dive through the air, and catch
Michael just before he could strike the sea, and it was lovely the way
he did it; but he always waited till the last moment, and 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.

He could sleep in the air without falling, by merely lying on his back
and floating, but this was, partly at least, because he was so light
that if you got behind him and blew he went faster.

'Do be more polite to him,' Wendy whispered to John, when they were
playing 'Follow my Leader.'

'Then tell him to stop showing off,' said John.

When playing Follow my Leader, Peter would fly close to the water and
touch each shark's tail in passing, just as in the street you may run
your finger along an iron railing. They could not follow him in this
with much success, so perhaps it was rather like showing off, especially
as he kept looking behind to see how many tails they missed.

'You must be nice to him,' Wendy impressed on her brothers. 'What could
we do if he were to leave us?'

'We could go back,' Michael said.

'How could we ever find our way back without him?'

'Well, then, we could go on,' said John.

'That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don't
know how to stop.'

This was true; Peter had forgotten to show them how to stop.

John said that if the worst came to the worst, all they had to do was to
go straight on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come
back to their own window.

'And who is to get food for us, John?'

'I nipped a bit out of that eagle's mouth pretty neatly, Wendy.'

'After the twentieth try,' Wendy reminded him. 'And even though we
became good at picking up food, see how we bump against clouds and
things if he is not near to give us a hand.'

Indeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly strongly, though
they still kicked far too much; but if they saw a cloud in front of
them, the more they tried to avoid it, the more certainly did they bump
into it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a bandage round
Michael's forehead by this time.

Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up
there by themselves. He could go so much faster than they that he would
suddenly shoot