Chapter 1 - Miss Worksham’s Institute for Young Ladies of Noble Families Fallen on Hard Times

   

Despite the fact that Wendy – like all children – tried her very uttermost not to grow up, the moment came when she was old enough to leave her family and go away to school.

To tell the truth, Mr. Darling maintained that they were too poor to be able to afford the fees required by a private academic institution. However, all the neighbouring children who were Wendy’s age had been enrolled for quite some time at some prestigious school or another, and Mrs. Darling was in a state of profound embarrassment. She didn’t know what to say when the other ladies asked her, ever more insistently: “Where are you sending your daughter next year?”

Therefore, in the summer of 1907, Mr. and Mrs. Darling embarked on a long and difficult search for a school with fees that were within their means (albeit at the cost of making great sacrifices, as Mr. Darling continued to stress). Finally, they settled on Miss Henrietta Worksham’s “Institute for Young Ladies of Noble Families Fallen on Hard Times”.

In her younger days, Miss Worksham had been governess to James, son of the fifth count of Heavycourt. In the course of fifteen years of honourable service in that austere and aristocratic house, she had learned from her Ladyship, the countess, how to cultivate the correct attitude of haughty disdain. She felt nothing but contempt for all those who were not of noble birth, except for persons like herself, who had dedicated their life to the service of the blue-blooded members of society. It was with this commendable spirit of service to others that Miss Henrietta had decided to open a private institute with accessible charges reserved (at least in principle) to young girls of noble families who were in economic difficulties. To her great surprise the enrolment of such pupils to her school never happened with one exception, which we will talk about later. Instead the school soon had girls from the well-to-do middle class, whose parents hoped for nothing more that there would be a chance for their girls to sit next to a daughter of even a poor Lord, as long as she had a bachelor brother a little older.

Perhaps deluded by her expectations, as years went by, Miss Worksham's attitude towards the world at large changed from being just simply haughty to one of a heavy and icy distain. However, strange as it may seem, the superior air she affected when she met the parents of her middle class pupils did not frighten them off. Instead, it constituted the best possible advertisement for her Institute.

On the day she received Mr. and Mrs. Darling, Miss Worksham looked even more disdainful than usual and this put a great strain on poor Mr. Darling. Under her icy stare, Mr. Darling soon became quite hot under the collar. He swallowed hard, terrified that Miss Worksham might refuse to accept Wendy, even though, up until a moment before, he had been complaining that the fees were tremendously expensive and that he couldn’t possibly afford them.

When, after what seemed an endless ordeal, he was finally informed by the headmistress that Wendy would be allowed to attend the school, Mr. Darling was so overjoyed that he quite forgot himself. He leapt to his feet, shouting “Bingo!” just as he had done that time when he won first prize at the parish fete – an action that Miss Worksham considered so vulgar that she momentarily considered withdrawing her decision to accept young Miss Darling.

On that occasion, Miss Worksham (like the Reverend Swell on the day of the fete) formed a decidedly poor opinion of Mr. Darling and decided to accept Wendy purely because the Institute was experiencing a few financial difficulties. However, personal contact with the young girl soon convinced her that the recent controversial theory developed by Mr. Darwin concerning the evolution of the human species was probably correct.

It was precisely because of young Miss Darling’s many good qualities that Miss Worksham assigned her a bed in the dormitory right next to Betty Ffink Pfenninger Jones, the pupil with the most distinguished pedigree in the entire school.

Naturally, the fact that Lord Bryan Ffink Pfenninger Jones, Earl of Dollingmere, one of the richest men in England, had decided to place Betty, his niece, in Miss Worksham’s school, had filled Miss Henrietta’s heart with righteous pride. However, she would no doubt have felt rather differently if she had known that Lord Bryan’s choice had fallen on her institute simply because it was the cheapest in the country.

Being unaware of his Lordship’s motives, Miss Worksham had steadfastly devoted herself to the thankless task of endowing poor Betty with the three “Ds” (Decorum, Decorum, Decorum) that she considered her duty to instil into each pupil and especially those of aristocratic descent. With Betty, however, she had had scant success.

The little girl seemed to be totally indifferent to all Miss Henrietta’s efforts. She had been brought up by her uncle’s servants, who had given her little care or affection. She was clumsy and unpolished, with a vague and absent-minded air about her and her appearance wasn’t improved by a tangled mass of unruly fair hair that seemed to fly out in all directions.

When they went to bed on Wendy’s first night at the Institute, Betty had just been subjected to one of Miss Worksham’s dreaded tongue-lashings. She was cowering under the bedcovers, crying her heart out. The kind-hearted Wendy immediately tried to comfort her.

“Would you like me to tell you a story before we go to sleep?” she asked Betty. “I always told the lost boys one when I was their mother on the island of Neverland…”

At these words, the sobbing suddenly stopped and a frail little voice came out from under the blankets: “What’s the Neverland?”

As you can imagine, it wasn’t long before Wendy became Betty’s best friend. Night after night, she told her all about her family, her brothers and her nursemaid Nana, who was a dog. She also told her about Peter Pan, who lived with the fairies, and who lost his shadow in her nursery one evening, and how she had sewn it back on again. And then she had described the little fairy, Tinker Bell, and the fairy dust that made you able to fly and how she and her brothers had flown to the Neverland, where she had been captured by the pirates and their wicked Captain Hook.

There were so many other wonderful things that Wendy told Betty that first term before Christmas, in Miss Henrietta Worksham’s Institute for Young Ladies of Noble Families Fallen on Hard Times.

