“Don’t!” He cowered. “Please! Put the Daisy away!”
“Daisy’s in the other one. Here. Look. I have two pockets. This one’s empty.” And I turned it inside out.
He marveled, as if I had just turned straw to gold. “Do it again,” he said.
I did.
“Oh my,” he gasped. “I’d like trousers someday. If they come with things like that in them.”
“Not all do, but most,” I answered, and he was pleased.
“Perhaps Barnaby would like some too. What’s an orphan?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject. (He did this, I soon learned, with astonishing frequency.) For a moment I didn’t understand. “You said when I killed Barnaby that you were an orphan.”
“Oh, yes. An orphan is someone—young, I suppose—who has lost his father and mother.”
“I see. Where did you lose them? Did you put them in a pocket?”
“No, no! I mean, they died.”
“I see.” A moment passed, and he asked, “When are they coming back?”
“At the End of Time,” I said, remembering my catechism, “when Christ comes to judge the Living and the Dead.”
“Is that a friend of yours?”
“Who?”
“Christ.”
“You don’t know about Christ?”
“No. Do tell.”
“You mean you haven’t been saved?”
“Oh, I’ve been saved many times. Barnaby saved me yesterday when I nearly fell off a cliff. Tink says she saved me, but she thinks too much of herself and wants me to like her more.”
“I mean—have you not been baptized?”
“I don’t believe I have. Is it fun?”
“I don’t remember. I was quite small when I was baptized. They pour water on you and say special words.”
“The mermaids pour water on me all the time.”
“The mermaids?”
“Yes. You’ll meet them tomorrow.”
I paused to gather my wits again. “I mean—well—if you were small when you were baptized, you wouldn’t remember it either.”
“Ah. Of course. So I might have been baptized yesterday.”
I took a breath. “Yes, I suppose so.” Then: “Are you an orphan? Have your father and mother . . . died?”
And suddenly a tear sprang to his eye. “I don’t know. Have they?”
“Where are they?”
And now his lip quivered. “I don’t know. I don’t think I ever had any.”
“Of course you did. Everyone does.”
He wiped his cheeks and wrinkled his brow. “I do remember a—someone—I think I called her Mother. She was very large.”
“Yes, they are, at first.”
“She threw me out the window.”
“Really?” I gasped.
He grinned. “No, I just made that up. I’m hungry. Let’s eat.” He stood and walked to a ladder that I took to be the one on which he’d descended. He clambered up it without looking back.
We spent the rest of the day picking mushrooms and consuming them raw and wandering about the jungle and getting lost (or so Peter said) and then finding the large tree again. Ever curious (I had regained my strength and hence my sense of wonder), I plied him with questions as we walked.
“How long have you been here?”
“I only got here yesterday.”
“How old are you?”
“I think I’m your age. How old are you?”
“Fourteen. Just.”
“Yes. That seems about right.”
“When’s your birthday?”
This stopped him in his tracks. He thought for a moment. “Yesterday,” he told me, then continued on. We stopped at some fruited bushes, and he began picking the berries. I followed suit. They were a deep purple.
“You’re certain these aren’t poison?” I asked.
“Oh, but they are,” he said as he popped some into his mouth.
“Won’t you be sick?” I asked, alarmed.
“They’re not all poison, only every other one.” He tossed a random few of them onto the ground.
I tasted one. It was delicious. “How do I know which is which?”
“Oh, that’s easy. If you eat one, it’s not poison. You can’t eat poison, it’s vile.”
He moved toward a stream after he had eaten his fill. Sunshine glinted off it, and a miniature rainbow sparkled at the foot of a tiny waterfall.
“It’s beautiful. Does it have a name?”
“The Serpentine.”
“Really? Just like the one in London.”
“I don’t know. Are there serpents in London?”
“Not in the Serpentine. I don’t think there are. I’ve never seen one.”
“Then why’s it called the Serpentine?”
