CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A Bigger Family

While Wendy, John and Michael were upstairs with their parents, the lost boys were waiting calmly outside. They wanted to give Wendy time to tell her parents about them. Soon Mrs Darling opened the front door and they all entered the hall. They stood in a line smiling in front of Mr and Mrs Darling, took off their hats, and tried to act like gentlemen. They looked quite silly wearing their pirate clothes.

Mrs Darling was happy to have them join her family, but Mr Darling worried that the family didn't have enough money to raise nine children. Mrs Darling was embarrassed at her husband's worries, and he finally agreed that they could all become one big, happy family.

Peter landed next to Wendy and said a final goodbye. Mrs Darling stood close beside her daughter, worried that Wendy might disappear again. She told Peter that she would be happy to be his mother also.

"Would you teach me to read and send me to school?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And then to work in an office?"

"Yes, one day."

"Would I grow up into a man?"

"Yes, very soon."

Peter looked scared.

"No! I don't want those things!" he said, "No one is going to make me become an adult!"

"But where will you live?" Mr Darling asked.

"I'll go back to Neverland and live with Tinker Bell in the house that we all built for Wendy," he said. "The fairies can put the house up into the tall trees where they live."

"How wonderful!" Wendy exclaimed. Her voice was so full of desire that her mother came over and grasped her hand to make sure she didn't fly off again with Peter at that very moment.

"I didn't think there were still any fairies; I thought they were all dead," Mrs Darling said.

"There are always new fairies," Wendy calmly told her mother. "When a baby laughs for the first time, a new fairy is born. The white ones are girls and the purple ones are boys."

"Will you join me in my little house in the trees, Wendy?" Peter asked Wendy hopefully.

"May I go, please, mommy?"

"No! Certainly not!" said Mrs Darling, "I have waited a long time for you to return home. I hope to keep you here!"

"But Peter needs a mother to take care of him!" she cried.

"So do you, my wonderful daughter!" replied Mrs Darling.

Finally, Peter flew away, but before he left he made Wendy promise to come and see him once a year. Mrs Darling agreed.

Like she promised, she went to see Peter every year until she was quite old. Then Wendy married and had a baby of her own and truly became a mother. She called her daughter Jane and, Jane flew to the Neverland with Peter every year.

When Jane grew up she had a baby also, named Margaret. Soon Margaret will go see the Neverland and someday in the future, Margaret will have a daughter and she will fly to the Neverland also. And children will do this forever, for as long as they believe in their dreams.

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