Chapter One

all children must grow up.

and the way that our wendy knew was this:

nana, an ever so loyal second mother to the darling children stuck to wendy's side patiently all that day, and strangely, without a change of expression or notion of sorrow throughout the evening.

she occasionally gazed into her eyes with a few words here and there to say, but nothing came out of her mouth ofcourse.

but it didnt even bother wendy so. nana was the finest nurse.. the best she knew on four paws that cared greatly for each of her charges.

it was only seldom that nana acted in such a way.

but wendy allready had a picture imprinted in her mind of why this was the case.. tonight, would be her last night as a child.

12 years would be left behind her tommorow evening, the evening on which her gigantic birthday ball would take place.

the beginning of the end, you could also see it as.

Mrs darling could have easily spotted the tension as she swept into the room with a kiss still hiding in the corner of her sweet mocking mouth, arriving to straighten out her children's thoughts and to kiss them all good night.

"oh mummy! must i grow up tommorow?"

wendy cried sorrowfully from her bed, nana allready settled alongside the foot of it for a light nap.

"No my pet! you have yet many years ahead of you to blossom!"

To blossom?

To blossom in such a way that a young flower of the neverland would?

or perhaps not, for all things in the neverland remained peacefully at youth, never facing the dreadful word that began with the letter "G".

Ah, yes, how could wendy forget about letters!

how she wished to go back to learning the alphabet in school!

wendy sorted through all of her thoughts that very moment, smoothing each one as if they were crumpled photographs. Each thought categorized into two seperate piles; one for lovely child hood memories, and the other, for every adventure she pursued with peter pan and the lost boys.

Oh, how her heart pierced at the very thought of all of their names!

wendy frowned painfully as she sorted through countless escapades; mermaids, hook, pirates, and daily visits to princess tiger lily and her tribe that wendy had befriended on her third day in the neverland.

she wished to store this beautiful box deep inside her mind, so that when the day on which she would turn 13 had arrived, she could draw them out of her special drawer especially for that box, and admire them all late at night before they would slip away from her memories forever.

Neverland couldn't always stay with you forever, you know.

Come the day for all the meddlesome things; those nasty cheque books, waking up earlier then you had been to send yourself out to work, knowing every evening that you one step away from becoming farther away from peter and his wonderful fantasy world...

Oh, it was the worst feeling in the world to know that you were a grown up and you could never fly back to neverland again.

wendy sometimes wondered how her mother must have felt when her 13th birthday had crept behind her back, coming to tell her that she wasn't allowed to play the pirate game or cowboy in her nursery on late evenings after baths were taken and all was subtle and serene.

It was one thing to allready be a grownup, but another to feel it happening to you.

Each morning, as wendy would dress herself for school in the bathing room, excluded now from her two brothers laughing at silly tales and changing in the nursery together at the same time wendy was changing, she noticed a new prominent bloom.

She began to notice her figure broaden at the waist, a chest beginning to grow slowly with time, the baby phat on her face that she had grown so fondly of dissapear, revealing a more dazzling, feminine, symbolic beauty of a young woman at first glance. Mother was right. Her evolution had indeed begun, but it would take a great toll her on heart tommorow evening when she would be forced to dance with nuisances from Fulson's school for young boys just across the street from the bank at which Mr. darling laboured each day. She was not ready for love. she was only ready to escape into a world she had known only a month or so ago, when she danced with peter in illuminating shadows, fighting captain hook, and sewing batches upon batches of new stockings for the lost boys, for they proved that they could never keep themselves from adventure outside of the cozy home under the ground.

Wendy was remembering, tying a cadet blue ribbon around the ends of each tight braid, tying it so tightly from anguish that the roots of her hair began to ache.

she never minded much, having to prepare herself for learning infront of john and micheal.

but those cheerful days, each one spent like a child, with foolish giggles and story telling as freshly laundered stockings and under shirts were thrown on over heads would all be gone come tommorow at the strike of midnight.

the din of wendy's doom.

she was allready, infact forbidden simple pleasures by her father, Mr Darling to go and mingle with her brothers.

she was told not to visit the boys and spoil them with childish tales, after she took her new living space in her new room placed in hiding across the hall from the nursery.

" it will be a seperate room for a seperate life," Mr darling once concluded loudly over grownup tea one evening, quite unaware of wendy's small presence against the door.

it was on that dreadful friday that john had bumped his head rather harshly, romping around the room joyfully with a wooden horse stick stuck underneath his privates with wendy and micheal in the nursery following his lead in a game of cowboy.

so, seeing as wendy was the most motherly of the three, she tiptoed down the staircase and went along her merry way towards the kitchen to fetch a wet towel for john's head.

on the way down, she picked up faint voices on the other side of the living room door, speaking, the advantage being a slight crack wide enough to hear more through.

" just a little listen wouldnt even hurt a mouse," wendy assured herself.

she gently pressed an ear against the open crack and listened.

"must we rush her, dear?"

"why, i say! it was never my idea to push her into growing up. i just want her stepping on the right foot!"

who's foot must step into the world?

why, it would be wendy's ofcourse!

you can imagine it to be a tiny, sockless foot, one that belonged to a child that had just returned from neverland, light traces of dirt or stains from frolicking about in the island's long, tall, summer grasses still streaked arcoss the top of the toes and beyond. But it wouldnt be a grownup's foot, you know, all polished and wise from all it's years walking london's grim streets.

you could always tell which was which. even with your eyes closed.

"will she dance with any boys at her birthday ball tommorow evening?" Mrs. darling asked, her tea cup shaking in her hand.

An answer she couldnt possibly recieve, for her husband knew now of wendy's escape with peter pan, the little mischevious boy who brought with him no self manners or even a set of clean fingers.

a shudder passed along the hairs of her spine.

how she loathed peter's dirty fingernails!