6
On these magic shores children at play are forever
beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we
can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall
land no more.
Occasionally in her travels through her children's
minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not
understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was
the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was
here and there in John and Michael's minds, while
Wendy's began to be scrawled all over with him. The
name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other
words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an
oddly cocky appearance.
"
Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret.
Her mother had been questioning her.
"
But who is he, my pet?"
"
He is Peter Pan, you know, mother."
At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking
back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter
Pan who was said to live with the fairies. There were
odd stories about him, as that when children died he
went part of the way with them, so that they should not
be frightened. She had believed in him at the time, but
now that she was married and full of sense she quite
doubted whether there was any such person.
"
Besides," she said to Wendy, "he would be grown up
by this time."
