They sat the creature on the couch and stood before it.
"Putti putti!" It cried.
"Ready?" Wendy said, looking to her brothers.
They nodded in turn.
"Let's tell the one about the boy who never grew up. The boy who escaped into Neverland."
"Once, there was a boy named Peter who didn't quite fit in.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make friends at school. Part of it was that he had trouble speaking up, in class and outside. When teachers called on him, he just shook his head, too nervous to answer. Eventually they stopped calling on him altogether.
The other kids started to spread the rumor that he couldn't speak at all. There were many times it looked like he was about to say something, but he never did. The kids watched him as he walked the halls, looking down at the floor, holding onto his backpack straps. They started calling him names.
One name in particular was the one that stuck, though. That was when things began to change.
Peter started to find solace in computer games. When he went home, he always looked forward to playing one in particular, in which he played as a fairy hero named Pan whose mission it was to save a magical island from pirates."
Wendy, Michael, and John had fetched props from their bedrooms. John wore a black triangular hat with a skull on it, and Michael had on a red beanie and an eye patch. John picked up a silver hook, which he held in his left hand. Both struck an action stance as they faced their sister.
Wendy had donned a green tunic with a long, conical cap, a custome based on her favorite video game character. She held up a plastic sword and began reenacting a battle with John and Michael, striking them down overdramatically. John crossed swords with her using his hook.
"I'll make you pay for chopping off me arm and feeding it to that crocodile!" He exclaimed in his best pirate voice.
"Not today, Hook!" Wendy turned back to the creature whose full attention was on them.
"So, anyhow,"she continued, "he felt like he was the character in this game. So much so that that's what the other kids at school started calling him: Pan. They thought they were making fun of his obsession, but secretly, he liked it.
Eventually, he started to notice there were other kids like him. Kids who didn't quite fit in, who didn't talk to anyone else in school. By the time he was one of the older kids in school, he had built up sort of a reputation as a big brother to the rest of them, the quiet boy who started speaking to the younger, more naive children. He started inviting them over his house, mainly to play video games, and that one in particular.
The game was called Neverland.
Some of the kids who went home with Peter said they never saw his parents, that despite his age, he lived alone. Others said his parents were neglectful of him, or that one or the other had gone missing or died. Some said he had an abusive father. Some said his mother was depressed, and couldn't get out of bed. The story changed all the time.
But one thing was certain: he now had friends. No, followers.
And then one day, he disappeared.
When some of his friends visited his house to look for him, all that they found was the Neverland program open on his computer. A map of an island one could click on to explore any of the regions there: the lagoon, the jungle, a chain of islands. The Secret Treehouse Hideout.
All of the boys and girls who looked for him disappeared, too.
They became known as the 'Lost Children...' "
"Wendy, stop!" Said John suddenly.
"Why? Is it too scary?"
"No...look!"
Wendy was pulled out of the world of her story, and back into this slightly-less-bizarre world where they had a new pet who had come from the computer.
Wendy gasped.
The little creature had grown arms and legs.