Of course, he tried the zipline first: he ran up the slope, grabbed the handholds on the line that looked like a creeper, kicked himself off the ground and was off into the air. He flew like Peter Pan! It was a glorious feeling.
“I’m going to bring the boys over here and this will be our Neverland,” he thought.
He had already slipped the rope for the sixth time when, after kicking off, he noticed that someone was waiting for him at the end of the track. It was a dog. He was small, friendly, and his tail was wagging. Peter was glad to see it. When he landed, he stepped up to pet the dog, but then human voices struck his ears. He spotted a tall girl and two boys his own age over at the slide. Suddenly, his courage failed him.
“They can’t see me here! If they find out that I escaped from the neighbouring house, I could get in trouble!”
He began to run away, but then the dog, who had been wagging his tail, started to bark excitedly, and the girl and the two boys turned towards them. As he started running, the dog grabbed the sweater he had tied around his waist. Peter freed himself, but the sweater remained in the dog’s mouth.” “Peter could not sleep at all that night. When at dawn he finally dozed off, he dreamed he could slip under the fence into the playground, but that his shadow got stuck in the hole, caught upon the fence. He then got through without being seen, as invisible as a ghost. Whenever he slid down the zipline, the dog would be waiting there, but he didn’t make a sound or wag his tail, he couldn’t see him at all. The three children, the girl and the two boys, while they looked towards him, couldn’t see him either. It was a strange feeling, both good and bad – he was happy, because if they couldn’t see him, he could do whatever he wanted, slide down the zipline as many times as he felt like. He could as well stay there on the playground forever. And yet it was a painful, lost and very lonely feeling. He wanted the dog to wag its tail and run to him, and he wanted to talk with the strange children.
He woke up alarmed and sweating. Although he had been frightened by the dream, he decided to go back to the playground. He had to get his sweater back – he always wore it when they played football outside. Miss Tinkerbell would notice that it was gone and he wouldn’t know what to say. He couldn’t tell the truth, but he could not lie either. Not to his teacher.” ““I was hoping you’d come over today as well”.
Peter turned around, startled, when the kind voice and a hand reached out to him, but his fear was dissolved by the warm, friendly smile of the girl. It was the tall girl from the previous day, but the two younger boys were not with her this time.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you came through there,” she said encouragingly, nodding her head towards the fence. “I just want to give you your sweater back. Unfortunately, Nana chewed it a bit, I had to wash it. Do you want to come over to get it? We live right here, next to the playground”.
Peter still hadn’t answered, just stared in silence as she held out her hand:
“I’m Wendy. My real name is Vali, but my friends all call me Wendy”.
Peter swallowed and shyly returned the handshake.
“Peter Pan,” as soon as he said it, he was alarmed. This clever, grown-up girl would laugh at him.
Except she didn’t laugh, there was only surprised curiosity in her eyes, then a soft, caring smile. Peter was very grateful, he felt that although they had only just met, this girl understood him.” “Wendy lived close to the playground, so they quickly reached her home.
“Is this a football jersey?” Wendy asked, running a finger over the big twelve on the sweater as she took it from the dryer.
“Yes,” Peter said proudly, “Miss Tinkerbell, my Teacher sewed it on for me”.
“Miss Tinkerbell?”
“Miss Maria is our gym teacher. My friends and I call her that because she wears jingling bracelets all the time and she looks like Tinkerbell, the fairy from Peter Pan”.
“So that’s your favourite story,” Wendy smiled, “and why number twelve?”
“Because I am twelve years old”.
“But you can’t be forever. Soon you will be thirteen. What then?”
“I don’t know, I don’t want to be thirteen” said Peter defiantly.
“Why not?”
“Because thirteen-year-old boys are weird. And they are evil”.
“Evil?”
“Yes. There is a thirteen-year-old boy, Rob, in the team we are about to play a match against. He’s always teasing me, although he used to be nice. He’s become really full of himself since he started playing football with the big boys. Even his voice has changed terribly”.
Wendy laughed.
“He’s mutating”.
“Yes,” nodded Peter, “he is a mutant!”
“He’s not a mutant”. Wendy could barely speak, she was laughing so much. “He’s mutating. It’s what they call it when boys get a deeper voice”. ” ““His voice didn’t change because he became mean,” Wendy continued with a smile.
“But he still turned evil,” objected Peter. “We were friends, and he went over to the enemy side. Just because they are bigger and cooler, he doesn’t even really like them”.
“So, do you feel betrayed?” Wendy asked.
“Yes. What if the same happens with the others as well? When everyone grows up and becomes evil, everyone would switch to the other team. What if I…”.
“You will not turn evil. Nobody is evil, Rob is not evil either. He’s just… just looking for his place”.
“Well, he’s looking in the wrong place”.
“Maybe in time he’ll find his way back to you,” Wendy said with a smile, “but you have to do your part”.
Peter listened respectfully to Wendy, but he didn’t really believe that he and Rob could ever be friends again. It hurt him terribly that Rob, with whom he had practiced so many tricks together, was now playing against him and using the skills they developed together in the Pirates’ team. That he, to whom he first spoke about Peter Pan, now mocks him for it.