Peter Pan in Scarlet (14 page)

Peter Pan looked up at Hook, incredulous. ‘You would have made me grow up? Under cover of a handshake!’

Hook met the accusation with a jaunty shrug. ‘Not I. You yourself. The moment a child answers the question, “
What do you want to be when you grow up?
” he is halfway to being an adult. He has betrayed childhood and Looked Ahead. He has joined the ranks of those clerks and chicken-pluckers and box-packers who scan the Situations Vacant column in the newspapers.’ His grip on Peter’s hand tightened and he hauled the whole boy up to a level with his face. It was a terrible face, scarred by grief, regret, stomach-acid, and loathing. ‘Say that you
did
think ahead when I asked you! Tell me you pictured yourself a grown man, rowing your canoe up the Amazon River—or dragging your sled over pack-ice towards True South! Curse you, Slightly! One moment more and I would have done what no mother or father could do: I would have stolen childhood away from the boy Pan!’

Still Slightly pointed an accusing finger at Hook. Still he raged: ‘That man told the Roarers you poisoned them, Peter, and made them grow older, but I say it was him! I say
he
poisoned them!’

‘He poisoned all Neverland!’ snarled Peter. His face was so close to the pirate’s that their noses touched. ‘I should carve you to the bone, villain!’

‘You would find nothing there but my hatred of thee, Peter Pan,’ said Ravello and threw him to the ground.

All this while, the Twins had been trotting to and fro with twigs from the treasure chest, to make a bonfire. As often as they piled up two armfuls of fuel, the wind scattered them again. (The blizzard grew worse with every passing moment, lashing the mountain peak with flails of snow.) Slightly went to their rescue, pinning the wood in place with bags of gold and bolts of silk from among the Treasure.

‘Oh, I’m so glad you didn’t turn brigand, Slightly!’ said First Twin with a sniff.

‘Or forget all about us, Slightly!’ said the Second.

But what else could Slightly have done, knowing the danger they were in? What choice did he have but to dog their footsteps all the way to the Point of No Return? Slightly was adult now, and though growing up is a blight and a nuisance, grown-ups do have one great merit: they cannot help caring and going on caring.

So Slightly helped the Twins to build the bonfire which might just save his friends from an icy death on the summit of Neverpeak. John ran to the sea chest to fetch a match, but Ravello slammed its lid shut with the toe of his boot and gave it a push, so that it rolled to the very brink.

‘Give me a match, pirate,’ John demanded.

‘Don’t speak to him!’ snapped Peter. ‘I have banished him to Nowhereland and nobody must speak to him. I will light the fire, as I always lit fires in the grate at the Wendy House! By Imagination!’ But though he strained and struggled, though he banged his head on the ground and wrenched at his glossy hair with desperate fingers, Peter could no more conjure up fire than he could imagine them their supper. Ravello had combed the Imagination out through the ends of his hair, you see.

The Twins were sure they could do it. After all, hadn’t they set the Neverwood alight to kill the timber dragon? But Ravello laughed his mirthless laugh. ‘Ha! Do you really credit yourselves with that,
doppel-kinder
? It was
I
who torched the Neverwood! Turned loose my animals. Sacked my circus-hands (Roarers, every one). Set fire to my beautiful tent … Burned my bridges. For as soon as I saw the Wendy girl, I knew my waiting was over. The time had come for revenge. What is a circus in comparison with
sweet revenge?
’

The air was crammed with snowflakes—as though a goose-feather pillow had burst. Without the red frock coat, Peter was gibbering with cold and he struggled to pull the white tie from round his throat.

‘A match, Ravello. Let us get this fire lit and talk after!’ called Curly.

‘A match, Ravello. Quickly!’ said Tootles. ‘Aren’t you cold too?’

‘What’s the little word that gets things done?’ said the Ravelling Man, his voice high and mocking.

Then the Explorers wanted to send him to Nowhereland and never have to speak to him again.

‘Please,’ said Wendy coldly.

‘Please,’ said Curly.

‘Please,’ said John.

Ravello gave a tug on the rope, and brought the wheeled sea chest back to his feet like a chastened pet. He opened its lid and took out a box of lucifers, shaking it gently: a sound like a baby’s rattle. Only one match left. ‘Tell me again. What’s the little word?’

‘Please!’ said Tootles.

‘Please!’ chorused the Twins.

(‘Ah! Now I see!’ said Peter to himself, puzzle solved.)

‘
PLEASE!
’ said all but Peter.

‘WRONG,’ said Ravello, striking the match against the stubble of his unshaven jaw. The flare lit up his face. It was a wretched face, scarred by his time inside the crocodile, scarred by time passing where no time should have passed. Only the aristocratic tilt of his head and the fire in his bleached-brown eyes proved that Pan’s deadliest foe, Captain James Hook, was still living within. ‘Let me think now. What
is
that little word that gets things done? Ah yes. Now I remember …’

Then he blew out the match and said, ‘
DIE!
’

Wind smashed against the mountain. The scarlet treasure chest, still half-buried in snow, only banged its lid open and shut, open and shut. But the battered old sea trunk Ravello had pulled over such a distance on its springy wheels—
that
the wind shook and rocked and set rolling like a runaway perambulator. It rolled over the brink, arcing out into space and falling, falling, spilling out salt cellars, crockery, maps, tools, and string. They never heard it land; the blizzard was on them now, larding them with ice, filling their ears and eyes and hands with snow.

‘Now you will die too, Hook!’ cried Peter Pan.

The circus-pirate shrugged. ‘I may. It is of no consequence. I have done what I set out to do. I have my Treasure. What else remains?’

‘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:

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.

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.

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
.’

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,’ said 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.