“You must be nice to him,” Wendy impressed on her brothers. “What could we do if he were to leave us!”
“We could go back,” Michael said.
“How could we ever find our way back without him?”
“Well, then, we could go on,” said John.
“That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don’t know how to stop.”
This was true, Peter had forgotten to show them how to stop.
John said that if the worst came to the worst, all they had to do was to go straight on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come back to their own window.
“And who is to get food for us, John?”
“I nipped a bit out of that eagle’s mouth pretty neatly, Wendy.”
“After the twentieth try,” Wendy reminded him. “And even though we became good at picking up food, see how we bump against clouds and things if he is not near to give us a hand.”
Indeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly strongly, though they still kicked far too much; but if they saw a cloud in front of them, the more they tried to avoid it, the more certainly did they bump into it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a bandage round Michael’s forehead by this time.