ye a thimble, if ye like. Can ye make things, too? Like a muffler for cold days?”
Well, that’s better, Wendy decided. I think.
Pirates were very transactional—and seemed to respect you more if you were as well. In some ways it was rather a windfall: who knew what other supplies she would require for her foray into Never Land? In her dreams and stories there was always just the right-shaped stick or rock or key discovered at the last possible moment. But was the real Never Land like that?
And, of course, the pirates would have to talk to her now.
Take that, Shesbows! thought Wendy, very pleased with herself.
There was no sun to mark the passage of time. After her third mending project, Wendy began to grow restless. She asked the hovering pirates the precise o’clock but they all shook their heads.
“Without a sun ye can’t use no sundial,” one said, pointing to the dark gray wall of fog around the ship. “And Hook don’t allow no modrun clocks nor watches nowhere on account of that crocodile what took his hand. It tocks like the clock it swallowed.”
Aha…Now it made sense! She had called the creature Tick-Tock in her own telling of the story. Hook’s hand had given the beast a craving for more of the pirate captain, and it followed the Jolly Roger everywhere. The noise of the clock it had swallowed always presaged its appearance.
(The boys would shriek with glee when Wendy said things like: “But wait! What was that? Off in the distance? Tick…tock.…tick…tock.” “IT’S A CROCODILE!” Young Michael would cry.)
“That thing hasn’t been around for years,” another pirate said. “Probably dead from indigestion. But Hook, he still thinks it’s out there somewhere.”
“He can’t bear being reminded of it. Thinks the beast is still after ’im,” said a third. “Every time he hears a clock it drives him batty.”
She wondered what had happened to the crocodile in the real Never Land. She hadn’t killed it off in her own stories—yet.
But despite the lack of clocks, lunch came anyway, and blessedly just in time. Wendy’s stomach was growling in a most unladylike way. She followed the crew to the mess hall. Each pirate presented his own bowl to the, er, sous chef. It was then filled with glop that might have been a chowder or a mulligatawny. One polite fellow (whose waistcoat Wendy had fixed) offered to give her his own bowl once he was done. She discreetly tried to wipe it out. The tall, slouchy pirate with the two big gold earrings saw this and cackled.
“Have you anything of your own you would like fixed?” Wendy asked him, trying to change the subject and distract attention from her covert actions.
“Oh, I’m plenty handy with a needle and thread,” the pirate said, posing for her. And in fact, he was more solidly dressed than the rest. Everything was mostly clean, if not perfect, and unpatched. “I just don’t let it get out too much, know what I mean?”
“I suppose I do,” Wendy said uncertainly as the pirate winked at her.
“The name’s Zane,” he said with a bow. “Alodon Zane, at your service.”
“Wendy Darling at yours,” she said with a curtsy.
“MISS DARLING, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE WITH THESE LOUTS?”
Captain Hook was suddenly filling the door like a bad omen and roaring like an enraged lion. At her dismay and the other pirates’ shock, he immediately softened his voice. “My dear, you’re a guest, not a midshipman. Come dine in my quarters. Mr. Smee will serve us.”
Wendy shivered. She might have read a few books that were not strictly approved by Father or prescreened by the bookseller. In those typeset pages, she’d had glimpses of the greater world—even if she didn’t fully understand it. She knew it was not proper to be alone in the company of a strange man.
“Dinna worry,” Zane whispered into her left ear. “He’s not…I mean, Hook’s a lunatic, but he loves decorum. Your maidenhood is safe with him. Not yer throat, maybe. But the rest of you is.”
“Thank you?” Wendy whispered back. Then she returned the bowl to the pirate who had provided it. “Thank you, sir, but I suppose I will be dining on the lido deck instead. Your generosity is very much appreciated.”
“Oh, yes, me too. Absolutely, ma’am,” the pirate blustered, bowing.
Lunch with a pirate captain could have been many things: terrifying, spooky, embattled—even romantic, given the right circumstances.
But in reality, lunch was…awkward.
Wendy sat up properly and used her best manners.
Captain Hook bowed