WENDY. It is like this. (She leans forward to give a demonstration, but something prevents the meeting of their faces.)
PETER (satisfied). Now shall I give you a thimble?
WENDY. If you please. (Before he can even draw near she screams.)
PETER. What is it?
WENDY. It was exactly as if some one were pulling my hairl
PETER. That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty before.
(TINK speaks. She is in the jug again.)
WENDY. What does she say?
PETER. She says she will do that every time I give you a thimble.
WENDY. But why?
PETER (equally nonplussed). Why, Tink? (He has to translate the answer.) She said 'You silly ass' again.
WENDY. She is very impertinent. (They are sitting on the floor now.) Peter, why did you come to our nursery window?
PETER. To try to hear stories None of us knows any stories.
WENDY. How perfectly awful!
PETER. Do you know why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories. Wendy, your mother was telling you such a lovely story.
WENDY. Which story was it?
PETER. About the prince, and he couldn't find the lady who wore the glass slipper.
WENDY. That was Cinderella. Peter, he found her and they were happy ever after.
PETER. I am glad. (They have worked their way along the floor close to each other, but he now jumps up.)
WENDY. Where are you going?
PETER (already on his way to the window). To tell the other boys.
WENDY. Don't go, Peter. I know lots of stories. The stories I could tell to the boys!
PETER (gleaming). Come on! We'll fly.
WENDY. Fly? You can fly!
(How he would like to rip those stories out of her; he is dangerous now.)
PETER. Wendy, come with me.
WENDY. Oh dear, I mustn't. Think of mother. Besides, I can't fly.
PETER. I'll teach you.
WENDY. How lovely to fly!
PETER. I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back and then away we go. Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me, saying funny things tothe stars. There are mermaids, Wendy, with long tails. (She just succeeds in remaining on the nursery floor.) Wendy, how we should all respect you.
(At this she strikes her colours.)
WENDY. Of course it's awfully fascinating! Would you teach John and Michael to fly too?
PETER (indifferently). If you like.
WENDY (playing rum-turn on JOHN). John, wake up; there is a boy here who is to teach us to fly.
JOHN. Is there? Then I shall get up. (He raises his headfrom the floor.) Hullo, I am up!
WENDY. Michael, open your eyes. This boy is to teach us to fly.
(The sleepers are at once as awake as their father's razor;but before a question can be asked NANA'S bark is heard.)
JOHN. Out with the light, quick, hide!
(When the maid LIZA, who is so small that when she says she will never see ten again one can scarcely believe her, enters with a firm hand on the troubled NANA'S chain the room is in comparative darkness.)
LIZA. There, you suspicious brute, they are perfectly safe, aren't they? Every one of the little angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing. (NANA'S sense of smell here helps to her undoing instead of hindering it. She knows that they are in the room. MICHAEL, who is behind the window curtain, is so encouraged by LIZA'S last remark that he breathes too loudly. NANA knows that kind of breathing and tries to break from her keeper's control.) No more of it, Nana. (Wagging a finger at her) I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight for master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then won't master whip you just! Come along, you naughty dog.
(The unhappy NANA is led away. The children emerge exulting from their various hiding-places. In their brief absence from the scene strange things have been done to them; but it is not for us to reveal a mysterious secret of the stage. They look just the same.)
JOHN. I say, can you really fly.
PETER. Look! (He is now over their heads.)
WENDY. Oh, how sweet!
PETER. I 'm sweet, oh, I am sweet!
(It looks so easy that they try it first from the floor andthen from their beds, without encouraging results.)
JOHN (rubbing his knees). How do you do it?
PETER (descending). You just think lovely wonderful thoughts and they lift you up in the air. (He is off again.)
JOHN. You are so nippy at it; couldn't you do it very slowly once? (PETER does it slowly.) I 've got it now, Wendy. (He tries; no, he has not got it, poor stay-at-home, though he knows the names of all the counties in England and PETER does not know one.)
PETER. I must blow the fairy dust on you first. (Fortunately his garments are smeared with it and he blows some dust on each.) Now, try; try from the bed. Just wiggle your shoulders this way, and then let go.
(The gallant MICHAEL is the first to let go, and is borne across the room.)
MICHAEL (with a yell that should have disturbed LIZA). I flewed!
(JOHN lets go, and meets WENDY near the bathroom door though they had both aimed in an opposite direction.)
WENDY. Oh, lovely!
JOHN (tending to be upside down). How ripping!
MICHAEL (playing whack on a chair). I do like it!
THE THREE. Look at me, look at me, look at me!
(They are not nearly so elegant in the air as PETER, but their heads have bumped the ceiling, and there is nothing more delicious than that.)
JOHN (who can even go backwards). I say, why shouldn't we go out?
PETER. There are pirates.
JOHN. Pirates! (He grabs his tall Sunday hat.) Let us go at once!
(TINK does not like it. She darts at their hair. From down below in the street the lighted window must present an unwonted spectacle: the shadows of children revolving in the room like a merry-go-round. This is perhaps what MR. and MRS. DARLING see as they come hurrying home from the party, brought by NANA who, you may be sure, has broken her chain. PETER'S accomplice, the little star, has seen them coming, and again the window blows open.)
PETER (as if he had heard the star whisper 'Cave'). Now come!
(Breaking the circle he flies out of the window over the trees of the square and over the house-tops, and the others follow like a flight of birds. The broken-hearted father and mother arrive just in time to get a nip from TINK as she too sets out for the Never Land.)
Act II.
The Never Land
When the blind goes up all is so dark that you scarcely know it has gone up. This is because if you were to see the island bang (as Peter would say) the wonders of it might hurt your eyes. If you all came in spectacles perhaps you could see it bang, but to make a rule of that kind would be a pity. The first thing seen is merely some whitish dots trudging along the sward, and you can guess from their tinkling