Peter Pan and Me

PETER PAN AND ME

Chapter 21: NIGHT OF PEACE (OR AS CLOSE AS NEVERLAND CAN GET TO PEACE)


"Demon!" Merboy.

"Hah, he's a what?" Hook. "Hah...uh...ha...a hero? More like an
abomination." Captain James Hook.

"He kidnaps children!" A red hooded sorcerer.

"It's the riddle of his existence," Kickai.

Hook went on, "Pan, who or what are thee? I'm fighting some kind of
demon..."

Peter's face hovering over me, his inquisitive visage turning into a red
fired monster with horns on head.

I woke up screaming and hitting. Peter got the brunt of it. "Hey!" Peter
held my arms and got on top of me, straddling my hips, "Whad I do?"

"Oh," I stopped, "It was just a dream."

Peter looked at the Lost Boys, they were all still asleep. They were
heavy sleepers, at least tonight or they were just pretending to be.
"More like a nightmare."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake up you."

"Wake me up? Nah," Peter said, "Aren't you sorry about hitting me?"

I smiled, "Wellll....nope."

Peter fake smacked me and fake punched me. "I of course, never have
nightmares."

Of course, I knew this was not true. He often had nightmares and these
had to do with the riddle of his existence, something he seemed not to
really understand or did he? He knew less than he liked to brag he knew
about. He also dreamed I think of some boy who was better than he. Who
bested he. Who won over he. Big brother? Father? Lover? Me? I should be
so lucky. I seem to remember Wendy reported cradling him in her arms like
a baby some nights over such dreams. I almost never discussed this with
him. I got off the bed, "Uhmm, you do." I went to the water hole and
put my hands in the rock sink.

"Washing hands? Elwwl, how adult of you," Pan flew up off the bed
slowly and came up behind me to put his mouth by my left ear, "Are you
more adult?"

I looked down at my hands, "You do have bad dreams. What are they about?"

Peter was gone. I turned and he was gone. It was midnight. I wondered
where he'd go and often at night he would be gone. Not a lot but a lot
enough...or something.

I covered the boys with a blanket and flew out one of the holes too. I
found him on a beach, one of the few open beaches on Neverland and it was
beautiful, warm and tender. Serene night. The moon shone down. The sound
of the waves hitting the sand was calming. Peter was there near a giant
log, standing over it. I thought I heard him chanting. It
sounded...demonic. He was moving something in his hand. It didn't look
right. As I got closer he turned and I thought I saw red in his eyes.
Glow from the moon? He was whittling a piece of wood and forming new pan
pipes. His old ones had to be destroyed. The sorcerers laced it with
something that took away his powers. He wouldn't touch them. I had to
drop it into the volcano too. "Hi," was all he said and he sounded jovial
and happy, everything before forgotten apparently. "You left the boys
alone?"

"They'll be safe, the elephant's guarding the house."

"Elephant huh?" He got this mischievous look in his eyes and he bent
his head, "Bath time tomorrow?"

"Well yeah, I mean I can't stand the smell you know?" I put my arms out
and hands around his hips.

He came forward, "Of them?"

"Who else?" I hugged him close to me, "You never smell bad." It was
true. Even his sweat smelled sweet.

"Nor do you."

"I wash."

"I know."

"Regularly. Does that bother you?"

"It makes you happy. I am happy." He kissed my forehead. "But I have
to finish these. I need new ones already. It's been too long."

"I understand." I sat on the log and watched him cut the new pipes.

When he was finished, which took a long time because he was a
perfectionist, we walked along the warm windy beach and just took in the
sight of the glowing moon reflecting on the water surface. A neverbird
was cooing someplace or maybe it was a never owl because they came out at
night. Far off in the distance a smoke signal from the Indian camp rose
up into the velvet night sky. It was so easy to breath here in Neverland.
I never wanted to leave. Unless he did. And he wouldn't. Not for a long,
long long time, if ever.

We walked along the beach and then flew up the cliff side to a grassy top
which also had a great deal of rocky and sandy area. Peter was in a
joyful mood, making me forget about his being demonic, which I was sure
he wasn't. It was just a dream. He flew upside down and got beside me,
face to face, like SPIDER MAN in that big budget and good movie. He put
his mouth out, "Thimble."

I thimbled him and looked at him, "Game."

"Okay, what?"

"Word association."

"I don't like this game."

"We haven't started."

"Good!"

"Adults."

"Ewl!"

"Father."

"Me!"

"Mother."

"Darling."

"Strange."

"You."

He laughed at his own joke. I frowned and then I laughed, "Oh yeah!" I
pulled his shoulders to me and the flipped backwards back down, his back
to me. He turned and looked mad. "I...I was only kidding," I swallowed.

"Me too!" He smiled. "I think...."

"What do you think?" He came close to me and he was very seductive now
and I played along as he came to me closer than I thought possible.

