The gaiety of those romps ! And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling , who would pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her was the kiss , and then if you had dashed at her you might have got it . There never was a simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan . Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children 's minds . It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning , repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day . If you could keep awake -LRB- but of course you ca n't -RRB- you would see your own mother doing this , and you would find it very interesting to watch her . It is quite like tidying up drawers . You would see her on her knees , I expect , lingering humorously over some of your contents , wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up , making discoveries sweet and not so sweet , pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten , and hurriedly stowing that out of sight . When you wake in the morning , the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind ; and on the top , beautifully aired , are spread out your prettier thoughts , ready for you to put on . I do n't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person 's mind . Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you , and your own map can become intensely interesting , but catch them trying to draw a map of a child 's mind , which is not only confused , but keeps going round all the time . There are zigzag lines on it , just like your temperature on a card , and these are probably roads in the island ; for the Neverland is always more or less an island , with astonishing splashes of colour here and there , and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing , and savages and lonely lairs , and gnomes who are mostly tailors , and caves through which a river runs , and princes with six elder brothers , and a hut fast going to decay , and one very small old lady with a hooked nose . It would be an easy map if that were all ; but there is also first day at school , religion , fathers , the round pond , needlework , murders , hangings , verbs that take the dative , chocolate pudding day , getting into braces , say ninety-nine , three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself , and so on ; and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through , and it is all rather confusing , especially as nothing will stand still . Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal . John 's , for instance , had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting , while Michael , who was very small , had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it . John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands , Michael in a wigwam , Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together . John had no friends , Michael had friends at night , Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents ; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance , and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other 's nose , and so forth . On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching their coracles . We too have been there ; we can still hear the sound of the surf , though we shall land no more . Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact ; not large and sprawly , you know , with tedious distances between one adventure and another , but nicely crammed .
When you play at it by XXXXX with the chairs and table-cloth , it is not in the least alarming , but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly real .
John Michael Neverland Pan Peter Wendy colour day flamingoes zigzag