Peter Pan in Scarlet (19 page)

For a moment, she did not think she could leave him—her little friend Peter, as wild and fragile and beautiful as an autumn leaf blown by the wind. She did not think she could bear to miss all the games that were calling, all the quests that were piling up. She realized she did not even know where Fort Pan would be built—up in the treetops or jutting out from the precipitous cliffs or standing on stilts in the Lagoon.

But at heart the girl Wendy was a grown-up (just as all grown-ups are, at heart, children). Love of her family was dragging on her, like the far distant pull of Lodestone Rock. Just when it seemed that the space between raft and rocks was too wide even for a circus acrobat to leap, Wendy Darling sprang off the Grief Reef and landed beside her brother, aboard the good ship
Dirty Duck
.

At Smee’s command, all the pram hoods were raised to catch the wind, and the raft rode the slopping swell out towards the bar. Stricken by yet one more thought, Wendy jumped to her feet, making the raft pitch and the passengers yelp. She called out to the boy on the shore:

‘
I think your mother only shut the window to keep out
the FOG!
’

She saw Peter lift his hands to cover his ears, but too late. His fingers curled into fists, as if he had caught her words out of the air—caught and heard them, like it or not. Wendy waved, and went on waving, until the dazzle off the water filled her eyes with dark.

Peter watched the raft all the way out to the bar—watched it until the dazzle off the water made it disappear. As he turned, with a skip and a jump, to set off on the long walk back to Neverwood, he was surprised to find a little frill of fresh-grown shadow riffling around his feet. No time to wonder what sadness had made it grow back. Games were calling. Quests were piling up.

Meanwhile, not very far away, an old enemy lay along the ground. He lay so still that you would have thought him dead.

But despite his injuries, Ravello had not died. For the first time in twenty years, with his second-best coat for a blanket over him and with Wendy’s kiss on his cheek, Ravello slept—a sleep deeper than the Lagoon. Sleep is a great healer, people are always saying so.

He dreamed of striped rocks with crests as sharp as elbows, grooved into gullies by a million tears. On the top of one such crest stood a woman, ragged striped skirts drawn up at the back, a long and swanlike neck. Beautiful once, she looked now like some statue in a public park worn by wind and weather. And her face was so sad, so very sad, eyes roaming to and fro, searching for something or someone. Voice brittle as lead crystal, she called over and over again: ‘
James! James? Where are you, James?
’

Ravello slept. Sleep is a great healer; people don’t lie when they say it. Ravello slept. And his greasy fleece, shredded by dog and doctor and thorn-trees …
knitted up
. The ravelled, colourless wool resolved itself into flesh and cloth and hair. The shining ringlets returned. Scars smoothed. Even the colour of his eyes shifted along the spectrum, from earth-brown towards the brightness of blue.

What unravelled instead was the softness of his assumed name: Ravello—laying bare the hard, sharp shape of the old one: Hook. When after twenty days the man woke, it was James Hook who sat up and cursed the hardness of the ground; James Hook who clutched the School Cup to him in fierce rapture; James Hook who took bearings from his metal compass of a heart; James Hook who slid his arms into the sleeves of the scarlet frock coat.

It became him well.

And he became it.

Clothes can do that.

But when he glimpsed his shineless crocodile boots, the Past came back: a remembered nightmare. ‘Have at you, cock-a-doodle!’ The words emerged like heat from an opening furnace. ‘Revenge will be sweet when we two next meet.
Have at you, Peter Pan!
’

You are quite right. There was a lot of explaining to do when they got home. Imagine their mother’s surprise when the Twins took her by each hand, and trotted her home to Chertsey. Imagine her astonishment, when they took out front door keys and let themselves in, calling, ‘Hello, Daddy’s back!’ Imagine what she said as she watched them swap clothes with their little ones and grow back—
gracious
goodness!
—into full-size men.

Their children had a word or two to say about it as well.

‘You took my school uniform! I got in awful trouble!’

‘Shoulda taken my green pyjamies, not my red ones! My red ones are my flavourites!’

‘There’s mud on my ballet shoes!’ (That was at Tootles’s house.)

‘That was my
best
rugby shirt!’ (That was at Curly’s). And ‘Oh, Daddy! You grewed the puppy!’

At Nibs’s house, Nibs drew his children on to his lap and said to the visitors, ‘Tell us. Tell us
everything
that happened.’

