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‘Stop being so bloodthirsty, Peter, and do something useful,’ said Jack.

‘Jack, what’s this? It looks like a threatening letter. It mentions his daughter,’ said Shelley.

‘Let’s see,’ said Jack. He read out the note.

Professor Dante

    Your daughter is in our custody, and will remain so until you have given us what we want. Do not contact the police if you want to see her alive again. Meet us at your laboratory at 8 o’clock tonight.

    Remember no police.

‘This is a
kind
of ransom note but it doesn’t mention money,’ said Jack. ‘It tells the professor to go to his lab. But it doesn’t say what they want. Wonder why? I wonder if it is to do with these new techniques he’s developing?’

‘Jack, we know his daughter is called Wendy,’ said Amy. ‘Don’t you think there have been an awful lot of coincidences? Something really weird’s going on and we’re right in the middle of it.’

‘I hate to admit it, but I think you’re absolutely right. Stolen fairy dust, a missing professor, a kidnapped girl, a crocodile, a band of pirates! And now more connections to the Peter Pan story. There must be a clue in this house. What has the professor got to do with it?’ Jack moved towards the other door. Amy picked up the note and Shelley stuffed a couple of other papers in her pocket before following him. Peter was opening drawers and cupboards as if he expected something to jump out at him.

‘What are you doing, Peter?’ asked Jack, anxious to finish up in this strange house and go home.

‘I am going to find something important in this house,’ replied Peter, puffing out his chest. ‘I just don’t know what it is yet.’

Jack stepped into the hallway. By the light from the dining room, they could see other doors at the bottom of a staircase. Crossing the carpeted hall on tiptoe, Amy slowly turned the handle of one of the doors. A sound from inside made the hairs on the backs of their necks stand up. They froze, rooted to the spot. They held their breath and listened. There was the noise again! It was a rasping, breathing sound. Someone or something was in the room! Their eyes opened wide as they realised they were not alone in the house after all. Amy stepped away from the door.

Whatever was in the room charged across the floor with a deep growl. They heard what sounded like claws scraping on the floor. Realising they were in danger Jack quickly pulled the door shut and yelled, ‘Quick, up the stairs.’ The door closed for a second then bounced open. It scarcely hindered the fearsome beast that was after the children. Peter flew to the landing in a flash and disappeared. Amy, Shelley and Jack leapt up the stairs. A second later, the creature was bounding up the stairs behind them. The children fled up the remaining steps. On the dimly lit landing, Jack made a quick decision.

‘Amy, in here!’ he yelled, opening the first door, dragging Amy and Shelley in and slamming it behind him. He leaned against it.

‘Whew! Just in time!’ Shelley wheezed, as the beast threw itself against the door in a furious rage, snapping and snarling. The sound of the creature frantically clawing at the door was terrifying.

‘What is it?’ screamed Amy hysterically. ‘Is it a crocodile or what? Did you see it?’ She clung on to her brother.

‘You’ve got crocodiles on the brain! I don’t think a crocodile would be so fast,’ said her brother, trying to catch his breath. ‘I didn’t get a look at it.’

‘If it
is
a crocodile, it won’t be able to get in will it?’ whispered Amy. ‘I’m really scared.’

‘I’m scared too,’ whispered Shelley. ‘And where’s Peter gone?’

‘Never mind him. He can look after himself,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s find the light switch and see where we are.’ He fumbled in the darkness and eventually found the switch. ‘There!’ He looked round. A bare bulb dangled from the centre of the ceiling. Dusty shelves lined the walls and piles of boxes littered the floor. Jack groaned.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Amy.

‘There’s no other way out,’ gasped Jack. ‘No door, no window.’

The animal out on the landing threw itself at the door with renewed vigour. Its claws scraped on the door as it snarled and growled.

‘What can we do? We’re trapped! We’ll never get out of here,’ said Jack. ‘I’m sorry I got you into this mess, girls. It’s my fault.’

Amy bent down and put her eye to the keyhole. She could barely see anything. ‘Can you see it?’ said Jack. ‘Let’s see if there’s anything in this room we can use to beat it off.’

‘I can see its teeth and its huge mouth,’ replied Amy. ‘It looks very fierce. Oh wait a minute! It’s backing off a bit. Well, that’s interesting.’ She stood up and looked at her brother and Shelley. ‘We have to get out of here, don’t we? Well you have to trust me! I’m going to try something. I hope I’m not wrong.’ She put her hand on the handle of the door. Jack sprang forward and placed his hand on top of hers.

