???
I PETER PAN 25
PetER. (Cynically.) I thought you would want it back.
(He offers her the thimble.)
WENDY. (Artfully,) Ob dear, I didn't mean a kiss,
Peter. I meant a thimble.
demonstration, but something prevents the meeting of
their faces.)
PeteR. (Satisfied.) Now shall I give you a thimble?
WenDY. If you please. (Before he can even draw near
she screams.
PetER. What is it?
WENDY. It was exactly as if some one were pulling my
hair!
PeteR. That must have been Tink. I never knew her so
naughty before.
(TInx speaks. She is in the jug again.)
WeNDy. What does she say?
PeTER. She says she will do that every time I give you
a thimble.
WeNDY. But why?
the poor So. ver, im did you. Come o our nutsey
window?
PeTeR. To try to hear stories. None of us know any
stories.
WeNdy. How perfectly awful!
PeteR. Do you know why swallows build in the eaves
of houses? It is to listen to the stories. Wendy, your
mother was telling you such a lovely story.
WendY. Which story was it?
PeTeR. About the prince, and he couldn't find the lady
who wore the glass slipper.
PETER PAN
WeNDY. That was Cinderella, Peter, he found her and
they were happy ever after.
PeteR. I am glad. (They have worked their way along
the Pao. We to are you er, us he now jumps up.)
PeteR. (Already on his way to the window.) To tell
the other boys.
WENDY, Don't go, Peter. I know lots of stories. The
stories I could tell to the boys!
PetER. (Gleaming.) Come on! We'll fly.
WENDY. Fly? You can fly!
(How he would like to rip those storses out of her; he is
dangerous now.)
PetER. Wendy, come with me.
WENDy. Oh dear, I mustn't. Think of mother. Besides,
I can't fiy.
PETER. I'll teach you.
WenDy. How lovely to fly!
PeteR. I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back
with long tails. (She just succeeds in remaining on the
nursery floor.) Wendy, how we should all respect you.
(At this she strikes her colours.)
Wendy. Of course it's awfully fas-cin-a-ting! Would
you teach John and Michael to fiy too?
PETER. (Indiferently.) If you like.
WeNDy. (Playing rum-tum on JorN.) John, wake up;
there is a boy here who is to teach us to fly.
JoHN. Is there? Then I shall get up. (He raises his
us to Now
fly. Michael, opello, u eyes. This boy is to teach
(The sleepurs are at ence as awake as their father's rasor;
ACT 1 PETER PAN 27
but before a question can be asked NANA's bark is
heard.)
JoHN. Out with the light, quick, hide!
(When the maid LizA, who is so small that when she says
she will never see ten again one can scarcely believe
her, enters with a firm hand on the troubled NANA's
chain the room is in comparative darkness.)
Liza. There, you suspicious brute, they are perfectly
safe, aren't they? Every one of the little angels sound
asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing. (NANA'S
sense of smell here helps to her undoing instead of hinder-
ing it. She knows that they are in the room. MicHAEl,
who is behind the window curtain, is so encouraged by
LizA's last remark that he breathes too loudly. NANA
knows that kind of breathing and tries to break from her
keeper's control.) No more of it, Nana. (Wagging a finger
at her.) I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight
for master and missus and bring them home from the
party, and then won't master whip you just! Come along
(The unhappy NANA is led away. The CHILDREN emerge
exulting from their various hiding-places. In their
brief absence from the scene strange things have been
done to them; but it is not for us to reveal a myste-
rious secret of the stage. They look just the same.)
JoHn. I say, can you really fly?
PeteR. Look! (He is now over their heads.)
WeNdy. Oh, how sweet!
PETER. I'm sweet, oh, I am sweet!
(' looks somsy that she w tro it fens raging soon and
JoHN. (Rubbing his knees.) How do you do it?
28 PETER PAN ACT I
PeteR. (Descending.) You just think lovely wonderful
thoughts and they lift you up in the air. (He is of
again.)
JoHN. You are so nippy at it; couldn't you do it very
slowly once? (PetER does it slowly.) I've got it now,
Wendy, (He tries; no, he has not got i, poor stay-at-
home, though he knows the names of au the counties in
England and PETER does not know one.)
Peter. I must blow the fairy dust on you first. (For-
tunately his garments are smeared with it and he blows
some dust on each.) Now, try; try from the bed. Just.
wriggle your shoulders this way, and then let go.
(The gallant MICHAEL is the first to let go, and is borne
across the room.)
MicHAel. (With a yell that should have disturbed
LIzA.) I fewed!
(JOHN lek o, end meet any near the opposed dee.
WENDY. Oh, lovely!
JoHn. (Tending to be upside down.) How ripping!
MICHAEL. (Playing whack on a chair.) I do like it!
THE THREE. Look at me, look at me, look at me!
(They are not nearly so elegant in the air as PETER, but
their heads have bumped the ceiling, and there is
nothing more delicious than that.)
JoHn. (Who can even go backwards.) I say, why
PeteR. There are pirates.
JoHN. Pirates! (He grabs his tall Sunday hat.) Let us
go at once!
(Tink does not like it. She darts at their hair. From
PETER PAN
ACT I 29
down below in the street the lighted windor must
present an unwonted spectacle: the shadows of chil
dren revolving in the room like a merry-go-round.
This is perhaps what Mr. and MRs. DARLING see as
they come hurrying home from the party, brought
by NaNA who, you may be sure, has broken her
chain. PeTeR's accomplice, the little star, has seen
them coming, and again the WINDOW blows open.)
PeTER. (As if he had heard the star whisper Cave.)
Now come!
(Breaking the circle he flies out of the window over the
trees of the square and over the house-tops, and
the others follow like a fight of birds. The broken-
hearted FATHeR and MoTHeR arrive just in time
to get a nip jrom TInk as she too sets out jor the
Never Land.)