As Christmas was drawing near, Miss Worksham’s young pupils began to get ready to go home to spend the festive season with their parents and Wendy asked Betty what she was going to do during the holidays. Just think how upset she was when she learned that her little friend would be staying on at school and that she had NEVER gone home for Christmas. She had always been left on her own, either with her uncle’s servants or with the Institute’s domestic staff.

At that point Wendy told her a secret. Mrs. Darling, she whispered, had promised that if she was the top of her class, she could go for a few days with Peter to the Island, immediately after Christmas.

After this revelation, which quite took Betty’s breath away, Wendy proceeded to invite her to come to the Darling’s house in London to spend Christmas with Mr. and Mrs. Darling, Nana, John and Michael. Afterwards, on the 28^th December, they would both go with Peter and her brothers to the Island.

It was the Friday night of the last weekend before the holidays and the girls had no homework for the following Monday, so young Betty decided to do something that, as we’ll find out later, would have terrible consequences for the outcome of our story. She decided that she must absolutely, immediately, without delay, write a letter, a long letter, no - a GREAT LOOOOOOOOOONG letter to her brother William, telling him all about the wonderful holiday she was going to have.

Chapter 2 - William

  
 Lord Bryan Ffink Pfenninger Jones was sitting in his lavishly furnished study in Belgravia, lost in thought, when his butler’s voice brought him back down to earth.

“Your nephew is here, Milord. Master William asks if you can see him.”

It was only five days before Christmas and Lord Bryan thought that probably the boy had come to wangle some money out of him, so he was tempted not to receive him. Then he reflected that William was almost seventeen. It wouldn’t be long before he came of age and then he might start wondering just why the family title and fortune had been passed on to his uncle, and not to him, when his parents died.

Lord Bryan felt pretty safe as far as that was concerned. His lawyers had made such a good job of faking all the documents that young William would have considerable difficulty proving that his inheritance had been subtracted by his uncle’s artful manoeuvres.

What Lord Bryan was more concerned about was the magnetism and charm that his nephew had inherited from his mother, who had been considered the most fascinating woman in England. William was the most popular boy at Eton where he had fortunately won a scholarship to attend, as his uncle would never have paid for the expensive fees. His classmates adored him and he was the mythical captain of the cricket team. His Lordship feared that when William’s friends, who were all sons and heirs of noble families, reached adulthood, they might rally around their old school pal. And then they could certainly become more dangerous than a legion of lawyers.

“Send him in,” he therefore told the butler.

William came in and Lord Bryan was again surprised that his nephew was surrounded by the same magical aura as his mother. It seemed, in fact, that a mysterious ray of sunshine appeared the minute William stepped through a door, drawing everyone to him.

“Hello, William! Merry Christmas,” muttered the Earl. “What brings you here? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

William’s sunny smile was almost dazzling: “Hello, uncle, I’ve come to see you because I’m worried about Betty.”

Now, if William had one failing, it was that he tended to be too trusting. Coming here to speak to his uncle about any problems that he or his sister might have, was a mistake he ought not to have made. Lord Bryan had built his empire on other people’s errors. The Earl brightened up immediately, putting on an expression of kindly interest as he went to sit beside his nephew. “Tell me, my boy. Tell me!” he growled softly.

It was a simple enough story; Betty had always been a dreamer, but now Miss Worksham had put her in the bed next to another girl, a certain Wendy Darling, who had convinced her there were spirits, elves, pirates, redskins and mermaids living on a magic island. Wendy claimed that you could only get there by flying through the air and going second to the right, and straight on till morning.

“Oh  well, young girls often believe in these kind of things,” said Lord Bryan, somewhat disappointed.

“Oh, I know that girls love fairy tales,” said William, pulling a sheaf of crumpled writing paper out of his pocket. “But the fact is that this Wendy has invited Betty for the holidays and she has promised to take her to a place called the Neverland after Christmas. They’re supposed to be flying there with a certain Peter Pan.   I’m really worried,  Uncle Bryan, ” the boy went on, “You read so many terrible stories in the papers…I’ve asked around, but nobody knows these Darlings…and as you’re Betty’s guardian….”

“What are these bits of paper?” his uncle asked, his interest aroused. It occurred to him immediately that if he could demonstrate that Betty wasn’t quite right in the head, he would be able to take her away from school and save the fees. What’s more, the child was an orphan and maybe he could put her in one of the orphanages he managed, where she could take one of his famous courses of open-air-economics.

When he found that the letter contained descriptions of the island, the story of its inhabitants and how to get there by flying through the air, plus all that other nonsense about this Peter who was supposed to come to London on the 28^th December to pick up the children, Lord Bryan – had he been Mr. Darling - would have jumped to his feet with his arms raised high and shouted “Bingo!” But Lord Bryan was an astute businessman and so he concealed his emotions. He decided he must absolutely get hold of the letter and then he would decide what to do next. He remembered that Lord Bargain, the county judge, had recently asked him for yet another favour. He hadn’t obliged him yet, because he hadn’t known what to ask in exchange. However, perhaps with this letter, he could get his friend the judge to issue an order giving him full custody of the little girl. If he had direct custody of the child, he could use her as a hostage in case William should ever become a bit too inquisitive.

“Oh,” he said, assuming a look of concern, “Give me that letter, William. I’ll find out all about these Darlings right away and let you know.”

Just at that moment, the telephone on his desk began to ring.

“Yes?” his Lordship said. William overheard an excited voice with a thick German accent on the other end of the line, saying: “It vorks, Milort! It vorks! Zi machine iss vorking wunderbar!”

“We’ll come right over!” cried Lord Bryan, leaping up from his chair. With one hand he slammed down the receiver and with the other he whipped the letter out of William’s hand.

“Mortimer! Mortimer!” Lord Bryan called his son, as he locked Betty’s letter in the drawer of his desk.

