5
There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature
on a card, and these are probably roads in the island,
for the Neverland is always more or less an island, with
astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and
coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and
savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly
tailors, and caves through which a river runs, and
princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to
decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.
It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is
also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round
pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take
the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces,
say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth
yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the
island or they are another map showing through, and it
is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand
still.
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for
instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it,
while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with
lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned
upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam,
Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John
had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy
had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents, but on the whole
the Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they
stood still in a row you could say of them that they
have each other's nose, and so forth.
