PAN PALS

I Saw Peter Pan Fall Like Lightning From Heaven

And now I know the way

by author

Once upon a school day during recess, the playground was empty.

Not a kid on a swing.

Not a kid hanging from the jungle gym.

And the soccer balls and basketballs lay still, forgotten.

Why didn’t the recess monitor notice and go seeking the lost children? Because this was a tiny religious school with zero money. We didn’t have a recess monitor. We had the recess honor system. Which is why all the children were completely missing.

Where were we?

At the far end of the playground, just inside the tree line, gathered at the top of a very steep bank, which fell away down into the deep inner darkness of the woods.

And we were jumping.

Jumping from the crown of the bank down into that dark.

The hill was a great one for jumping because it was forgiving, a hill covered in leaves, and beneath them stretched a baby-fat slab of loose earth.

We took turns jumping, landing six feet down the hill, ten feet, and then a massive leap brought one of us three quarters of the way down the hill.