A moment later, the door opened slightly and the eel-like head of the slimy Mortimer Ffink Pfenninger Jones poked through the gap.

Mortimer slid into the room, just like the eel he resembled. He didn’t really walk. He slithered sideways. Instinctively, he never moved into the middle of a room, but he seemed rather to be drawn, in some mysterious way, to the darkest corners, as if something sucked him into the twilight zones.

The two cousins could not have been more different: William was golden-haired, cheerful and charming, while Mortimer was pallid and baleful, with shifty eyes that were half hidden under his scanty fringe of greasy black hair.

Mortimer put his head to one side and smirked at his cousin, without showing his teeth and William wondered if Mortimer actually had any teeth.

It wasn’t just a question of Mortimer’s teeth, William couldn’t help thinking to himself. The whole of him was poisonous, from his head to his toes. If a cobra bit him, it would be the cobra that died amidst atrocious sufferings. But then, William reflected further, if Mortimer ever wanted to kill somebody, he wouldn’t even need to bite them - touching them would be enough!

“Mortimer!” Lord Bryan cried excitedly. “Octopus just phoned. It seems that this time the machine really is working! We must go and see it. Get ready at once! As for you,” he said, turning to his nephew. “ Don’t worry, my dear William, I’ll take care of Betty!”

He was so pleased that, for a moment, he forgot how much he disliked his nephew. In an unusual burst of generosity he even offered him a lift to the station in his car, so that he could catch a train for Eton before nightfall.

Chapter 3 - Lord Rubbish

Lord Bryan’s carriage drove smartly out of London and headed towards the open countryside.

As the vehicle drew near the city dump, it began to pass trucks piled high with refuse. Despite the fact that it was a freezing cold day and the air was sharp and crisp, the nauseating smell that assailed the noses of the passengers became quite overwhelming, the nearer they got to their destination.

Lord Bryan had hit on the idea of opening a community waste disposal facility quite by chance. One day, he had mislaid a pair of gold and diamond cuff links. Fearing that they had somehow fallen into one of the rubbish bins, he had summoned the servants and ordered them to comb through all the garbage, while he stood by, with his eagle eye, watching them. He had been astounded to see just how many things the servants carelessly threw away. As no trace of the cuff links could be found, he had then enquired where the city tip was situated. He had gone there and forced his servants to rummage through the refuse for three whole days. He did not find what he was looking for. However, his belief that a rubbish heap contained everything you can possibly think of was confirmed. All you had to do was look.

Remembering that he owned an old abandoned mine, he had leased it to the city council - naturally at an exorbitant price - so that they could use it as a dump. And then he had had a brilliant idea. How could he recover all the iron, copper, paper, cloth and bits of wood that the foolish Londoners discarded so easily?

Ah! he thought, orphans! That’s it! There are plenty of orphans around! The orphans became another of his lucrative sidelines. In no time at all, he had obtained gifts, charity donations and public contributions to build two orphanages where he gathered a hundred and fifty orphans, and he spread the word that he was giving them the benefit of an advanced course in economics. The children, he said, worked up to ten hours a day in the open air, in close contact with Nature, where they studied the sacred principles of economics, the first of which was not to throw away anything that might prove useful.

Occasionally, the thought crossed his mind that perhaps the children did not enjoy scavenging in the garbage with their bare hands, summer and winter, in sunshine and rain. This doubt upset him a little. In fact, he was forced to admit that some of these horrid, lazy, ungrateful little urchins even ran away sometimes. This was deplorable, because he received benefits from the government for each orphan in his care. The more children ran away, the less money he received.

His lively and enterprising mind had therefore devised a means of solving the problem. He created a category of “Humanitarian Guardians», made up of fifteen hefty young thugs, led by a certain Johnny the Stinker. Each “Guardian” was made responsible for ten children. Their services were rewarded with 10% of the profits gained from the sale of all the material recovered (the remaining 90% went into his own pocket and the children got nothing, naturally). It has to be admitted that, thanks to this incentive, the Humanitarian Guardians were sometimes a little rough with the children. They often beat them to make them work harder. However, the Earl reflected, this was all quite understandable. After all, the children had to learn that one of the pillars of the science of economics was the division of labour.

The fact that the kids called him Lord Rubbish did not perturb him. After all, he thought, there were the “Coal Barons” and recently, in the City, strange foreign personages dressed in long ridiculous caftans had begun to make an appearance. These were known as “the New Petroleum Lords”. The aforesaid petroleum was a horrible black liquid with a worse stink than his refuse. Did these Lords get offended? Of course they didn’t! So why should he care?

If anyone should be ashamed, his thoughts ran on, it was the children. They ought to be more respectful towards his person. He, Bryan Ffink Pfenninger Jones, was one of the greatest benefactors of mankind - or so he had been classified by “The Times”.

To tell the truth, “The Times” had not exactly mentioned him directly. The Earl had read the headline and the first sixteen lines of an article (he rarely read more than that). This stated - if he had understood correctly – that, according to the theories of a distinguished expert in the economic field, much appreciated in the City (a certain Adam Smith, as he recalled), entrepreneur who produced wealth in a free market system did not work for himself alone. He brought riches to the whole of society by creating work for people, who would produce more and consequently spend more.

In other words, a benefactor of mankind.

Now, he pondered, as England was a free market and he was the richest man in England, he was therefore the greatest benefactor in the kingdom! This revelation, which he had gleaned from the pages of the most authoritative daily paper in the country, had relieved him of all the niggling doubts that assailed him every so often. He was not unscrupulous, he told himself proudly. He was not a cynical scoundrel (as many people claimed). He only liked doing business, just as a child likes playing. And the great thing about playing about on the Stock Exchange and in the City was that, if you managed to do good business, you also became a benefactor!

