Peter and Wendy

by J.M. Barrie

Two is the beginning of the end.

A great line to describe the terrible twos 😂

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.

He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of some mothers also.

“they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children.”

singing enchantments over them,

Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was.

in a voice that no woman has ever yet been able to resist,

when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.”

He had his first laugh still.

“she is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots and kettles.”

“They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expenses. I’m captain.”

“why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories.

there can be no denying that it was she who first tempted him.

Is this fair to say, though, after promises of adventure and flight?

there was a greedy look in his eyes now which ought to have alarmed her, but did not.

Their faces assumed the awful craftiness of children listening for sounds from the grown-up world.

you felt it was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life. Also he was fond of variety, and the sport that engrossed him one moment would suddenly cease to engage him, so there was always the possibility that the next time you fell he would let you go.

if he forgets them, so quickly,” Wendy argued, “how can we expect that he will go on remembering us?”

sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least not well.

the island was out looking for them. It is only thus that any one may sight those magic shores.

Strange to say, they all recognised it at once, and until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were returning home for the holidays.

In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and spread; black shadows moved about in them; the roar of the beasts of prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty that you would win.

His careless manner had gone at last, his eyes were sparkling, and a tingle went through them every time they touched his body.

“They don’t want us to land,” he explained. “Who are they?” Wendy whispered, shuddering. But he could not or would not say.

The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out;

Mullins

Didn't expect to see my last name! ❤

He was never more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding;

the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour.

in his mouth he had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once.

“Some day,” said Smee, “the clock will run down, and then he’ll get you.”

The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that they knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were exactly the same thing.

The little house was so pleased to have such a capital chimney that, as if to say thank you, smoke immediately began to come out of the hat.

After a time he fell asleep, and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy.

Queen Mab,

Had to look this up, still not entirely sure if it's a real reference

is quite impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is calculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them than on the mainland.

One more wail would go the round in that wind by night.

In his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all the great pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions.

All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

She had come to save him, to give him her nest, though there were eggs in it. I rather wonder at the bird, for though he had been nice to her, he had also sometimes tormented her. I can suppose only that, like Mrs. Darling and the rest of them, she was melted because he had all his first teeth.

As we shall not see her again, it may be worth mentioning here that all Never birds now build in that shape of nest, with a broad brim on which the youngsters take an airing.

“Father knows best,” she always said, whatever her private opinion must be. Her private opinion was that the redskins should not call her a squaw.

the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are,

there is a saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies;

Thus children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones.

ever a dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as in substance.

Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our noticing for a time that they have happened.

“Two,” said Slightly solemnly.

“I’ve heard,” muttered Mullins, “he always boards the pirate craft at last. Had he a tail, captain?”

fo’c’sle.

My brain reads this as "fah-sicle" like popsicle 😆

the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.”

An early reference to the concept of fluid gender-identity?