11 Peter Pan - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Peter Pan, written by J.M. Barrie, is a classic children's novel first published in the early 20th century. The story revolves around the beloved character Peter Pan and follows his adventures in the fantastical Neverland, along with a young girl named Wendy Darling and her brothers, John and Michael.

In this episode, the merry band set up camp.

Transcript

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to podcast that offers you a calm and relaxing transition into a great night's sleep.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now,

And nowhere you need to go.

Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you and let all the worries of the day drift away.

This is your time and your space.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

There is nothing you need to be doing now,

And nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter 7 The Home Under the Ground One of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John and Michael for hollow trees.

Hook,

You remember,

Had sneered at the boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece,

But this was ignorance,

For unless your tree fitted you,

It was difficult to go up and down,

And no two of the boys were quite the same size.

Once you fitted,

You drew in your breath at the top,

And down you went at exactly the right speed,

While to ascend you drew in and let out alternately,

And so you wriggled up.

Of course,

When you've mastered the action,

You're able to do these things without thinking about them,

And then nothing can be more graceful.

But you simply must fit,

And Peter measures you for your tree as carefully as for a suit of clothes.

The only difference being the clothes are made to fit you,

While you have to be made to fit the tree.

Usually it's done quite easily,

As by your wearing too many garments or too few.

But if you are bumpy in awkward places,

Or the only available tree is an old shape,

Peter does some things to you,

And after that,

You fit.

Once you fit,

Great care must be taken to go on fitting,

And this,

As Wendy was to discover to her delight,

Keeps the whole family in perfect condition.

Wendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try.

John,

However,

Had to be altered a little.

After a few days' practice,

They went up and down as gaily as buckets in a well,

And how ardently they grew to love their home under the ground,

Especially Wendy.

It consisted of one large room,

As all houses should do,

With a floor in which you could dig if you wanted to go fishing,

And in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming colour,

Which were used as stools.

A never-tree tried hard to grow in the centre of the room,

But every morning they sawed the trunk through,

Level with the floor.

By tea-time it was always about two feet high,

And then they put a door on top of it.

The whole thing thus became a table.

And as soon as they cleared away,

They sawed off the trunk again,

And thus there was more room to play.

There was an enormous fireplace,

Which was in almost any part of the room where you cared to light it,

And across this Wendy stretched strings made of fibre,

And from that she suspended her washing.

The bed was tilted against the wall by day and let down at 6.

30,

When it filled nearly half the room,

And all the boys except Michael slept in it,

Lying like sardines in a tin.

There was a strict rule against turning round until one gave the signal,

And then all turned at once.

Michael should have used it also,

But Wendy would have a baby,

And he was the littlest,

And you know what women are,

And the short and the long of it is,

He was hung in a basket.

It was rough and simple and not unlike what baby bears would have made of an underground house in the same circumstances,

But there was one recess in the wall,

No larger than a birdcage,

Which was the private apartment of Tinkerbell.

It could be shut off from the rest of the home by a tiny curtain,

Which Tink,

Who was most fastidious,

Always kept drawn when dressing or undressing.

No woman however large could have had a more exquisite boudoir and bedchamber combined.

The couch,

As she always called it,

Was a genuine queen mab with club legs,

And she varied the bedspreads according to what fruit blossom was in season.

Her mirror was a puss in boots,

Of which there are now only three,

Unshipped,

Known to the fairy dealers.

The washstand was pie-crust and reversible,

And the chest of drawers an authentic,

Charming the sixth,

The carpet and rugs of the best period of Marjorie and Robin.

There was a chandelier from Tiddlywinks for the look of the thing,

That of course Tinkerbell lit the residence herself.

She was very contemptuous of the rest of the house.

Her chamber,

Though beautiful,

Looked rather conceited,

Having the appearance of a nose permanently turned up.

I suppose it was all especially entrancing to Wendy,

Because those rampageous boys of hers gave her so much to do.

Really,

There were whole weeks when,

Except perhaps with a stocking in the evening,

She was never above ground.

The cooking,

I can tell you,

Kept her nose to the pot.

Their chief food was roasted breadfruit,

Yams,

Coconuts,

Baked pig,

Marmy apples,

Tapper rolls and bananas,

Washed down with calabashes of popo,

But you never knew exactly whether there would be a real meal,

Or just a make-believe.

It all depended upon Peter's whim.

He could eat,

Really eat,

If it was part of a game,

But he could not stodge just to feel stodgy,

Which is what most children like better than anything else.

Make-believe was so real to Peter that during a meal of it,

You could see him getting rounder.

Of course it was trying,

But you simply had to follow his lead,

And if you could prove to him you were getting loose for your tree,

He let you stodge.

Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they'd all gone to bed,

And as she expressed it,

She had a breathing time for herself then.

She occupied it in making new things for them,

And putting double pieces on the knees,

For they were almost frightfully hard on their knees.

When she sat down to a basket full of their stockings,

Every heel with a hole in it,

She would fling up her arms and exclaim,

Oh dear,

I'm sure I sometimes think spinsters are to be envied!

Her face always beamed when she exclaimed this.

Do you remember about her pet wolf?

Well,

It was very soon discovered she'd come to the island and it found her out,

And they ran into each other's arms,

And after that it followed her about everywhere.

But I'm afraid that Wendy did not really worry about her father and mother.

She was confident they would always keep the window open for her to fly back,

And this gave her a complete ease of mind.

What did disturb her at times was that John remembered his parents vaguely only,

As people he had once known,

While Michael was quite willing to believe that Wendy was really his mother.

These things scared Wendy a little,

And nobly anxious to do her duty,

She tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination papers on it,

As like as possible to the one she used to do at school.

The other boys thought this awfully interesting,

And insisted on joining.

They made slates for themselves and sat round the table,

Writing and thinking hard about the questions she'd written.

What was the colour of mother's eyes?

Which was taller,

Father or mother?

Was mother blonde or brunette?

Write an essay of not less than 40 words on how I spent my last holidays,

Or the characters of father and mother compared.

Or,

Describe mother's laugh.

Describe father's laugh.

Describe mother's party dress.

Describe the kennel and its inmate.

They were just everyday questions like these,

And when you could not answer them you were told to make a cross,

And it was really dreadful what a number of crosses John made.

Of course,

The only boy who replied to every question was slightly,

And no one could have been more hopeful of coming out first.

But his answers were always perfectly ridiculous,

And he really came out last.

That was a melancholy thing.

Peter,

Of course,

Did not compete.

For one thing he despised all mothers except Wendy,

And for another he was the only boy on the island who could neither write nor spell.

He was above that sort of thing.

By the way,

The questions were all written in past tense.

Because,

In fact,

Wendy had been forgetting too.

Reviews

Lovely, thank you