Peter Pan in Scarlet

by Geraldine McCaughrean

  ‘Pray do not fret on their account, young man. They are all stark mad already.’ Seeing Wendy, the circus-master bowed deeply from the waist—‘We meet once more, Miss Wendy. Your servant, ma’am. Your most humble servant,’—then addressed himself again to Peter. ‘I might likewise ask if it is wise for people of tender age to be out so late. Please tell me you have the prospect of warm beds and a filling supper?’ When they said they did not, he at once invited them to return with him to the Circus Ravello. ‘In these lean and hungry times many of my cages are empty. They are clean and mattressed with soft, fresh hay. I would deem it an honour …’

  ‘We don’t go about with grown-up people,’ Peter interrupted, scuffing his foot in the sand.

  ‘Oh. Very well. But you will at least come to the Circus, won’t you?’ persisted Ravello. ‘I bring tickets for you, look! Tickets for the circus? Everyone loves an outing to the circus! Clowns and acrobats? Bears, tigers, lions! Jugglers! Escapologists? Illusionists. Bare-back riders! A flying trapeze …!’ And he pulled from somewhere a deck of scarlet tickets that he fanned out before flicking them high in the air to fall like autumn leaves over the children’s heads.

  ‘Oh yes, Peter! A circus!’ Tootles was not the only one whose face lit up at the thought.

  ‘Nor we don’t choose to sleep in cages neither!’ said Peter.

  ‘… thank you all the same,’ Wendy added hastily.

  Ravello did not seem to take offence. ‘Have you never dreamed … Has none of you ever dreamed of joining a circus—of running away to a five-ring life of gasps and laughter and cheering? Picture it! Dancing with the raggle-taggle gypsies to the quacking of trombones! Hearts thumping in time with the thud of hoofbeats on sawdust! The flash of lamplight on sequinned leotards?’ There was an awkward pause, during which Ravello looked from child to child with his oddly eager gaze.

  The puppy was the only one who moved towards him, and that was to sniff the curious frizz that wrapped the circus master from head to foot. It pounced on a trailing bundle of ravelled wool and was instantly tangled up, so that Curly had to hurry over and try to free it. His own fingers got embarrassingly snagged somewhere between the man’s knobbly, mottled boots. Ravello looked down at him patiently with eyes the colour of an English sea. ‘You show a great concern for animals, young man. Do you see yourself as a veterinary man, perhaps? One day? When you are older?’

  ‘I—’

  Puppy suddenly and unkindly nipped the circus-master, so that he gave a cry of pain. It startled the bears and brought them romping up the beach, black noses drizzling, black eyes beady bright. A dead fish dangled from one mouth, a crab from another. They stood up tall, to push between the children, towering over them, at least twice their height, great shawls of gleaming fur brushing bare little arms.

  ‘Gently, my furry furies,’ breathed Ravello. ‘No dancing tonight. We are not wanted here.’ And hunching his clothing closer around him, he turned to go, the tail of his rawhide whip trailing snake-like through the sand. The bears dropped on to all fours to trot after him.

  ‘Who are you?’ called Slightly. He was sensitive to hurt feelings and could smell them as surely as lions can smell sweat, or bears honey.

  Ravello turned. ‘Me? Oh, just a travelling man,’ he said. ‘A simple travelling man. But I will not impose myself upon you any longer, since you find no need of me or mine. I must go now: feed my beasts and master my disappointment. I had hoped to be of service to the Marvellous Boy. But alas, Hope is nothing but a cruel trick practised upon us by the gods. Goodnight, gentlemen … ladies.’ The mist closed behind him like the doors of a cathedral and the only sound left was the hissing surf of a turning tide.

  The Twins bent to gather up the tickets, but Peter snatched them and tore them all in shreds. ‘We don’t need grown-ups!’ he said. ‘We are all right as we are!’ and his face brooked no argument.

  ‘He might have given us egg and toast soldiers for supper, that ravelling man,’ said Fireflyer unwisely, and Peter swatted him into a rock pool.

  ‘Travelling man,’ Wendy corrected Fireflyer, pulling him out again and drying him in the skirts of her dress. ‘Not “ravelling”.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s not a grown-up,’ suggested Tootles. ‘You couldn’t really see, could you? Maybe he’s just a big one of us.’

  ‘Or a very tall cardigan,’ said John nodding.

