Chapter 1
A Dream about an Adventure

It was December 13, 1905, in Kensington, London, and it is about nine o’clock. All the lights in the town were out, and everyone went to bed early, to get their rest for the next day, except for one child, and her name is Alice. Alice sat by her bedroom window looking at the sky, hopping something amazing would happen to her.
Alice is a thirteen year old girl who lives as a middle class family, and she is the daughter of George and Mary Darling. She had only one sibling and his name is James he is three year older than Alice. Both James and Alice attended Edwardian School.
Alice always stayed up all night making stories about a boy named Peter Pan, who always stayed as a boy and never grew up, and a place called Never Land, where there were pirates, Indians, mermaids and fairies. These fairytale creatures are based on alternate versions of people in the human world except for fairies. Fairies are created when a baby has its first laugh. That laugh breaks into a million pieces, and each piece becomes a fairy. So, people could say that each person has at least on fairy.
Alice loves telling stories and fantasizing about Never Land. Alice is a magnificent storyteller; she could see life differently from everyone else. She thinks of her life as a story. Alice based Peter Pan on her brother, James, who died later in his life in a terrible ice skating accident.
Now let’s go back in time to January 13, 1902, three years before Alice ever created Peter Pan.
That night was cold; James came into Alice’s room with an amazing idea in his head. Alice’s room, which had a bed in the center of the wall nearest to the door, faced a window that had red curtain drooping on each side. On the left side of the window was a dresser, and on the opposite side were toys that were scattered everywhere. James had a big idea in his head; he held a small brown, leather notebook and black pen in his right hand.
“Alice, can I talk to you for a minute?” James asked curiously.
“Sure James, what is it?” Alice replied while she was finishing up one of her stories.
“Well, I was thinking before we get too old and wrinkly, we should make our own adventures, instead of you putting them in your stories, we should go out and live it,” James suggested.
“James, you read my stories again! Those stories are personal,” Alice angrily said “Plus how would we do that the adventures in my stories are impossible to do!?” Alice questioned.
“I’m sorry, but your stories are more interesting than the stories the school gives us to read. We don’t have to have big adventures, we could make simple ones. We could even put them in this little notebook to keep track of them, and once we finish one adventure, we could check it off the list,” James explained.
“I love that idea, James!” Alice said enthusiastically “Maybe we could have big adventures too, but we don’t have to fulfill them right away we could save them for a special day,” Alice continued.
“It’s a deal!” James replied with excitement in his voice.
It was the next day, in the middle of the afternoon and snow was falling from the sky again. Everyone was doing their normal business; some people were shoveling snow off the sidewalk while others were on their way to work. School had just got done and most of the kids were headed to the park to go ice skating. Alice and James where also headed to the park to go skating with their friends.
“James, wait for me I just have to find my hat, and then we can go,” Alice said in a haste.

James, was not a very patient person, instead of waiting for his sister to find her hat, he just went out and left without her. When Alice finally discovered where her hat was she ran downstairs to the door expecting James to be there waiting for her. Instead all she saw was an empty spot where James was standing.

“Honey, I’m sorry James left without you. I’m sure if you run you would probably catch up with him,” Mrs. Darling said as she was whipping the dining room table.

“Thanks mom,” Alice sighed in distress.
Alice was furious with James. So she grabbed her skates, which were hanging on the railing of the stairs and ran out the door; after a while of running she saw a glimpse of James in the distance walking on the sidewalk with one of his friends. Alice ran as fast as she could with tears streaming down her face. When Alice finally caught up with James she came up behind him and pushed him down as hard as she could. James fell in the snow bank next to the side walk.

“What did you do that for?!” James screamed at Alice
Alice, with tears running down her face, just stared at James, who was sunken in the snow bank. After starring judgingly at him, she ran off in the distance.

“Why is your sister mad at you?” James’s friend asked.

