The old Pan. As if there really was such a thing. As if he were it. But she kept insisting, and the small group of Lost Boys who wanted to believe it was possible kept insisting right along with her-all of them peering down at him rather like they might at something odd spied on a zoo outing.
So up he got and off he went to exercise-fat, old Peter Banning, attorney-at-law and sometime developer, strayed from the real world into this imaginary one, out on a when-you-wish-upon-a-star kind of expedition that a faerie and a bunch of little boys were convinced would result in the discovery of his own personal fountain of youth.
It was midmorning, and he had been at it for more than three hours already. Lord have mercy!
Down the pathway into spring he jogged once more, grateful to be past winter, looking forward to summer. His breath came in gasps, his feet were on fire, his muscles ached, and his whole body puffed and shook and generally refused to respond in any positive way to the torture he was putting it through. Tink jogged on his shoulder, going nowhere, enjoying it nevertheless. His entourage of Lost Boys ran circles around him, darting here and there, urging him on, singing and dancing and calling out enthusiastically, covering three times the ground and possessed of at least twice the energy.
Oh, to be twelve again-just for the morning!
He trudged elephantlike through the wildflowers, their scent pungent and sweet in the warming air, spring in full bloom now where it dipped down the rise beneath the limbs of the Nevertree and approached the lagoon. Around and around the tree he had gone, in and out of the four seasons. Real seasons, not pretend. Summer, fall, winter, spring. At first he hadn't been able to believe it-an entire year's seasons grouped around a single tree, never mind how big the tree might be. It wasn't environmentally possible. It wasn't rationally conceivable. And yet, nevertheless, there it was. It took him a dozen times or so of trooping about the tree and passing through each to accept that they were there-a dozen times of sloshing through winter's snows, tripping through spring's flowers, dancing through summer's grasses, and sprinting (well, almost) through fall's colors. But in the end he had accepted what was happening because, after all, it wasn't any crazier than anything else he had encountered, and now was hardly the time to start being choosy.
Sweat dripped off his forehead and ran down into his face. He licked his lips. The temperature warmed as he left spring, passed the lagoon, and started up into summer.
He would give anything for a cold beer!
"Gotta train! In the rain! Gotta run! In the sun! In the snow! Ten below!"
"Shape up! Lose weight! Get thin! Gotta win!"
"Pick 'em up! Move 'em down! Pick 'em on up! Off the ground!"
His little band of followers shouted slogans from all around, pushing him from behind, pulling him from ahead, leading him from season to season, from ache to ache. The remainder of the Lost Boys, Rufio at their head, were gathered in clusters about the Nevertree, watching. Mostly, they were laughing-rolling on the ground in hysterics, yelling very unkind (however true) remarks about Peter's body every time he passed them.
"Hey, jollymon, catch a bus!" shouted Rufio, bringing laughter from all quarters.
"Must be more than one of you in there!" roared another.
Peter kept on, ignoring them as best he could, conscious of the fact that he looked ridiculous, continuing only because he didn't know what else to do. If there was even the slightest chance that Tink was right, that this was the way to get Jack and Maggie free of Captain Hook…
He closed his eyes momentarily against what he was feeling, then staggered on toward fall and its slippery carpet of leaves where he always fell at least once, then winter and its curious penguins, and back again into spring, and on and on and on.
When he was finally allowed to stop running, he was somewhere between spring and summer and total exhaustion. Allowing no rest, Tink directed him briskly to the makeshift exercise equipment that the Lost Boys had constructed. Peter's old clothing was in tatters by now-his dress shirt and the remnants of his tux. The waistcoat had disappeared entirely. His shoes were scuffed and dusty.
Tink started him first on a bar attached to a rope, counterbalanced by Lost Boys sitting in a basket. Too Small and Latchboy started, the lightest of the group, and then heavier boys took their place. When that wasn't enough, they added rocks. Peter succeeded in pulling the bar down by dint of excess weight alone and not because of muscle tone. He gave it up after a dozen tries.
From there he was moved to the leg-lift machine, where a rope tied to a bar and affixed to his ankles ran to a cluster of what the Lost Boys claimed was poison ivy suspended over his face. Failure to keep the legs up resulted in the obvious. Peter grunted and strained, his stomach muscles turned to water, and his face was bathed in sweat. He would have dropped the poison ivy into his face in the end if Thud Butt hadn't grabbed the rope a moment before his collapse.
Peter rolled away, gasping. He looked up at his entourage forlornly. "I know I'm in lousy shape. I know I'm old and fat. I know I'm going on forty. I accept all that. I accept my mortality. How is all this going to help me get my kids back?"
Pockets bent down as if to study a specimen on a slide, floppy hat dipping over one eye. "The only way ta be uh kid is ta look like uh kid," he answered solemnly.
Then they hauled Peter to his feet again and steered him to a huge tree stump over which he was unceremoniously draped. Most of what remained of his clothes was stripped off. Surrounded by Lost Boys, he had another flash of the horrors of Lord of the Flies, but it turned out they had something much worse in mind. Crowding close, they began to pummel him with fists and hands in a sort of haphazard massage, kneading and rubbing his flabby flesh and rubber-band muscles, bringing out from within every last smidgen of pain he had spent the morning building up and trying to forget. Finished with one side, they flipped him over and began on the other, singing and calling out as they worked. Peter was certain he was going to die. Secretly, he began to wish for it.
This will never work, he told himself dismally. Never.
Rufio walked up and gave his stomach a double twist with his knuckles. "Ain't missed too many meals lately, 'ey, Mr. Pretend Pan?" he jeered.
The massage ended and the Lost Boys raised him up, somewhat the way you would a limp noodle, and took a look at their handiwork.
"Gettin' there," ventured Thud Butt, hands on hips. His bluff, chubby face broke into a toothy smile.
"Still doesn't look right." Don't Ask frowned.
Pockets, Latchboy, Ace, and No Nap crowded close. Then Too Small wormed into view, reached out, and pulled a tuft of Peter's chest hair. The Lost Boys stared at each other. Amusement twinkled in their eyes. No Nap scratched himself like a gorilla, bringing peals of laughter from the others.
Within moments a steaming bowl of soap lather was brought forward by Don't Ask. Ace followed, top hat cocked back, a very large, very sharp knife in his hand. Peter's eyes went wide. He backed off the stump and tried to run, but the boys tackled him and wrestled him to the ground. With arms and legs securely pinned, Peter decided that twisting his torso against the knife blade was counterproductive, and so he lay quite still as Ace carefully shaved the hair from his body, front and back, then worked his way down both legs and arms as well, until Peter had been scraped pretty well clean.
Clad only in his shorts now, he stood staring down at his smooth, pink-skinned body in disbelief. All that hair had covered a whole lot of flesh, he decided. There seemed to be a lot more of him now.