If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a
shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then
if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and
the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on
fire. But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the
nearest you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment;
if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the
mermaids singing.
The children often spent long summer days on this lagoon, swimming or
floating most of the time, playing the mermaid games in the water, and
so forth. You must not think from this that the mermaids were on
friendly terms with them: on the contrary, it was among Wendy s lasting
regrets that all the time she was on the island she never had a civil
word from one of them. When she stole softly to the edge of the lagoon
she might see them by the score, especially on Marooners Rock, where
they loved to bask, combing out their hair in a lazy way that quite
irritated her; or she might even swim, on tiptoe as it were, to within
a yard of them, but then they saw her and dived, probably splashing her
with their tails, not by accident, but intentionally.
They treated all the boys in the same way, except of course Peter, who
chatted with them on Marooners Rock by the hour, and sat on their
tails when they got cheeky. He gave Wendy one of their combs.
The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon,
when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for
mortals then, and until the evening of which we have now to tell, Wendy
had never seen the lagoon by moonlight, less from fear, for of course
Peter would have accompanied her, than because she had strict rules
about every one being in bed by seven. She was often at the lagoon,
however, on sunny days after rain, when the mermaids come up in
extraordinary numbers to play with their bubbles. The bubbles of many
colours made in rainbow water they treat as balls, hitting them gaily
from one to another with their tails, and trying to keep them in the
rainbow till they burst. The goals are at each end of the rainbow, and
the keepers only are allowed to use their hands. Sometimes a dozen of
these games will be going on in the lagoon at a time, and it is quite a
pretty sight.
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