Then, one day, he had met the brilliant Dr. Otto Kohops, whom he had jokingly nick-named Dr. Octopus. This was because his hands were always flying around in a frantic search for his notes, papers, pencils, pipe, watch and so on. He moved his arms so fast that there seemed to be more than two of them.

Otto was a master of what Lord Rubbish indulgently referred to as “Confused Science”. He had attracted the Earl’s attention with his idea of building a “Synthesizer”. This was a machine that, he claimed, would be able to extract and reproduce the chemical elements of any chosen sample of trash.

Lord Rubbish could already see this “Synthesizer” in his mind’s eye, standing between two gigantic conveyor belts. A big glass dome containing the samples to be duplicated in the middle, and all the London waste would be poured onto one of the belts, while duplicated tins of beans, tomatoes, lettuce heads and all other kinds of goodies would issue from the other belt. The pleasure of thinking that he could make money out of something he had been paid to destroy kept him awake at night.

His dreams were filled with this vision. He was elated at the thought that the scrapings and peelings he recovered from the garbage could be given to the hungry poor he saw hanging about at street corners. Naturally, he told himself, they would have to pay something for it – not much maybe - but they would definitely have to pay. There were many honourable members of the Opposition who heatedly claimed that money should be doled out to the poor. Lord Bryan firmly believed that this was a dangerous idea and, if it were taken too far, it would seriously undermine the honest, hard-working spirit of the British.

The secret laboratory where he had confined Octopus was in the middle of the immense London rubbish dump. The poor man carried out his experiments with a clothes peg constantly on his nose so that he wouldn’t be overcome by the noxious fumes. “You will leave here, “Lord Rubbish had told him, half serious and half in jest, “When your machine works.” Then, with one excuse or another, he had prevented him from ever leaving the laboratory.

However, after innumerable experiments the machine still did not work properly and the Earl started to get impatient. He began to think that perhaps it wasn’t sufficient just keeping the professor shut up in these unsavoury surroundings. Maybe it would be a good idea to let him wander around amongst the garbage for a night or two in summer, when there was a lovely full moon. All the rats would be seen in the light and the moon would make the gangs of stray dogs howl louder than ever.

It was this careful attention to details, plus his ability to motivate his collaborators and workforce, combined with his extraordinary business instinct, that had made Lord Bryan Ffink Pfenninger Jones the richest man in the realm.

As the carriage drew nearer to their destination, they came across groups of children between six and eleven years of age, laboriously pushing wheelbarrows loaded with junk. They were followed by brawny thugs who greeted Lord Rubbish by raising their knobbly sticks as a sign of respect.

Finally, they reached the laboratory. “Professor!” the Earl cried gaily. “Well then, have we brought it off?”

“Ya, ya! Kom, kom, I zshow you.”

The professor’s pronunciation, which was normally almost incomprehensible because of his heavy Teutonic accent, was even more nasal and unintelligible than usual because of the peg on his nose.

An enormous machine puffed and wheezed in the centre of the shed that housed the laboratory. Piles of refuse were being fed in at one end and neat rows of tins of beans, tomatoes and fruit flowed out the other end. Some samples were on display under a big glass dome. The duplicated cans seemed perfect and even the labels were identical to the originals.

“Excellent, professor! The outside looks great! What about the inside?”

“Zame inzide! Kemical kontents identical to original!” replied the professor. “Ja! Vun problem only…”

“Only what?” his Lordship demanded in an aggressive tone. “You didn’t bring me here to show me the usual botch up, I hope?”

“Octopus,” said Mortimer in a quiet, deadly voice. “If that food is as good and wholesome as you say, you eat some of it. Go on! Right now, like a good fellow. Show us, take a little from each tin.”

“Excellent idea, Mortimer! Eat up, professor!” the Earl agreed. “Let’s see you!”

“Jaa,” poor Octopus twittered,  “I cout eat zum. Only…”

“EAT!!!” ordered father and son together and the professor was obliged to eat Recycled Jones in the varieties: Special Beans, Special Bacon and Special Tutti-Frutti.

When he had finished, Mortimer sneered, “Well, professor, what was wrong with it?”

“Iss only zat food from machine…. stink! Wissout peg on nose nein eat!” poor Otto cried.

“Is that all?” Lord Rubbish said calmly. “These paupers who are always complaining won’t expect us to sell them caviar and champagne, will they? They want healthy, nourishing food that’s cheap? They’ll get it. It may smell a bit strange, but if they’re really hungry, they’ll end up buying it - you’ll see, professor.

“I remember,” he mused, “When I was a child, I hated spinach and my nanny always said: ‘Bryan, hold your nose. Be a good boy and eat up and then I’ll give you a treat. I’ll take you to the merry-go-round!’ And so I ate it!”

As he recalled this incident, the Earl’s face lit up. “We’ll do the same thing as my nanny did! Whoever buys three tins of Recycled Jones will get a free peg so he won’t notice the smell. What’s more, I’ll get some top designer to create the peg. We’ll make blue ones for the Dads, red for the Mums, pink for little girls and pale blue for little boys.

“And I will promote the peg in person. When I attend Parliament, and the Opposition begins to speak, I’ll don my clothes peg and have them  write on the first page of “The Times”: “Lord Bryan Ffink Pfenninger Jones can listen to the Opposition without vomiting, but that is only because he put his special peg on his nose.” It will be a wonderful advertisement!”

Like all great men, the Earl was immediately aware of the historic importance of that moment. He was sure that the words that were to issue from his mouth would be handed down from generation to generation. He was absolutely convinced that the Ffink Pfenninger Jones family would come to an end that night. Instead, in its place, a Dynasty would be born and the words of the Founding Father would be recorded for posterity.

