Barrie, James Matthew Peter Pan

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with Wendy's help, a new game that fascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more
interest in it, which, as you have been told, was what always happened with his games. It consisted
in pretending not to have adventures, in doing the sort of thing John and Michael had been doing all
their lives, sitting on stools flinging balls in the air, pushing each other, going out for walks and
coming back without having killed so much as a grizzly. To see Peter doing nothing on a stool was a
great sight; he could not help looking solemn at such times, to sit still seemed to him such a comic
thing to do. He boasted that he had gone walking for the good of his health. For several suns these
were the most novel of all adventures to him; and John and Michael had to pretend to be delighted
also; otherwise he would have treated them severely.
He often went out alone, and when he came back you were never absolutely certain whether he had
had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten it so completely that he said nothing about it; and
then when you went out you found the body; and, on the other hand, he might say a great deal about
it, and yet you could not find the body. Sometimes he came home with his head bandaged, and then
Wendy cooed over him and bathed it in lukewarm water, while he told a dazzling tale. But she was
never quite sure, you know. There were, however, many adventures which she knew to be true
because she was in them herself, and there were still more that were at least partly true, for the other
boys were in them and said they were wholly true. To describe them all would require a book as
large as an English-Latin, Latin- English Dictionary, and the most we can do is to give one as a
specimen of an average hour on the island. The difficulty is which one to choose. Should we take the
brush with the redskins at Slightly Gulch? It was a sanguinary [cheerful] affair, and especially
interesting as showing one of Peter's peculiarities, which was that in the middle of a fight he would
suddenly change sides. At the Gulch, when victory was still in the balance, sometimes leaning this
way and sometimes that, he called out, "I'm redskin to-day; what are you, Tootles?" And Tootles
answered, "Redskin; what are you, Nibs?" and Nibs said, "Redskin; what are you Twin?" and so on;
and they were all redskins; and of course this would have ended the fight had not the real redskins
fascinated by Peter's methods, agreed to be lost boys for that once, and so at it they all went again,
more fiercely than ever.
The extraordinary upshot of this adventure was but we have not decided yet that this is the
adventure we are to narrate. Perhaps a better one would be the night attack by the redskins on the
house under the ground, when several of them stuck in the hollow trees and had to be pulled out like
corks. Or we might tell how Peter saved Tiger Lily's life in the Mermaids' Lagoon, and so made her
his ally.
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Peter Pan Chapter 7 THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND
Or we could tell of that cake the pirates cooked so that the boys might eat it and perish; and how they
placed it in one cunning spot after another; but always Wendy snatched it from the hands of her
children, so that in time it lost its succulence, and became as hard as a stone, and was used as a
missile, and Hook fell over it in the dark.
Or suppose we tell of the birds that were Peter's friends, particularly of the Never bird that built in a
tree overhanging the lagoon, and how the nest fell into the water, and still the bird sat on her eggs,
and Peter gave orders that she was not to be disturbed. That is a pretty story, and the end shows how
grateful a bird can be; but if we tell it we must also tell the whole adventure of the lagoon, which
would of course be telling two adventures rather than just one. A shorter adventure, and quite as
exciting, was Tinker Bell's attempt, with the help of some street fairies, to have the sleeping Wendy
conveyed on a great floating leaf to the mainland. Fortunately the leaf gave way and Wendy woke,
thinking it was bath-time, and swam back. Or again, we might choose Peter's defiance of the lions,
when he drew a circle round him on the ground with an arrow and dared them to cross it; and though
he waited for hours, with the other boys and Wendy looking on breathlessly from trees, not one of
them dared to accept his challenge.
Which of these adventures shall we choose? The best way will be to toss for it.
I have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almost makes one wish that the gulch or the cake or
Tink's leaf had won. Of course I could do it again, and make it best out of three; however, perhaps
fairest to stick to the lagoon.
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Chapter 8 THE MERMAIDS' LAGOON
If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale
colours suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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