Peter Pan in Scarlet

by Geraldine McCaughrean

  ‘And has it made you happy, your “Treasure”?’ asked Wendy crisply (because mothers always point out how badness doesn’t bring joy, crime doesn’t pay, thieves don’t prosper).

  Pained confusion disturbed Ravello’s scarred face. ‘How would I know?’ he asked, taking out the Marathon Cup and gently caressing the inscription of his name now magically there on the base. ‘Happiness is not a food I have tasted before. I do have a curious feeling inside me akin to chocolate cake. And fireworks. And the music of Mr Elgar.’ That sounded suspiciously like Happiness to Wendy, but she did not say so, for fear it encouraged Hook in his wickedness.

  John was busy rubbing two sticks together to try and make a spark. But even the sticks were shivering with cold. Curly was trying to build an igloo out of snow, where they could shelter until the blizzard passed. But igloos are not made of loose snow. Tootles said they should sing, to keep up their spirits, because that is what heroes do when things look blackest. And Ravello gave the strangest laugh and began the singing himself:

  ‘Jolly boating weather,

  And a hay harvest breeze,

  Blade on the feather,

  Shade off the trees …’

  It was an Eton song. Peter—though he did not want to be an Eton boy, did not want to know the words—could not resist singing. So he sang as if he was firing cannon at the pirate, and every word might hole him.

  ‘Rugby may be more clever,

  Harrow may make more row,

  But we’ll row for ever,

  Steady from stroke to bow …’

  The blizzard pulled hair out of their heads. It ripped the seams of their blanket-coats. It kicked the snow in their faces and sent avalanches crashing down the mountain. The spit froze in their mouths. The words of the song rattled in their mouths like ice cubes. If they had not all linked arms and clung to each other, the wind would have thrown them off Neverpeak and tossed them into the sky.

  ‘And nothing in life shall sever,

  The chain that is round us now.

  And nothing in life shall sever,

  The chain that is round us now.’

  If you suppose that Tinker Bell came to the rescue, I must tell you now you are wrong. Wishing had brought Tinker Bell back from a place far beyond Strange, and her wings were still sticky with improbability. Tinker Bell had nestled down to sleep again in the scarlet treasure chest. ‘Too cold,’ she said drowsily. ‘Too noisy.’

  ‘… And youth will be still in our faces,

  When we cheer for an Eton crew.

  And youth will be still in our faces,

  When …’

  The words trailed away into the great silence that was waiting for them. Winter had gripped Neverpeak in its teeth and was shaking them to death.

  Suddenly, like a wasp aiming for a picnic, something whirled past the Explorers that was not a snowflake. Glowing like a cinder it settled on the hasp of the treasure chest.

  ‘FIREFLYER!’

  In Neverland a treasure chest contains the treasure-seeker’s dearest wish, and, unknown to anyone, it was Fireflyer who had wished for Tinker Bell.

  Ever since that first intriguing mention—‘Do you know Tinker Bell?’—the idea of her had been growing in Fireflyer’s head, glowing in the dark little seedcase of his fairy skull. Everything he heard about her made him want to know more. He had plagued Slightly with questions and come to the conclusion that Tinker Bell—willing to drink poison and able to tell lies as big as albatrosses—was far too marvellous to be dead. Now, seeing Tinker Bell, his sugar coating of fairy dust glowed with the heat of Love-at-First-Sight. It melted the varnish on the chest.

  Tinker Bell opened her eyes, but seemed to think she was dreaming Fireflyer, because she gave only an apologetic little smile and said, ‘So cold. Too cold. Got to go now.’ And then the snow rampaged between them like an army of jealous fairies.

  ‘Fairies die if other fairies ignore them,’ Fireflyer complained, but she took no notice. After a moment or two more Fireflyer announced grandly: ‘I’m not going to light any old bonfire. I WON’T DO IT. I REFUSE. I WON’T!’

  (Well, you have to remember: the thing he did best was lying.) Then he plunged like a drop of molten gold into the woodpile.

  ‘Oh, Fireflyer, no!’ cried Wendy.

  ‘You will burn yourself all up!’ cried Tootles.

  ‘Oh, my dear idiot!’ cried Slightly.

