Second Star To The Right

Chapter 8

"Avast belay the English brig." Hook sang as Wendy walked towards the room where he was. "We took and quickly sank. And for a warning to the crew. We made them walk the plank. Yo ho, yo ho the frisky plank. He walks along it so."

"Welcome. Shh, shh." Smee told Wendy as she walked into the room. 

"Till it goes down and you's go down. To to oral looral loo." Hook finished singing. 

"Wrote it himself." Smee told Wendy as they clapped for the Captain.

"Wendy, Darling." Hook said as he sat Wendy down at the table in the room.

"Muscat, miss?" Smee offered. 

"I'm a little girl." Wendy replied. 

"Rum, then?" Smee then asked. 

"No, thank you." Wendy declined. 

"I'm told you ran away from home." Hook said to Wendy. 

"I... I had never thought of it that way. I suppose I did." Wendy told him. 

"How wonderful." Hook replied as he clapped his hands together. 

"My parents wanted me to grow up." Wendy confessed.

"Growing up is such a barbarous business, full of inconvenience and pimples." Hook agreed.

"Things were simpler when I was younger." Wendy told him. 

"And then the mess starts, the feelings come. Pan is so lucky to be untroubled by them." Hook told Wendy who had tears in her eyes. "Oh, no. He cannot love. It's part of the riddle of his being."

"Cigar?" Smee offered to Wendy who had tears running down her cheeks. 

Hook pushed Smee away before bending down next to Wendy and wiped her tears away. "Oh, there, there. It doesn't have to be this way. Did thou ever want to be a pirate, my hearty?" Hook offered.

"I once thought of calling myself... Red-Handed Jill." Wendy told him as she started to smile again. 

"Oh, what a marvellous name! That's what we'll call you if you join us." Hook praised as Smee clapped from where he was standing off to the side.

"But what would my duties be? I could not be expected to pillage." Wendy asked him. 

"Do you, um, by any chance, tell stories?" Hook asked her. 

And so Wendy went outside and told a story to the crew. 

"And they all lived happily... ever... after." Wendy finished the story. 

The crew clapped and praised her and some were even crying. 

"Might I have time to consider your generous offer?" Wendy asked as she turned to Hook. 

"Absolutely. Of course, you must. My fellows will return you whence they found you. None of my crew will follow you. I swear it." Hook swore as he crossed his left hand over his heart. "My new obsession is you, not dear Peter Pan or his whereabouts."

"What would Mother think of my becoming a pirate?" Wendy exclaimed as she walked back to the house that the lost boys had made for her that some of the crew members had carried onto the ship. 

"Until we meet again." Hook waved as the door was closed.