You might think the Maze mothers felt cheated to see their Lost Boys grow suddenly to manhood, but no. Better by far to find a Lost Son, whatever age he is, than never to find him at all.

Slightly, who had no wife or children to go home to, stayed as he was: eighteen. He did not even tell his Neverland mother he was a baronet, in case she bought a book of etiquette and made him act like one. Just once, he slipped away to that jazz club to play the clarinet. But when the lights dimmed and spotlight shone, he found that he could not play the Blues any more, because he was just too happy. So he joined a dance band instead.

As for Wendy and John, they gathered up all the dregs of those troublesome dreams—the hats and arrows and sabres and pistols and hooks—and gave them to Smee, who opened a party shop in Kensington, selling ‘Souvenirs of Neverland’. Of course no one believed there was any such place—except the children who bought the souvenirs.

And over the while, Wendy told Jane everything, naturally. A memory here, an adventure there. Jane thought they were bedtime stories she was hearing; when she told them back to her mother, she changed bits she did not like and added in things that had not happened; Wendy said nothing. It was lovely just to hear the words bouncing round the bedroom again: ‘Neverland’, ‘Peter’, and ‘
Dook-
a-doodie!
’ (which was the best Jane could doodle-do).

Perhaps what happened to Neverland wasn’t Hook’s fault, at all. Oh, he would
love
you to think it was. But maybe it wasn’t the bottle of mischief in his breast pocket that leaked out and poisoned Neverland. Maybe flying debris from the Big War—shrapnel and bullets and such—made holes in the fabric between Neverland and this world. Dreams leaked out through the holes; grown-up mess leaked in. And that’s when the summerlands were spoiled. For a few ticks, Time moved on where Time was never meant to, and summer turned to autumn, and draughts slithered in, and friends grew cold.

Whatever the cause, it didn’t last.

You know how bruises fade? Black to purple, then greenish blue and last of all yellow? Well, Neverland healed up just like that. The snow melted and watered the Thirsty Desert. The springs welled up and refilled the rivers. Burnt Neverwood re-grew. Finally the yellow sun came out and lingered—sometimes for days on end, because it was enjoying itself too much to go to bed. The Lagoon shimmered with fish and sunlight and mermaids. Villains moored up. Lost Boys and Girls found their way to Fort Pan.

Mothers came looking for them (of course).

The Tribes held potlatch parties and gave away everything they owned—even quite a lot of things they didn’t—out of sheer joy. The fairies called a truce, though for a long time marauding bands of dandies went about ripping the rainbows out of waterfalls to sew into tunics. Never mind: the waterfalls healed up, too.

Hand in hand, Tinker Bell and Fireflyer quarrelled their way here, there, and everywhere in Neverland, inventing new colours, playing Chinese chequers with the stars, and nibbling the knees out of Wednesday to make it easier to spell. They set up in business, selling dreams to Roarers and pirates in exchange for belt buckles and buttons. It was a dangerous line of work—especially catching the dreams with a tripwire and a net—but the two fairies were so happy that they decided not to get killed for at least a hundred years.

As for Pan, it took an age for his shadow to grow all the way back, because he was so rarely sad. Only when he thought of Wendy and the others did a little more darkness flap out behind him—a leg, a narrow waist, a sword-arm … So he was confined to Neverland, unable to fly, and the Darlings saw nothing of him from one summer to the next.

Don’t worry, though. His shadow is all there nowadays. He can fly as far and as high as he chooses—faster than dreams can flicker through your head—further afield even than Fotheringdene or Grimswater.

He has never broken his terrible habit of eavesdropping. So, maybe that wasn’t the rustle of pages you heard while this story lasted, but Peter Pan himself, listening in. In exchange for a story of yours, he might show you his most prized possession: James Hook’s map of Neverland.

In exchange for a smile, he may show you Neverland itself.

Geraldine McCaughrean
is one of the most highly-acclaimed living children’s writers. She has won the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Children’s Book Award (three times), the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, and the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award, and is known and admired for the variety and originality of her books, as well as her stunning storytelling skills.

In 2005 she was chosen by the Trustees of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children to write the official sequel to
Peter Pan
. The result was
Peter Pan in Scarlet
which was published worldwide to huge international acclaim in 2006 and became an instant classic.

Geraldine lives in Berkshire with her husband and daughter.

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