CHAPTER SEVEN

The Secret House

Wendy spent her first few days in Neverland sleeping and recovering from the arrow. At night she would go down into the boys' secret house and tell them stories as she put them in bed. After they all fell asleep she would return to her own little house and sleep. Peter would always wait outside Wendy's door and guard against the pirates and beasts.

Peter measured Michael, John and Wendy and cut holes in trees for them. The holes were all cut the same size as one person, so they could go in and out of the secret house quickly.

They all liked their secret, underground home. This home had one large room where the boys would eat, sleep, talk and play. Large mushrooms grew out of the floor quickly, and they used them as seats. There was also a tree growing in the center of the floor. Every morning the boys used it as a table for their breakfast and then cut it flat with the floor, so that they had more space to play. The tree grew so fast that by lunchtime they could eat lunch on it. On one side of the room the boys had built a fireplace. Wendy hung a rope above it to dry the boys' clothes after she washed them. There was a huge bed on the other side of the room. All the lost boys slept in it, including John too. The bed was so full that nobody could turn over unless they all turned over at the same time! The only boy who did not sleep in the big bed was Michael. He slept in a small box near Wendy, so that she could pretend that he was her little baby.

One side of the room belonged to Tink. Tink's area was separated from the boys' side of the room by a blue cloth. Tinker Bell had very beautiful furniture and a soft bed and she was very neat and tidy.

Wendy began to teach the lost boys to read and write. They all tried hard to learn, except Peter who said that he was too busy. The truth was that he didn't have the patience for reading; he thought it was an activity for adults. Peter was the only boy on the island who couldn't write his own name.

Wendy often thought about her parents. She did not want to forget them. She would try to help her brothers remember them by asking them test questions like: "What color was mommy's hair? How tall was Father? What was our dog's name?"

Wendy did become the lost boys' mother. And she now had nine children! She was so busy washing, sewing and cooking that she often did not have any free time to leave the house. She cooked roasted fruit and potatoes, she baked pigs with apples, and they drank a lot of fresh juice. Sometimes they ate real meals and sometimes they ate pretended ones; Peter always decided which. The pretended meals felt so real to the boys that you could see them getting fat as they "ate."

The boys had many adventures. Their adventures, like their meals, were sometimes real and sometimes pretended. Peter often went out alone, and he always told stories about what adventures he had when he came home. Wendy and the lost boys never knew whether he'd had a real adventure or not. Peter himself couldn't even remember!

Wendy knew that some of the adventures were true because she went on some of them. For example, Wendy found the poison cake that the pirates had made to kill the boys. The pirates put many cakes in many clever places to trick the boys, but Wendy found all the cakes and threw them into the lake.

Wendy also went with Peter on many other adventures. She saw him fight wild beasts and talk with the mermaids. Often Peter would hunt pigs while Wendy found fruit. Wendy liked going out on adventures with Peter. She did not feel that Peter was her child like the rest of the lost boys, Peter was different.

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