Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast

by Jane Yolen

  “Well, it isn’t my fault!” said Darla, loudly, but she stood, too. The thought of Wendy towering over her just now made her feel edgy and even a bit afraid. “And my name isn’t girl. It’s Darla!”

  They glared at one another.

  Just then there was a brilliant whistle. A flash of light circled the kitchen like a demented firefly.

  “It’s Tink!” Lizzy cried, clapping her hands together. “Oh! Oh! It’s the signal. ’Larm! ’Larm!”

  “Come on, you lot,” Wendy cried. “Places, all.” She turned her back to Darla, grabbed up a soup ladle, and ran out of the room.

  Each of the girls picked up one of the kitchen implements and followed. Not to be left behind, Darla pounced on the only thing left, a pair of silver sugar tongs, and pounded out after them.

  They didn’t go far, just to the main room again. There they stood silent guard over the bolt-holes. After a while—not quite fifteen minutes, Darla guessed—Tink fluttered in with a more melodic all dear and the boys slowly slid back down into the room.

  Peter was the last to arrive.

  “Oh, Peter, we were so worried,” Wendy said.

  The other girls crowded around. "We were scared silly,” Madja added.

  “Weepers!” cried Nancy.

  "Knees all knocking,” added JoAnne.

  “Oh, this is really too stupid for words!” Darla said. "All we did was stand around with kitchen tools. Was I supposed to brain a pirate with these?” She held out the sugar tongs as she spoke.

  The hush that followed her outcry was enormous. Without another word, Peter disappeared back into the dark. One by one, the Lost Boys followed him. Tink was the last to go, flickering out like a candle in the wind.

  "Now,” said Madja with a pout, “we won’t even get to hear about the fight. And it’s the very best part of being a Wendy.”

  Darla stared at the girls for a long moment. “What you all need,” she said grimly, “is a backbone transplant.” And when no one responded, she added, "It’s dear the Wendys need to go out on strike.” Being the daughter of a labor lawyer had its advantages. She knew all about strikes.

  “What the Wendys need,” Wendy responded sternly, "is to give the cupboards a good shakingout.” She patted her hair down and looked daggers at Darla. “But first, cups of tea all ’round.” Turning on her heel, she started back toward the kitchen. Only four girls remained behind.

  Little Lizzy crept over to Darla’s side. “What’s a strike?” she asked.

  “Work stoppage,” Darla said. “Signs and lines.”

  Nancy, Martha, and JoAnne, who had also stayed to listen, looked equally puzzled.

  “Signs?” Nancy said.

  “Lines?” Joanne said.

  "Hello...” Darla couldn’t help the exasperation in her voice. “What year do you all live in? I mean, haven’t you ever heard of strikes? Watched CNN? Endured social studies?”

  “Nineteen fourteen,” said Martha.

  "Nineteen thirty-three,” said Nancy.

  “Nineteen seventy-two,” said Joanne.

  "Do you mean to say that none of you are...” Darla couldn’t think of what to call it, so added lamely, “new?”

  Lizzy slipped her hand into Darla’s. “You are the onliest new Wendy we’ve had in years.”

  “Oh,” Darla said. “I guess that explains it.” But she wasn’t sure.

  “Explains what?” they asked. Before Darla could answer, Wendy called from the kitchen doorway, “Are you lot coming? Tea’s on.” She did not sound as if she were including Darla in the invitation.

  Martha scurried to Wendy’s side, but Nancy and JoAnne hesitated a moment before joining her. That left only Lizzy with Darla.

  “Can I help?” Lizzy asked. “For the signs. And the ’ines? I be a good worker. Even Wendy says so.”

  “You’re my only...” Darla said, smiling down at her and giving her little hand a squeeze. “My onliest worker. Still, as my mom always says, Start with one, you’re halfway done.”

  Lizzy repeated the rhyme. “Start with one, you’re halfway done. Start with one...”

  “Just remember it. No need to say it aloud,” Darla said.

  Lizzy looked up at her, eyes like sky blue marbles. “But I ’ike the way that poem sounds.”

