would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave
her complete ease of mind. What did disturb her at times was that John
remembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while
Michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother.
These things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she
tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination
papers on it, as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school.
The other boys thought this awfully interesting, and insisted on
joining, and they made slates for themselves, and sat round the table,
writing and thinking hard about the questions she had written on
another slate and passed round. They were the most ordinary
questions What was the colour of Mother s eyes? Which was taller,
Father or Mother? Was Mother blonde or brunette? Answer all three
questions if possible. (A) Write an essay of not less than 40 words
on How I spent my last Holidays, or The Characters of Father and Mother
compared. Only one of these to be attempted. Or (1) Describe Mother s
laugh; (2) Describe Father s laugh; (3) Describe Mother s Party Dress;
(4) Describe the Kennel and its Inmate.
They were just everyday questions like these, and when you could not
answer them you were told to make a cross; and it was really dreadful
what a number of crosses even John made. Of course the only boy who
replied to every question was Slightly, and no one could have been more
hopeful of coming out first, but his answers were perfectly ridiculous,
and he really came out last: a melancholy thing.
Peter did not compete. For one thing he despised all mothers except
Wendy, and for another he was the only boy on the island who could
neither write nor spell; not the smallest word. He was above all that
sort of thing.
By the way, the questions were all written in the past tense. What was
the colour of Mother s eyes, and so on. Wendy, you see, had been
forgetting, too.
Adventures, of course, as we shall see, were of daily occurrence; but
about this time Peter invented, with Wendy s help, a new game that
fascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more interest in
it, which, as you have been told, was what always happened with his
games. It consisted in pretending not to have adventures, in doing the
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