  But Peter refused to listen. The thought of sleeping in a cage (whether or not the straw was dry) struck horror into his freewheeling soul. The thought of animals caged was almost as bad. It appalled him to think of wild creatures penned up behind bars. It was almost as if they were trapped inside him—those bears and tigers and lions—pacing up and down, pushing their plush noses between the bars of his ribcage, so that he wanted to tear open his chest and set them all free … A terrible foreboding settled over his heart, which he did not understand. And not understanding always gave Peter a pain.

  ‘Well, where are we going to sleep tonight?’ whinged Princess Tootles.

  ‘Peter, do you smell smoke?’ said Wendy.

  Peter lifted his face and his nostrils flared. ‘Signal fires,’ he said. ‘Or bonfires … Maybe the Tribes are feasting.’ But over the sound of the sea washed a different kind of noise, like a giant moaning in her sleep and turning over on a mattress of brittle straw. Crackling. There were the cries of animals, too: frightened, agitated animals. It was impossible to tell whether the mist was growing thicker or just meshing with the smoke. Certainly the smoke was thick enough now to make the children cough.

  ‘About that Forest Dragon of yours, Twins …’ began Peter. ‘How did you say you killed it?’

  ‘With fire. Why? Oh. Oh!’

  Now the Neverwood began to glow, showing its bones, showing the tilt, this way and that, of dead trees. Something monstrous was coming through the woods, and this time it was not a covey of bears or a dragon or the Trans-Sigobian Express.

  It was Fire.

  A ghostly, billowing shape broke clear of the treetops and rose into the night sky trailing a dozen fuses. It glowed orange, being full of fire. And written quite clearly across it was the word

  The circus tent, its guy ropes blazing, kept on rising until, crumpling into a ball of flame, it lost its shape and fell back down into the general inferno.

  ‘Oh, Twins! What have you done!’ whispered Tootles.

  ‘Slayed a dragon is all!’ protested the Twins.

  Somewhere, inside that blazing forest, was the wreckage of the Wendy House, the Underground Den, several cages full of dry, clean straw, and a circus-master clad in a garment of ravelling wool. The Neverwood filled up with the cries of lynxes and lions, zebras and gorillas, tigers and palmerions. Sparks began to rain out of the sky, as if the stars were falling piecemeal.

  ‘Time to go,’ said Peter as the heat reached them on the beach, and the Lagoon began to steam.

  But where to go? They were trapped—penned in between the burning forest and the sea. The Neverwood was smudged out. The cave had melted from sight. Without them noticing, the misty smoke and smoky mist had grown so thick that they could barely see further than each other.

  So they all turned to face the Lagoon. And out of the Lagoon, as though summoned by trumpets, came the most startling sight of all. Their sore eyes grew wide as wide. John’s lips shaped the blessed words:

  ‘Sail ho!’

  ‘Sail ho!’ he shouted, feet rising from the ground in exultation.

  Through the moiling yellow smoke came the bowsprit of a ship, like a dueller’s sword—en garde! Behind it, the fat black bow of a brig that has fed deep on adventure, shouldering aside the oil-black waves. A dank, flapping noise spoke of slack black sails and the snaking ends of free-flying ropes. With a soft grinding of gravel and sand, the keel touched bottom and the ship shuddered from end to end, angry that mere dry land should have got in its way. Adrift in the mist, the Jolly Roger had simply run out of sea. She stood now, prow upraised in a haughty sneer, daring the litt
le waves jumping and barking around her ankles to make a nuisance of themselves.

  ‘I know this ship!’ said Peter, and so did they all. For even those whose reading was not good enough to tackle the name on the bow could make out the skull-and-crossbones lolling at the masthead.

  ‘It’s HIS ship!’ breathed Slightly.

  They waited for the rumble of cannon being run out. They listened for the cry from the deck of ‘Avast, ye swabs!’ But the beached ship was silent except for the creak of timbers groaning, Aground! Aground!

  Peter was first aboard, of course, climbing up by way of the barnacles and the gun ports, calling for the rest to follow. ‘What are you afraid of? Hook’s dead and gone, isn’t he? Over there’s the Crocodile that ate him!’

