendy.

“Yes, I’m sweet, oh, I am sweet,” said Peter, forgetting his manners again. It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the floor and then from the beds, but they always went down instead of up.

“I say, how do you do it?” asked John, rubbing his knee, He was quite a practical boy.

“You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,” Peter explained, “and they lift you up in the air.”

He showed them again. John asked, “Could you do it very slowly once?”

Peter did it both slowly and quickly. “I’ve got it now, Wendy!” cried John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of them could fly an inch, though even Michael was in words of two syllables, and Peter did not know A from Z. Of course Peter had been fooling them, for no one can fly unless the fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately, there was some dust on his hands, and he blew some on each of them. Immediately they were flying about the room.

“I flew!” Michael cried while still in the air.

“Oh, lovely!”

“Oh, wonderful!”

“Look at me!”

“Look at me!”

“Look at me!”

They were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a little, but their heads were touching the ceiling, and there is almost nothing so delicious as that. Up and down they went, and round and round.

“I say,” cried John, “why shouldn’t we all go out!”

Of course it was the very thing Peter had been wishing. Michael was ready: he wanted to see how long it took him to do a billion miles. But Wendy hesitated,“Mermaids!” said Peter again.

“Oo!”

“And there are pirates.”

“Pirates,” cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, “let us go at once.”

It was just at this moment that Mr and Mrs Darling hurried with Nana out of 27. They ran into the middle of the street to look up at the nursery window; and, yes, it was still shut, there was light in the room, and the most heart-gripping sight of all, they could see in shadow on the curtain three little figures circling round and round, not on the floor but in the air. Not three figures, four!

In a tremble they opened the street door. Mr Darling wanted to rush upstairs, but Mrs Darling signed him to go softly. She even tried to make her heart go softly. Will they reach the nursery in time? If so, how delightful for them, and we shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but there will be no story. They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the little stars were watching them. Once again the stars blew the window open, and the smallest star of all called out: “Come, Peter!”

Then Peter knew that there was not a moment to lose.

“Come,” he cried and flew out at once into the night followed by John and Michael and Wendy. Mr and Mrs Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The birds were flown.