Peter Pan in Scarlet

by Geraldine McCaughrean

  ‘Do you not know it’s unlucky to whistle on board ship!?’

  ‘But we’re not on …’ whispered Slightly, his words tailing away in the face of Peter’s rage.

  ‘Ooo! I see lurkers and pouncers!’ fluted Fireflyer high above their heads. ‘Underbushy ambushers!’ But no one took any notice, of course, because he was always lying. ‘Fairies die if people ignore them!’ he complained.

  Peter set two flat hands on Slightly’s chest and gave him a push, so that he fell over backwards. ‘Walk further off, can’t you? Keep your bad luck to yourself!’

  The other Explorers looked at one another. Tootles’s lip trembled, and her fingers, without realizing, stroked at her top lip. Ravello seemed not to have heard the ruckus, and pressed on, head down, towing the sea chest into a wood. They fell into step behind him, single file, because the path was narrow. Wendy walked just behind Peter, watching the tails of the red coat swash to and fro and his long curly hair bounce prettily on his collar. ‘You do not seem quite yourself, Peter,’ she said. ‘Truly, I hardly recognized you just now.’

  ‘Well,’ said Peter, ‘this adventuring is so boring! We have not had a single battle since we landed!’ But then he coughed, and mopped his brow with Wendy’s borrowed handkerchief, and he did not turn to look at her, not even once.

  Leafy woods gave way to lifeless pine forests. After sunset, when they sat down to supper, Peter announced that there would be no food for Slightly, because he had whistled, and whistling was unlucky (at which Wendy promptly resolved to give all her supper to Slightly). The rest of the expedition waited, and their mouths watered, and some hoped it would be lemon cake and some that it would be sausages …

  But the truth was, there was no food for anyone. Nothing appeared on the white tablecloth. Time and time again Peter tried to imagine it there. When apple strudel would not come, he tried for simple fruit and veg. But though the League felt around and beyond their plates, eagerly patting their hands over the tablecloth, they felt no invisible oranges, no celery or carrots or even kale.

  ‘The birds must have eaten it out of my head,’ said Peter aghast. ‘Or greedy fairies. Or it’s that bad luck Slightly brought down on us with his salt-spilling and his whistling.’

  Whoever the culprit was, his magical gift was gone, as surely as a book stolen from a library, and the League went to bed hungry—so hungry they could not sleep. The moon looked like a round Dutch cheese and the stars like breadcrumbs. The hum of insects sounded like soup simmering, the plop of rain like the clop of the milkman’s horse. Their stomachs gurgled. They were so hungry that they even thought longingly of Ravello’s rubbery eggs and wondered if he might be persuaded to share …

  ‘There are, of course, ship’s biscuits in the sea chest,’ said his deep and velvety voice out of the darkness.

  Within seconds they were clamouring round the sea chest, searching by the light of glow-worms and fireflies, and trying to remember how to divide three-and-thirty biscuits between eight hungry mouths.

  ‘When we find them we must make them last!’ said Wendy, being sensible. ‘Nobody must eat their ration all at once.’

  They turned out books and sea boots, a sou’wester and a life-jacket, inkwell and pens, charts and compasses. But all they found at the bottom were the wrappers off three packets of biscuits, and a sprinkling of weevils.

  ‘F-I-R-E-F-L-Y-E-R!’

  The fairy had eaten every last one.

  Hunger menaced then, as surely as a pack of wolves, for Peter’s gift was gone, and so were all their rations. When Fireflyer had sneaked into the sea chest and helped himself to the last eatables, he might as well have poisoned the tea or burned their warm clothing. They looked around them at the landscape and it was no longer friendly, no longer opening its coat flaps to share wonders with them. It was just a larder, vast and hostile and EMPTY.

  Do you know the worst thing about fairies? They never say sorry. Those same little mouths that are so quick to gobble musical notes, biscuits, buttons, acorns, and spring onions simply cannot get their teeth round the words ‘please’ or ‘sorry’. So when Peter summoned the greedy little creature before him and asked what Fireflyer had to say for himself, the little blue gobbler only shrugged and said, ‘I was hungry!’ as if that explained everything.