“Well, why call this the— Oh.” I now saw that what I had taken for a rainbow was really a long snake, with all the colors of the rainbow gleaming on its back. It looked quite dangerous. Peter saluted it and moved on.
“Did you come here from England?” I asked, watching to see if any serpents were following us.
“Well of course I did. I’m not a barbarian. What’s England?”
“That’s my home.”
“Oh. Then that means it’s my Never.”
I couldn’t follow his logic.
“Who was Queen when you left?” I asked.
“Queen?”
“Was it Victoria?”
“Yes. That sounds right. Victoria Blackburn. I remember that name very well.”
“No. Victoria Regina. Who’s Victoria Blackburn?”
“I think I remember my—what’s the word?—mother?—telling Victoria Blackburn to watch me while Mother went shopping. She threw me out the window.”
“Peter,” I admonished, and he laughed.
“I do think I remember a queen. Her name was Maud. Yes, she was Queen when I left.”
“Queen Maud?” I tried to remember—was there a Queen Maud? “That must have been hundreds of years ago.”
“No, it was only yesterday.” Then he laughed again, and I stopped asking historical questions. Instead I changed the subject.
“How do you fly?”
“I think lovely thoughts.” We had returned to the tree, but instead of descending he flung himself to the ground and lay back with one arm resting on his forehead.
“Really?”
“Of course not. Don’t be silly. There’s a kind of sand. Tink gives it to me. She has a large supply of it.”
“Who’s Tink?” I asked again, my frustration growing. I lay beside him.
“You’ll meet her—”
“I know, I know—tomorrow.”
“No. Now. I expect she’s given up on me trying to find her. We always meet up here—and here she is!”
I could see no one.
“Tink, this is James,” he said, sitting up.
“I don’t see her.”
“She’s right here. She thinks you’re very handsome.”
“Is she invisible?”
“No. But she can be quite small at times. Say hello to her.”
“Hello, Tink,” I said, rising to greet her. She was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s called ‘trousers,’ ” he said illogically. “It has pockets which are magic and you can hide things in them.” Then he explained: “She doesn’t know what you have on your legs. She’s never seen anything so funny.” He paused, as if listening. “She wants you to take them off, so she can see you properly.”
“No!” I blushed.
“Don’t mind her. She can be very rude. But she’s only a fairy. She’s never even been to England.” He listened again. “She says she has,” he continued after a moment. “Describe it then.” Another pause followed, and he turned to me with a grin. “She says there are hundreds and thousands of people. She’s such a liar.”
“But there are.”
This made him laugh. “Do you like to lie too? I love it. It’s such fun, especially if others beli
eve you. Like telling them you’ve sprinkled them with Flying Sand and then they walk off a cliff and fall.” He giggled. This was the first inkling I had of his Darker Nature.
“Oh, look what you have.” He pointed to something on the ground beside me.
“What?” I could see nothing.
“Panther has one of those too. I don’t, but I’d like one.”
“One what?”
“One of those!” He pointed to the ground beside me once again.
“I don’t see anything,” I insisted.
“Are you blind? It’s right beside you. That dark thing.”
“What dark thing?”
“There! It’s hooked to your feet!”
“My shadow?”
It was then I first noticed—he had none.
“Is that what it’s called? I want it. Could you lend it to me, just till tomorrow?”
“I don’t think I can detach it. It’s not physical, Peter. It happens when the sun . . .”
At that I looked up and realized—the sun had set and darkness was quickly descending. Still, my shadow was quite distinct.
“Tiger Lily says it makes one solid and real,” he announced with confidence.
“Who’s Tiger Lily? Is she a friend of Tink’s?”
“Oh my, no! At any rate, she has a . . . what is it?”
“Shadow.”
“She has one too. So does Barnaby. If I had one I must have lost it yesterday.”
I didn’t know what to say.
* * *
My night was restless.
