A whip-thin pirate scrambled up the rigging, lashed one end of a rope to a rung and the other to Peter's ankle, and shoved him off. Down Peter hurtled, screaming. But at the last possible moment he was jerked up short, bouncing and twisting, inches from certain death. A handful of pirates, in stitches over the look on his face, released him, tipped him upright, and with swords and daggers in hand began to prod him across the deck.
In the direction of the plank.
Hook glanced disconsolately over his shoulder at the proceedings. Jukes and Noodler were swinging the brats away from the hold toward the prisons on the dock. As the netting passed over Pan's head he reached up, trying in vain to brush fingertips with his children.
Touching, thought Hook.
The net swung down to the dock, and the brats were dragged out and dumped into their cells.
Truly touching.
"I am retiring," he announced to Smee, who was tagging along dutifully. "Cancel the war. Cancel my life. Pan has ruined everything. I never want to hear his name again."
He mounted the carpeted deck stairs to his cabin, so depressed he did not think he would ever smile at a Lost Boy execution again. He was almost to the door when a flash of light darted in front of him and Tinkerbell appeared.
"And what about the name Hook?" she demanded. "Is this how you want to be remembered? As a bully of your enemy's small children? As the destroyer of a fat, old Pan?"
Hook swung at her, missing, burying the point of his claw in the deck rail. In vain, he tried to yank free, cursing furiously. Tinkerbell zipped about to hover before his face, her tiny dagger drawn, the point pressed into his hawk nose.
"Give me one week, Hook, and I'll get him in shape to fight you. Then you can have your old war."
Smee charged up, a blunderbuss in hand. He leveled the barrel at Tink, inches from the captain's nose. Hook blanched.
"It's a trick, Cap'n," growled his bosun. "Lemme blow the pixie vixen straight to Davy Jones."
Tink ignored him. "You promised the war of the century, Hook!" she said, jabbing at his nose for emphasis. "Your whole life has been building to this single moment. Mortal combat-your one moment of glory-Hook versus Pan!"
"That is not Peter Pan!" Hook sneered, indicating a terrified Peter, who was now wobbling uncertainly on the plank.
"Seven days," Tink repeated. "A pittance of time for you, a blink of the eye to a man of your infinite patience-an important, powerful man who can afford to wait."
She zipped away, gone in an instant's time, leaving Hook staring down the barrel of Smee's blunderbuss.
"Smee," the captain said quietly. "Lower that, will you?" His bosun quickly complied. "Now, bring me my cigars. I need to think,"
Smee hurried off, disappearing into Hook's cabin, baggy pants flapping like sails. Hook finally freed his claw from the deck rail and stood staring at its point thoughtfully. The faerie was right, of course. He could afford to wait. Needed to, in point of fact, if it meant getting a crack at the real Pan.
As if she had read his mind, Tinkerbell flashed back into view, gossamer wings spinning threads of light, "Seven days for a battle with the true Peter Pan," she whispered. "Seven days."
Smee rushed back through the cabin door bearing Hook's favorite cigar holder, a twin-stemmed affair. Hook accepted the holder and placed it in his mouth. Smee struck a match to one cigar while Tinkerbell flashed past with faerie magic to light the other. Hook puffed thoughtfully and looked out to sea, gazing past Peter as he was prodded slowly back along the length of the plank.
"Two days," he said quietly.
"Four," countered Tink. "The bare minimum for a decent Pan."
"Three." Hook's eyes pinned her. "Final offer."
She flitted to the end of his nose. "Done."
Tiny hand extended, she shook the captain's hook guardedly. A few of the pirates gathered on the deck had been listening, and they sent up a ragged cheer. Soon the rest were joining in, ignorant of what it was they were cheering about, but happy to be yelling all the same. A few flintlocks discharged and one final cannon. The noise was deafening.
Hook unplugged his ears. "Listen, lads!" he shouted them down. They turned dutifully, even those who had been working Peter along the dreaded plank. Hook's smile could melt butter. "I have made an agreement in the interests of good sportsmanship and so on and so forth. This pitiful specimen"-he gestured disdainfully at Peter-"this degenerate pretender shall have three days to prepare himself to do battle with me, at which time he shall return here and face judgment by the blade."
"Cap'n says take up the flint and powder, men, and wave the bloody shirt!" yelled Smee. "It's going to be-"
Hook clapped a hand over his mouth. "My show, Smee." He smiled anew. "It's going to be a perfectly wonderful war, gentlemen. A war to the death between Hook and Pan."
"A war to the death!" repeated Smee through the captain's fingers.
"Or if not"-Hook sniffed with a glance toward the prisons on the docks-"Pan's rug rats perish in the most horrible fashion I can devise."
Smee bounded forward. "A toast! To the ultimate battle-Hook against Pan!"
Hook's smile threatened to rival the crocodile's. "Children admitted free, of course."
The pirates drank from flagons of ale and rum pouches, cheering lustily, pounding fists and glasses on the ship's railing. "Hook! Hook! Hook!"
The captain watched Peter inch his way back along the plank toward the safety of the deck, relief etched in his chubby features. He can't help being pitiful, it seems, Hook thought, sighing. He hoped this fat, old Pan would find a way to offer him some small challenge. It wouldn't be good form, after all, to kill him the way he was.
He strode briskly to the end of the plank to confront his enemy a final time. "Go on, whoever or whatever you are." He sneered. "Get out of my sight. Fly, why don't you? Fly your fat carcass off my ship!"
He jumped up and down on the plank furiously, sending Peter catapulting into the air.
"But I can't!" Peter Banning wailed. "I don't know how!"
Tinkerbell flitted swiftly into view. "Come on, Peter," she urged. "You've got to! Think a happy thought!"
Peter landed uncertainly on the plank again, balanced precariously above the waves. "Now?"
"Of course, now! Think of Christmas!"
A pirate hit the end of the plank a final time. Peter lost what remained of his composure and tumbled away. Down he went, Tink yelling after him, and disappeared in a splash.
"You really can't fly?" Tink cried in despair. "Then swim, Peter! You can swim, can't you?"
"Doubtful," murmured Hook, peering down.
Peter's face could be momentarily seen beneath the surface of the water, and then it was gone.
"Terrible luck," Hook sympathized with a smile.
Tinkerbell darted toward the water and away again, rushing this way and that. No sign of Peter. When it was clear that he was gone, she burst into tears and disappeared in a flash of light. Hook yawned, growing bored. The whole bargain-making business had been a waste of time. Three days or three years, it wouldn't have made a snail's ear's worth of difference.
Then abruptly, impossibly, Peter resurfaced, cradled in the arms of three shimmering mermaids, each giving him long, deep mermaid kisses, breathing air into his lungs. One after another, they kissed him, over and over again. Then they raised his head clear of the water and sped toward the entrance to the harbor, fishtails propelling them swiftly away.
Hook watched incredulously for a moment, then rolled his eyes and blew a kiss after them. "Pan, luckiest of devils. See you in Hades!"
But before he could turn away, a fourth mermaid leaped from the waters directly in front of him, a shining, graceful woman-fish, paused nose to nose with the scourge of the seven seas, the only man the infamous Barbecue had ever feared, and spat water right in his eye.
As she dived from sight, Hook wiped the water from his face with his sleeve and glowered after her. Intentionally or not, she had put out his cigars.