When I was taking summer classes, I took a gender study course. One assignment was where I had to take an old fairytale such as Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Red Riding Hood, etc, and it give it a twist. The twist could be a change of gender, a change of skin color, or a significant change to the story. I remember one colleague had to change the whole plot line for Cinderella when he made the princess search for a boy in her kingdom, going through all this crazy journey to find the guy.
Anyways, the point of writing these "new" fairytales was to prove that these fairytales are so memorable that we remember them. They always had certain elements that were borderline racist or tend to always have a certain standard for girls as well as boys. I'm not saying that these fairytales were bad but they also did not give the best examples for children. So what would happen when we started to make them the way that boys and girls could be inspired? What if we made those changes for them?
So this is what it is. A remake of what Peter Pan would be like if Peter Pan was a girl, now named Petra, and Wendy was a boy, now named Woody Darling. I rewrote only the first chapter and kept the same things that occur in the BOOK to see how it would be when someone read it. When I re-read this, my mind did question the fact a boy was sewing a shadow together. But then I thought: why can't a boy sew something together? Why can't his mother teach him? This could of been the new standard if this were the original story millions of people I read. You just have to keep an open mind.
All children,
except one, grow up. It was the order of things in life. Children sense the
change when they are born and cannot speak. Adults told them what they would
become. The seasons of change told them right away. The act of change warned
them. The frost of winter pierced their cheeks. The colors of autumn shuffled
under their feet. The thick air of summer and fresh air of spring warned them. Each
told the children that they would grow older. Every year, every second, in
exchange of these seasons, they knew they had to grow up.
One
night, early in the summer years ago, in the Darling household, Woody Darling,
the eldest of the house came to this realization as he played with his two
younger sisters, Jane and Micah. He paused from his story about a pirate,
distracted, after catching the sight of a shadow.
“Mother,
over there!” exclaimed Woody, pointing to the open window at their bedroom.
Jane and Micah followed his finger and stared at their window. All of them ran
to the window, noticing nothing but their rooftop.
Their
mother checked around the small balcony, inspecting every inch, but saw
nothing, only shivering from the chilly night air.
“Nothing
to worry about, my children. Time to rest, there’s nothing out there, now
goodnight,” she hummed to her children, tucking them into their covers, gave
each one a kiss on their foreheads, clicked off the light, and closed the door.
A
soothing darkness covered the children. Safe in their covers, their eyes
closed, nearly dreaming, almost reaching dreamlands until a silhouette stood at
the window.
An
illuminating light was there, darting across the room to the drawer’s of the
children’s. He wandered off, curiously looking at himself in the mirror for the
first time, observing his own skeleton leaf attire. He cocked his head,
surprised at himself. His fairy glow flashed quickly when he heard,” BOO TINK!”
Then
Petra dropped in, hovering in the bedroom with a mischievous smirk. Adorned in
skeleton leaves, she hinted at the smell of newborn roses, the sense of a free
spirit. Her knobby brown hair held back by an acorn tie. Loose strands flew out
everywhere as she searched the whole room.
“Now
where is my shadow?” she demanded, reaching the ceiling, staring at the
children’s mural, face to face with a monstrous whale.
“Tink,
where did they put my shadow?”
Finally,
the melodious tinkle of jingle bells answered her question, telling her it was
right behind her.
Petra
dived at her shadow, lost for the first time. She managed to grab the ankle of
her shadow, stretching it apart as she tried to stick it to the heels of her
feet. She tried this several times, knocking over the children’s wardrobe in
the process, spilling its contents all over the floor until it was useless. She
sat on the floor defeated, mouth quivering out of spite for a moment, and
cried.
Her
sobs woke Woody who sat up in bed and saw the stranger crying on his floor,
curious for the first time.
“Girl?”
he asked shyly,” Why are you crying?”
Petra
looked up at the boy, aware at the need to be polite at such occasions, bowed
out of attending so many fairy ceremonies.