"I think that I shall never grow up."

"Never grow up?" I asked, "Look at you. You're just about 15 now. When I
first met you..."

"I'm much older than 15 but not really."

"You have to think you are a boy?"

"I only look 15. I did that for you. But I am really a boy and shall
always be."

"That's...fine...by...me..." I moved closer. "How about a new game that
you've never played...."

"Yeah I...hate...." He spoke softly and in that seductive voice again,
"....word association or whatever you called it..."

"Whatever ? You admitting you don't remember?"

"No, me forget?" He said slowly, "I don't forget that you want to start
a new game." I could feel his breath on me. He took my shoulders and I
breathed in, then stopped... breathing. He smelled like roses. "NEW
GAME!" Pan pushed me over the edge of the cliff! I yelled. He laughed.

Now I could have flown before hitting the water but being a light hearted
mood, I decided to play along and let Peter have what he wanted: me
hitting the water. It was unusually warm in there and the water made me
feel so full, so full of life and so tingly and reaffirmed me being
alive. Sometimes in Neverland you feel so much of a part of the land that
you sometimes, just sometimes mind you, feel that you aren't real
yourself, a part of the unreality. But moments like this make me feel
alive, feel whole, feel like I am one of the realest things in
NeverNeverNeverland. I tried to stay under a long time, at least for me I
did this. Peter could stay under longer. I wanted him to think....I was
playing dead. Peter looked down, hands on hips, from the cliff top. He
looked with a great big smile on. It was nice swimming in water where
there were no mermaids, merboys, mermen, or meranything. For a moment
though I almost wished they were here. For there was this big shark. In a
flash of bubbles and breaking splashes, a body was beside me and punched
the shark in the nose like they say you do when confronted by a shark.
Yeah right. Who in their right mind was going to turn around and punch a
shark on the nose when it was chasing you? Well Peter Pan, that's who.
Well, to be fair to us normal human beings, this god like being was not
in his right mind. At least as right as he could be. He nearly hit the
water on the shark's back. The thing stood no chance and saw that. It saw
his furrowed brow and sly grin, then took off for greater depths or out
there in the sea. I swam to the beach. Peter came out of the water and I
wanted to turn to look at him. He was dripping wet, hair slicked down and
back somewhat, some out of place, body glistening in the moonlight. Fish
dancing at his legs. He was just...but I didn't look. I felt embarrassed.
I had saved him at least once but he kept on saving me. "Hey," he said as
if he read my mind, "It's what I do. I save people."

"You didn't save Hook."

"But those he would have killed I did."

"Yes." I ran, "But you can't kill me!"

"Oh yes I can!" Peter dove into a run. As I scooted across the beach he
flew at me but winged himself upward at the last moment.

Where'd he go? I wondered.

He made contact. From the sky headfirst. He put a wrestling hold on me
from above but I was slippery and I slipped out. I grabbed his arms and
pulled. He fell to the sand and said, "Oh yeah, you!" He rolled onto me
but I did a kick out from under him and he got behind me. We wrestled
like this for five minutes or more and it was very...well, very fun. I
would get him in a hold but he'd expertly get out and put me in a lock
somehow, either his legs scissoring me or his arms around my arms, body
against body, and he used his body like a pro wrestler and not the fake
kind on TV, the college kind. For such a boy he knew it all. Almost. I
was able to get out myself but I found that he was playing at that,
letting me get out cause it was another game to him. Just another game.
Sigh.

We ended up on the beach laying there on our backs, throwing some sand at
the sea or at each other and just laying there until the sun came up. He
fell asleep and woke up with his usual, "I wasn't sleeping!" He had one
of his dreams that night, the ones where someone better than him beats
him, bests him at swordplay, and stands there laughing at him from a
window or the top of stairs. It came as a shadow at first in his first
dreams I'm sure. I held him like I used to and always did and still do
and always will and even rocked him like Wendy used to. God, I feared at
those times (it just occurred to me that Peter always bragged that he
feared nothing and no one but this proved he did) that he would wake up
fully and see me doing this and get all embarrassed and try to banish me
or something that he would not be allowed to do by me. I also think his
nightmares had to do with the mystery of his being, and of being locked
out by his mother, the scene I actually saw and was a part of. This never
happened up to now but it was a fear. The humiliation he would feel at
seeing me do this...When he calmed down, I laid him back on his back and
watched him. Sometimes he would just talk in his sleep. And some of it I
didn't understand, some things were about other worlds, dimensions,
adventures, some that might have been from the future adventures. Some
might have just been plain old dreams.

Finally, it was time to go back to the Underground House and take care of
the Lost Boys again, I fear I haven't been very good describing them to
you. But there you have it. We left and I didn't notice the satanic
pentagram that was etched in the wood of the log that Peter was sitting
on when he made his new Pan pipes.


The play Peter Pan and its characters are trademarks of and copyright
J.M. Barrie