LITMIR.BIZ

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. They soon know that they will grow up. Wendy knew this, too. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked a flower and ran with it to her mother. Mrs. Darling cried, “Oh, why can’t you remain like this forever!” But Wendy knew that she must grow up.

      There were three children in the family: Wendy, John, and Michael. The Darlings were poor, and the nurse for the children was a dog, called Nana. She was an excellent nurse. Of course her kennel was in the nursery. The nursery was wide and airy, with a large window, and a bright fire with a high fire-guard round it, and a big clock, and nursery-rhyme pictures over the walls. There never was a happier family[2] until the coming of Peter Pan.

      Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was putting her children to bed. She knew of no Peter[3], and yet he was here and there in John and Michael and Wendy’s minds. Children often talked about the island of Neverland[4] and Peter Pan who lived there.

      Mrs. Darling remembered Peter Pan who lived with the fairies, they said. There were odd stories about him. She believed in him when she was a girl, but now that she was married she doubted whether there was any such person[5].

      “Besides,” she said to Wendy, “he is adult now.”

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

      Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he just smiled. “It is some nonsense,” he said.

      On the night on which our story begins, Nana was dozing peacefully by the fireside, with her head between her paws. All the children were in bed.

      Nana got up, and stretched herself, and carefully switched on the electric light. She managed to do that[6] with her mouth. Then she turned the bed-clothes neatly down and hung the little pyjamas over the fire-guard. She then trotted up to the bathroom and turned on the water.

      Nana was an excellent nurse!

      Mrs. Darling was sewing by the fireplace. It was something for Michael’s birthday. The fire was warm, her head nodded.

      While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come too near and that a strange boy came from it.

      While Mrs. Darling was dreaming, she heard a wee noise outside the window, as a tiny figure, no bigger than a little boy, tried the window-latch. The window of the nursery blew open, and the boy dropped on the floor. He was accompanied by a strange light. She opened her eyes, and saw the boy, and she knew at once that he was Peter Pan. He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves[7]. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed his white teeth at her.

      Chapter 2

      The Shadow

      Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if[8] in answer to a bell, the door opened, and Nana entered. She growled and sprang at the boy, who leapt through the window. Again Mrs. Darling screamed, 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 a shooting star[9].

      She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth. It was the boy’s shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had no time to get out.

      Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully. She folded it and put it away. Mrs. Darling decided to show it to Mr. Darling.

      Something strange happened a week later, on Friday.

      “I won’t go to bed,” shouted Michael, “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, I won’t!”

      Then Mrs. Darling came in, wearing her white evening-gown. She was wearing Wendy’s bracelet on her arm; Wendy loved to lend her bracelet to her mother.

      John and Wendy were playing at their favourite game of being Father and Mother[10]. Then Mr. Darling appeared. Mr. Darling was very much excited because he could not fasten his evening tie (evening ties are difficult things to fasten, you know). Mrs. Darling easily managed that for him. She decided to tell him about the boy. At first he smiled, but he became thoughtful when she showed him the shadow.

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

      “We were still discussing it, you remember,” says Mr. Darling, “when Nana came in with Michael’s medicine. You will never carry the bottle in your mouth again, Nana, and it is all my fault.”

      Unfortunately, in going to the bathroom, Nana accidentally brushed against Mr. Darling’s beautifully pressed black trousers, and left some of her grey clinging hairs upon them. Now no grown-up person likes hairy trousers, so Mr. Darling was very rude with Nana.

      Mrs. Darling told her husband how glad she was to have such a treasure as Nana for a nurse. “You see how very useful Nana is,” concluded Mrs. Darling, as the faithful dog came in with Michael’s bottle of cough mixture. But Michael refused to take his medicine. “Won’t; won’t!” Michael cried naughtily. Mrs. Darling left the room to get a chocolate for him.

      “Michael, when I was your age,” said Mr. Darling, “I took medicine without a murmur. I said, ‘Thank you, kind parents, for giving me bottles to make me well[11].’”

      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[12],” Mr. Darling said bravely, “and I am ready to take it now as an example to you, Michael, but I lost the bottle.”

      He did not exactly lose it; he climbed in the night to the top of the wardrobe and hid it there. What he did not know was that the faithful Liza found it, and put it back on his table.

      “I know where it is, father,” Wendy cried. “I’ll bring it!”

      “Very well,” said Mr. Darling, “we shall see who is the braver.”

      Wendy returned with the medicine in a glass.

      “You were wonderfully quick,” her father said. “Michael first,” he added doggedly.

      “Father first,” said Michael, who was very suspicious.

      “Come on, father,” said John.

      “Hold your tongue[13], John.”

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

      “That is not the point[14],” he retorted. “The point is, that there is more in my glass than in Michael’s spoon. 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.”

      “Father’s a cowardly custard[15].”

      “So are you a cowardly custard.”

      “I’m not frightened.”

      “Neither am I frightened.”

      “Well, then, take it.”

      “Well, then, you take it.”

      Wendy had a splendid idea. “Why not both take it at the same time?”

      “Certainly,”

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