Politically Correct Peter Pan, Chapter 4
In which we endure some "Pan-splaining," courtesy of Peter. Also, golf and pirates!
My experiment with long-form PC silliness continues with the Darling siblings, Tinkerbell and the notorious Captain Hook! To enjoy the previously posted chapters, go to Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
Chapter 4
PAN-SPLAINING
Not all of her time in Neverland was fraught for Wendy. The island was a beautiful setting. The flowers and lush greenery all around filled her with joy every morning, healing scars from her London existence she didn’t know she had. The fresh air and exercise made her feel more alive than ever, all the way down to her naked feet. The cycles of sun and moon raised sensations in her that, had they appeared six months later, would have pushed this tale out of the Children’s Book category and very clearly into Young Adult. But her true awakening was not far in the future. She could never understand, though, how an entire island could smell so thoroughly of B.O. Under her breath, she often called it “Never-Bathe-Land.”
In time, Wendy met the other fairies on Neverland, the kith and kin of Tinkerbell. They were playful and wise, embodying the natural history and elemental spirit of the island. Tinkerbell was the only one of them who still dealt with the hummons. The other fairies had long ago abandoned the Loud Boys for their infantile actions and constant abuse, not to mention rough sport and target practice. They only ventured into the compound to sour the Loud Boys’ milk and make their skin break out.
Despite all the ignorant things Peter said, Wendy found it hard to stay mad at him. She thought – oh, wretched delusion! – that with a little patience and attention, she’d be able to improve him. Or, if not improve, then at least instill a little of what she knew to be civility. Had she even partially succeeded in this, she had no idea how thoroughly he, like any other male, would resent it. These are the lessons only Time (and divorce) can bestow.
The mending and the cooking around the Loud Boys’ compound? Why, Wendy even helped a little with that. She rationalized that it saved resources, minimized waste and reduced their carbon footprint. At bedtime, she didn’t mind telling stories occasionally to the group. She only stopped when fed up with their increasingly outlandish requests for more explosions and bloodshed in “Hansel and Gretel.”
Her male siblings John and Michael, on the other hand, caused her some worry. They were quite impressionable and the incivility of Peter’s gang was proving very attractive. She was afraid that all this time away from home would make them forget their parents, absentee though they might have been. One night, she asked, “Michael, what do you remember of our mother?”
He squinched up his face in effort. “Mother? She was quite hairy, and her breath was bad.”
“No, silly, you’re describing Nana, our companion animal and governess.”
“Oh. Did we pay Nana?”
“She did it from the kindness of her heart.”
“I hate to think we were exploiting the affection of an innocent non-hummon animal. Are you sure she wasn’t our mother?”
She tucked him in. “Quite sure. Now go to sleep.”
Michael groggily rolled over, grabbed his pillow and yawned, “G’night, mother.”
Wendy was taken aback. Little Michael had been gone so long, he was forgetting their lives in London completely. Further, he was changing into one of those slovenly, infantile males who thought any wommon was available and fated to take care of his needs. Nana or Wendy or mother, they made no distinction, as long as their selfish demands were met.
At other times, the gender imperative gave way to a cultural one. Her brothers adapted easily to the grime-positive, camouflage-clad life on the island. No one they knew back in London would have recognized them, with their painted faces and leaf-bedecked hair. Wendy wondered about her brothers “going native,” then felt vaguely guilty about using such a phrase, since it implied privilege, cultural bias and not a little imperialism. Was there not a more thoughtful alternative? “Regression”? “Degeneration”? “Going to seed”?
Later that night around the campfire, the Loud Boys settled down for bed in their army surplus sleeping bags. Wendy got ready to tell them a story from the Sisters Grimm, but young Michael, of all people, interrupted her.
“Peter,” he said, “please tell us about Captain Hook!”
The group got hushed and quiet, and Peter smiled a devilish smile at the chance to terrify them. “Hook, you say? Captain Hook? My mortal enemy?”
“Yes, yes!”
Peter got to his feet. He began slowly and ominously, “Captain Hook is the most dreaded pirate on the Seven Seas. As evil a buccaneer as ever sailed. Worse than Captain Kidd. Worse than Blackbeard. Even worse than Ching Shih (also known as Cheng I Sao and Shi Xianggu), the most feared pirate on the South China Sea who also happened to be a wommon!”
The Loud Boys gasped, for the 1000th time they had heard this story. “Why is he called ‘Hook’?” John asked. “Does he have a hook for a hand?”
“You might think so, but even immature jerkwads like us wouldn’t name a villain after a disability. What a cruel thought! Come on, Four-Eyes, do better! Everyone calls him Hook because his golf game is terrible! And coincidentally, he also has a hook for a hand.”
“What does Captain Hook look like, Peter?”
“His hair is dark and ropey,” Peter said, “but it’s probably a wig, considering how ill the rest of him looks, and how old and vain he is. Long nose, bloodshot eyes, pasty skin scabby from the sun. None of this is helped by his tobacco habit. He invented a special device that lets him smoke two cigars at once!”
Everyone shuddered and made faces of disgust at the mention of tobacco.
“Double consumption, that’s his fate!”
“Are you afraid of him, Peter?”
