Free Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean Page A

the normal course of things, wonderful at archery and throat-slitting. But faced with packs of panthers and a pride of lions, with boarding parties of monkeys and a broadside of bears, their soft little hands shook and the bowstrings slid from between their sweaty fingers. They fled below decks. The search party aboard the Jolly Peter leapt back on to the bow of the SS Starkey , spilling their captain-nursemaid out of his swivel chair and into the paint-locker. They tried to push off, but the bow of the steam-cutter had wedged itself too deep.
    Five islands gently bumped rubber-tree fenders against the Jolly Peter . Exotic breeds of animal spilled aboard from four of the five. The fifth island delivered up only one breed of animal. One solitary, two-legged creature.
    ‘Difficulties, sir? What good fortune that I should have been passing,’ said the Great Ravello.

Peter Pan drew his dagger and cut the cords of seven kitbags. The League of Pan wriggled free. Their first thought was to get as far away as possible from the wild animals roaming the ship, roaring and pouncing and dripping dribble on the deck.
    ‘Oh please!’ said Ravello. ‘Don’t mind my nippers and snappers. They know their place, and they rarely eat between meals.’ He cracked his circus-master’s whip. The beasts flinched, broke off from what they were doing, leapt over the rail, and swam back to their various floating islands. Except for the bears. They boarded the SS Starkey and sat themselves down around the open hatch of the fo’c’sle, dipping huge paws through it as if trying to catch fish through an ice-hole. The little Redskins inside could be heard screaming and whimpering and calling for their mothers. Peter Pan kept tight hold of his dagger.
    ‘Thank you, Mr Ravello!’ said Wendy. ‘You saved us!’
    ‘Pleasure, ma’am,’ said Ravello, bowing. There were scorch marks on his vast garment now, and a smell about him of charred wool. ‘I was very much hoping our paths would cross again.’
    Peter—tiny alongside the circus-master—flinched. ‘Why?’
    ‘There was a fire in the Neverwood—you must have seen something of it as you sailed away. Yes?’ (The Twins put their hands over their mouths in guilty horror: was Ravello about to make them pay for burning down his circus? Had he come after them with thoughts of revenge or punishment?) ‘My livelihood was utterly destroyed by that fire. Everything gone. Tent, cages, staff … Thus I find myself without a profession—without the means of earning a crust.’ (The Twins mewed with panic and bitter regret and tried to slide under the tarpaulin of a gig-boat and hide. The Great Ravello intercepted them, a raggedy sleeve encircling each boy, a firm tug pulling their heads close against his body.) ‘So. I seek employment. One must work one’s passage on the voyage through Life, you do agree?’
    ‘Work’s for grown-ups!’ said Peter, who didn’t.
    Ravello waved a ragged sleeve-end and let it drop. ‘Ah yes. Of course. I was forgetting. You people here have made Childhood your profession. Sadly I have rather missed the boat , in terms of being a little boy. Ergo , I must follow some other line of work.’ Within the woolly shadow of the hooded cardigan, Ravello’s pale brown eyes closed for a moment. ‘So I hope—dare I hope?—that I may be allowed to serve, in some humble way, the marvellous Peter Pan.’
    Peter was genuinely startled. ‘Me?’
    Ravello bowed, sweeping the tips of Peter’s boots with the ravellings of his cuff. ‘Your butler, perhaps! Your valet? Your serving man? I ask no pay, sir! Only my keep, sir! The honour of serving you would be payment enough. Simply to be allowed to be of use, sir! Say you can forgive my sin of growing big, sir!’ The shoulders folded forward, the head dipped. A dead sheep would have looked arrogant in comparison with the Great Ravello, as he sank to one knee in front of Peter Pan. ‘Let me serve you in any way I can!’
    For a