I was visiting Grandma for the weekend.  I loved coming to stay, she lived in this house high up in the sky in the middle of a big park.  My mum worked at the weekend and grandma would look after me.  Each morning I would wake up, run to the window and kneel on the chair, I could see a long way and everything seemed so small from up here.

“Are you ready?”,  I heard my grandma call and I climbed down from where I was kneeling, she was holding out my red coat.  

“Here” she said and I eagerly put it on,  grandma fastened the big buttons and I pulled my red bobble hat onto my head and pushed my gloves into my pocket.   It was cold today but I hated the gloves with ‘fingers’…..

“Are we going to see Peter Pan?”  I asked.  Grandma nodded and smiled, as we walked out of the door she handed me a bag of stale bread.

It was a crisp, autumn morning, as I breathed out, a cloud of ‘dragon smoke’ appeared in front of me.  I liked these kind of mornings.  We walked past the milkman who was parked outside and he carried a large crate of milk into the lift.  I nodded, copying my grandma it seemed that’s what grown-ups did. 

I 

We followed the same route we did every morning, it was a long path but never boring.  Past ‘Wendy’s’ straw house, past ‘The Jolly Roger’ ship in the middle of the lake and towards the bronze ‘statue. 

We stood at the bottom.  Grandma lifted me up and carefully placed my feet in the little crevices that surrounded it.  I placed bread beneath  Peter, playing his pan pipes, grandma lifted me down and  I placed the rest of the bread around the bottom of the statue, sharing it out between the fairies, rabbits and mice that were carved around the base,  I listened intently as grandma told me what happened when the moon came out.  “Magic” she said and she told me how the statue and all the animals came to life and ‘ate’ the bread. 

I was always so excited, I couldn’t wait to look out the window of the flat when the moon came out.  I felt a bit worried and I hoped that I hadn’t ‘hurt anyone’ when I’d climbed up the statue.  We walked away  and towards the café, I was looking forward to some  ‘hot chocolate’ to warm me up.  I turned back to look at Peter, hoping to see whether they had moved,  but it never happened.

That night I kneeled on ‘my’ chair by the window, I watched and watched looking into the black sky, the moon lit up the night and the stars twinkled.   I just wanted to see Peter or Tinkerbell.   I hoped that I would catch just a little glimpse as they flew past.   I sighed and climbed down again, it was bedtime, climbing into bed I drifted into the land of ‘nod’ my head filled with thoughts of magic, fairies and far off places.

The next morning we got up early again and walked toward the statue.  I stopped,  feeling happy that the bread had disappeared but  sad  that I had missed the statue coming alive, hoping that one day I would see it happen.

I remember clearly my 8th birthday, I was staying with gran again.  As usual we got up early and  made our way to ‘Peter’s statue’.  I placed the bread in the usual place.  Suddenly a bird flew down and picked it up, as I placed other crumbs around the statue more birds swooped down and took it away.  I frowned and then a thought came into my head.  “Grandma?” I asked “Does the statue really come alive at night?....Or is it the birds?  Do they eat the bread?”  Grandma stopped and looked at me, she smiled