“My son,” Lord Bryan said, leading Mortimer to the window, where he could admire the view of the dump in the light of the moon. “Just think, one day, everything that you see, all this,” He made a sweeping gesture with his left hand towards the piles of refuse, while he placed his right hand on Mortimer’s shoulder, “All this” he repeated, “Will be yours! In every major city of the world, wherever garbage exists, we’ll be there!

“I can guarantee, son, that a day will come, and perhaps I shall no longer be amongst you, when we’ll manage to eliminate the smell. And we’ll be able to produce every single thing - even bigger and better diamonds than that detestable De Beers…. 

“We shall be the biggest economic power in the world, son, and you will be at the helm!”

Lord Bryan stood in silence for a moment, then he shook off his vision of the future, took his arm off his son’s shoulder and said gaily, “This is a truly wonderful day! All my dreams have come true! Just think! Even my dream of finally getting rid of William and Betty. As luck would have it, Betty’s dreams are going to help me achieve this!

“Here we are dreaming about conquering the world and – believe it or not – she’s dreaming about Peter Pan and the Neverland!”

“BETTER BAN?! ZE NEZERLAND! WHO ZAYS ZEEZ FINKS ARE DREAMS?” exclaimed Dr. Kohops in great agitation, speaking through his nose more than ever. “Ziss iss no dream. Ziss iss zi truf, Milort!”

“Professor, what are you saying?” cried Lord Bryan. “How can there be a Neverland? How can you believe you can fly there?”

But the poor professor was unable to reply because he had burst into tears.

“Come now, come now, professor! What’s this all about? Why are you crying?”

You may not be able to believe this, but the professor told them that when he was a little boy, he had been with Peter Pan and the lost boys in the Neverland. Then he had wanted to grow up and Peter had sent him away.

How sorry he had been! How often he had longed to return! But- he explained, sobbing louder than ever – nobody could go back to the Neverland without Peter’s permission and some fairy dust.

It was almost impossible to convince Lord Bryan that this incredible story could be true, but, in the end, Otto more or less succeeded.

“In island, nicht dirty, everyzink pure, everyzink beautiful, everyzink clean…” cried the professor, who then added in a wistful tone, “Why we don’t go to ze Island, Milort?”

At this point, a short and rather absurd exchange took place between Lord Bryan and Octopus that was, however, to have unforeseen and drastic consequences for everyone in our story.

“All right, professor, but how do you get to this Neverland?”

“Iss zimple, Milort: only need to fly!”

“Yes, I realise that,” snapped the Earl  impatiently. “But how can you fly?”

“Even more zimple. Zu jusst need fairy dust!”

“But, curses, how do you get hold of some of that?” shouted Lord Rubbish, whose patience had often been sorely put to the test by Octopus’ extravagant theories, “Where do you get fairy dust?”

“Now everyzink zimple wiss my new great invention: zu get fairy and put it into Synthetyzer!”

At this point, the Earl put an end to the conversation. He decided that if, as was likely, the stories spun by Betty and this lunatic Octopus were nonsense, he would still have the excuse he needed to get rid of his nephew and niece for ever. But, on the other hand, if this Peter really existed and came to get the children, he would be able to get hold of some fairy dust…

Now, he decided, the first thing to do was go back to London and read Betty’s letter.

Chapter 4 - Plans, treachery and plots

 The letter was full of all the fascinating details that Wendy had told Betty about Peter and the Neverland, details that matched absolutely everything Otto had said.

Lord Bryan’s interest was aroused almost to fever pitch by the time he had finished reading. Summoning the professor, he got him to go over, again and again, all the things he remembered about that marvellous place.

As Otto told him more and more about the island and its strange inhabitants, ideas began to erupt inside his Lordship’s head.

“Octopus! Mortimer! I have a great idea! Let’s suppose this place really exists. It doesn’t belong to anybody. There are only children living there,  as well as some Red Indians and a couple of down-at-heel pirates. Then there’s nature, nature and even more nature! There are tigers, lions, bears, mermaids and infinite unpolluted beaches. It’s a tax heaven and a tourist paradise - and it’s also big business for the first person that can lay his hands on it. And that person is going to be ME!

“I’ll move my residence there, and my companies as well, of course. I could open a bank and a casino.”

By this time, you and I have become accustomed to observing how Lord Bryan dreams up new ventures, driven on by his extraordinary business sense. We can only continue to marvel at his enthusiasm and ability to create new projects, as well as listen to him while he illustrates all these fantastic plans with such mental agility and ease.

“We could build a hotel. Let’s say, about 5,000 rooms. It will be the world’s first theme park. Everything we need is there already. We’ll set up a little train to take the tourists to the Indian village and the lost boys’ place. We can offer canoe trips on the river, all-inclusive tours to the pirate galleon and mermaid-watching expeditions…we’ll even sell the children packets of food so they can feed the mermaids.

“By the way, professor, what do mermaids eat? They’re really fish, after all. Fish usually like tasty titbits, so we could give them Recycled Jones. We could have a picture of Peter Pan, with a tin of Recycled Jones in his hands feeding the mermaids, on our brochure! Take note of that, Mortimer. I think that would be a perfectly terrific idea!

“And then,” Lord Bryan’s mind raced on, “What about hunting? All those wild animals! A perfect paradise for sportsmen! I wonder if you can fish for mermaids? A nice stuffed mermaid would look good above the fireplace in a seaside villa in Maryland or the Costa Azzurra. I wonder how much an American tourist would be prepared to pay to have a stuffed mermaid above his mantelpiece?”