“I don’t know, I think she just extra emotional today,” James whispered making sure Alice couldn’t hear in the distance.
Alice ran behind a big pine tree making sure no one could see her crying. The tears on her face froze on her glove as she was whipping them off. Alice started heading towards the park again after she finished whipping her face dry, making sure it did look like she was crying.
Every week there was always a race, to determine the fastest skater, the person who wanted to be the fastest skater had to beat a certain time, which was twenty seconds. There are two rules everyone had to skate a full lap around the pond and girls weren’t allowed to join.
James was determined to be the fastest skater in Kensington Park, so he put on his skates, which were worn out and had a small hole on one side of the left skate, and headed out on the ice. James got in line on the ice with the other people who are trying to be the fastest skater. A crowd of people had gathered around on one side of pond trying to make sure they got a good spot to watch the race. A boy holding a watch sat at the edge of the pond, marking the spot where the race started and ended.
“ON YOUR MARK GET SET GO!” the boy yelled.
James pushed himself forward, with all his weight. James was in the lead and almost to the finish line. Not knowing there was a chunk of ice jutting out of the pond James stumbled on it and then fell down hard, his face awkwardly hitting the ice.
The people who were racing stopped and starred, others were laughing, but after noticing he wasn’t getting up some of the skaters went to see if he was ok. One of the girls from the crowd of people around the pond, was the first person to get to James.

“He’s bleeding everywhere, someone, get a doctor!” the girl yelled.
More people in the crowd went to James. One person who was wearing a green scarf wrapped it around his head to slow down the bleeding. Alice, who was sitting on a bench, didn’t know what happened she was too distracted writing in her story book.
“Alice, come quick your brother got hurt!” a girl from the crowd told Alice
Alice got up and rushed on the ice, with her shoes still on. She saw her brother lying on the ice, with a scarf wrapped around his head stained with blood. She fell on her knees and looked at him.

“James wake up, you’re OK, and you’re going to be OK!” Alice cried.
The doctor came to the middle of the pond where James was lying. The doctor held a bag which contained his supplies. He took out some cotton pad and a bandage to wrap around his head. He carefully took off the scarf and looked at the wound. He replaced the scarf with the cotton pad and bandage.

“He needs to be taken to the hospital immediately” the doctor started.
Alice ran home after the doctor told her that James needed to be taken to the hospital. She burst through the door with tears running down her face, and her eyes were red from all the crying.

“Mother, Father, where are you! James’s been hurt really bad!” Alice yelled.

“What happened?” Mrs. Darling asked in a concerned voice as she approached Alice.

“Well he was racing, and then he hit a piece of ice that was jutting out of the pond and he hit his head… the doctor said he needed to go to the hospital. Someone’s is taking him there,” Alice tried to explain

“Hurry on let’s go to the hospital!” Mr. Darling said in a panic
When they got to the hospital they ran to the lady at the desk, trying to figure out where James was. Before they could get an answer, a doctor went up to them; he was wearing a white lab coat with a face mask hanging over his neck.

“Are you people James’ family?” asked the doctor.

“Yes, where’s my son, is he OK?” Mrs. Darling said in a rush.

“Um, I think you might want to sit down for a minute,” said the doctor in a soft voice.

“No, no,” Mrs. Darling was saying as she was shaking her head side to side knowing what the doctor was about to say.

“He lost too much blood when he got here we couldn’t do anything to help him, I’m sorry” said the doctor in a soft voice.
Alice’s mom was on her knees leaning against a wall crying. Her dad was sitting in a chair with his hands covering his face, to mask the sadness that was overcoming him. Alice leaned against a wall, thinking about the last thing she did to James. She had pushed him down in the snow bank, only because he didn’t wait for her. It wasn’t the kindest thing she ever did and she repeated that moment over and over in her head trying to think what she couldn’t have done instead.
When the Darling finally got home, Alice ran to her room and grabbed the book that kept all their adventures that they were going to have. She looked at the list, nothing was checked off yet. A tear fell from her cheek and splashed on the page, creating a wet stain.