This was Neverland. His Neverland. There was the beautiful big ship he'd dreamt of, slightly off the coast. And the tropical jungle and the shiny new castle. He removed his frilly coat and shoes and stockings and ran about the shore, and with each step he grew. He'd always wanted to be ten years old, and at his tenth step, he became ten years old. Now he was tall and strong and he could do anything, because he was ten years old.

In a way, Hook was the first Lost Boy. There were others living in Neverland, other boys who fell out of their perambulators. But those boys were a silly frivolous bunch who did nothing but sit around and throw balls at each other. But young James decided that he should hunt bear. He fashioned a crude spear and went in search of bears.

Hunting bears was difficult when one hunts alone. But soon the other boys saw what fun bear hunting might be, and joined James. With the combined strength of ten boys, they felled their first bear and shared the skins and fur. Thus came about the tradition of bearskins. The boys played together in the ship and in the castle and it was James' idea to call themselves the Lost Boys.

In time he became tired of being ten years old all the time. He had been in Neverland for years and the novelty of being ten years old had worn off. He decided to become sixteen. He went back to his little bit of shore and took six steps. But nothing happened. He jumped six times. He did six backflips. But he still remained ten years old.

Exhausted, he sank down on the sand. He lay there for a long time. He squeezed his eyes shut very tightly. Then he felt a small hand touch his cheek. Opening his eyes, he stared into the large innocent eyes of a baby. The baby was barely a year old and was still crawling on hands and knees. James sat up and picked up the baby and said, "I wish I was like you. All I had to do was run around and I could grow up as quickly as I wanted."

The baby acted like it had heard what he said. It struggled away from James and stood uncertainly on its little plump legs. Then it took a step. And another. And another. James sat and watched its growing up process. After it's sixth step, James' eyes grew bigger and his jaw dropped in amazement.

The baby was a girl-thing.

She steadily grew taller and taller and her blond hair grew longer and longer until it fell all the way to her waist. Finally after her tenth step, she stopped growing. James stared at the girl-thing. She was the prettiest thing he had ever seen. Her eyes were a pale green and her hair was blonder and brighter than anybody's hair he had seen.

"Hello!" the girl-thing said. She walked towards James, who moved backwards in fear. Seeing his fear, she stopped and stalked away. James could not help seeing how pretty she was and stared after her. Then he sighed.

He did not notice that with that sigh, he aged a year.