Rippling over the trees?
Feh! She wouldn’t look. At least now she could return to London.
And speaking of…
What would she do, once Hook was defeated?
(As he must be.)
Wendy had wanted adventure; now she had gotten herself one. She could go back home and live the rest of her life on recollections from the past several days, spooning out carefully meted measures of memory to live on when existence grew dull. She could write an entire book on what had happened. She could actually try to get it published and watch with amusement as readers drank up her “fantasy.” Or she could just keep it in her notebook, to be taken out and read to eventual children in her life.
She could stay in Never Land forever.…
No, that didn’t feel right. She had grown up a little. And, like Slightly, she chafed at some of the unchanging and arbitrary aspects of Never Land.
Maybe Peter Pan was king of the island in his own way. They were similar, or maybe even dependent on each other, just in the same way Never Land was dependent on London—and the rest of the world.
So the real question was: What could Wendy do with her life? Back in the real world? What lay in between household and mermaids? What would give her adventure (of the London sort) and challenges, and a change for the better for both worlds?
John knew that he could choose between being a doctor, banker, academic, or barrister. Even shipping, if he had any ability that way (he didn’t). These were known, potential futures.
But despite all her reading Wendy hadn’t been exposed in any real way to the idea that there were any possibilities for her at all beyond unhappy spinster or unhappy housewife.
These were odd thoughts, and uncomfortable ones. She felt a little stirring of self-recrimination: Why hadn’t she even thought things like this before? Why hadn’t she even noticed the invisible prison she was in?
“Because,” she told herself gently, “I’ve never been able to fly before.”
Below her Never Land unrolled in shades of green except for the misty, unavailable area to the northwest. Wendy gave that place a salute.
The First had said there were people whose idea of Never Land meant a single warm meal for the day. There were girls who weren’t held back by well-meaning parents or society, but by poverty or genuinely terrible parents who treated them like possessions to trade. There were girls who had no chance simply because of the color of their skin.
Sometimes stories needed to be pushed along. Things needed to happen. People were needed to do things.
Sometimes whole societies needed to be pushed along in the right direction.
The landscape below changed and the Black Dragon Mountains came into view, as blurry and smoggy as ever. It was time to turn east. Wendy felt her heart clench. She so wanted to see the mountains—and a real dragon. She wondered if maybe she would have time to dip by on her way back from talking with the Lost Boys. Just a peep.
She sighed and banked right. Probably not. It would be something for her to dream about later, to wonder about and imagine on dark days.
Hook took long and precise military steps up and down the deck, his back straight as a knife blade while he inspected each cannon and musket, sword and dagger. Everything had to be perfect.
The pirates, more used to going into battle by the seat of their pants, were a little unprepared for such a military-style drill—and completely unfamiliar with the particulars.
Screaming Byron, for instance, had thought he had done a very nice job polishing the cannonballs at his station, and presented them to the captain with a bow and a proud smile.
Hook just stared at him.
“What good is a shiny cannonball?” he finally roared. “Is the barrel of the machine cleaned out? Are your powder cartridges stacked, dry, and ready to go? Is your friction primer up to snuff? In short, will your cannon actually fire your very pretty and shiny cannonball when it is loaded?”
“I think it looks very nice,” Smee said sympathetically, upon seeing the poor pirate’s downcast look.
“We’re looking at the final battle here,” Hook reminded Byron, leaning forward so he could look the other pirate dead in the eye. “Our very last run-in ever with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. We want to look good, absolutely, but we also want to finish it for good. I want their bodies washing up on the shore, bloodied and broken.