HOOK (sharply). What was that?
(PETER makes the splash of a mermaid’s tail.)
STARKEY. One of them mermaids.
HOOK. Dost not know, Smee? A mother is—(he finds it more difficult to explain than he had expected, and looks about him for an illustration. He finds one in a great bird which drifts past in a nest as large as the roomiest basin.) There is a lesson in mothers for you! The nest must have fallen into the water, but would the bird desert her eggs? (PETER, who is now more or less off his head, makes the sound of a bird answering in the negative. The nest is borne out of sight.)
STARKEY. Maybe she is hanging about here to protect Peter?
(HOOK’S face clouds still further and PETER just manages not to call out that he needs no protection.)
SMEE (not usually a man of ideas). Captain, could we not kidnap these boys’ mother and make her our mother?
HOOK. Obesity and bunions, ’tis a princely scheme. We will seize the children, make them