“And how do you plan to get these tourists to the island?” Mortimer sneered sceptically.

“Oh, son, I told you: THINK BIG! They’ll fly there, naturally. If we manage to reproduce fairy dust in the Synthesizer, transportation will be no problem.” Lord Bryan’s lively brain had conjured up an exciting new business venture and he wasn’t going to let it go. “It will cost us next to nothing to make the fairy dust. We can do without these expensive German Zeppelins! We won’t be giving any more of our precious currency to Germany. We’ll set up the world’s first low cost air transportation company for tourists – and it will be British! Yes, indeed, British!

“I’ve already thought of a name,” he rushed on. “We’ll call it ‘Bryan Air’. It’ll be a huge success. That’s absolutely certain!

 “We’ll have the monopoly on fairy dust made in our Synthesizer. Britain will no longer be subjected to the blackmailing tactics of these strange petroleum barons in caftans! They’ve got their smelly petrol? We have an endless reserve of even smellier garbage! Do you know, Mortimer, that the industrialised countries are the greatest producers of rubbish? And the Ffink Pfenninger Jones family will have the monopoly – not only here, but world-wide…”

He paused to reflect.

“If you think about it, this is really something to be proud of!” he concluded.

“That’s very well,” sniffed Mortimer from the darkest corner of the room. “But how do we get hold of a fairy?”

“Octopus, what do you need in order to duplicate fairy dust?” asked the Earl, somewhat impatiently.

“Ich told you yestersday, milort. Get fairy and put it in Synthesizer, ja!” was the professor’s laconic reply. He was well aware that the first rule of a good consultant is not to offer too detailed advice on things you know nothing about.

The two men seemed to have come to a kind of impasse. Then Mortimer came up with his own idea: “Maybe I’ve got the answer. Let’s invite William and Betty to dinner on the 27th December. We'll tell them to bring their friend Wendy. You promised William you’d look after Betty, and so you can say you want to meet young Wendy Darling. He’ll swallow that and he’ll even be grateful for the trouble you’re taking!”

He dropped his voice. “After dinner, we’ll send them home in our carriage. They’ll only have the coachman with them. Before they reach the Darling’s house, a gang of our “Humanitarian Guardians” will attack the carriage with their clubs.

“I’ll speak to Johnny the Stinker. He’s a bright boy. They won’t hurt the kids, but they’ll take them off to the dump and we’ll hide them inside the Synthesizer. If Wendy’s telling the truth, this Peter Pan will come the next day with his fairy to take them to the island. He’ll have to go into the Synthesizer to get them and he’ll have to sprinkle them with fairy dust so that they can fly away.

“So, if the professor gets the machine ready and sets the timer, we’ll be able to get the sample of fairy dust we need.”

“Brilliant, atsolutely brilliant!” said Otto admiringly.

Chapter 5 - The Trap

  I’ll leave you to imagine all the excitement on Christmas Eve in the Darling’s household, when one of the Earl’s valets delivered the invitation for Wendy and Betty.

Mrs. Darling had been forced to endure, in a dignified silence, the scornful looks of the other mothers when she named the academic establishment that Wendy attended. Now she was filled with delight at the thought that she would shortly be able to tell these ladies about a Christmas party held at the residence of His Excellence, Lord Ffink Pfenninger Jones – “the uncle of Wendy’s dearest friend.”

Mr. Darling, on the other hand, started to fret that Wendy would need a new dress. However, he was soon reassured by the fact that not even Betty possessed a special dress she could wear to go to her uncle’s house.

Now, I know you are anxious to learn whether the Earl and his son’s evil plan was successful or not, but, first of all I must tell you that Christmas Day was quite magical for Betty. Everyone overwhelmed her with kindness and gave her lots of presents. John even wrote a poem for her and presented it, blushing red as a beetroot. Naturally, this thrilled little Betty.

Finally, the day of the 27th arrived and William came in his uncle’s carriage to pick up the two girls. As we know, William had his misgivings concerning Wendy, but he had decided to hide them and behave politely to everyone.

The girls were ready well in advance. They waited for William in the sitting room, peeping from behind the curtains to watch the carriage draw up at the door.

Truth to tell, the girls’ behaviour would have made Miss Worksham exceedingly annoyed, because they both completely forgot the importance of her instructions regarding “Decorum, Decorum, Decorum”. Betty tore open the front door and ran into the street to hug her brother, shouting with joy, while Wendy…

Well, it’s difficult to say what Wendy did. She had the feeling she had been covered in fairy dust and she was flying all over the place. It seemed to her that everybody in the room had stopped talking - or else she had become deaf, because she couldn’t hear a thing. She came back down to earth only when Betty pulled her sleeve for the third time and cried in her ear (she hadn’t heard the first two times) “Can I introduce my brother?”

William and his constant private sunbeam came towards her. Wendy, who would have preferred to run away, struggled to control herself, dropped a curtsey and murmured: “Welcome, milord!” And this made Betty, John and Michael, who had run to meet the guest, fall around with laughter.

I must say that, in all the confusion, some fairy dust had probably dropped on Mrs. Darling by mistake. For a moment, if he had been quick enough, William might have managed to catch the sweet little kiss that was always in the right-hand corner of her mouth.

The Earl treated the girls and his nephew with extreme kindness during dinner. He was particularly attentive to Wendy. He asked her how she was getting on at school and also a great many questions concerning that Peter Pan fellow who was going to pick her and Betty up and the Neverland where he lived.