  Tootles and Slightly followed, but the littler boys hung back, remembering how they had been prisoners once aboard this ship—lashed to the mast—sentenced to walk the plank. Even with the forest fire raging at their backs and nothing but smoke to breathe, it took Wendy to shame them into moving. She clambered up after Peter singing a sea shanty as she went.

  She tried not to say, even to herself, how fearful it was to walk the decks, to climb the companionways, to tug open cabin doors and look inside. Now and then a shadowy figure would suddenly loom out of the choking murk, and utter a shout and reach for its sword. Then the mist would shift and there stood Curly or John or Slightly, head forward, peering, trembling with fright because they had just seen her shadowy shape. Curly fell over a cannon; Slightly walked into the ship’s bell which clanged like the knell of doom. When the smoke momentarily cleared, and moonlight poured down, the mast looked so tall you might climb up it with a candlesnuffer and put out all the stars.

  Everything was exactly as it had been the night oh-so-long-before when Peter Pan and the villainous pirate Captain Hook had fought to the death over who should keep Wendy for a mother. Since then, spiders had woven webs between the spokes of the ship’s-wheel. Rust had caked the cannon balls to their racks. Rats had bred and raised young and grown old and retired to barns in the countryside. Seagulls had whitened the sails, and rain had washed them black again. But no rope-soled shoes or high-cuffed boots had walked the quarterdeck for twenty years. No songs had sounded in the fo’c’sle; no bo’sun’s pipe had whistled anyone aboard the Jolly Roger. She was a ghostly ship adrift on a ghastly ocean, damp and dank and dead.

  But to homeless adventurers needing to escape the beach—out late and in want of somewhere to sleep—it was a wish come true. Hammocks still hung between the bulkheads. There were ship’s biscuits in the biscuit barrels and Christmas puddings in the brandy barrels and fresh rain in the water butts. There were boots in the footlockers and several kitbags, too, labelled Smee, Starkey, Cecco, Jukes …

  ‘How long do pirates live, do you think?’ asked Curly.

  And there was a sea chest.

  Wendy aired the fo’c’sle as she aired her opinions, for just the right length of time, then tucked up the Boys in their hammocks and set them swinging.

  There were charts in the chartroom, signal flags and oilskins, a telescope for looking-out, and a compass for steering by. There was a kettle and cocoa, and something white in the powder kegs that would do for flour—or talcum powder in a crisis.

  And there was the sea chest.

  J. H. it said on the lid, which opened like a cupboard and had drawers inside for socks, lace collars, and medals. There was a brass telescope as heavy as a gun. There was another brass instrument with slides and calibrations and knurled knobs of no known usefulness. There was a frock coat in red brocade and, coiled in a corner like a pale snake, a white tie or cravat. Peter Pan put on the coat, admired his reflection in the speckled cabin mirror, then pocketed the telescope and climbed the mainmast to the crow’s nest. Cracking the tie like a whip, he tipped back his head and crowed so loudly that the stars blinked.

  ‘I shall be Captain Peter Pan, and sail the seven oceans!’ he shouted, and dislodged an albatross roosting on the mizzenmast.

  Back on deck, Wendy had to knot the tie for him: he had never worn a man’s tie round his throat before. ‘I believe you’ll find there are seven seas but only five oceans,’ she said as she did so. Peter sank his hands into the deep pockets of the red brocade coat. There were holes in the lining where a pirate’s pieces-of-eight might easily fall through; this must be Hook’s second-best coat. Well, of course it was! The best one had slithered, together with its owner, down the Crocodile’s throat. ‘Stand still and don’t fidget,’ said Wendy sternly (because tying a gentleman’s tie takes time and skill).

  But Peter had found something else in his pocket, other than holes. Between his fingers he felt the crumbly softness of finest vellum chart-paper. ‘Look here! Look what I’ve found!’ he cried, waving the chart over his head. ‘A treasure map! And here’s where Hook stowed his treasure!’

  Out of a landscape of cream vellum rose forests and hills, lighthouses and mountains. And there, sure enough, like a teacher’s angry crossing-out, a big black X had been gouged through the highest mountain of all. ‘Neverpeak’ read the inky scrawl underneath.

  ‘Wind the capstans and man the yards!’ cried Peter. ‘Clear the decks and make ready!’ and if he was startled to find such sea-salty words in his mouth, he did not show it.

  Heads popped up through every hatch. ‘What? Why? Where are we going?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Wendy fretfully, ‘where are we going? There will be so much tidying up to do after the fire.’

