Disclaimer: Peter Pan, and everything recognizable to Peter Pan, belongs to the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, to which Mr. J. M. Barrie bequeathed his copyright when he died, in 1937. Needless to say, I was not even born when this happened and I had nothing to do with the creation of Peter Pan. I am just a lowly fan, and writing this in my own time, not making any money whatsoever. That said, please enjoy.
Chapter 7: Captured!
~But he does so need a mother~
When Peter returned to the Neverland, he was disconsolate. He was firmly of the opinion that he would never have a mother again. At least, no mother who knew enough stories, or who was fun enough on adventures. After all, this last mother, she was almost… boy-like. He returned to the lost boys just after they had awoken. After all, time does pass slower on the Neverland when Peter's away.
The boys were getting ready to hunt when Peter came back, John looking rather impatient by the entrance. Peter pushed him aside in the process of getting in, and soon all the lost boys had run around him, except John, still standing by the doorway. Beetle was jumping up and down, ecstatic as he held up his animal skin, with two neat pockets sewn into the sides. "Look what the Katie-lady made for me! Pockets!"
"Pockets!" Peter wailed, remembering his journey, and slinked onto his hammock. "No more pockets!" Zan flew around the room melancholically, wondering why Katie had decided to leave so soon after all.
"No more pockets? What do you mean, Peter?"
"We have no mother! Our mother has left us!" Peter wailed again. By this time, he was making fun of his sadness more than actually being sad, but this was quite a fun game and he intended to play it for a while longer.
"No mother? Why has she left us?"
Peter did not reply to this. He was still not quite sure. Her mother had been horrid to her, and yet the foolish girl returned. Peter couldn't tell if she would regret it or not, but he hoped she would. Zan would have ringed something, but she was just as confused as Peter. She had come to like the girl.
The boys were desolated by the news. They ran about the house, yelling, "Katie's left! Our mother's left!"
Daisy decided that she must have just been hiding. "I say we look for her," he proposed, reasoning "She must be somewhere in the house, what do you say, Tobby?"
Tobby called in assent, "I agree, let's look for her. What do you think, Dows?" The two boys were ransacking the house, looking for their mother.
Dows joined them in the melee, answering, "I agree, what do you think, Beetle?"
The youngest nearly tripped as he began to pull apart the bedding in the search for Katie. "I agree, what do you think, John?" he yelped.
"I disagree," John answered.
The boys continued searching for a second before looking up at their eldest. No lost boy had ever disagreed before. What was John saying? They stared. "But, we don't have a mother. She must be in the house, we've got to find her," Daisy whined meekly.
"I disagree, I say," answered John, louder. "It does no use, tearing apart the house for a mother who couldn't hide in here if she tried! I say you all should stop right now!"
The boys only stared at John. He had given an order. Only Peter gave orders. They didn't know what to do. Were they supposed to do what John said, because he was bigger than they were, after all, or were they supposed to continue on until Peter told them to stop? Even Peter, who had been pretending to cry while they attacked various objects of their small house, stood and looked John straight in the face.
"Peter," Beetle whined, "What are we to do?" He was honestly confused, as he looked between the two older boys.
On a normal day, Peter would banish John for presuming to give orders. After all, he was the leader. However, on that day, feigning misery was much more fun than was banishing John, and so Peter avoided the subject. He remembered that it was important to have a John, for some reason. There was nothing to do but smooth over the situation, by agreeing with John. "There is nothing to do, boys, we shall simply have to do without!" And with that, he slumped back onto his hammock.
One would think they had always had a mother from the reaction to this statement. John looked at Peter in a new way for a moment, and then turned his cold gaze back to the other lost boys. Peter was handling the situation. He paused for a moment, before slipping outside, and off to the lagoon.
"Oh, come now boys, surely we can get on without a silly mother," Peter exclaimed. The boys took heart at Peter's comment, and set the house to rights. Soon, they were playing in the lagoon and planning adventures. They didn't even notice that Peter was not there.
However, the pirates did, and when they saw that all the boys were playing, they went straight to the house in the trees. They knew that Peter would tire of his false misery eventually, and come out to play. They were there, waiting for him. As he climbed out of his tree, deciding to keep the game going a little while longer and pretend to have lost his happy thought, they grabbed him from behind and shoved him into a sack. Before Peter could escape, he was on the Red Lady and locked up.
Peter slammed on the door to his cell, shouting whatever came into his head at the pirates. He hoped he sounded threatening, and he fancied he did. "Let me out of here, you barnacle ridden, rotting old cowards! You wouldn't dare meet me face to face! Come out here and fight like real people, not like sniveling dogs! You're so cowardly a mouse can make you run in terror! You're so smelly, your stench alerts ships miles away! You're so old, you should be wearing false teeth!"
