Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean

over and over again, so loudly that John put his hands over his ears. Other witches were drawn to the noise:
    ‘ Children? There are children? ’
    ‘ Children! ’
    Dozens came jostling to catch a glimpse, ran out of their shoes without noticing it, dropped toys and rattles in their haste. Their banshee wailing echoed to and fro. They reached out their arms and cupped their hands and turned their faces up to the sky, saying, ‘ Please! Please let it be him! ’
    The Explorers leapt to their feet and ran, dodging this way and that, heads down, sliding down gulleys and jumping from ridge to ridge. Towed along by Ravello, the sea chest bounded and bounced high into the air, knocking over witches, knocking drinky cups and feeding-bottles out of their hands. Those same hands grabbed at the butler instead, snatching and catching in his woollen garment as if they would pull him apart:
    ‘ Wilfred? ’
    ‘ Matela? ’
    ‘ François? ’
    ‘ Roald? ’
    Blinded by tears, Slightly ran straight into another witch—a woman of such hollow-eyed loveliness that his blood seemed to turn to blues music and his heart to pain. For a moment she held his face between her hands, and they stared at each other. There was a maze, too, in the green iris of her eyes … Then Slightly broke away and ran like the very blazes.
    In the pocket of the scarlet frock coat the compass banged against Peter’s leg. He pulled it out and (for all it had more points than a frightened hedgehog) worked out which way to run. But there were just too many witches. From high and low, right and left, front and back they closed in:
    ‘ Klaus! ’
    ‘ Johann! ’
    ‘ Ai De! ’
    ‘ Pedro! ’
    Slightly stopped running. He rested his back against a ridge of rosy, twilit rock, gulping in air, gulping down fear. Then, as the witches flapped towards him in a shrieking mob, he took out his clarinet and started to play.
    The notes sobbed through the Maze. A sad, haunting tune it was—but it might as well have been grapeshot fired from a cannon at point-blank range. The witches stopped in their tracks, hands flying to their hearts. Slightly played—the same tune over and over again. From among the ranks of women, a single Scottish voice supplied the words:
    ‘ Will ye no come back again?
    Will ye no come back again?
    Better loved ye canna be.
    Will ye no come back again? ’
    I dare say you never cry or haven’t ever tried it while playing the clarinet, so I’ll tell you: your lips won’t hold their shape and your nose drizzles. It was hard to play—never harder. Even so, Slightly managed sixteen verses, while the witches swayed and tossed in front of him, like weeping willow trees, and the words echoed round and around. Like Horatius holding the bridge, like Roland at Roncevalles, Slightly played the clarinet while his friends fled to safety. Only when all the women’s eyes were shut in an ecstasy of sorrow, and his fellow Explorers had got clean away, did he pick up his heels and run!
       
    The whole Company ran, until the soft, striped sandstone under their feet gave way to grass, and even then they kept on running. They ran until there were trees, and the trees held up their branches in surrender: Stop! They ran until their lungs hung inside them like dead bats in a cave. Then, panting and gasping and leaning on their knees and deafened by the thudding of their heartbeats, they waited for Slightly to catch them up.
    ‘You were wonderful!’ they greeted him.
    ‘So clever!’
    ‘Marvellous!’
    ‘Is it hard to learn?’
    The Company of Explorers gathered round Slightly, praising and congratulating him. (Fireflyer grew so jealous that he bit Puppy.)
    ‘Very fine indeed,’ agreed Ravello, fetching the makings of afternoon tea out of the sea chest. ‘You are to be congratulated, young sir, on your musical genius.’
    Slightly blushed redder and redder. ‘They seemed more sad than angry,’ he said (being sensitive to other people’s feelings).