Hook responded only a half heartbeat later. "Get her!" Pirates swarmed down the deck towards the girl. She was so like Peter that Wendy could not help but stare. The quirk of the eyebrow, the tilt of the chin, the shirt with the red darning wool on the shoulder, which Peter had joked made him look dashing. Peter had loved that shirt, but he'd lost it months ago. Somehow this girl had found it, and what looked like a set of Peter's trousers too. What did he do, Wendy wondered in shock, go around taking off his clothes in the woods and running about stark naked? She banished the thought just as the first pirates reached the girl.
Or rather, reached where the girl had stood. She flew up, straight up like an arrow – like Peter – to perch on the sail arm where she was silhouetted against the white canvas, crouching like a gargoyle. Then she rose slowly to her feet, and two more shapes which Wendy had thought were coiled ropes rose with her. Three knives drew identical slashed in the canvas to it billowed out, then back. As it passed the sail arm each figure stepped through the tears as one might a doorway, confident and calm for all they were standing on a swaying piece of wood thirty yards above the deck. Seeing them, Wendy cried out.
All three were dressed the same, in the pale shirts and darker green trousers that Peter wore. Each held a dagger like Peter's in their hand. The girl that looked so like Peter stood in the centre. To one side was a boy the could have been Peter's twin, so alike were they. On the other side stood Ray.
"Get them!" Hook cried again, as ineffectively. Pirates began to swarm up the mast and ropes. A few more enterprising ones moved with cold deliberation towards the Lost Boys.
The boy that looked like Peter shouted something, some sort of curse Wendy thought, and leapt from the sail arm, followed a heartbeat later by Ray and the girl. Wend screamed again. What were they doing? Only Peter could…
But apparently they could fly too. The boy who looked like Peter, who could have been Peter except that Peter was dead, fell on the pirates that were advancing on the Lost Boys. Ray and the girl grabbed Hook, who was running and trying to keep his head down, and lifted him off the deck by his jacket shoulders.
Ray gave a rooster crow, just like Peter had used to. Wendy screamed again, this time in anger. He was always copying Peter. He had no right… he wasn't Peter! Hearing her scream, the girl looked down. Wendy say Ray laughing, his lips moving to say something to the girl. Then she laughed too, a high peel that cut through the melee. Again the crow sounded, but this time it was from the girl's lips, higher and sweeter but still, still Peter's call.
The boy who looked like Peter answered, and for an instant it was as though Peter had never died, and was there to save them again. Then the dream collapsed, and Wendy screamed again in rage and frustration. Ray laughed again, and called down to her, "Shouldn't scream like that, Wendy. You'll lose your voice. Then how will you yell at me?"
He and the girl both laughed. Wendy didn't dare look over at the second boy, for fear she would see him laughing too. That would be like Peter laughing at her. "I hate you," she screamed back. "Hate you."
Even Hook, dangling by his jacket, laughed at her then. The girl seemed to decide she liked being the centre of attention, so she issued the rooster crow again. "Hey everybody, look-ie, look-ie I got Hook-ie!" Several of the older Boys, the ones that had been in Neverland when Wendy arrived laughed and jeered, seemingly over their fright.
"Right on, chief!" one of the twins yelled, hurling something at Hook. The girl dipped slightly in the air so Hook caught it full in the face.
"That is enough." Silence descended over the ship with amazing speed.
Wendy turned to find an elderly man by the helm, dressed in full pirate
regalia. His jacket was easily as splendid as Hook's, but worn with far
greater dignity. He could have been, Wendy thought, an admiral in the English
navy rather than a pirate in a fairytale land. "I appreciate your efforts,
children, but I am happy in my refuge. You need not win back my place for
me."