“Not a bit! And he isn’t afraid of anything either. Except . . .”
“Except?”
Peter paused for effect. “The crocodile!”
“Oh my, the crocodile?” said Wendy, as a chill went down her spine.
“Yes! Hook is followed by a crocodile who has gotten a taste for hummon treats!”
“Aggh!” came a shout and a laugh. Everyone was having a grand time.
Peter laughed and said, “The fairies tell me that the crocodile once crept up on Hook while he was building the Pillage Beach golf course. It was Happy Hour, and Hook was making daquiris, but was so surprised by the croc that he cut off his hand while cutting limes. The croc grabbed his hand and gobbled it down, and some limes, and the electric blender to boot. The croc swallowed it all! And he liked the taste of hummon flesh and the daiquiri so much, he’s been following him around ever since, hoping for more.”
Gasps all around.
“Whenever Hook hears that rrr-rrr-rrr sound of the blender, he turns into a simpering, cowardly codfish!”
Cheers and laughter erupted from those assembled.
“Hook has other reasons to hate crocodiles. He cleared the forest and dammed rivers to build his stupid resort, and with that made a perfect habitat for the crocodiles to live and breed. Now, with the ecological imbalance, the crocs have taken over Pillage Beach completely. No one can swim or play golf because of all the crocs everywhere!”
“Peter, stop!” Wendy exclaimed. “You’re frightening us all!”
“They know it’s all true,” Peter said. “They’ve seen it themselves. The Jolly Roger VIII sits out in the ocean, just off Neverland. Pirates are everywhere, Wendy: on the Seven Seas and in the capitol and in the financial district, and they don’t go away by wishing! We have to fight!”
Diminutive but fierce and reckless, Michael stood up and shouted, “I’m not afraid of any ol’ pirate! I want to see this Captain Hook!”
“You’ll get your chance to see him, bro,” Peter grinned excitedly, “because we’re planning a battle royale with the Pirates and the Indians!”
The Loud Boys let out a cheer and some mongrel-style woofs.
“You planned a battle?” Wendy asked. “I thought you did nothing but skirmishes.”
“It was the only way our schedules worked. We meet in two days on the Broad Savannah! Losers have to leave Neverland forever! Because they suck!” And he let out his rooster crow yet again.
“Forever?” asked Wendy. “That’s awfully harsh.”
“Is ‘forever’ a long time?” Peter asked.
“Yes, terribly long!”
He laughed and said, “I’m pretty stupid, aren’t I?”
“Don’t use the ‘S’ word!” Michael corrected.
“Oh well. I’m still the boss in my little world. Plans still on! Yahooo!”
The Loud Boys jumped up and screamed like savages (though none we can name without getting into lots of discussions about cultural bias). They barked and howled, they stomped their feet and pounded their chests, they screamed about the many ways they would maim and torture their enemies. They slapped each other on the side of the head and practiced their grappling moves. Some just flexed and bellowed.
All this violent talk upset Wendy greatly. She asked Peter to reconsider, to imagine talking over their difficulties and reach some sort of negotiated settlement. She even volunteered herself to act as a go-between. But it was to no avail. The boys were worked up into such a bloodlust that they were beyond reasoning. They even broke Piggy’s glasses and the conch shell.
Tinkerbell listened intently. She had never heard such ideas as Wendy’s before. As Peter’s persunal fairy, she’d always put on a gruff front, agreeing with his testosterone-fueled nonsense. “You only live once,” had been her motto, “and only for a very short time.” But Wendy’s words made her see things in a different, more nuanced way.
“I can’t stay here and listen,” Wendy said. She grabbed John and Michael by the arms and led them away from camp to talk with them in private about returning to London.
Peter didn’t stop her. Making Wendy mad was almost reward enough for spinning awful tales of gore and brutality. He told more tall tales of war and battle, which every Loud Boy knew were exaggerated, yet relished all the same.
A few of the Loud Boys saw Wendy and her brothers leave the camp enclosure. They had never trusted the Darlings because of their elite manner, British accents and overall intelligence. Suspecting they were spies for the indigenous persuns, or somehow vaguely from the government, they followed them outside. No sooner had these boys pushed aside the camouflage netting than they were grabbed, gagged and hogtied by Captain Hook’s men. Wendy, John and Michael had suffered the same fate just moments before. In short order, because pattern recognition was not a survival technique they spent much time reviewing, each Loud Boy in turn became suspicious, stepped out of the enclosure and was seized by the pirates. They were all taken away to the Jolly Roger VIII.
Thus, Peter and Tinkerbell were left alone in the compound, staring at each other, contemplating the corrosiveness of Time on hopes and moral clarity, even when one exists outside Time’s relentless undertow, and how we are all traitors to our best selves in the final tally.
Next week: PERSUN-NAPPED!
This will be the last full chapter of PC Peter Pan available to free subscribers. Next week, Chapter 5 explodes aboard the Jolly Roger VIII. Swordfights! Barbarity! Juvenile taunting! To enjoy all the swashbuckling and buckle-squashing, become a paid Substack subscriber. You can also order a paperback copy at my website, which I will inscribe with any message and mail out.
If you’d like a recap, here are Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.
Merry Christmas, everybody!