Peter slept on the ground. I lay down nearby, and Tink told him she would spend the night with us. He had made a small house for her sometime in the past, and now retrieved it from belowground and perched it among the roots. Then he opened the little door for her and ushered her inside. I still could not see her, but as I drifted off to sleep I thought I saw a faint light twinkling inside her “home,” which resembled a tiny Cotswold cottage. Peter, though he denied it, must have remembered something of England.
Once Peter was asleep and snoring—his snores were soft and gentle, like a baby’s—I took Daisy from my pocket and allowed her to feed on my thumb, not having any other food to give her. Her needle-sharp teeth punctured the skin, and as blood ran down she lapped it up like a cat drinking milk. Meanwhile I felt for my mother’s wedding ring, making certain it was still hidden in my trouser cuff, which it was. When Daisy was finished, I put her once again in my trouser pocket, and followed Peter into Dreamland.
I had the pleasantest of dreams. I dreamed I was alone in the jungle, and that an invisible hand was exploring my empty pocket, only this hand was very very small. It tickled my thigh and I felt myself smiling, and the more it tickled the more I smiled. And then I felt like I had to make water, and I tried not to but trying not to made me smile even more, and soon the mysterious hand in my pocket was so wet it moved to my other pocket to dry itself off. It buried deep, exploring, until suddenly I felt a sudden jerking movement and I thought I heard a tiny scream. I awoke to find that both my pockets were wet. My starboard pocket was sticky and cold, with what substance I knew not, but my port-side pocket was warm with something else, something familiar. I touched it and then put my hand to my nose—it smelled of blood. Had Daisy bitten me? I shuddered at the thought. I reached in to pull her out, and she was chomping on something. A tiny mouse, perhaps, had snuck into my pocket for warmth, and Daisy at last had her dinner. I tried to think nothing more of this, and drifted once again into sleep.
I awoke with a cry, not mine, but Peter’s. “Tink! Tink! Where are you, Tink?” he wailed, and when I stood up, wiping the sleep from my eyes, he stared wide-eyed at my Daisy pocket and pointed at my thigh. “Look! Blood!” And peering down I saw the dried blood on my trouser leg. “It’s mouse blood, or something,” I tried to explain. “Daisy dined on mouse last night.”
“Villain!” he cried and drew his blunt stick. “It’s Tink! Your Daisy ate Tink!”
“Really, Peter, I don’t think so. Get hold of yourself. Tink’s around here somewhere. Crocodiles don’t eat fairies.”
“They do if they’re hungry!” he wailed. Then he collapsed to the floor, and such unconsolable sobs were never heard from any boy before. Gingerly I approached and knelt beside him, then placed a hand on his back. He turned and held me tight, sobbing into my chest as if I were his only friend, not the accused assassin of his resident fairy. We remained that way for a long time. After a while he became quiet, and very still. I could hear his baby snores. He had fallen asleep. When finally he awoke again all was forgiven, and he was as bright and cheery as he had been the day before.
“I’m sorry about Tink,” I apologized. “If it was Tink. She probably arose quite early and went off somewhere. But if she did creep into the Daisy pocket, well—is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”
“As a matter of fact there is,” he said with a beaming smile. “You can give me your shadow.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” I told him.
“But if you find a way to remove it, may I have it? For a day at least?”
“Yes, of course. If it will make you happy.”
And so I gave him the loan of my shadow, on the condition that it could be removed, little thinking anything would come of this gifting. His spirits rose even higher.
For the remainder of the day, Tink was never mentioned. It was as if she had disappeared years before, and was now but a distant memory.
* * *
“Mermaids,” I said when he asked what I wanted to do. “You said we’d meet them tomorrow, and now it is tomorrow.”
“No it’s not, James. It’s today.”
I didn’t argue.
We set off through the jungle. Peter led. The morning grew quite hot, and I took Daisy out of my pocket and let her ride on my shoulder. Peter plowed happily onward, never turning back and so never seeing my reptilian charge. It took several hours to arrive at our destination, and during our march Peter seemed content to hum merrily to himself rather than carry on with yesterday’s conversation. I was happy with the silence.
