Jack Banning was stepping up to the plate. He wore the same old-time uniform as the pirates and carried a peg leg as a bat. He was flushed with excitement, his smile huge with anticipation. He swung the peg leg confidently, eagerly.
Peter started to his feet and might have leaped right out onto the field and gone for his son, except that Hook suddenly shouted, "Jack, Jack lad, this is the ultimate makeup game. It makes up for all the games Daddy missed. Old Hook would never miss your game."
Peter flinched at the sneering way Hook referred to "Daddy."
Jack paused at the edge of the batter's box and waved brightly in acknowledgment. "This one's for you, Captain!"
"Tear the leather right off 'er!" Hook shouted back, laughing gaily. "Rip that bauble, son!"
Peter sagged back in disbelief. There was no disguising the camaraderie that existed between his son and Hook. There was no hiding from what he had seen in his son's face-the joy, the excitement, the anticipation. Jack was having fun. Jack and Hook together.
Hook led a sudden cheer as pirates seated in the bleachers to one side began to flip cards that flashed crude drawings of first Hook's face and then Jack's.
"Jack! Jack! Jack's our man! If he can't do it, no one can!"
The cards flipped again, and a huge message read: run home jack! Jack, standing at home plate with the peg leg gripped tightly in both hands, stared at the message in confusion, a hint of doubt creeping into his eyes. Smee paused, turned, saw the sign, dropped the ball with a gasp, and raced out to the stands, yelling and waving his hands.
Moments and a few bruised heads later, the order of the cards had been reversed to read: home run jack!
Smee stood poised on the pitching mound, eyeing Jack steadily. He held Jack's own autographed baseball, working it around in his fingers. Jack stepped into the batter's box and then out again. He scratched his head and adjusted his cap. On the field, all the pirates scratched their heads and adjusted their caps. Jack spat. The pirates spat. Jack tugged at his belt and the pirates tugged at theirs.
Jack stepped back into the batter's box, peg leg cocked. Smee straightened, ready for the first pitch.
"Hold on, Smee!" Hook yelled to his bosun. "I need a glove!"
He turned to the woman beside him, who gingerly unscrewed the captain's claw and replaced it with a glove. Hook beamed. The tavern wench placed the hook on the bleacher seat next to the captain.
And inches from Peter's face.
The eyes of the Lost Boys went wide. Never had there been such a glorious opportunity as this! They had come looking for a way to steal Hook's hook, and the hook had practically been presented to them on a platter! Take it, Peter! they mouthed, gesturing wildly, jumping up and down in excitement. Take it! Take it!
But Peter wasn't listening. He barely noticed the hook in front of him. His attention was focused entirely on his son, standing in the batter's box with his peg leg cocked and his face flushed and smiling.
Smee threw a ball, high and wide. Jack barely gave it a look. Smee threw a second ball, low and away. Jack was not tempted. He was all business now, all concentration.
Smee reared back and released.
It was a wicked, sweeping curveball.
No, Peter thought in incongruous dismay. He can't hit a curve ball!
Jack tensed, the peg leg came back an inch or two, and he swung.
Crack! He caught his prized baseball squarely on the fat part of the peg leg and sent it winging skyward. It continued to rise, sailing up and away, out of the ballpark, out of Pirate Square, out of the town itself, and completely out of sight. Never had a baseball been hit so far.
Hook jumped up, his eyes shining. "Did you see that!" he cried out. "Did you see it! Oh, my Jack! You hit the curveball. You did it! Jack, my son!"
Down the stands he bounded, flinging his glove into the air, calling out wildly. Jack was trotting around the bases, leaping and hooting every few steps, shaking every pirate's hand he passed. Hook caught up with him at home plate, lifted him up, and swung him around, both of them smiling and laughing ecstatically. Pirates appeared with a huge barrel marked "CrocAde" above a picture of a grinning crocodile and dumped the contents all over Jack. The entire town cheered wildly.
Hook hoisted Jack onto his shoulders, spun him about, and led the entire procession of players and fans back through the town in celebration.
Beneath the stands, Peter watched in shock, a single, terrible thought running through his head: He's having so much fun. I've never seen him have this much fun.
He turned then and stumbled away, forgetting everything that had brought him there, everything that he had come to do. The Lost Boys stared after him in astonishment. What was the matter with him? What was he doing?
Finally, seeing that he indeed had no intention of returning, that he really had lost all interest in finding something to crow about, they exchanged looks of disgust and disappointment and followed after.
A Welcome-Home Party
Peter wasn't quite sure how he made it back to camp. A good eye and a clear memory would certainly have helped had he possessed either, but since he lacked both, it was most probably luck that saw him safely through. He ran the entire way, and the Lost Boys never did catch up to him. He believed he'd left Tink behind as well, for he neither saw nor heard from her during his flight. Pursued by demons he recognized all too well, he charged down the winding island trails with blind disregard for his safety, heedless of the heights he scaled and the drops he descended, consumed by bitterness and despair. Everywhere he turned, in shadowed woodland niches, in the mirrored surface of a pond, in the clouds that sailed peacefully overhead, he saw Jack with Hook.
I've lost him, was all he could think. I've lost him.
He couldn't bear to consider what had become of Maggie, what Hook might have made of her. It was a parent's worst nightmare-his children stolen away by a terrible influence, a bad habit, lured to a life that was doomed to end badly. Peter railed against himself furiously, laying on blame in thick layers, salt on his wounds. He knew he had failed, that Hook had won, that he had lost his fight for Jack and Maggie. How awful to realize the truth, to see clearly for the first time that things might easily have been different. A little more time spent with his children, a little more attention paid to them, a little extra effort to be there when they needed it, and none of this would be happening. Jack and Maggie were with Hook because Peter had chosen too many times not to be with them.
It was irrational thinking, of course. But then Peter Banning was in an exceedingly irrational state, a parent stripped bare of the armor of Parental Responsibility, an adult bereft of childhood memories, an authority figure only marginally in command of himself.
He crossed the rope bridge from the island to the atoll where the Nevertree stood straight and tall against the blue waters of the ocean, and he raged anew at fate and circumstance, at missed chances and poor choices, at heaven and earth and Hook. He did not fully know where he was as he stumbled on, grasping now in belated hope at the promises Tink had made him, at the wishful looks in the Lost Boys' eyes, at the dreams of rescue that seemed to have eluded him forever. He lurched about in a fog, muttering words of power that had gone empty and flat, now spreading his arms as if they were wings and jumping up and down in a vain effort to fly, now crouching to thrust and parry with an imaginary sword. Back and forth, left and right, hither and yon he staggered, descending into a madness that shut him away within himself as surely as barred doors and latched windows close an empty house. Tears blurred his eyes and ran down his cheeks, and the bitter taste in his mouth choked him until he could barely breathe.