  "Then ’ike it quietly. We have a long way to go yet before we’re ready for any chants.” Darla went into the kitchen hand-in-hand with Lizzy, who skipped beside her, mouthing the words silently.

  Fourteen Wendys stared it them. Not a one was smiling. Each had a teacup—unmatched, chipped, or cracked—in her hand.

  “A long way to go where?” Wendy asked in a chilly voice.

  “A long way before you can be free of this yoke of oppression,” said Darla. Yoke of oppression was a favorite expression of her mother’s.

  “We are not yoked,” Wendy said slowly. “And we are not oppressed.”

  “What’s o-ppressed?” asked Lizzy.

  “Made to do what you don’t want to do,” explained Darla, but she never took her eyes off of Wendy. “Treated harshly. Ruled unjustly. Governed with cruelty.” Those were the three definitions she’ had to memorize for her last social studies exam. She never thought she’d ever actually get to use them in the real world. If, she thought suddenly, this world is real.

  “No one treats us harshly or rules us unjustly. And the only cruel ones in Neverland are the pirates,” Wendy explained carefully, as if talking to someone feebleminded or slow.

  None of the other Wendys said a word. Most of them stared into their cups, a little—Darla thought—like the way I always stare down at my shoes when Mom or Dad wants to talk about something that hurts.

  Lizzy pulled her hand from Darla’s. “I think it harsh that we always have to dean up after the boys.” Her voice was tiny but still it carried.

  “And unjust,” someone put in.

  “Who said that?” Wendy demanded, staring around the table. “Who dares to say that Peter is unjust?”

  Darla pursed her lips, wondering how her mom would answer such a question. She was about to lean forward to say something when JoAnne stood in a rush.

  “I said it. And it is unjust. I came to Neverland to get away from that sort of thing. Well ... and to get away from my stepfather, too,” she said. “I mean, I don’t mind cleaning up my own mess. And even someone else’s, occasionally. But...” She sat down as quickly as she had stood, looking accusingly into her cup, as if the cup had spoken and not she.

  “Well!” Wendy said, sounding so much like Darla’s home ec teacher that Darla had to laugh out loud.

  As if the laugh freed them, the girls suddenly stood up one after another, voicing complaints. And as each one rose, little Lizzy clapped her hands and skipped around the table, chanting, “Start with one, you’re halfway done! Start with one, you’re halfway done!”

  Darla didn’t say a word more. She didn’t have to. She just listened as the first trickle of angry voices became a stream and the stream turned into a flood. The girls spoke of the boys’ mess and being underappreciated and wanting a larger share of the food. They spoke about needing to go outside every once in a while. They spoke of longing for new stockings and a bathing room all to themselves, not one shared with the boys, who left rings around the tub and dirty underwear everywhere. They spoke of the long hours and the lack of fresh air, and Barbara said they really could use every other Saturday off, at least. It seemed once they started complaining they couldn’t stop.

  Darla’s mom would have understood what had just happened, but Darla was dearly as stunned as Wendy by the rush of demands. They stared at one another, almost like comrades.

  The other girls kept on for long minutes, each one stumbling over the next to be heard, until the room positively rocked with complaints. And then, as suddenly as they had begun, they stopped. Red faced, they all sat down again, except for Lizzy, who still capered around the room, but now did it wordlessly.

  Into the sudden silence, Wendy rose. “How co
uld you..." she began. She leaned over the table, dutching the top, her entire body trembling. "After all Peter has done for you, taking you in when no one else wanted you, when you had been tossed aside by the world, when you’d been crushed and corrupted and canceled. How could you?”

  Lizzy stopped skipping in front of Darla. "Is it time for signs and 'ines now?” she asked, her marble-blue eyes wide.

  Darla couldn’t help it. She laughed again. Then she held out her arms to Lizzy, who cuddled right in. “Time indeed,” Darla said. She looked up at Wendy, “like it or not, Miss Management, the Lost Girls are going out on strike.”

  Wendy sat in her rocker, arms folded, a scowl on her face. She looked like a four-year-old having a temper tantrum. But of course it was something worse than that.