We arrived at the lagoon on the western side of the island when the sun was directly overhead. As you may have already guessed, the creatures that I took for sea lions were actually women with fish tails, lounging on rocks (the largest of which Peter named Marooner’s Rock) and combing the plankton from their whiskers. Yes, dear reader, I said whiskers. Of the walrus variety. I am certain that you, like myself, have always imagined mermaids to be irresistibly attractive, and indeed their bosoms are comely and unencumbered by corsets, but they also smell of rotting fish, and their teeth are sharp and pointed. Their breath is raspy when they are out of the water, for they breathe through gills growing on either side of their short necks. Their mermen spend much of the time in the deep ocean and shun humans, but the ladies adore playing water games with sailors and such, always with the nefarious purpose of making the sailors fall in love with them, so that they can drag them underwater to their deaths. But because these ladies are, for the most part, quite hideous, that seldom happens.
Besides, we were boys, and boys cannot love.
Still, hideous as they are on land (or rather rock), once in the water mermaids are sleek and swift and quite beautiful to watch. That is why, I believe, Peter adored playing with them; though he could never swim as well as they, he liked to try, and with each game of Find the Cockle or Pin the Tail on the Merman, he grew more adept in their wet playground. As soon as he arrived at the lagoon, he shed liana and leaves and whatever else was covering his nakedness, and dove into the tropical bath.
I sat down on the pebbled shore to watch him at play. There were half a dozen mermaids, all of whom were delighted at his arrival, and those sunning themselves on the midwater rocks immediately slipped off them and flew underwater to his side. After that it was a matter of leaping and diving, then disappearing for what seemed long minutes under the aquamarine surface until they shot int
o the air with a scream or a laugh triumphant. I took as much delight in watching them, I’m sure, as Peter did in swimming with them. He cavorted like he was a fish himself among these semi-nudes. Their exposed bosoms I found quite fascinating, but, in the spirit of my famous ancestor whenever he visited bare-breasted Tahiti (Cook was every inch of him a faithful Christian husband), I tried to keep my study of said bosoms purely scientific: how do the mermaids dive to the lagoon’s bottom when their mammaries appear to be so buoyant? and so forth. Nevertheless, I freely admit that, when on occasion one of the ladies seized hold of Peter’s hair and pulled his face into her chest and wiggled, I grew quite envious.
In the meantime I gently set Daisy on the water’s edge, thinking she might enjoy its newness, for though she had seen water from a distance, she had never touched its surface. Crocodiles, after all, make their homes in such places as this, and I planned to allow her gradual immersion until the day came when she might grow comfortable with it, and perhaps take to it for long healthy swims. As soon as I transferred her to the pebbly beach, however, she skittered into the lagoon, and before I could call her back she disappeared into its depths.
I was uncertain how to react. Would she return? Was she lost forever? It was then that I heard Peter calling. “Come join us, James!” he shouted. I stood and politely shook my head with a smile. I was shy of these ladies, truth be told; my excuse was lame and laughable: “I don’t wish to get my trousers wet!”
“Then take them off!” was his reply.
Oh dear.
As you may recall, my shirt had been torn open by Cecco in preparation for my lashing, and ever since that moment I had been bare-chested and soaking up the sun. My feet were bare, as befits a sailor’s life, and toughened to a life at sea (as well as to the thorny pathways of the Never-Isle), but my trousers, pockets and all, were the last hold I had on civilization and I was too modest to part with them. I shook my head firmly, looking toward Peter to tell him no, but he was gone.
In a moment he resurfaced at the water’s edge, accompanied by two of his fishy friends. He leapt onto the shore and with a smile seized my waistband and pulled. My diet, of late, had been quite skimpy, and I was astonished to discover that my trousers slipped down to my ankles with barely a bump. The mermaids giggled and pointed, and I covered myself as best I could. I do not, dear reader, wish to go into any details that might offend you, but suffice it to say that I was at least a year older than Peter, and that year made an enormous difference.
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