He wasn't sure what half of it meant, but that didn't really matter. He had heard other boys say it when pirates caught them, so he imagined that was the sort of thing you were supposed to say. Soon enough, a leader, or two leaders, emerged. One he recognized as Starkey, the old man who tended to the papooses for Tiger Lily, the other he didn't know.
"Peter Pan, we meet again," said the one Peter didn't know. Peter squinted at the man, confused. He was fairly sure that he hadn't seen the man ever before in his life.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The old man laughed, a surprisingly warm and jolly laugh for someone as evil as he was. After all, he must be evil if he had captured Peter and locked him up. Then again, this man certainly didn't look anything other than vaguely likable as he wiped his glasses on his only slightly dirty shirt. "I am Smee, the Irish bo'sun, the one man who Hook feared!"
Smee? Peter remembered he was the one everyone was saying was stealing Peter's name, or something. "Why are you stealing my name?" he demanded, and then added, "I thought I was the only person Hook feared!" Wasn't that what Tiger Lily and Katie had said?
"You? You puny little boy, Hook never feared you!"
Or maybe not… Peter thought for a second… Hook… Hook… who was Hook, anyway? A pirate? An Injun? Couldn't be an Injun, he had always been friends with the Injuns… Now he remembered! The lost boys' favorite story, of course! He had killed Hook with his first mother, Wendy! "He did right before I killed him, he did," Peter crowed.
A gasp went through the crew.
And the crocodile, Peter remembered the crocodile too, now! "He did right before I cut of his hand and fed it to the crocodile!"
Another gasp.
But Smee… Peter remembered Smee now too! He was the gentle one, the one who would clean his glasses instead of his sword after killing someone, the one who the lost boys found lovable, the one who would hem on the deck of the ship. Hook had most certainly not feared the Irish bo'sun. "I don't remember him fearing you."
Smee merely smiled. Starkey spoke. "You, Peter Pan, have an amazing ability to confuse stories with the truth. However, I won't deign to enlighten you at present moment. We are all too busy waiting for the lost boys to try and rescue you so that we can kill all the children on this god-forsaken island, rather than just their leader." With that, all the grownups walked away and Peter was left with nothing to do but bang on the door some more and break down into tears.
Where were the lost boys? It had never been this hopeless before.
* * * * *
At the lagoon, the lost boys had found John, and soon all hint of tenuous relations was gone. The boys played together in perfect harmony, never stopping to wonder that Peter had remained in the house in the tree. However, when the sun began to set, John decided that they would get home, and the lost boys followed.
They returned home, confident to find Peter laying on his hammock, crying. After all, John remembered the time when Margaret had left, and Peter spent days and days in his hammock, crying over the silly mother. However, Peter was nowhere to be seen, and what's more, a rung on the ladder to the house was gone. Something had happened. Just as in any situation, it was of utmost importance that they find Peter immediately. Peter would know what to do. Racing around, they found Xanthippe, and nearly drowned her with questions.
"Quiet! Quiet, all of you!" she rang, "What is it?"
The lost boys let out a collective yelp, but no one could articulate their fear. They fell silent, one by one, and looked at John. He said nothing. John was the only one who had calmly stood at the door through all of this, and he remained there, as if frozen. Finally, Beetle spoke up. "Where's Peter?"
"He's gone?"
"Yes! Yes, he's missing! Where is he?" shouted the lost boys, all at once.
Zan flew off, returning a few seconds later, jingling to herself. Finally, to the lost boys, she rang out, loud and clear. "Follow me. We're going to find our mother." Four lost boys and Zan flew off into the setting sun.
Of course the going was slow, because Peter was not there to show them the way, and the Neverland wanted them to stay there. You see, the island was quite excited about the adventure, and wanted to see how it turned out. However, the island was not very smart. It was of the opinion that a mass exodus of lost boys was not something to be excited about. So it pulled the Lost Boys in, and kept them from getting to the mainland.
Finally, the boys gave up, and returned to the island. At least that much was easy, but it was now late at night. They returned to the house in the tree, wondering what they were to do. It seemed as if they would have to wait to rescue their leader, but Peter would have enacted an immediate rescue, they were sure of that. However, John was ready and waiting with a plan.
"All the pirates will be sleeping now!" remarked John. "If we're really quiet, we can go and rescue Peter!"
The boys agreed. There was a good, simple plan. Why had none of them thought of it?