  Under its blanket of snow, the bonfire sagged and settled. It seemed impossible that anything could make it burn now. But Fireflyer did. Gradually the twigs turned from white to brown, then from brown to orange, and with a crackling cackle, flames came to life, fanned by the howling wind into a blazing beacon-fire. Fireflyer’s body-heat had lit the bonfire, and Neverpeak was topped by a triumphal flame visible from all over the island.

  Some of the flames burned with the same colour as Fireflyer. Some of the ash that flew upwards looked like small charred wings. The Company turned their faces away, covered their eyes sooner than see what befell the brave little fairy … all except Peter. He went so close that he was haloed round with flame and his eyebrows singed; and he bent and peered and called and reached in his swordfish sword in case he could rescue Fireflyer from a fiery end. The sword crumbled into shards in the heat.

  ‘Be careful, Peter!’ cried Wendy as cinders spilled out over his feet.

  ‘I swore I would stick by you all the way!’ he answered. ‘But oh, what a fairy!’

  ‘What a whopping liar!’ John agreed, in awe.

  ‘Like Tink in the old days!’ said Curly.

  Then Tinker Bell well and truly woke up. Something exciting was going on. Lives hung in the balance. People were remembering her fondly. Also, another fairy was getting all the attention. That was quite enough to do the trick. ‘Wait, young man!’

  Tinker Bell darted towards the fire, meaning to follow Fireflyer, but her movements were still sleep-slurred and Peter’s hand whipped out and caught her and kept tight hold. ‘Enough lost for one day,’ he said gruffly.

  It is odd, because there were never very many twigs and turfs and grasses to begin with. What with Hook’s Treasure, dog bones, silk, sago, and gold, the Twins had had very little fuel to work with. Their bonfire was only small. And yet that fire burned bigger and brighter than any beacon on the night of the Armada. Magic fuel must be more combustible.

  They were able to cook the bread dough and spaghetti, melt snow and make a gallon of tea. They sent smoke signals summoning help (though the blizzard did its best to smudge them out). Finally, the smoke scarfed up the snowflakes and carried them off. The mountain felt warmth at its peak and remembered its childhood. (It had been a volcano once, remember.) Perhaps the mountain (unlike Peter or Hook) had only happy memories of youth, because remembering made it smile.

  Oh, I know it is unusual—it may never have happened before or since—but the mountain smiled; no other word for it. All its downs turned up. It flexed the muscles of its four faces—north, south, east, and west—and the glaciers cracked and the ice bridges fell and the snow could not keep its grip. Trees emerged, astonished, and shook the snow out of their hair. Grass grew through, stubbly at first, then shaggy like a full beard. Waterfalls unfroze with a splashing rush and startled flowers into opening.

  On the top of Neverpeak, hunter and prey, villain and hero, child, adult, and fairy stood in a circle, overlapping at hand or knee or wing, eyeing each other like animals at a waterhole. They watched the blizzard blow away into the distance and out to sea, soon no bigger than Wendy’s apron blown off the washing-line. The fire went out at last.

  ‘I must go and look for the silly chap, I suppose,’ said Tinker Bell in a world-weary sigh (though her wings were throbbing in a dozen excitable colours). And wriggling free of Peter’s hand, she darted straight into the smoking bonfire and instantly disappeared with a fizz and a crackle. Two small fairies do not make much of a glow, but the air seemed darker without them.

  ‘We must fight, you and I,’ sai
d Peter to the Ravelling Man.

  ‘What with?’ sneered Ravello, turning away. ‘Name your non-existent weapon. Besides, we are both Oppidans—Eton boys. Bad form to scrap, particularly in front of the ladies.’ And touching his frizzled hairline in salute to Wendy and Tootles, he moved away with a happy skip of his crocodile boots.

  Peter pounced after him—‘Let’s finish it here and now, you coward!’—and felt a steel hook brush his cheek as Ravello turned and held him at bay.

  ‘Do you really think the choice is yours, moth?’ hissed Ravello. ‘Did you never play a game called “Consequences”?’ Snatching the tattered treasure map from Peter, he pretended to write, with his hook in place of a quill pen.

  ‘Once upon a time there was: A boy called Pan.

  In a place called: Neverland

  Who met a pirate named Jas. Hook

  And they fought to the death.

