CHAPTER III

COME AWAY, COME AWAY!

For a moment after Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house the night-lights
by the beds of the three children continued to burn clearly. They were
awfully nice little night-lights, and one cannot help wishing that they
could have kept awake to see Peter; but Wendy's light blinked and gave
such a yawn that the other two yawned also, and before they could close
their mouths all the three went out.

There was another light in the room now, a thousand times brighter than
the night-lights, and in the time we have taken to say this, it has been
in all the drawers in the nursery, looking for Peter's shadow, rummaged
the wardrobe and turned every pocket inside out. It was not really a
light; it made this light by flashing about so quickly, but when it came
to rest for a second you saw it was a fairy, no longer than your hand,
but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned
in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could
be seen to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to
_embonpoint_.

A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the
breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried
Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy
dust.

'Tinker Bell,' he called softly, after making sure that the children
were asleep, 'Tink, where are you?' She was in a jug for the moment, and
liking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before.

'Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where they put my
shadow?'

The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy
language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to
hear it you would know that you had heard it once before.

Tink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant the chest of
drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to
the floor with both hands, as kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a
moment he had recovered his shadow, and in his delight he forgot that he
had shut Tinker Bell up in the drawer.

If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that
he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops
of water; and when they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it on
with soap from the bathroom, but that also failed. A shudder passed
through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried.

His sob