It was agreed that Zan and Beetle would stay behind, on shore, Zan because she couldn't put out her light, and Beetle because they were afraid of him tripping and waking pirates.
And so, the boys carefully boarded the ship and began to look for Peter.
Now, of course the Pirates were ready and waiting for them. What else could one expect? These pirates were of the same sort that the crew of Captain Jas. Hook was, the type that never abides by the rules. As the boys entered the ship, one by one, they were each stowed in a closet, one by one, and thus trapped. Zan realized something was wrong when the noises began. A shouting went up, a youthful shouting, and a banging of walls.
"They're trapped!" she shrilled, and Beetle woke, startled, from a slumber.
"Oh no!" he shrieked, and blinked a few times, getting the sleep out of his eyes. "Who's trapped?" he asked.
Zan paused.
A gun shot.
Silence.
Zan tugged on Beetle's hair. "Come on! We've got to get Katie! She's the only one that knows what to do! Come on!"
The fairy had complete faith in the girl, as did Beetle. So, grabbing the dagger that the boys had left for them to protect themselves with, Beetle followed Zan, flying into the night. He jammed the dagger into his pocket at the last minute, and ripped the cloth. Oh well, they were going to find their mother; she would be able to fix it.
* * * * *
If I were to say that while the lost boys were captured and miserable, Katie was happily going about her business, I would be lying. After one night of happiness, Katie was awoken to the harsh reality that she really hated life in London now. Her mother treated her as if she were about to break, and didn't so much as let her outside the entire day. When she called her friends, the people who had been her friends, they brushed her off, for 'more important things.' She was as miserable as she had ever been.
Then was her first day back in school. Even though she hadn't noticed that she had forgotten anything, in reality, she had lost nearly a month of education in the time she spent in the Never Land. Her school subjects were impossibly hard, her teachers 'kindly' informed her that there was no chance she would get credit for the class, as her absences went unexcused by the school district, and her friends snubbed her.
Apparently, they were of the opinion that she had run off as a harlot, over some whining, pale-faced boy. As much as Katie denied it, they believed it more. When it came down to it, and Katie was not one to lie, she couldn't say that she didn't in fact run away, with a boy, but there was so much more to it that they just didn't understand.
"He taught me how to fly," she would say, and her friends would glare at her coldly. Even when she did a pirouette in the air, they turned their faces. "He was Peter Pan!" She would exclaim, and they would walk away, leaving her alone, in the hallway, near to tears.
She ate lunch alone that day, the only person to so much as interrupt her solitude being the janitor, reminding her to clean up after herself. She finished the school day, but didn't bother going to soccer practice. She already knew she had been cut, due to her absence.
She slunk her way home from the bus stop, tears filling her eyes. The wind picked up and blew cold in her face, and it felt as though her tears would freeze on her cheeks, and remain there until she could somehow work up enough happiness to melt them. She wondered if she ever would be able to. Everyone here disdained her, everyone in the Never Land had probably forgotten about her.
She wondered if she could still fly. For a moment, she stood motionless, wondering if the cruel world that was now her home had stolen that away from her also. Then, she closed her eyes, and remembered the star she had almost blown out. She remembered the Never Land, and she held tight on to that memory as she let her grasp of the colder, more real world loosen.
She felt her feet rise off the pavement, and knew that the one thing that was certain in her life right then was that she had, in fact, been one of the few girls to hear Peter Pan crow while awake, one of the select who had been residents on those magical shores that call themselves the Never Land, and one of the four who had learned how to fly before they grew up. There was some solace in that thought, even if Peter had already forgotten her. There was some solace in the thought that, as childishly forgetful as he might be, there had been a time when he knew her name.
She would never forget that. She promised herself as much, that, during all the time of her life, she would never forget that she had been Peter's mother. She would never bar her windows.
She flew the rest of the way home, not heeding the strange looks from neighbors, the barking dogs, and the gasps her friends gave when she passed them. She turned around in the air, flying backwards for a time and laughing at their shocked faces. What did she need grownup friends for? She was Peter Pan's mother. That was her happy thought. And she would never loose it.
Some things are permanent.
Author's Note: Hee hee. I like that ending. It's all pretty and eloquent and stuff. And Katie has a new resolve. News on the rating change: Shall be in chapter 9, probably only to PG-13, but I want to have someone read it to make sure. I'm thinking this will end up being 12 chapters long. Let's see… thanks go out to Elfpilot, Tinker Bell, LeopardDance, and Silvara Wilde for their reviews. For all the rest of you (I hope there is a 'rest of you') please review! Feed the author!