  The girls ignored her. They threw themselves into making signs with a kind of manic energy and in about an hour they had a whole range of them, using the backs of their old signs, pages torn from cookbooks, and flattened flour bags.

  WENDYS WON’T WORK, one read, EQUAL PLAY FOR EQUAL WORK, went another, MY NAME’S NOT WENDY! said a third, and FRESH AIR IS ONLY FAIR a fourth. Lizzy’s sign was decorated with stick figures carrying what Darla took to be swords, or maybe wands. Lizzy had spelled out—or rather misspelled out—what became the girls’ marching words: WE AIN’T LOST, WE’RE JUST MIZ-PLAYST.

  It turned out that JoAnne was musical. She made up lyrics to the tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and taught them to the others:

  We ain’t lost, we’re just misplaced,

  The outside foe we’ve never faced.

  Give us a chance to fight and win

  And we’ll be sure to keep Neverland neat as a pin.

  The girls argued for a while over that last line, which Betsy said had too many syllables and the wrong sentiment, until Magda suggested, rather timidly, that if they actually wanted a chance to fight the pirates, maybe the boys should take a turn at cleaning the house. “Fair’s fair,” she added.

  That got a cheer. “Fair’s fair,” they told one another, and Patsy scrawled that sentiment on yet another sign.

  The cheer caused Wendy to get up grumpily from her chair and leave the kitchen in a snit. She must have called for the boys then, because no sooner had the girls decided on an amended line (which still had too many syllables but felt right otherwise)—

  And you con keep Neverland neat as a pin!

  —than the boys could be heard coming back noisily into the dining room. They shouted and whistled and banged their fists on the table, calling out for the girls and for food. Tink's high-pitched cry overrode the noise, piercing the air. The girls managed to ignore it all until Peter suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “What’s this I hear?” he said, smiling slightly to show he was more amused than angry. Somehow that only made his face seem both sinister and untrustworthy.

  But his appearance in the doorway was electrifying. For a moment not one of the girls could speak. It was as if they had all taken a collective breath and were waiting to see which of them had the courage to breathe out first.

  Then Lizzy held up her sign. “We’re going on strike,” she said brightly.

  “And what, little Wendy, is that?” Peter asked, leaning forward and speaking in the kind of voice grown-ups use with children. He pointed at her sign. “Is it...” he said slyly, “like a thimble?”

  “Silly Peter,” said Lizzy, “it’s signs and ’ines.”

  “I see the signs, all right,” said Peter. “But what do they mean? WENDYS WON’T WORK. Why, Neverland counts on Wendys working. And I count on it, too. You Wendys are the most important part of what we have made here.”

  “Oh,” said Lizzy, turning to Darla, her face shining with pleasure. “We’re the mostest important...”

  Darla sighed heavily. “If you are so important, Lizzy, why can’t he remember your name? If you’re so important, why do you have all the work and none of the fun?”

  “Right!” cried JoAnne suddenly, and immediately burst into her song. It was picked up at once by the other girls. Lizzy, caught up in the music, began to march in time all around the table with her sign. The others, still singing, fell in line behind her. They marched once around the kitchen and then right out into the dining room. Darla was at the rear.

  At first the Lost Boys were stunned at the sight of the girls and their signs. Then they, too, got caught up in the song and began to pound their hands on the table in rhythm.

  Tink flew around and around Wendy’s head, flickering on and off and on angrily, looking for all the world like an electric hair-cutting machine. Peter glared at them all until he suddenly seemed to come to some conclusion. Then he leaped onto the dining room table, threw back his head, and crowed loudly.

  At that everyone went dead silent. Even Tink.

  Peter let the silence prolong itself until it was almost painful. At last he turned and addressed Darla and, through her, all the girls. “What is it you want?” he asked. “What is it you truly want? Because you’d better be careful what you ask for. In Neverland wishes are granted in very strange ways.”

  “It’s not,” Darla said carefully, “what I want. It’s what they want.”

  In a tight voice, Wendy cried out, "They never wanted for anything until she came, Peter. They never needed or asked...”

  "What we want...” JoAnne interrupted, “is to be equals.”