‘No, Amy, don’t do it. It’ll rip you to pieces. It would be madness to open the door.’

‘Jack’s right. There must be another way,’ said Shelley.

‘It’ll be OK, honestly. I know what I’m doing. At least I hope I do.’ Amy shook off Jack’s hand and turned the handle.

Stepping out on the landing, Amy faced up to the huge beast, pointed her finger at the floor and commanded, ‘Sit, Nana!’ The enormous creature stopped in its tracks and sat back onto its bottom. Its jaws drooled and it panted with exhaustion. ‘Down!’ said Amy and the dog slumped forward and rested its head on its paws and blinked.

‘How did you do that?’ asked Jack, coming round the door cautiously.

‘I was pretty sure it was a dog when I got a better look at it through the key hole. It also smelled kind of doggy. I wasn’t being as brave as you thought.’

‘But how did you know its name?’

‘A lucky guess,’ said his sister, going to the dog and scratching its head. ‘We’re with
Peter Pan
in the house where
Wendy
lives, so I just guessed the dog might be called Nana.’

‘Oh Wendy, you are so brave,’ said Shelley. ‘You’ve saved us from the monster.’

‘Only there wasn’t a monster, just Nana,’ laughed Amy.

At that moment, another door opened and Peter Pan, wearing a battered old top hat, poked his head through. Seeing the great big dog, he shot upwards and crashed into the ceiling. The impact pushed the hat down over his eyes.

‘Is that the dog that stole my shadow?’ he spluttered.

‘Well, it’s Nana all right but it’s not the dog you knew a hundred years ago!’ answered Amy. The Newfoundland thumped the floor with its tail on hearing its name spoken again. Amy patted its head. ‘Have you been shut in that room ever since the professor left?’ she said. ‘No wonder you were in a rage, you must be starving, poor thing. Come on down to the kitchen and I’ll find you something to eat and a bowl of water. Are you coming, Jack?’

‘You go, and take Shelley with you. I’ll have a rummage about in here,’ he replied.

‘Come on, Nana,’ said Amy. ‘We’ll leave the boys to it, then.’ The dog got up and obediently followed Amy and Shelley down the stairs to the kitchen.

Jack brushed the dust off a large trunk. ‘This stuff’s been here for years,’ he said to Peter. He lifted the lid and found notebooks of various sizes labelled with the name John Dante, Edinburgh University. The next box had similar contents labelled John Dante ABRT. He flicked through some of the pages, but finding the content a bit beyond his understanding dropped them back into the trunk. Then almost immediately changed his mind and stuffed the newest looking one into his back pocket. ‘This might prove useful later,’ he thought. On the shelves were various box files, with the contents printed on the spine. He lifted down the one marked family tree and after studying it for a few minutes decided to take that with him too. Switching off the light, the two boys made their way down to the kitchen where Nana was wolfing down a dinner of dog food and biscuits from the biggest dog bowl that Jack had ever seen.

‘Look, Amy,’ he said. ‘I’ve got Professor John Dante’s family tree with all the relevant birth certificates. His own, his mother’s and his grandfather’s, all neatly documented. And guess what! His grandfather was John Darling of Kensington in London.’

‘Do you mean Wendy Darling’s brother, John?’ gasped Amy incredulously. ‘That means we’re related and Wendy, who’s missing, is our distant cousin!’

‘But we still don’t know why the professor was taken,’ said Shelley.

‘Never mind that,’ said Amy. ‘We’ve just found another connection to the Darlings in Kensington.’

They all turned to look at Peter. The top hat was sitting jauntily on his head, but he was oblivious that he had found something of any significance.

‘Look at that hat, Peter,’ said Amy. ‘Where did you find it?’

Peter took it off and looked at it disinterestedly. ‘Oh, it was just a bit of junk in one of the rooms upstairs.’

‘But don’t you realise, it’s the hat that was worn by the original John Darling when he flew to Never Land with you,’ explained Shelley. ‘Wasn’t it used as a chimney on the little hut? I can smell the wood smoke even after all these years.’

‘Yes, they certainly don’t make hats like that nowadays,’ said Jack. ‘You found something important after all, Peter, and you didn’t even realise it.’

‘Of course I knew,’ bluffed Peter. ‘I was only testing you.’

‘Yeah sure,’ said Jack. ‘Now we’d better get home before Mum notices we’ve gone. I think we’ve gathered enough information from here. We’ll need adult help to do any more.’

