Mothers always worry about what their children are thinking.
Sometimes, they imagine traveling through the minds of their sleeping children.
They like to tidy up their children's thoughts for the next morning.
It is like straightening up a chest of drawers.
A mother folds her child's naughtiness into a small place in the back of the drawer.
The better thoughts are kept in the front of the drawer, ready to be brought out the following morning.
When Mrs. Darling traveled through her children's minds, she found the words "Peter" and "Neverland."
Though she couldn't quite place the names, they seemed strangely familiar to her.
Mrs. Darling thought they might be from her own childhood.
But now that she was a grown-up, it was hard to remember exactly what the words meant.
She vaguely recalled that Peter was a little boy who lived with the fairies.
He lived on an island called Neverland, the land of dreams.
Every child dreams about adventures in Neverland.
But Mrs. Darling, as an adult, knew that these adventures were never true.
One morning, Mrs. Darling found some stray leaves on the nursery floor just inside the nursery window.
"How did these leaves get here?" she asked the children.
"Some nights, Peter comes to visit," Wendy replied.
"Peter is very naughty. He never cleans up after himself.
He probably dropped the leaves and forgot to pick them up before he left."
When Mrs. Darling asked Wendy to tell her more about Peter, Wendy described his visits.
"He comes in through the window of our nursery.
He sits at the foot of my bed and sometimes plays his flute."
Unfortunately, Wendy explained, she was always asleep during Peter's visits.
She didn't know how she knew about them.
She just knew that Peter had surely been there.
Mrs. Darling thought Wendy was only describing her dreams.
The nursery was on the third floor and a very long way from the ground.
How could anyone possibly come through the window?
This story couldn't be real.
But the leaves that she found on the nursery floor were certainly real.
Mrs. Darling looked at them carefully.
They were unusual leaves, certainly not found anywhere in England.
The veins of the leaves formed a fine skeleton of lines.
The following evening was Nana's night off.
While the dog went out on the town, Mrs. Darling bathed her children and tucked them into bed.
Then she sang to Wendy, John, and Michael, until they each fell asleep.
Mrs. Darling sat down by the fire in the nursery and did her sewing.
She loved to watch the children while they slept.
They looked so peaceful. She, too, soon fell asleep.
As she slept, Mrs. Darling had a dream about Neverland.
She dreamed that a strange boy had flown far away from his home.
What a strange dream for a grown-up to have!
All of a sudden, the nursery window blew open.
A boy dressed in the same skeleton leaves flew in, lightly touching down on the floor.
Following him was a strange light no bigger than someone's fist.
The light darted around the room as if it were alive.
It was light as dust—fairy dust.
Mrs. Darling recognized the boy. He was Peter Pan.
And he was just as young as he had been when she first saw him as a little girl.
She remembered him now. His tiny teeth sparkled like small pearls.
At the sight of him, Mrs. Darling let out a scream.
Just then, Nana returned from her evening out and burst into the nursery, barking.
She growled and sprang at Peter, who leapt lightly up to the window.
But before he could escape, Nana grabbed Peter's shadow in her mouth.
As Peter flew away, his shadow tore off from his body.
Concerned for Peter, Mrs. Darling ran outside and down the street to look for him.
But all she saw was a shooting star in the sky.