  Peter wheeled about on the table and stared down at JoAnne and she, poor thing, turned gray under his gaze. “No one is asking you,” he said pointedly.

  "We want to be equals!” Lizzy shouted. "To the boys. To Peter!”

  The dam burst again, and the girls began shouting and singing and crying and laughing all together. “Equal ... equal ... equal...”

  Even the boys took it up.

  Tink flickered frantically, then took off up one of the bolt-holes, emerging almost immediately down another, her piercing alarm signal so loud that everyone stopped chanting, except for Lizzy, whose little voice only trailed off after a bit.

  “So,” said Peter, “you want equal share in the fighting? Then here’s your chance.”

  Tink’s light was sputtering with excitement and she whistled nonstop.

  “Tink says Hook’s entire crew is out there, waiting. And, boy! are they angry. You want to fight them? Then go ahead.” He crossed his arms over his chest and turned his face away from the girls. “I won't stop you.

  No longer gray but now pink with excitement, JoAnne grabbed up a knife from the nearest Lost Boy. “I’m not afraid!” she said. She headed up one of the bolt-holes.

  Weaponless, Barbara, Pansy, and Betsy followed right after.

  “But that’s not what I meant them to do,” Darla said. “I mean, weren’t we supposed to work out some sort of compromise?”

  Peter turned back slowly and looked at Darla, his face stern and unforgiving. “I’m Peter Pan. I don't have to compromise in Neverland.” Wendy reached up to help him off the tabletop.

  The other girls had already scattered up the holes, and only Lizzy was left. And Darla.

  “Are you coming to the fight?” Lizzy asked Darla, holding out her hand.

  Darla gulped and nodded. They walked to the bolt-hole hand-in-hand. Darla wasn’t sure what to ex pea, but they began rising up as if in some sort of air elevator. Behind them one of the boys was whining to Peter, “But what are we going to do without them?”

  The last thing Darla heard Peter say was, “Don’t worry. There are always more Wendys where they came from.”

  The air outside was crisp and autumny and smelled of apples. There was a full moon, orange and huge. Harvest moon, Darla thought, which was odd since it had been spring in her bedroom.

  Ahead she saw the other girls. And the pirates. Or at least she saw their silhouettes. It obviously hadn’t been much of a fight. The smallest of the girls—Martha, Nina, and Heidi—were already captured and riding atop their captors’ shoulders. The others, with die exception of JoAnne
, were being carried off fireman-style. JoAnne still had her knife and she was standing off one of the largest of the men; she got in one good swipe before being disarmed, and lifted up.

  Darla was just digesting this when Lizzy was pulled from her.

  “Up you go, little darlin’,” came a deep voice.

  Lizzy screamed. “Wendy! Wendy!”

  Darla had no time to answer her before she, too, was gathered up in enormous arms and carted off.

  In less time than it takes to tell of it, they were through the woods and over a shingle, dumped into boats, and rowed out to the pirate ship. There they were hauled up by ropes and—except for Betsy, who struggled so hard she landed in the water and had to be fished out, wrung out, and then hauled up again—it was a silent and well-practiced operation.

  The girls stood in a huddle on the well-lit deck and awaited their fate. Darla was glad no one said anything. She felt awful. She hadn’t meant them to come to this. Peter had been right. Wishes in Neverland were dangerous.

  “Here come the captains,” said one of the pirates. It was the first thing anyone had said since the capture.

  He must mean captain, singular, thought Darla. But when she heard footsteps nearing them and dared to look up, there were, indeed, two figures coming forward. One was an old man about her grandfather’s age, his white hair in two braids, a three-cornered hat on his head. She looked for the infamous hook but he had two regular hands, though the right one was clutching a pen.

  The other captain was ... a woman.

  “Welcome to Hook’s ship,” the woman said. “I’m Mrs. Hook. Also known as Mother Jane. Also known as Pirate til. Also called The Pirate Queen. We’ve been hoping we could get you away from Peter for a very long time.” She shook hands with each of the girls and gave tizzy a hug.

  “I need to get to the doctor, ma’am,” said one of the pirates. “That little girl...” he pointed to JoAnne “...gave me quite a slice.”