Disclaimer and Author's Notes: I should think it would be obvious that I am merely borrowing and any accidental profit or benefit should naturally go to the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. I've never actually written about Peter Pan or Wendy or any of them before so this is a bit of an initiation for me. J.M. Barrie wrote that they had lots of adventures and he only told of one of them so I figured I'd tell another. It's a bit short so any suggestions forlengthening would be welcome.The characters are a sort of amalgamation of all their various incarnations viz. J.M. Barrie's version, Disney's version, Fox's version, and P.J. Hogan's version except for one line which is borrowed from the musical. A pinch of fairy dust to anyone who finds it.

Tinker Bell's Leaf

As has been noted before, Neverland was nicely crammed with adventures but from a casual reading, one might assume that these were almost certain to feature Peter Pan in the starring role. And one would be partially correct as at least 75 of them did. Not this one (don't worry, though, he's not entirely left out). This one is mostly about Wendy and partly about Tink because, in the end, it was all Tink's fault.

Neverland, although it can have any weather imaginable, tends to be mostly rather tropical although, of course, it is never too hot. What that does mean is that the majority of the time, the sun is shining. And that's precisely what it was doing on the day our story begins.

Wendy, being the dutiful little homemaker, had gone aboveground to do what might pass for the shopping had there actually been any shops on Neverland, or rather shops that were not exclusively the provenance of the fairies. Her version of "shopping" was to go out gathering what was available from the trees and bushes. This particular day, it was berries.

The island would provide whichever versions of berries you were thinking about. It was a most accommodating place when it came to hunter-gatherer societies or if you were a young mother particularly in need of blueberries. But Wendy did not know this so she was pleasantly surprised to find an extremely large field producing a bumper crop of said blueberries. So, of course, she waded in and began to pick them.

I don't know if you have ever picked blueberries or any type of berries before, but I must tell you that a curious phenomenon takes hold of anyone who does. Gradually, the roundness or redness or blackness of the berries becomes more and more tempting until your basket is no longer receiving the berries. This is because your stomach is receiving most of them.

Wendy was no different. In fact, she probably ate more than she should have because she was picking by herself. Had she been with anyone else, she might not have been so tempted. But as it was, the field stretched away in every direction and seemed blue to the brim so she thought there really couldn't be much harm in it. Besides, she was hungry.

When she'd eaten her fill, she picked up the half full basket and began to pick berries again. But the meal of berries combined with the sun began to take its toll. Wendy's eyelids began to droop and finally fell shut. It was an idyllic picture, one any pre-Raphaelite would have been glad to paint. But it was also an opportunistic picture.

For, unbeknownst to Wendy, she'd been watched by a fairy who did not have a high opinion of her. Can you guess who that fairy was? Of course you can. TinkerBell looked down at the sleeping girl and began to think of some way to mischief her. The harsh cry of a seagull overhead sparked a wicked idea and Tinker Bellgleefully rubbed her hands together. And it was a happy coincidence for Tink that several of her friends happened to be passing by.

Tink pointed Wendy out to them and several of them were seen to nod indignantly on Tink's behalf. They held a rapid consultation which sounded like wind chimes in a breeze and then a few flew off while others stayed behind to make sure that Wendy did not awake. She didn't. She slept on oblivious.

The fairies who had flown off returned a few minutes later with a horde of others. They were bearing an enormous leaf between them. Half of these fairies had no real quarrel with Wendy, no, rather they were interested in the fun of the whole affair. Tinker Bellwaved them over and explained the idea to them.

All the fairies flew down and covered Wendy in fairy dust. This made her infinitely easier to lift. It was quite simple as she was dreaming about flying anyway. She lifted off the ground and Tink and the other fairies slipped her onto the leaf and flew off with her. This was why the horde was necessary.

Neverland was not a very big island and so it was not long till they reached its shores. They did not stop there but flew out onto the sea. At that point, Tink gave a tinkling command and as one, the fairies carefully lowered the leaf onto the sea. It floated perfectly. Tink flew away gleefully. She'd gotten rid of Wendy at last.

As for Wendy, well, she slept on. She was dreaming of Michael who simply refused to be bathed. And it was doubly difficult to chase after him as he could fly as well as run. Of course, she could fly as well but that didn't make it any easier. And Michael, being small, could easily maneuver around places that she couldn't.

"Michael!" she said sharply, "If you don't bathe, I'm not going to tell any stories at all today!" This was an indirect way of appealing to the other Lost Boys to help her catch him. The threat meant nothing to Michael who stuck his tongue out at her and flew round one of the roots. Wendy flew after him but her foot caught on the stump that was covered by a table at mealtimes and she tumbled into the bathwater that had been meant for Michael.

Wendy awoke with a start. The water was much colder than she had expected and it didn't take her long to realize that she was no longer in her dream or on the blueberry field. The shore was receding rapidly and oddly enough, Wendy's first thought was not so much about being in danger as that if she didn't get back quickly, they'd never get to bed on time. She began to swim towards the shore.

