It’s not such a wonderful thing, to be young,” I said. “It’s heartless, and selfish.”

“But, oh, so free,” Nod said sadly. “So free when you have no worries or cares.

Was this, too, part of growing up? Was it facing the bad things you’d done as well as the good, and knowing all your mistakes had consequences? Peter made mistakes all the time— he was thoughtless; he hurt people. But it never troubled him, not for a moment. He forgot all about it in an instant. That was being a boy.

Yes, because it’s obviously better if you beat each other to death with rocks instead of stabbing each other like civilized human beings,” Sal muttered, looking away.

We were still children, for all that we thought we weren’t. We were in that in-between place, the twilight between childish things and grown-up things.

I didn’t believe him at first, about the island, though.”

“I didn’t either,”I said. “I don’t know that anyone does. It sounds like a fantastic lie.”

“It is a fantastic lie,” Sal said, and her face was very earnest. “This isn’t a wonderful place for boys to play and have adventures and stay young for always. It’s a killing place, and we’re all just soldiers in Peter’s war.

Peter had just forgotten, the way that Peter did forget about anything that wasn’t right in front of him at the moment.