  Peter drew out his sword—‘Oh, Peter, no!’—and drew a window in the air—a casement complete with glazing bars, sill, and latch. Then he opened it and shooed Fireflyer out, like a summer wasp that has found its way indoors. ‘I shut you out, pest, for taking more than your fair share!’ The window closed: they all heard the latch click. From beyond it, Fireflyer called, ‘Fairies die if you ignore them, you know?’ but they were forbidden to answer. Hunger grumbled in eight small stomachs. They rolled themselves in their blanket coats and slept, in the hope they might dream of food.

  In the morning, they woke to find the tablecloth spread on a bed of pine-needles and Peter sitting cross-legged beside it. He had taken off his red coat to use as a cushion. In front of him were ranged eight plates, and he was counting out berries into equal portions. ‘One for you. One for him. One for her. Two for the Twins. One for …’ Seeing them watching, he raised a bunch of glistening red fruit in salute. ‘Fare shares!’ he said and laughed.

  ‘Where did you …?’ Wendy began in astonishment.

  ‘I flew about by moonlight! I followed the owls and I shadowed the bats. Where the bee sneaks, there snuck I. Oh, the cleverness of Pan!’ There was still something of the moonlight in his face; a silvery pallor: moon tan.

  ‘I think we may say that His Excellency the Wonderful Boy has saved the day,’ said Ravello bowing reverentially and helping Peter back on with his scarlet coat. In their delight, the Twins began to clap, and the rest of the Darlings joined in.

  The berries were scarlet and bullet-hard. One might taste of cherries, the next more like tomato or smoked ham. Ravello sprinkled them liberally with salt. To soften the pips, he said. Peter Pan barely remembered to eat his portion, he was so busy revelling in the words ‘His Excellency the Wonderful Boy’.

  Later, as they passed through a dense dark grove of piny trees, the Wonderful Boy pointed out where he had picked them, high among the upper branches; the Twins ran over to jump and snatch, but they were far too tiny to reach. Wendy could not, nor could Tootles. Not even Curly, come to that. As Peter rose effortlessly off the ground, to pick some more for the journey, the others clenched their fists, bent their knees and tried to muster happy thoughts for all they were worth. A cold, drizzling rain and a shortage of fairy dust made it difficult.

  Slightly, eager to make himself useful and to put himself back in Peter’s good books, hurried up from the rear, stood on tiptoe, reached up as high as he could, and picked three bunches of scarlet fruit.

  ‘Carve the name out of that boy and cast him adrift!’ Feet planted wide on a high bough, one hand on his sword, Peter Pan pointed a damning finger at Slightly, speaking the words that every Lost Boy dreads to hear. ‘Cull him for a traitor and a turncoat! Send him to Nowhereland! Let no one speak to him ever again!’

  ‘Oh, Peter!’ cried Wendy reaching up a restraining hand, but there was no touching Pan, who perched on the bough like some terrible eagle eyeing its prey. She had to tip her head right back on her neck, and the rain fell into her eyes. ‘Oh, Peter! What has he done? He only picked some …’

  Pan swooped down, terrifying, hawkish. He snatched the swordfish sword from Slightly’s belt and broke it across his knee. ‘Do you not see? The breaker of oaths! The big long snake-in-the-grass!’ He came to rest as he had before, face-to-face with Slightly (except that now his nose was on a level with the top button of Slightly’s shirt).

  Perhaps it was the doing of that witch, holding Slightly’s face between her hands. Perhaps it was because he had entered Neverland by foul means (tunnelling down to the end of his bed). Perhaps it was the fault of Time as it prowled Neverland, turning the summer greenery to red and orange, setting the ship’s b
ell ringing. Or perhaps he really was a traitor. Whatever the cause, Slightly Darling was growing up—no denying it. Already he stood head-and-shoulders taller than Peter and could reach the berries no one else could reach from the ground.

  Peter drew his sword—‘Oh, please, Cap’n, no!’—and with the swordpoint drew a portcullis in the air, complete with rope and wheel and cruel iron spikes. Then he raised the portcullis, drove Slightly backwards through it on the end of his sword, and lowered the grille again, shutting him out.

  ‘You all swore not to grow up,’ said Peter, daring anyone to object. ‘That is the only Rule. And Slightly broke it.’