  ‘We’re going on a voyage of discovery!’ cried Peter. ‘We’re going in search of treasure!’

  ‘A treasure hunt!’ The cry was taken up by everyone. ‘A treasure hunt!’ A treasure hunt, across uncharted waters, round the island and ashore again in unknown territories—along the untrodden paths of Neverland and into the unimagined dangers of Never-been-there-land! All thoughts but these—all plans but this—melted from the minds of Pan’s comrades.

  Even the ocean felt the surge of excitement—TREASURE!—for it fairly rushed into the bay. The tide came in much faster than it does on unremarkable days. It refloated the Jolly Roger and spun her round so that her bowsprit pointed out to sea—en garde! Peter’s trusty crew swarmed into the rigging, hoping that, from up there, they would be able to see over the horizon. Sparks from the burning forest swarmed around their heads and brushed the canvas sails. Not a moment too soon, they left the Bay of Dragons behind them and sailed into the night. As they crossed the bar, and a salt spray wetted their faces, even the ship seemed caught up by the splendour of the enterprise, for at midnight the ship’s bell rang eight times.

  And no one was anywhere near it.

  The Jolly Roger, after so long without a crew, answered eagerly to the smallest turn of the ship’s helm. Peter cut such a dash in his scarlet frock coat (once the sleeves were shortened) that the League of Pan would have walked on water to please him. Here and there along the coast, he took them ashore to forage for breadfruit, and for butternuts and honeycomb to spread on it. He rigged awnings out of sails, where they could shelter when it rained. He gave them ranks—Rear Admiral, Front Admiral, First Sea Lord, Other Sea Lord, Best Mate, Deckmaster, Mastmaster, and Keeper of the Crow’s Nest. He told them: ‘I’ll stick by you for ever and lay down my life for you, if you’ll join my Company of Explorers!’—And they would have sworn on their sword hilts if they had had any proper swords.

  Sometimes the ferocity of his orders took them by surprise, but it was worth it to serve in such a happy crew. His cleverness at sailing a ship astonished them. The names of obscure ropes and bits of rigging came to him in an instant. He even knew how to curse like a sailor.

  ‘That’s quite enough of that, thank you,’ said Wendy.

  For hours, he would sit at the chart desk in Hook’s stateroom at the stern of the vessel, and write up the ship’s log using a raven’s feather, dipping it into a china flagon of blood red ink. Since he had never learned to read or write, he filled the pages with pictures
instead of words, recording the day’s events.

  Then he would return to poring over Hook’s treasure map, wondering what had taken the villain so far from the sea carrying a heavy treasure chest, what booty Hook had taken such pains to stash away? What hardships would face explorers who went in search of it?

  He changed the brig’s name, of course—to the Jolly Peter—and refused to sail under the pirate flag. ‘I am no scurvy brigand to fly the skull-and-crossbones!’ he told Wendy. ‘Make me a flag, girl!’

  ‘What’s the little word that gets things done?’ said Wendy, who was a stickler for good manners.

  Peter racked his brains. Having had no mother to teach him manners, he had no idea what the little word might be. ‘Button?’ he suggested. ‘Thimble? Flag?’

  Wendy smiled, kissed him lightly on the cheek, and went to make a flag out of her sundress, a dress out of the pirate flag. So it was under the emblem of sunflower-and-two rabbits that the Jolly Peter sailed through the Straits of Zigzag and the Widego Narrows and into the Sea of One Thousand Islands. Flying fish leapt over the ship and diving gulls plunged under it, resurfacing with beaks full of whitebait.

  The Thousand Islands came in all shapes and sizes. There were rocks only fit to strand a sailor on; desert islands with one palm tree and some coconut matting; mangrove islands noisy with parrots; archipelagos of red coral and archipelouses strewn with fine, green lawns. There were extinct volcanic atolls, and islands not at all extinct whose volcanoes smoked and rumbled and tossed lumps of molten rock far out to sea. There were islands shaped like turtles and others shaped simply like islands but teeming with turtles. All these Peter found marked on the charts, as well as lighthouses and headlands, whirlpools and estuaries. In the shaded areas labelled ‘Fishing Grounds’ a magnet swung over the side would bring in a can of sprats or a tin of sardines. There were wrecks, and drowned villages whose church bells rang when the sea was rough …