“I
wasn’t crying,” she sniffed,” holding a hand on her shadow behind her back,”
What’s your name?”
Woody
stepped out of bed, edging closer to her.
“I’m
Woody Matthew Nywed Darling,” he answered proudly,” Yours?”
“Petra
…” she started, raising her hands to her hips,” Pan.”
“What
an interesting name.”
“Really?”
“Indeed!”
agreed Woody who sat in front of her, Indian style.
“Your
mother must like short names.”
“Don’t
have a mother,” she insisted back.
Woody
turned to her, brow narrowed in confusion.
“No
mother?”
“Nope,”
answered Petra quickly, in a dignified manner.
“No
wonder you were crying. Not having a mother!” replied Woody until Petra gave
him a scowl.
“I
wasn’t crying! My shadow won’t stick to me!” protested Petra who held her
shadow at arm’s length, mad.
“I
can fix that,” began Woody who brought out a sewing kit from a drawer near his
bed,” Perhaps sew it on.”
“Sew
it on!” repeated Petra as she stood still with her feet in the air. A needle
and thread were meeting together on her heels as she stared at the ceiling
again.
“Y’know,
I have never seen that thing before my whole life! That big, ugly fish! That
doesn’t exist in Neverland!” she shouted in a daze.
“Neverland?”
asked Woody.
“What’s
Neverland?”
“Neverland
is where I live,” Petra added smugly, thinking aloud, “Second star to the right
and straight on till morning! A wonderful place! So many adventures! Pirates,
Mermaids, Indians, and my lost girls!”
“Pirates?
Mermaids? How unbelievable! Oh, finished,” replied Woody as he cut off the
thread with his teeth, setting free Petra who flew in the air, took a dive, and
checked out her own shadow on the wall.
“Oh
how clever am I!” she shouted in the room, doing flips in the air.
“I
suppose I did nothing, then?” added Woody who pushed away his needle in his
drawer.
“Well…”
thought Petra.” You did a little.” She admitted.
“So,
are there any lost boys in Neverland?” questioned Woody, knowing a sphere of
adventure looming in the air.
“Not
really. Boys are much too clever to fall out of their nurseries to have
adventures.”
Woody
turned away from her.
“Oh.”
“But
boys are worth twenty girls!” she started, “Any boy who can sew or tell stories
is worth bringing to Neverland! Come with me!”
“I
… don’t know,” he answered slowly.
“I’ll
teach you to fly,” she convinced him in a sing-song voice, hovering over him as
he edged closer to her.
“To
fly?” he asked, leaning closer to her until he was pushed to the ground by a bright
light.
“Tink!”
shouted Petra as she scolded him with a finger to his face, listening to his
protests for a moment until she faced Woody.
“Can
Jane and Micah come too?” he answered excitedly, aware at the sounds of
adventure.
“Of
course!” she exclaimed playfully as she bounced on each of them, which forced
them to bash their eyes open in surprise.
They
gasped at the girl who flew above their heads as Woody said, “C’mon Micah,
Jane, Petra is going to teach us on how to fly now!”
That
was when Petra lured them closer to the window, hovering closer to the ledge,
blowing pixie dust on them from head to foot. With a tiny smirk to her lips,
she told them, “ Now think one happy thought and away you go!”
Then
the three children hovered in the air for the first time, shouting out of
delight, soaring above their own beds. As Micah and Jane stepped out of their
bedroom and into the open sky, Woody hesitated at the ledge, hovering
mid-length, looking back in silence. Micah and Jane disappeared, flying around
the house as Petra came next to him, puzzled by him, and tilt to his ear to
say,” Forget this, Woody. Look at the world around you. Imagine a place where
you never have to grow up. Never.”
Her
voice was soft, fragile as fairy dust as she grinned at him, took his hand, and
they flew. Their destination: second star to the right and straight on till
morning.