  How could they argue? Again the Explorers fell in one behind another, single file, and resumed their long trek towards Neverpeak. Glancing back over her shoulder to where Slightly stood motionless in the rain, Wendy saw that his evening shirt now barely reached to his knees, and the clarinet in his hand seemed smaller than it had before. Distance helped. The further away they got, the smaller he looked, that pathetic figure on the pathway. You might almost have mistaken him for a little boy lost in the rain.

  A haunting, yearning music floated to them on the breeze. First thing every morning and last thing every night, the sound of Slightly’s clarinet came to them out of banishment. Nobody had quite expected that. They understood that Slightly had done wrong by growing, and they wanted to shut him out of their minds, as Peter had told them they must. But it is hard to forget someone while they are still within earshot.

  The going was getting hard. Pine forests had given way to mere trunks—a landscape of naked sticks as leafless and lifeless as ships’ masts on a sandbank. The mapmaker had called this place the Thirsty Desert, but that was patently wrong. For it was not the desert which was thirsty at all: it was anybody travelling through it. There were no lakes or rivers to drink from, and what with the salt on their dinners, the Company of Explorers were quite parched. Peter had gone on ahead to scout about for a spring or a brook. Once more Slightly’s music drifted to them on the wind.

  ‘Whatever will become of him?’ said Wendy.

  She was merely thinking aloud, but Ravello looked up from cleaning Pan’s boots and answered her.

  ‘He will doubtless become one of the Roarers, miss, and run wild and wayward, and dine on dishes of cold revenge.’

  ‘Yuck,’ said a Twin. ‘Is that like rice pudding?’

  Ravello spat on the leather, for want of boot-polish, and worked up a shine using the tail of his shapeless cardigan. ‘Not quite, Master Darling, sir. Did you never hear the saying: “Revenge is a dish best served cold”? Of course, the Witches may catch him first.’

  ‘Who are the Roarers?’ asked John, fearing for a moment that Slightly might enjoy himself more with them than with the Explorers.

  ‘The Roarers?’ Ravello seemed surprised at their ignorance. ‘I would have thought His Supreme Highness would have told you about them long ago.’ (How Peter would have delighted in ‘His Supreme Highness’, if he had been there.) ‘The Roarers. The Long Boys. The Long, Lost Boys. They are the ones Peter Pan culled for breaking the Rule. For growing up. He turned them out, and now they roam the wild places, living by banditry and mayhem. Cruel through and through.’

  ‘No one is all bad,’ said Wendy quickly, knowing Slightly could never do such things.

  The valet’s voice was not quarrelsome. It remained as gentle and springy as a lamb. ‘Why would any sweetness linger, miss? Consider. Neglected and mislaid by their mothers, they are posted away to Neverland, their hearts in their boots. But—oh! the blessed relief!—they find themselves welcomed into the cosiness of den and tree house, into a world of friends and fun. They belong again! Life is perfect! Then one day their wrist-bones poke out below their cuffs; their trousers are too short. And for this sin they lose their place in Paradise. They are banished—put out-of-doors like an empty milk-bottle—despised and rejected—and this time by their very best friend.’

  The League flinched. There was a sharp drawing in of breath. Put that way, it sounded so … unkind.

  ‘They cannot go home, for they are adult, and adults (as you know) cannot fly. So they are trapped in Neverland, but without any of the joy and benefits that should bestow. Their hearts canker, like apples left too long on the tree; Hate and Regret burrow deep as caterpillars. Consider. Love is learned at our mother’s knee,’ purred Ravello, ‘betrayal when she tires of us and her skirts swish away into the distance. If friends turn their backs too—well! Why not banditry? Why not throat-slitting? Why not a life of crime? Despair kills the heart in a boy.’ He held up the boots he was polishing, an arm down each leg, to admire the glossy leather. ‘No. I have tamed bears and I have tamed lions, miss. By a mixture of love and fear, I have tamed all breeds of animal. But there is no taming the Roarers. They have nothing left to fear, and wisely they have learned never again to love.’ The polished boots stood on the ground in their midst now, as though Pan stood there, but invisibly. The circus-master bowed extravagantly low to these empty boots. ‘But! Mr Slightly broke the Golden Rule and Mr Slightly has paid the price. What choice did the Marvellous Boy have? Such is the Law of Pan.’