Playing the perfect host, he inquired all about their trip - how long it would last, the direction they would take and the layout of the Island, as well as the number of pirates and Indians and the kind of weapons they had. In short, his Lordship, who was an expert at worrying out secrets, did everything he could to win over his young guest. He would have completely succeeded if Wendy had not been distracted all evening by an annoying little sunbeam that seemed to hover mysteriously over William’s head, dazzling her eyes.

Lord Bryan’s manner was so relaxed and friendly that he put his young guests entirely at their ease. When he proposed a toast before they went back home, Betty, who was overcome with happiness and excitement, raised her glass containing a thimbleful of champagne and cried: "I wish Wendy and William would get married soon!”

Naturally, poor Wendy was so embarrassed that she would have liked to have disappeared under the table. She was so ashamed that she thought she would die if her eyes met William’s. And as for William – his first thought was that gabbling sisters ought to be put down by law - in a painless way, of course, but definitely exterminated!

In that moment of intense drama for his guests, the Earl rose splendidly to the occasion. He laughed gently at Betty’s outburst and treated Wendy with great delicacy. He said that if what Betty desired should, in fact, actually take place, the young couple would have his blessing. Then he distracted their attention by changing the subject. When the moment of confusion was past, he accompanied them to the door, where he said an affectionate goodbye and gallantly kissed Wendy’s hand. “Now, have a good trip, young lady,” he said. “And give my regards to your Peter!”

The three friends’ return trip home would have been perfect, as Wendy confessed to William some years later, but for the fact that the horse’s hooves made such an annoying noise all the way back. At that moment, she had been sure they were racing over clouds and not cobblestones, and there shouldn’t have been such a clatter.

However, all this was spoiled when they had reached the top of the avenue where the Darlings lived. That was when Johnny the Stinker and his ruffians arrived on the scene.

Some time later in the Darlings’ sitting room (where Mr. Darling was tenderly trying to console his weeping wife), the bruised coachman made a statement to the police, declaring that a wicked band of scoundrels had dragged away poor Master William and the two terrified, screaming girls. In reply to the sergeant’s questions he added: “Oh, yes, naturally, Master William fought like a lion. He even managed to pull off the ragged scarf that the one who looked like the leader had over his face.”

Unfortunately, however, the coachman had been unable to identify the rascal.

Chapter 6 - Peter Pan arrives on the Scene

Peter was rarely punctual. In fact, it was more common for him to forget all about appointments, just as he forgot names and faces. That Christmas, however, for some strange reason, he arrived as expected on the afternoon of the 28th December. Perhaps he had missed Wendy, or John, or Michael, or maybe Mrs. Darling’s stories, or her cakes, or maybe he was simply tired of playing with the fairies in Kensington gardens. The fact is that at 5 o’clock, when darkness had already fallen, he knocked on the window of the Darling sitting room.

He arrived there singing, as he always did when he was happy. He knocked on the glass to get them to open up and then executed a neat pirouette in the air before he landed on the sofa.

“Hi, there!” he greeted everyone.

“Boo hoo!” sobbed John and Michael.

“WOOOOOOOO!” howled Nana from her basket.

“BOOOOOO HOOOOO”, Mr. Darling wept loudly, so that nobody could say the dog loved his daughter more than he did.

“Sob, sob”, Mrs. Darling cried quietly into her handkerchief.

Peter didn’t like tears, or people who were sad. Therefore he cocked his head to one side, with the air of someone who is thinking “It would have been better if I’d stayed in Kensington with the fairies!” Then he asked politely: “Has somebody died?”

“BOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!” the room cried in chorus – all except Mrs. Darling, who limited herself to discreet little “boo hoos!” into her handkerchief.

Dear! Dear! This was Christmas when everybody ought to be happy! For a moment, Peter thought of flying away from this dreary place, but then he turned to John and asked him what had happened.

What do you think Peter’s reaction was to the news of the kidnapping, when the anguished Darling family told him about it? You’d expect him to be upset, to have railed and shouted, wouldn’t you? Instead…

“Hurrah!” he cheered. “Let’s go and rescue them.” Peter loved adventures. The challenge of embarking on some fresh enterprise and measuring himself against a new enemy was to him the very salt of life.

“Come on, John. Come on, Michael. Let’s go and hunt out these delinquents!”

Mr. Darling shook his head in despair. The police had not found a single trace of the gang, apart from the filthy scarf, and nobody had the faintest idea where the children might have been taken. Mr. Darling sat on the bed in such a state of utter hopelessness that Nana felt it was her duty to go and put a paw on his knee to comfort him.

Peter’s eye fell on the dog and he suddenly shouted “Nana!”, making everyone jump. “That’s it, Nana!” he repeated. “Give Nana that rag to sniff and she’ll be able to track down Wendy and her friends! We’ll take her to the spot where they were kidnapped and she’ll follow the scent from there.

“Tinker Bell!” he said. “Help me to look for that scarf. We have to find the girls!”

First of all, however, Tinker Bell had to be found. She was hiding and she did not wish to be discovered. Her long absence from London hadn’t improved her character one bit. She clearly didn’t fancy sharing Peter, not only with Wendy, of whom she had always been jealous, but with a new girl as well! However, Peter finally threatened to cut her daily ration of honeydew. As you probably know, fairies have an acorn-cupful every night before they go to bed and Tinker Bell was particularly partial to the drink. Sulkily, she came out of her hiding place under the potted aspidistra and joined in the search. Finally, they found the rag and took it to Nana.

Why do you think Johnny the Stinker got that name?  Well, it’s just as you think! It was because he exuded such an offensive odour that even the fiercest rats in the dump ran away from him and he never needed to use his stick to drive them away.

The fetor emanating from Johnny’s scarf was so overpowering that, had it not been for the fact that Nana loved Wendy to such a degree, the poor dog would never even have looked at the rag.

