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16 "But Peter, how old are you?" continued Wendy.

"I don't know, but quite young. I ran away the day I was born."

"Ran away—why?"

"Because I heard my father and mother talking about what I was to be when I became a man. I don't want to be a man. I want always to be a little boy and have fun. So I ran away and lived among the fairies."

Wendy was almost speechless with delight at the thought of sitting beside a boy who knew fairies, and after a minute said: "Peter, do you really know fairies?"

"Yes, but they're nearly all dead now. You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the