17 Growing Up and Good-Byes

CHAPTER 17 Growing Up and Good Byes The next morning, Mrs. Darling walked into

her children's bedroom and there they were, her babies, sound asleep as though they had never left. For a moment she thought she must have imagined them leaving in the first place. If it were not for Mr. Darling asleep in his kennel, she wouldn't have been sure. Of course, the children were only pretending to sleep. Unable to stand the suspense any longer, they leaped from their beds, screaming, and ran to hug and kiss their mother.

At the commotion, Mr. Darling crawled sleepily out of his kennel. Nana came running into the room as well. Outside, watching the Darling family reunion from a nearby tree, a little boy named Peter Pan shed a tear. He would never know such happiness, he thought. The other lost boys were a different story.

Wendy had hidden them downstairs, but she summoned them now. She made them stand in a row in front of her mother. She wished they were not all still wearing their pirates' clothes. "Please take us in," the little pirates begged. "We don't eat a lot," Nibs said. "Of course we will have you!" Mrs. Darling cried at once, but Mr. Darling frowned. "It's an awful lot of boys," he said. Really, he just wished Mrs. Darling had not answered without asking him. "I just wish people wouldn't treat me like a nobody in my own house," he explained. "We don't think you are a nobody!" Tootles cried, and the others all agreed. "You are everything to me," Mrs. Darling whispered to him. Happy, Mr. Darling said he supposed they could make room, somehow. As for Peter, he was still outside, lingering. Wendy saw him and walked over to the window.

"Oh, hello," he said casually, as if running into Wendy were a mere coincidence. "Peter," Wendy said. "Please come inside. My parents will adopt you, too." Mrs. Darling came over and stood behind her daughter. "It's true," she said. "You would send me to school and expect me to grow up!" Peter accused. "Deny it!" But Mrs. Darling couldn't. "I knew it," Peter cried. "Keep back, madam. No one is going to catch me and make me be a man. I'm going back to Neverland." "But I'll miss you so much," Wendy said. "I brought back the boys. Perhaps that's enough. Maybe I should go back with you." Wendy turned to look at her mother. "Oh, no," Mrs. Darling said quickly. "But he needs a mother." "So do you, sweetheart." Mrs. Darling could see that her decision pained Wendy and Peter, and so she agreed that

Wendy could return to Neverland for one week a year to help Peter with the spring cleaning. Peter was happy with this. He had no sense of time, anyway. He bade Wendy good -bye and said that he would be back in the spring. The boys went to school. They learned many things but, eventually, they forgot how to fly. They said it was because they were not practicing, but in truth it seemed that they no longer believed. And besides, they no longer had fairy dust to help them. Michael held on to his belief far longer than the others. And Peter did come back, as he'd promised, at the first sign of spring. Wendy had grown up since he'd seen her last, and she was worried he would notice. He didn't. As usual, he thought and talked mainly about himself. She had been looking forward to reliving old adventures, but Peter had had so many new ones since theirs, he didn't even remember them.