  And the Consequence was …’

  ‘That James Hook got fed to a crocodile!’ Peter broke in triumphantly.

  ‘Ah yes!’ countered Hook. ‘But every consequence has further consequences, my boy! Everything you do comes back to haunt you: each enemy you feed to a crocodile—every boy you turn away. Do you seriously think you will ever see the Neverwood again, now that I have plucked the wings off you? You put me in my coffin once: in my crocodile coffin. Do you seriously think you can kill a man who has risen from the dead? Read your history books … ah! But I was forgetting: you cannot read, can you, ignoramus minimus? I must tell you, then: it is no great feat for explorers to reach their goal. It is the homeward journey that finishes them. The broken clock is ticking. Prepare to face the consequences of your past deeds! I have no need to kill you, cock-a-doodle: that task I will leave to Neverland!’

  The bonfire was a black heap of charcoal. The Twins pulled out two sticks and drew a picture of Ravello on the rock, and threw stones at it. Wendy, who had been watching Peter’s face since the pirate left, pulled out another piece and wrote in big letters across the highest jutting pinnacle of rock:

  ‘Well?’ she said, standing back proudly, wiping clean her hands on her pirate-flag dress.

  ‘What?’ said Peter blankly, not able to read it. So Wendy drew a cockerel with its beak open, shrieking and Peter understood and smiled. It was a small smile, a worn-out smile. His fingers were still hooked through the white Eton tie that circled his neck like a hangman’s noose.

  John, wanting to draw a picture of his own on the rock, pulled another blackened twig out of the bonfire … and found a fairy sitting on its tip, sooty from head to foot! An ink-blot of a fairy.

  ‘Fireflyer! You’re alive!’

  ‘Naturally,’ said the ink-blot. They crowded eagerly round, and Tootles made a little bath out of a cup of cool tea.

  But as the fairy sank from sight, turning the tea black with soot, another voice behind them said, ‘Don’t believe a word he says. He is such a liar, that boy!’ And a similarly filthy Tinker Bell clambered out of the bonfire and roughly hauled Fireflyer out of the teacup. ‘Ladies first,’ she said, and got in. They all had to close their eyes while she washed the soot off.

  ‘So fairies are fireproof,’ said John, who had a scientist’s curiosity about these things.

  ‘Only on Wednesdays,’ said Fireflyer categorically.

  ‘I think it’s Friday,’ said Curly.

  ‘Oh dear. Then I must be dead,’ said Fireflyer.

  After that Tinker Bell and Fireflyer would only speak to each other, because they were so much in love. They did not seem to hear anything that was said to them; took no interest in the gathering up of litter and treasure, the raising of the rainbow banner, the scanning of the island through Hook’s brass telescope.

  ‘Come, then, if you are coming!’ called Peter. But the fairies ignored him.

  ‘People die if fairies ignore them!’ said Slightly teasingly. But the two fairy lovers only leapt into the treasure chest and pulled shut the lid with a deafening slam. When Curly opened it again, there was nothing and no one inside. Not even any cold sago pudding.

  Going Down should have been easy. The cold was not so fierce. The mountain was not so slippery. Lower down, the air was not so thin. Here and there they found wreckage from the sea chest: a pram wheel, a pair of sugar tongs, an empty matchbox. And yet with each slope and cliff-face and danger they overcame, Peter grew paler and slower and wearier. He wrenched at the Eton cravat until his neck was a livid red. He tripped and stumbled and fell, and each time took longer to get back on his feet.

  ‘Let’s pitch camp here, Captain,’ said Slightly when they reached a grassy ledge, but found he was still banished and in Nowhereland, because Peter would not speak to him. The others sat down then and there, exhausted, but Peter pressed on, head down, shoulders rounded, hands pressed to his ribcage.

  ‘I don’t go about with grown-ups,’ he muttered. ‘Grown-ups can’t be trusted.’ But the voice was more defeated than defiant. Then he leaned against the cliff and coughed and coughed until his legs pleated under him, coughed and coughed until he was kneeling on the ground, coughed and coughed until his forehead was on the grass, coughed and coughed until he slumped over sideways … and disappeared entirely over the brink of the ledge.

