Peter had been wrong about mothers. At least, he was wrong about Mrs. Darling. She was waiting back in London at number 14. And she always kept the window open.
Mr. Darling blamed himself for the children’s leaving. He swore he would live in Nana’s kennel until they came home. He even went to work in the cage! His carriage ride to the office often drew quite a crowd.
One night Mr. Darling lay curled up in the kennel. “Won’t you play me to sleep on the nursery piano?” he asked his wife. “And shut that window,” he added quite thoughtlessly. “I feel a draft.”
“Oh, George!” cried Mrs. Darling. “Never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open for the children. Always.”
Mr. Darling begged her pardon. Then Mrs. Darling went to the piano. She played until her husband fell asleep.
It would have been a perfect time for the children to come home! But Peter and Tink flew into the room instead. Peter had thought of a plan. And he had flown off ahead of the others.
“Quick, Tink,” he whispered. “Close the window and lock it. Wendy will think her mother has locked her out. Then she will have to go back with me.” He danced across the nursery floor shamelessly.
Then he heard Wendy’s mother playing the piano in the next room. He did not know the tune. But he knew it was saying, “Come back, Wendy. Come back …”
Then the music stopped. Mrs. Darling laid her head on the piano. Her eyes filled with tears.
Peter frowned. Why won’t she understand? he thought. We can’t both have Wendy.
He stopped looking at her. He skipped about and made funny faces. But Peter felt Mrs. Darling inside him. She was knocking on the door of his heart.
“Oh, all right!” he said at last. He unlocked the window. “Come on, Tink! We don’t want any silly mothers anyway.”
So Wendy and John and Michael found the window open for them after all. Which was perhaps more than they deserved. They had been gone so long. And Michael had almost forgotten.
“I think I have been here before,” he said.
“It’s your home, silly,” said John.
Wendy checked the kennel for Nana. But instead she found her father fast asleep.
“Oh, dear!” said Wendy. “Maybe I don’t remember the old life as well as I thought.”
A chill fell upon the children. They decided to slip into their beds as if they had never been away.
Mrs. Darling came into the night nursery to check on her husband. The children waited for her cry of joy. But it did not come.
Mrs. Darling saw her children. But she could not believe they were really there. She had seen them there so often in her dreams.
“Mother!” cried Wendy.
“We’re home!” cried John and Michael.
Mrs. Darling was still unsure. She reached out. Suddenly her arms were filled with three very real children.
“George! George!” she cried. Mr. Darling woke up. Their reunion was a beautiful sight.
Only one strange boy was there to see it. He stared through the window. His life was filled with joys. Joys that other children could never know. But he had locked himself out from ever knowing joy like this.