u know, with tedious distances between
one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by
day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming,
but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly
real. That is why there are night-lights.

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.'

'Oh no, he isn't grown up,' Wendy assured her confidently, 'and he is
just my size.' She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she
didn't know how she knew it, she just knew it.

Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. 'Mark my
words,' he said, 'it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their
heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it
will blow over.'

But it would not blow over; and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs.
Darling quite a shock.

Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them.
For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event
happened, that when they were in the wood they met their dead father and
had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning
made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on
the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children
went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said
with a tolerant smile:

'I do believe it is that Peter again!'