peter-pan

David tells me that fairies never say 'We feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel dancey'.

And Peter laughed, and when he did, all the Devils grinned, because Peter's laugh was a most contagious thing.

My name is Mr Bread." He began writing his name neatly on the board. "But you can call me Peter."Suddenly there was quiet, as thirty little brains whirred."Pita Bread!" proclaimed a ginger-haired boy from the back.

He tousled Baby's hair, then looked up at Tiger Lily. "The woods have rules." He put Baby down gingerly in his trough with his bottle. "But the rules are ugly.""It's nature," she said, thoughtfully."I have a lot of disagreements with nature," he said, looking confused, and his downy brow wrinkled over his eyes.

To not do what you can to protect someone, that's cowardly.

It's the injustice that I hate, more than anything," he'd said to Smee one night, his eyes red and glassy, slurring his words, his head lolling as he tried to focus. He'd vomited, and then promptly passed out on a bush. "I hate the world that does not work out fair.

It was like this sometimes, and I felt I should look away, but I couldn't. I wanted to be there, having my face touched, defeating a heart like Peter's, but the next best thing was seeing it for Tiger Lily.

You looked strange climbing in the tree like that."Tiger Lily pulled her braids between her fingers, her sudden self-consciousness feeling foreign and strange to her. "I didn't do it to look nice," she said."But you do care."Tiger Lily studied the tree and decided if she did care, she would now choose not to. "I don't," she said."All girls do," he added, pushing the point."You must not know many girls.""I know a million," Peter said, dark and serious. There was a long awkward silence, but if Peter regretted his words, I couldn't tell.

Not all who are lost are lost forever.

Don't be afraid to grow up, Peter. It's only a trap if you forget how to fly.

And always, I could see that, despite his weakness for her or because of it, he seemed uncatchable, as if he might slip away at any moment.

You may think my jealousy would have been enormous during those days after Peter gave Tiger Lily the smallest kiss on the neck. And you would be right. But these moments were swallowed by a bigger emotion, my tenderness for Tiger Lily, which had grown to take up most of the space in my body, without me knowing it. I can't say I didn't dream that this was a passing moment of infatuation, and that eventually Peter would notice and pick me-as impossible as that might have seemed considering my size. But I felt protective of Tiger Lily. I felt that just by watching over her, I could somehow keep her safe. And I wanted to keep Peter safe too.

When Peter made mistakes, Wendy cheered for him anyway. One afternoon he beat her and everyone else in a race organized by Slightly. She only laughed and squeezed his wrist with easy affection and told him how fast he was. She was so undeterred by losing that it made the boys wonder if winning was exactly what they__ thought it was or if in England it was different.

But where do you live mostly now?"With the lost boys."Who are they?"They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expanses. I'm captain."What fun it must be!"Yes," said cunning Peter, "but we are rather lonely. You see we have no female companionship."Are none of the others girls?"Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams.

Again came that ringing crow, and Peter dropped in front of them. "Greeting, boys," he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then again was silence.He frowned."I am back," he said hotly, "why do you not cheer?

Peter sank. "I'd give anything to see time.

We__ never talked about his parents, like he was some underwater Peter Pan.

I'll teach you," Tiger Lily offered with a shrug of her shoulders."Did your mother teach you?" he asked."I don't have a mother," she said. "Like you."For some reason, Peter was glad to hear it.