Wonder

An Awfully Big Adventure

The creak of the bed and rustle of the sheets stirred her. The weight on her right arm prompted her to open eyes. There beside her was a young boy scooching closer, trying to find a comfortable position and then his shamrock eyes lightened, creasing in a smile.

"Are you awake, Granmammy?" He asked, playing with a book in his hands. "T'is Oisin. Daddy says I have to remind you somethings sometimes."

She hummed, somewhere between a yes and a no. Her gaze panned the room, then rested on the nightstand, or more specifically, a figurine. Sensing her curiosity, Oisin reached and picked the thing: a youthful boy hovering on an enamelled circular box.

Oisin grabbed the boy's hand and pirouetted him thrice. A tune like cradlesong played, and the boy spun up and down, magic dust trailing in his wake.

She smiled.

Above the music, Oisin asked, "Where are you leaving, Granmammy?"

"Leaving?" She frowned.

"I saw Daddy crying yesterday. He's upset you're leaving."

She picked up his words, trying to unscramble, but confusingly struggled with her senses. Before her eyes, the flying boy circled the cloudy peaks. The music stopped. Then, it all came back to her. Oh, all those adventures awaiting.

"To Neverland." She said with a playful grin as if to prove her point.

"I wish you'd take me to Neverland." Laughter fluttered in every word Oisin said.

They laughed together.

She fell into a daydream.

She wakes to whispers, a cacophony of soft sounds. Her vision flutters and blurs into focus onto moving silhouettes, bunny ears and bushy tails.

"Isn't she slightly too old to be a Lost Boy?"

"Anyone can become Lost at any time."

"Who says she's Lost?"

"Pan's shadow carried her here!"

"The Shadow is never reliable; it follows its own orders sometimes."

"Oh, codswallop! We're in trouble when Pan finds out we're harbouring wrinkly!"

The air is a lingering scent of wet moss and pencil shavings like she'd been chewing on a stub, filling her senses. She realises she is inside a hollowed tree.

"She's awake!"

Startled, she turns to the voice. A troop of young boys and girls is gathered in the corner, chary and unsmiling, muddy faces and war paints. In her periphery, there's a shadow; it slowly glides out, greeting her face-to-face.

"Peter? Am I really here?" Her frail hands reach out.

"That's the Shadow," one of the boys squeaks. "You need to get out of here before Pan gets here."

"Who needs to get out of here before I get here?"

Through an entrance, the eternal youth flies in without wings. Peter Pan hasn't aged a day. He put his hands on his hip, chest puffed out, scanning the space; as his eyes stop on her, his shoulders slightly sag, and his mouth part in a gasp.

"Theo? Are you really here?" Peter takes eager, cautious steps, leaving a track of waterdrops like a snail, or rather a mischievous tot who was fooling in a cloudburst.

"You're dripping," she says.

"The sky is leaking in Neverland; rare, but not unheard of," he shrugs. The awe on his face is a cartoonist's handiwork. "Crickets, it's really you!"

The Lost Boys exchange stunned looks, confounded as though they're witnessing a rarer happening than raining in Neverland.

Suddenly, a thunder-like boom shocks the tree shell. "Peter Pan!" yells a gruff, grave voice, easily recognised in a beat of heart that the hearts of the inhabitants, even the great Peter Pan and Theo, dread.

"Oh, codswallop, how'd Captain Hook find our place!"

Through an entrance, the infamous pirate slips in; the hook on the end of his left hand glints like a threat.

"You're slipping more than usual, mate," Hook taunts, but he wears the face of a disappointed parent.

"Must be the rain," comes Peter's quick wit.

The pirate's attention turns to Theo. "I thought that shadow looked familiar," he says with a lilt of surprise. "So, followed it right here."

"Am I to leave?" she asks, remembering their first meeting. She catches Peter's stance change to protective, shielding like a child would the best pal, and the Shadow mimics.

But Captain Hook is unpredictable today. "Only if you want to," he replies.

Confusion becomes her new ally.

Neverland is the place between sleep and awake; the land of never-after, of forever-now, where you never land but only fly high—that's where Peter promised he'd be waiting. Could it mean...?

Am I dying? Fear wraps her in its arms.

Hook only smiles as if he read her thoughts. "The crocodile is waiting for you. But the choice is yours." He winks; a strange gesture coming from him and even stranger his speaking tongues. "You know what I say? When there's a deathly existence crisis, make it an adventure."

It's a complicated puzzle, but as the pieces fall into place, she sees dying as a jigsaw with no inherent meaning; it's watching a sunset on the beach or running through a wildflower meadow—or flying across a paradisiacal Neverland.

"Peter," she holds his earnest gaze, "do you expect me to fly away with you?"

"Of course, it is why you're here, right?" There's that subtle mischievous glint in his eternal, innocent eyes.

"I have forgotten how to fly," she admits, almost apologetically.

"I'll teach you again." He offers his youthful hand, and she accepts in her frail, time-worn hand. "Remember? Flying is just a leap of faith."

Finally at peace: the next moment is the regaining of a child's litheness, the restoration of mischievous youth, and, ultimately, she lifts off the ground with a smile and a drumming within her. "To die will be an awfully big adventure," she sighs.

Peter, making the best of all situations, grins and says, "As someone frightened of dying, I'd much rather it be an adventure." He hovers closer, adding: "Just like living."

Reflecting, she agrees: To live is an awfully big adventure, too. A giggle bubbles within her, knowing she lived an awfully great one.

⭒ ⭒ ⭒

The moral of the story: Live an adventure, to greet death as an old friend.