"Second to the right, and straight on till morning!"
That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even birds, car- rying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head.
At first his companions trusted him implicitly, and so great were the delights of flying that they wasted time circling round church spires or any other tall ob- jects on the way that took their fancy.
John and Michael raced, Michael getting a start.
They recalled with contempt that not so long ago they had thought themselves fine fellows for being able to fly round a room.
Not so long ago. But how long ago? They were flying over the sea before this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously. John thought it was their second sea and their third night.
Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold and again too warm. Did they really feel hungry at times, or were they merely pretend- ing, because Peter had such a jolly new way of feeding them? His way was to pur- sue birds who had food in their mouths suitable for humans and snatch it from
them; then the birds would follow and snatch it back; and they would all go chas- ing each other gaily for miles, parting at last with mutual expressions of good- will. But Wendy noticed with gentle concern that Peter did not seem to know that this was rather an odd way of getting your bread and butter, nor even that there are other ways.
Certainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were sleepy; and that was a danger, for the moment they popped off, down they fell. The awful thing was that Peter thought this funny.
"There he goes again!" he would cry gleefully, as Michael suddenly dropped like a stone.
"Save him, save him!" cried Wendy, looking with horror at the cruel sea far below. Eventually Peter would 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 en- grossed him one moment would suddenly cease to engage him, so there was al- ways 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 be- hind him and blew he went faster.
"Do be more polite to him," Wendy whispered to John, when they were play- ing "Follow my Leader."
"Then tell him to stop showing off," said John.