‘Good plan, Jack. I can take over from here. I’ll head off into Edinburgh and see what my fairy spies can tell me. I will solve this mystery. I can do it by myself, or my name is not Peter Pan.’

They all laughed. They were finally getting used to Peter’s eccentric ways.

‘You kids are unbelievable,’ said Beth sitting at the kitchen table with the professor’s family tree papers spread out in front of her. ‘These certificates are all authentic and go back as far as John Darling, the brother of Wendy Darling. There are even documents pertaining to Michael Darling, an engine driver and his family. It seems that the boys kept in touch even though they moved away from Kensington.’

‘Does that mean we’re related to Wendy Dante?’ asked Amy excitedly.

‘Yes, it would make her a kind of cousin. What a set of coincidences.’ She broke off as the large head of Nana nudged her. Absentmindedly, she stroked the dog’s ear. Buster immediately crept up and laid his head on her lap as if to say, ‘Don’t forget about me.’

Less than an hour before, the children had returned from their excursion to Professor Dante’s house with the papers and notebooks. With them came a huge Newfoundland dog that not only made itself at home in the Patons’ house but also stole Beth’s heart. She couldn’t be angry with the children. She felt only pride that they had shown so much concern for the missing girl.

Doug took it all in his stride after all his other surprises and was now sitting with Jack and Shelley poring over the professor’s notebook. ‘It’s clear from some of these headings that Professor Dante has gone way beyond growing a couple of fingers.’

‘What d’you mean, Dad?’

‘Well, I can’t understand much of it of course, but it seems he’s already experimented with growth on a much larger scale and at a faster pace.’

‘Could the pirates be trying to do something with the contents of the crocodile’s stomach?’ asked Shelley.

‘Who knows?’ replied Jack. ‘What could be in there that they’d want?’

‘Well the crocodile ate Hook, didn’t it?’ Amy joined in the speculation.

‘You know Sis, you might be onto something. If a small part of Hook remains inside the croc’…… Wow!. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘So the professor has to grow Hook! That’s a bit far fetched, surely.’ Even Amy had trouble believing that.

‘He might be forced to try, if they’re holding his daughter like this note says,’ said Doug. ‘I know I’d do anything in a situation like that.’

‘So would my dad,’ agreed Shelley. ‘Oh, I’ve just remembered! I picked up some letters in the professor’s house too. Mr Paton, what’s this?’ Shelley pulled some papers from her pocket. She handed him a crumpled envelope which looked like it had been torn open and discarded.

‘Well, this might be useful,’ said Doug. ‘It’s a reminder that the car service is due, and it has the professor’s car registration on it. That’s given me an idea.’

Minutes later, Doug was on the phone. ‘Yes,’ said the voice on the line, ‘FT56 QRS, reported stolen. Yes sir, we’ll keep a look out for it.’

Doug hung up, a broad grin spreading across his face. He had bent the rules a little by telling the policeman that he had witnessed some young lads breaking into a car and hot wiring it before driving off. He figured it would get the police to look for the professor’s car, even if they were not willing to start a search for him and his daughter.

‘But where can they be?’ asked Jack. ‘If only we knew where to look.’

‘Didn’t one of the fairies see pirates carrying bundles of clothes into an old deserted building?’ said Shelley. ‘I wonder where that was.’

‘Let’s ask Peter if Tinks can lead us back to the building where she saw the pirates,’ said Jack, jumping up excitedly.

‘I’ll go,’ said Amy rushing from the kitchen and bounding upstairs. Within moments she was back. ‘Peter was just about to leave and head for the city. Thank goodness I caught him. Tinks is going to lead us to the old building,’ she announced.

‘You’re not going anywhere again tonight without me,’ warned Doug. ‘We’ll take the dogs with us too. They’ll be protection against any
pirates
we might come across.’

‘Can we go in your car, Mr Paton?’ said Shelley.

‘Yes, let’s get our coats on and we’ll all pile in.’ He caught sight of Amy getting up to join them. ‘You stay here with your mum, Amy. Help her get the supper ready. There’ll be hardly any room in the car with those dogs as well.’

‘Oh, but I want to meet Wendy,’ Amy pleaded.

‘If all goes well maybe we’ll be bringing Wendy and her dad back with us,’ said Doug. Amy cheered up at the thought.

‘Why don’t you and I make up some sandwiches to go with the soup?’ suggested Beth. ‘If you do find them, Doug, I bet they’ll be starving.’