Wendy lay on her bed as she did every night, fiddling with the acorn button on a chain around her neck. With her eyes closed, she was back in Neverland again, telling stories to the Lost Boys and Peter Pan in their treehouse.
She no longer slept in the nursery because she had grown too big to fit in with all the toys she used to play with and her little brothers as they had their little pretend battles while they were supposed to be asleep. She could hear them up all night from the other room sometimes. Sometimes, she wished that she could join in with them and tell them more stories of Peter but the nursery wasn't her place anymore.
And Peter, oh Peter. She did so miss him. He had forgotten about her. It was just his nature, she knew, but it hurt her just as well. She knew that he hadn't meant to; he had just been caught up with one adventure after another back in Neverland. He had promised to come back every spring- cleaning time to take her there, but he hadn't returned for her for so very long. Wendy didn't think that Peter even realized that he'd missed those several spring-cleaning times.
It was just as well. Every spring-cleaning time, she would try her hardest to make herself look just the way she had looked like when Peter and her had first met but it was getting harder and harder. The frock that she always put on for the occasion seemed to get shorter and shorter no matter how many times she re-sewed it. Wendy knew that she was growing up and that there was nothing that she could do to stop it. She just hoped that Peter would not be too upset the next time he visited.
But this spring-cleaning time was different. This time, she wasn't even in the nursery anymore. She had left the window of her room open despite it being chilly outside in the hope that Peter would visit after all.
The longer she waited, the longer she knew that Peter had forgotten again. Tears stained her cheeks as she thought of him. She missed his liveliness and boldness and wondered when she would ever see his mischievous grins again. Wendy couldn't forget about him. Not while his thimble remained in her heart and memory. She wondered if he would ever understand what she wanted to be to him.
"You are so queer," he had said, frankly puzzled, "and Tiger Lily is just the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother."
She wondered if Peter would ever grow up. She knew it was impossible.
Peter sat on the roof above the nursery as he did every night. He wanted to see Wendy again but he didn't all the same. Something terrible had been happening to him.
When Wendy had returned to London with her brothers and the Lost Boys all those years ago, they had taken a big part of Peter's life away from him. Neverland just wasn't the same without them. The treehouse was so quiet and lifeless without their laughter and Wendy's stories and every night when Peter slept in his house high up among the treetops all he could think about was the person that it had been built for, the person whose scent still lingered there.