Wendy was under no illusions about precisely who was responsible for her current predicament. Although she was not one to actually undertake trulyviolent behavior, she was currently entertaining vindictive vivisectionist thoughts involving flyswatters about certain fairies that lived in the House Underground.

You must be wondering about Peter and the Lost Boys. Were they aware of having temporarily mislaid their mother Wendy? Well, at first not. You see, none of them were quite used to having her there yet. But, says an anxious little voice, they did miss her eventually, didn't they?

Of course they did. Wendy always told a story at a certain time at one point in the day. None of them could have told you whether it was one o'clock or two o'clock but they could always tell you whether it was time or when it wasn't. And if Hook had ever managed to figure out when that time was, he could have wiped out all his enemies in one stroke. You see, wherever else Peter Pan might have been, he was always around to hear one of Wendy's stories. And of course, it was he who noticed that Wendy was missing.

He'd come back to hear Wendy's slightly bloodthirsty version of Cinderella for probably the thousandth time. The corner in which she usually told stories was empty.

"Where's Wendy?" Peter asked.

"She's-," began Slightly and stopped, "I slightly haven't got any idea." Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen Wendy in a while. All the other Lost Boys shook their heads in bewilderment. They didn't know either.

There was a rather smothered jingle from Tinker Bell's nook. That was Tink trying very hard not to laugh and failing miserably. All eyesand suspicions turned in Tink's direction. She continued to laugh until she laughed too hard and managed to actually fall out of her house. After that, it was quite an easy matter for Peter to snatch her out of the air and ask sternly "Tink, where's Wendy?"

Ah, where was Wendy? The current had carried her into the Pirate's Cove. She'd struggled bravely against it but to no avail. And now she was brushing up against the stern of the Jolly Roger. And again, her thoughts seemed too mundane for the situation she was in. Although her heart was in her mouth, the thought that came into her head was This is not my day. She fingered the acorn she was wearing. Ever since it had saved her life, she'd somehow felt that as long as she wore it, nothing too terrible could happen to her. As it happened, she was right.

Hook and his crew were accustomed to looking in the air for pesky children not in the water. The water was only a factor when ticking was heard. Wendy wasn't flying mainly because the seawater had washed off the fairy dust that she needed to fly. In any case, the pirates didn't notice her and she found herself suddenly and unintentionally eavesdropping on the pirate captain.

From what she could gather, it seemed Hook had managed to hurt his foot. It was what he had hurt it on that nearly gave her away.

"Brimstone and gall, Smee! I thought you said you'd gotten that cake to the children!"

The truth was he had. And perhaps if Cookson hadn't iced it a particularly nasty shade of green, Hook's poisoning scheme would have worked. What had happened was this. Smee had placed the cake within the view of the next Lost Boy to come along. This was Slightly. Slightly had taken a keen interest in it and brought it down to the House Underground. Wendy had taken one look at the sickly green cake and shaken her head firmly informing them that a cake that color would either taste dreadful or make them sick and she wasn't risking either of those consequences. The consequence was that the cake was banished from the Home Underground and generally bashed about by anyone who happened to come across it until, as all stale pastry will, it had hardened to a rock-like consistency. Hook, who had been searching for the Home Underground during the night, had not seen the cake in his path and tripped over it. He had hobbled back to the Jolly Roger where he had proceeded to berate Smee for the failure of Operation Cake.

"But, Captain," said Smee, "It almost worked. And it would have, if the lass hadn't thrown it away."

"Lass? What cozening is this?"

"They called her Wendy."

"Wendy . . .," Hook's voice became thoughtful and then a revelation seized him, "The game is up! Those boys have found a mother!"

Wendy, who was cautiously swimming round the ship, swelled with pride at these words and, if truth must be told, at her own cleverness in recognizing the cake as something unpalatable.

At long last, as dusk was falling, Wendy reached the shore. She stood on rather rubbery legs and began to walk home. She rather regretted that she had lost the berries she meant to pick but, she reflected, on the other hand, she did have a wonderful new story or two. When she reached the Home Underground, she found a rather dejected lot convinced that she had disappeared for good and that there would be no more stories. They had looked everywhere they could think of but for some reason none of them had thought of the Pirate's Cove. Wendy's whereabouts were very important to Michael at the moment as his teddy bear was losing stuffing and of course, none of the other boys had any idea how to repair him. And so he was the first to notice her return.

"Wendy!" Michael cried running to her with Teddy. There was an infuriated noise of bells from Tink's corner of the room just as there was an equal cheer from the boys. Of course, they were all curious to know where she had been.

"Oh," Wendy said lightly in answer as she plucked Michael from the hem of her frock and examined Teddy, "just having an adventure."

The End (for now)