"To breakfast.'" Hook announced.
Voiceless, stunned, yet titillated as well, Jack followed Hook and Smee through the gates heralding good form pier, down the wharf front, and into the town. All about, the pirates swarmed, colorful and bold in their jaunty outfits, calling out and laughing gaily. It reminded the boy of a carnival, with some new attraction, some wonderful event, waiting around every corner. There were jugglers, tattooed men, fire breathers, and exotic women of a sort he had never seen before. A stuffed-animal vendor caught their attention, and Smee grabbed up a toothy crocodile and pretended to chase Hook with it until the captain gave him a look that would have melted ice.
At last they turned into a door with a sign that read:
TAVERNE
Inside, there were pirates lounging in chairs and on stools, some smoking, some cleaning knives, a few reading tattered copies of newspapers labeled Pirate Today and The Daily Pirate. Tables were occupied by pirates eating from plates heaped with cream puffs, pies, cakes, and sweets of all sorts accompanied by tall mugs of cola. A table was reserved for Hook, and he and Jack shared a monstrous banana split to which Smee kept adding spoonfuls of whipped cream. Jack advised Hook beforehand, rather embarrassed to have to do so, that he was not allowed to have sweets before breakfast. But the captain simply laughed and announced that in his town sweets were breakfast.
From there they went on to the square and a mock horse race with Hook riding Tickles, Jack riding Smee, and a gaggle of other pirates riding each other, all charging around the crocodile tower, yelling wildly. Though Hook urged Tickles on rather insistently with his claw, Jack emerged the winner. Jack thought there was a chance that the captain might have let him win, but he was having too much fun to care.
Then there was the imaginary boat ride in the raging thunderstorm, with Hook, Smee, and Jack sitting tight in a lifeboat rocked wildly by a corps of pirates who hoisted them aloft while other pirates and pirate town denizens clashed swords to make lightning and thunder and shook sheets and towels to make wind. Buckets of water sloshed perilously close, as if the sea were really down there, threatening to capsize the boat and send them all to Davy Jones. How real it seemed!
Finally there was the pirate drill with Jack in command and Hook looking on, beaming his approval, as the boy marched an increasingly irritated gang of pirates about the decks of the Jolly Roger until they were on the verge of mutiny.
Boy, oh, boy-what a day!
But now it was coming to a close. The memories danced through his mind, and Jack could only grin and wonder what lay ahead. Tomorrow would bring new adventures, Hook had promised. Just wait, little man. Just wait.
His reverie was interrupted as a small, anxious voice called his name.
"Jack! Jack!"
He stared down at the wharf, where the barred window of a basement prison framed a little girl's dirt-streaked face.
"What do you think you're doing? Why are you playing games with him? Look at me, Jack! You think you're funny, but you're not! You wouldn't be acting this way if Mommy and Daddy were here!"
Jack was silent. Hook slid down from Long Tom and walked to Jack's end, his smile little more than a twitch of his lips.
He reached up and put an arm about the boy. "Do you know who she is, Jack?" he asked softly.
Jack shrugged. "Sure."
"It's me, Jack!" Maggie shouted insistently.
"She's so loud," whispered Hook, sounding sad. He paused. "What's her name again?"
Jack frowned. "Ah…" His mind was suddenly blank.
Hook's smile broadened appreciably. Things were working out better than he had expected.
"I'm Maggie, your sister, you idiot!" she screamed. "When I get out of here, I'm gonna break every model you own! I'm going to mess up your room so bad you won't recognize it!" She sobbed. "It's me! Don't you remember anything? What about Mommy and Daddy? What about them? Jack, it's me!"
Maggie watched in despair as Hook lifted Jack off Long Tom and with his arm about her brother's shoulders led him from view. Jack barely remembered her. He had forgotten her name completely.
She sagged against the bars, her lower lip quivering. She really, really, really wanted Mommy and Daddy!
"Mommy," she said softly.
A tiny voice behind her whispered, "What's a mommy?"
She turned to find one of the littlest captive Lost Boys staring up at her intently. The others were huddled in the dark behind him, all of them dirty and ragged and unkempt, their eyes wide and their faces upturned. From dawn until dusk they had been kept busy by the pirates counting Hook's treasure, chained to chests of it, made to count in cadence the same baubles over and over, sorting, polishing, and then putting them back again. Pirates with whips had urged them on. Pirates with buckets had brought them dreadful food to eat and dirty water to drink. Maggie had hated every minute of it. It almost made her wish she had stayed in Hook's school.
The slave kids were all looking at her expectantly. "Doesn't anyone remember his mother?'' she asked incredulously.
They glanced at each other and shook their heads no.
Maggie climbed down from the box she had been standing on to face them. "What's wrong with everyone here?" she demanded.
"What's a mommy?" the first kid repeated tonelessly.
Maggie frowned thoughtfully. Her eyes glanced down at her favorite nightdress, violet hearts on a cream field. Jack had been wearing a pirate hat. Stupid old Jack.
"Mommies," she repeated. She walked to where another little boy was resting on the floor, whimpering from a bad dream. She lifted his head, fluffed his pillow, and lay him back down again. The whimpering stopped.
"Mommies make sure you always sleep on the cool side of your pillow," she said quietly. She sat down, facing the anxious faces. One by one they crowded close. She thought suddenly of Granny Wendy and her stories of Peter Pan. "They're the ones," she intoned gravely, "who put all your thoughts in order while you sleep so that when you wake up, all the good ones are right on top where you can find them."
Blank stares greeted her pronouncement. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" Heads shook. She thought some more. "Mommies are great," she declared, taking another approach. "They feed you, kiss you, give you baths, and drive you to piano lessons. They play with you when you're lonely. They take care of you when you're sick. They paint, draw, color, hug, kiss, and make everything better when you hurt. And they tuck you into your bed every night."
More blank looks. Except-there! One little boy seemed on the verge of remembering. And there! Another was scratching his head.
Maggie leaned forward. "They give you Band-Aids when you cut yourself, they bake you cookies on rainy afternoons, and they sing you songs, and-"
"Wait!" a Lost Boy exclaimed. "I remember! They're not songs-they're… lullabies!"
"Right!" exclaimed Maggie.
"Sing us one!" called out the others. "Sing us a lullaby!"
Maggie grinned. "All right."
She smoothed out her wrinkled nightgown, tossed back her strawberry-blond hair, and softly began to sing.
Hunched over the railing of the aft deck, facing out toward the harbor mouth where the mix of colors from Neverland's moons formed wondrous patterns on the ocean's surface, Hook, Smee, and Jack lifted their heads as one at the sound of Maggie's voice. For a long time no one spoke, caught up in the enchantment of her singing, lost in their private thoughts.