The Crocodile

(WENDY wakes up in bed with a start.  There's a CROCODILE sitting in her nursery.)

CROCODILE:  Tick tock.

WENDY:  Hello?

CROCODILE:  Hello Wendy.

WENDY:  Are you--

CROCODILE:  Firstly, I'm not going to eat you.

WENDY:  Well, I'm glad we got that out of the way.

CROCODILE:  I didn't want you to scream and wake up John or Michael.

WENDY:  John is away at university.  Michael is an artist living in the odd part of town where it always smells of old cabbage.

CROCODILE:  But aren't they children?

WENDY:  Not anymore.  It's been years since we went to Neverland.

CROCODILE:  Time is such a strange thing.

WENDY:  I expected Peter to come back and visit, but he never did.

CROCODILE:  Yes, about that--

WENDY:  I certainly didn't expect a visit from the Crocodile.

CROCODILE:  I had no intention of visiting, actually.

WENDY:  Oh?

CROCODILE:  I'm not fond of travel.  It upsets my stomach.  Tick tock.

WENDY:  Why are you here?

CROCODILE:  Why are you here?  I mean, if your brothers are gone--

WENDY:  I'm an unmarried spinster.

CROCODILE:  Oh?

WENDY:  Yes.

CROCODILE:  But you're so pretty.

WENDY:  Thank you very much, Mr. Crocodile.

CROCODILE:  Why aren't you married?

WENDY:  I never met anyone I liked as much as Peter.

CROCODILE:  But Peter was just a boy.  And you were just a girl.  Surely you don't compare every man you meet to a flying adolescent in tights?

WENDY:  I can't help it.  I fell in love and I never truly fell out of it.  The heart wants what it wants.

CROCODILE:  Yes, well, uh--

WENDY:  I even stayed here in the nursery when Mother and Father passed away instead of moving into their bedroom.  I didn't want Peter to show up here one day and not know where I was.

CROCODILE:  Well, the good news is, I think you can stop worrying about that.

WENDY:  IS PETER COMING BACK?

CROCODILE:  Not, uh...not exactly.

WENDY:  Not exactly?

CROCODILE:  No, actually, I should have just said 'No, he's not coming back.'  But I didn't want to just--

WENDY:  He's not?

CROCODILE:  It's not that he doesn't want to.

WENDY:  Oh.

CROCODILE:  I mean, I can't really say whether or not he wants to, since he's dead and all--

WENDY:  DEAD?  Peter is DEAD?

CROCODILE:  Ugh, I knew I was going to botch this.

WENDY:  I didn't know he could die!

CROCODILE:  He couldn't age, but he could certainly die.  He certainly DID die.

WENDY:  How?  How did it happen?

CROCODILE:  A mermaid ate him.

WENDY:  A mermaid?

CROCODILE:  Fine, okay, it was me.  I ate him.

WENDY:  You did WHAT?

CROCODILE:  I couldn't help it!  He fell in the water right around dinnertime.  I guess he felt like swimming or something, and I--Well, I ate him.

WENDY:  Oh no.  Poor Peter.

CROCODILE:  Tick tock.

WENDY:  What?

CROCODILE:  Oh, don't mind that.  It's just a little tic...tock.  Sorry, I can't help it.  Anyway, everyone in Neverland said I had to be the one to tell you what happened since I was the, uh, well, the culprit, as it were.

WENDY:  What am I to do now?

CROCODILE:  Well, frankly, Wendy, I think perhaps you should do what you should have done years ago.

WENDY:  Which is?

CROCODILE:  Get the hell out of this room.

WENDY:  And go where?  And do what?  Marry some stuffy British man who will only force me to bear his children and go to boring parties with him?  Be like my brothers and forget all about our adventures fighting pirates and befriending lost boys?  Wash my clothes more than once a month like some prissy society girl?

CROCODILE:  I was wondering what that smell was...

WENDY:  I should just jump out this window and end it all now--

(She runs to the window.)

CROCODILE:  Don't!

WENDY:  There's no talking me out of it!

CROCODILE:  I wasn't trying to talk you out of it.

WENDY:  What a wicked animal you are.  First you eat Peter, and now you're allowing me to off myself.

CROCODILE:  You wouldn't be able to even if you jumped from a building twice as high as the one we're in.

WENDY:  What are you talking about?

CROCODILE:  I sneezed as I was flying in here, and I got fairy dust all over the room--and you, I would imagine.  If you tried to jump out of the window, you'd only fly up towards the moon.

(A beat.)

WENDY:  ...Or to Neverland.

CROCODILE:  What?

WENDY:  I could go to Neverland.

CROCODILE:  That's...a bad idea.

WENDY:  Why?

CROCODILE:  Well, for one thing, you're too old, and also--

WENDY:  (Blissfully.)  I'M GOING TO NEVERLAND!

CROCODILE:  --And I guess I won't be listing the other reasons.

WENDY:  What fun we'll have, Mr. Crocodile!  What adventures!

CROCODILE:  We really don't do adventures in Neverland anymore.  Now that Peter's dead, we all just write bad poetry and listen to Joni Mitchell a lot.

WENDY:  And I shall change all that!

CROCODILE:  Please don't.  I really like Joni Mitchell.  And my poetry is getting a lot better--

WENDY:  Off to Neverland we go!

(She flies out the window.)

CROCODILE:  I knew I should have sent Tinkerbell.

(He flies, somewhat sluggishly, out the window and into the night.)