  Further down the mountain, Captain Jas. Hook—or Ravello if you prefer—sat with his long legs encircling a bird’s nest, holing one egg at a time with his hook and sucking out the contents. For the first time in his life, he was finding it hard not to whistle for sheer joy (though everyone knows whistling is damnably unlucky).

  He picked a blade of grass, and pinning it between two fingers of his good hand blew a single quacking note. Eddies of movement stirred the bracken on the plain below him. Ravello smiled to see it.

  Then, unannounced, a boy came slithering down the escarpment behind him and all but dislodged him from his perch. Thinking he was under attack, Hook jumped to his feet, a bird’s egg still impaled on his hook. But the boy only jack-knifed around his ankles and lay like a dead thing, eyelids half open.

  Before Hook had a chance to recognize Peter and raise a hook to impale him like an eggshell, lots more children came sliding down the cliff, showering him with earth and pebbles, and all yelling like dervishes. ‘Leave him be!’

  ‘Let him go!’

  ‘Don’t touch him!’

  ‘He must not be touched!’

  ‘I’ll nurse you, Peter!’ cried Tootles and ran to Peter’s side. ‘I’ll take care of you!’

  John rushed at Hook, sword drawn. ‘This is your doing, you blaggard!’

  ‘I—’ the pirate began, too startled for retaliation or glee.

  The Explorers sank to their knees round their Leader. ‘Maybe he has new-moanier,’ Tootles said, ‘from wearing only his shirt in the blizzard.’

  Tootles tried to cover Peter over with the scarlet frock coat, but Wendy gave a cry of horror and ran and pulled it off again, throwing it at Hook. ‘You’ve killed him, haven’t you!’ she yelled.

  ‘I?’ said Hook.

  Tootles felt his forehead, looked for a pulse, stroked his hair, and laid her head on his chest to listen for a heartbeat. Then she sat back with a sob, and declared …

  ‘Peter is Dead!’

  A quiver went through Neverland then that made the horizon buckle and the reflections climb out of every pool and lake and lagoon. The League of Pan covered him with the rainbow banner. In the dreadful silence that followed, the accusations stirred again.

  ‘He died of getting so cold,’ said Second Twin.

  ‘Sooner than be like you!’ said John, and jabbed the tip of the swordfish blade in Hook’s face.

  ‘No! It was that tie round his throat. It choked the life out of him!’ said Wendy.

  ‘Your tie!’ snarled John and jabbed the blade-tip at Hook’s woolly throat.

  ‘Or else you made him think what he would be when he grew up, and it broke his heart!’ said Slightly.

  ‘All down to you,’ said John, jabbing Hook in the chest.<
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  ‘Or maybe he hated being Hook so much that he upped and died on purpose!’ suggested First Twin.

  ‘Happy now?’ said John and jabbed Hook in the belt buckle.

  ‘Or maybe Hook poisoned him with the salt,’ said Curly, ‘or the comb or the boot polish or the tea or the berries or … or …’

  ‘… like he poisoned all Neverland!’ growled John.

  Hook smartly side-stepped to avoid John’s next sword thrust. ‘He is not yet dead, you fools,’ he said between gritted teeth, and pointed at the small body on the ground.

  The ripple was no bigger than the surface of a river when a pike swims by, but the rainbow banner did ripple from some movement beneath it.

  ‘No thanks to you!’ said John and jabbed again.

  Hook gave an exasperated gasp, stamped on the blade with one crocodile-skin boot and snapped it in twelve places. ‘I did not poison him or strangle him or cozen him out of his life!’ said Hook, writhing with irritation. ‘Did I not preserve him through danger and hardship? Did I not pluck him from certain death at the ice-bridge? Not out of fondest affection, I confess, but I did so. Do you not understand? I needed the brat! For my grand plan! Make him ill? I was relying on him to recover my Treasure! He was more Hook than I am: do you think I would have poisoned my own likeness? Were you not there when I abandoned you to the mercies of the Island? When I left it for land and weather to kill you all? If ever I raise a hand to finish Peter Pan it will be this hand!’

  And he brandished his hook, first in John’s face and then over the boy Pan. When he aimed a downward slash at Peter’s throat, the children screamed, thinking they were witnessing cold-blooded murder, and Slightly called Hook ‘a coward and a monster’. But the hook caught only the fabric of the white tie round Peter’s neck and hauled the boy within reach of Hook’s good hand.