  The sound of Slightly’s clarinet swooped over their heads like a summer swallow, and everyone but Ravello ducked their heads, fearful of it tangling in their hair.

  Out of that same sky Peter returned, each foot sliding home into its shiny boot like a knife into a sheath. He had news of a waterfall up ahead, and the Company of Explorers, now all parched with thirst, jumped up and hurried on.

  It was a waterfall complete in itself: no river flowing up to the brink, no river flowing away—simply a cascade of water cloaking a wall of rock as high as the Nevertree and as smooth as glass. They stood as close as they dared, mouths wide open, letting the icy spray drift into their throats. It was delicious. As white and drifting as smoke, the spray enveloped them, silvering their hair with water droplets. When the sun broke through, and shone on the drifting spray, there were rainbows too. And when, high above their heads, there formed a cloud of flittering, glittering colour, they gasped at the sheer Beauty of it.

  Not that Beauty ranks high on a child’s wish list. He wouldn’t spend his pocket money buying it. He would not scrape the bowl clean if it was served up for dinner. In fact, on most days, Beauty never got a mention or a passing thought. But this particular sight cast a spell of rare wonder over the Explorers, and they stood gazing up at the kaleidoscope of shifting lilac, blue, mauve, and purple. What is it that writer-man said? Sometimes Beauty boils over and then spirits are abroad.

  One by one, the individual flecks of colour separated and floated down, like rose petals at the end of summer. They brushed the upturned faces; settled on their shoulders. More and more fell: a light snow of flaking colour. Like snow it mesmerized them—a dizzying downward whirl of prettiness. Instead of spray from the waterfall they could feel only the soft touch of a thousand thousand velvety fragments of loveliness. It piled up in their hair; it filled their ears and pockets; it tugged on their clothing. Tugged?

  ‘Fairies!’ cried Tootles delightedly. ‘Thousands of fairies!’

  Suddenly the snow was a blizzard. Delight was replaced by unease then, just as quickly, by fear. The snowfall of tiny bodies showed no sign of stopping. Soon the children were floundering ankle-deep, knee-deep in drifts of fairies, unable to take one step. Their , were too heavy to lift. Tootles’s yellow plaits were blades of corn encrusted with locusts. The weight bore the children down, dragged them down, pressed them down. Those left standing struggled to stay upright, for those who lost their footing were instantly overwhelmed—buried—under a ton of fairies. But one by one they fell, and one by one they were smothered under a carpet—a mattress—a haystack of fairy ambushers. Pinioned to the ground, they could hear nothing but the click of a million tiny wings, the hiss and buzz of a million vicious little voices.

  ‘What side? What side? What side are you?

  Are you Red or are you Blue?


  Answer now and answer true!

  Are you Red or are you Blue?’

  ‘Did that treacherous little onion-gobbler send you?’ grunted Peter Pan. But it was already plain that this was not some practical joke or peevish prank. The Explorers had walked into the middle of a fully-fledged war. The Fairies began to pinch and kick. The Twins (remembering Fireflyer’s appetite) thought they were being eaten and started to cry. Again and again the tiny, massed voices vibrated through them, like choirs of bees:

  ‘Show your banner: Blue or Red.

  Show your flag or lose your head.

  Nothing else will rescue you!

  Are you Red or are you Blue?’

  Clearly the world of fairies had split in two, and a war was waging between two great armies—the Red faction and the Blues. Wendy racked her brains to think what the quarrel might be about: what the colours might signify. She remembered that girl fairies are white and that boy fairies are lilac and that those too silly to make up their mind are blue. But this could not be a war of the sexes: there were both males and females among the swarm of attackers. It was so unfair: to have to take sides without knowing what each side stood for!

  ‘Are you with us, are you not?

  Are you cool or are you hot?

  Are you Blue or are you Red?

  Answer wrong and you are dead.’

  Their captors chanted their rhymes without any excitement. They must have sung them so often that they no longer even noticed what they were saying. That did not make the words any less chilling.

  ‘We are not on any side!’ grunted Curly, scarcely able to muster the breath. ‘We’re like the Swiss!’

  ‘Swiss?’ panted John, who was very patriotic. ‘We’re British!’ If Curly had been able to move a foot, he might have kicked John. Anyway, the fairies did not give a fig for neutrality.