Peter, Tinker Bell, John and Michael went out immediately into the street and took Nana to the spot where the kidnapping had taken place. Nana sniffed the rag,  then she barked excitedly because the traces left by Johnny the Stinker were so strong and unequivocal that they seemed to point a clear path in the right direction.

But the road was long. The boys got tired and eventually Peter commanded Tinker Bell to sprinkle them with fairy dust so that they could fly alongside him.

John and Michael couldn’t help thinking how very different this flight was from that first time they had flown with Peter and Wendy to the Neverland! Now their hearts were so sad and heavy that Tink was obliged to give them a double portion of fairy dust just to keep them up in the air!

Nana ran on ahead through the night and Peter and the boys followed her. A couple of miles from the city dump, the stench that arose from the refuse heaps became so strong that it cancelled out the traces of Johnny the Stinker. The wild creatures that lived amongst the garbage began peeping out at them with hungry eyes and Peter decided it would be safer to sprinkle Nana with fairy dust as well. Then he flew higher up, in order to get a view of the entire area.

Obviously, poor Nana had never flown before and she began to drift aimlessly around the sky in whatever direction the wind decided to carry her, just like one of these balloons at the funfair that slip through children’s fingers. Unfortunately, nobody had thought of bringing a lead with them (if they had, Nana would certainly have been offended), so John was obliged to link the handle of his umbrella through her collar to guide her through the air.

Michael found this so amusing that he decided to hang on to Nana’s tail with one hand (as he usually did when they were walking in the streets, so that he wouldn’t get lost), while he held tightly onto his teddy bear with his other hand.

“Let’s make a train!” Michael laughed happily, completely forgetting Wendy’s plight. “Train, Nana. Chuff! Chuff!” He was just about to imitate the sound of the train whistle when Peter cried: “They must be there!” He pointed to the laboratory, which was the only building in that deserted wasteland that was lit up. You couldn’t help noticing it, in fact, because all the lights were blazing as if there was going to be a party. “It’s better if we go there on foot ,” said Peter.

They flew over the boundary fence and landed in the shadows in front of the laboratory entrance. Creeping quietly forward, Peter gripped his dagger in his hand while John waved his umbrella in a threatening manner and Michael clasped his teddy bear to keep his courage up. Nana was in the forefront, leading the search party.

“Psst, psst!  Heh, you…” a voice from the shadows whispered.

“Who’s there?” Peter asked quietly.

“Ssssh! Come over here where it’s darker! Don’t let them see you!” the voice continued. “You’re Peter Pan, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m Peter. And who are you?”

“Be quiet! Keep your voice down. My name’s Ragvendra, but everybody calls me Rags. I’m working here for Lord Rubbish with another a hundred and forty-nine children. I thought you were never going to come!”

Peter always fancied that everybody knew him, so he wasn’t a bit surprised that this unknown person had recognised him. “But who are you?” he asked. “Let me see you! How did you know I would come here? I didn’t even know myself!”

Out of the deepest shadows emerged the thin little face of a jolly looking boy. He was all muffled up in rags and there was an enormous turban on his head. Instead of giving a straightforward answer, the little boy began to tell them a long story: “It’s because they hardly give us anything to eat here,” he said. “And yesterday our guards suddenly took off. They shut us up in a shed and went away, but I managed to sneak out to look for food. The other kids were too scared. They all stayed inside.

“I just got into the store room, when the guards came back with three new prisoners and they shut them in the room next to where I was hiding. ‘It’s only till tomorrow!’ Johnny the Stinker told them. ‘Tomorrow we’ll put you into the Synthesizer!’ Then they started eating and drinking right outside the door and I couldn’t get back to the hut. One of the girls was crying her eyes out. The other one – her name was Wendy, I think – tried to make her feel better. “Don’t cry,” she said. “I’ll tell you again your favourite story, the one about Peter and the Neverland. And don’t worry. You’ll see, Peter will come and rescue us. He’s saved me before - that time I was Captain Hook’s prisoner…”

“She said that, did she?” Peter broke in, very proud of himself. “That’s right! It was a fine fight. I had the greatest fun.”

“Yes, but do go on, tell us about Wendy!” John urged the boy.

“Oh yes, tell us about Wendy.” Peter agreed, but he was a bit annoyed.

“I can’t tell you very much more. I listened to all Wendy’s stories – I didn’t even feel hungry any more – and then it was quiet for a bit.” Rags interrupted his story for a second. “Did you really do all the things she said? Betty fell asleep in the end, and then Wendy started to cry, and then the boy, who hadn’t said a word until then, tried to comfort her.

Rags abruptly changed the subject: “I say, Peter, is it true that there are lost boys on the Island?”

“Yes, of course there are.” said Peter. “Do you want to come with us to fight the pirates?”

“Wow!” cried Rags. “When are we going?”

“Whenever you want,” said Peter carelessly. “We can go immediately. I’m the leader and I decide!” he added, just to make things absolutely clear.

“But first we have to free Wendy!” John cried. John knew Peter well and he was worried that Peter might forget about the rescue operation and move on to another adventure.

“Okay,” Rags nodded. “But afterwards, my mates and I will come to the Island, right? Then he took up his story again: “This morning, the guards came back to take them to the Synthesizer. It’s a big huge machine inside there. When they weren’t looking, I tried to get back to my hut but there were too many guards about. But I did find some decent grub so I kept on hiding here. I’m in for a right bashing when Johnny gets hold of me. I haven’t done my shift… Peter, you promise you’ll take me with you?”

“All right, all right. Now let’s go inside. Do you know the place?”

“No, I’ve never been before…”

“Then let’s get on with it. But keep quiet…We have to be very careful”.