Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Prologue-Chapter 4

Part 1, Chapter 5-Part 2, Chapter 9

Part 2, Chapter 10-Part 3, Chapter 14

Part 3, Chapter 15-Part 4, Chapter 19

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Part 2, Chapter 10-Part 3, Chapter 14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Battle” - Part 3: “Sally”

Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary

Jamie is horrified to see his friends blown away by the cannonball. Realizing that the pirates are boarding a rowboat to come ashore and kill the rest of the boys, Jamie swims out to the boat and attacks them first, killing all six pirates on the boat. The pirate ship weighs anchor and sails away, and Jamie worries about what might have happened to Peter, who was still on the ship when it left. When Jamie makes it back to the shore, Charlie and Sal are waiting for him because Charlie refused without Jamie. They help Jamie to bury the dead boys.

The next day, Peter returns and is surprised to learn that there are only nine boys left and that one cannonball killed six of them. Jamie is angry about what happened and realizes that he is angriest at Peter. If Peter had not burned down the pirate camp, the pirates would never have come looking for revenge. Jamie realizes that while the boys who do not grow up could potentially live forever, only he, Nod, Fog, and Peter have not died or grown up all the time he has lived on the island. When Peter leaves, Jamie follows him, for he knows that Peter is going to the Other Place to get more boys. Jamie begs him not to because he does not want any more boys to die. They argue, but Peter eventually agrees not to go. In exchange, Peter makes Jamie promise to play with him more often: just the two of them. Jamie reluctantly agrees.

On the day before the Battle between Nip and Jamie, Nip disappears into the woods for most of the day. Peter and Jamie note that the pirates have returned to their bay with a new captain. Peter suggests planning a raid to welcome the new captain, but Jamie convinces him to wait until after the Battle. On the morning of the Battle, Jamie prepares his weapons. He has gathered rocks for his slingshot. Although bladed weapons are not allowed, he takes his dagger and Del’s sword just in case Nip does not play fair. The boys trek to where the Battle will take place: a crater in the mountains with a smooth white rock in the center. The rock always remains white, no matter how much blood is spilled on it. On the way, Sal asks Jamie about the ritual of Battle, and Jamie tells Sal that he is always the Battle Champion, meaning that he wins every Battle he fights. They arrive at the Battle arena, and Jamie gives Del’s sword to Sal so that Sal will be able to protect himself and Charlie if anything bad happens.

Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary

Jamie and Nip’s weapons are inspected before the Battle. Nip did not know that blades are forbidden and has brought nothing but bladed weapons. Jamie asks where Nip got the weapons, and Nip reveals that he has been digging them up from a field. Jamie is furious because the field is the graveyard he has buried his dead friends over the years. The other boys agree that Nip was wrong to steal from the graves. Angered, Nip grabs an ax and attacks Jamie, no longer caring about the rules. Jamie eventually gets the upper hand and overpowers Nip. Before Jamie can deliver a killing blow, Nip laughs and tells him that the pirates are coming because he gave them directions. Jamie kills Nip just before a gunshot rings out, announcing the arrival of six pirates. Fog is killed by the gunshot, and Nod is devastated. He and the other boys attack the pirates and chase them over the edge of the arena and out of sight. Jamie, Sal, and Charlie are left alone in the arena. Sal has a belly wound from a pirate’s sword. As Jamie tries to help Sal staunch the blood, he realizes that Sal has been hiding something. Sal is actually a girl.

Jamie gets Sal to put pressure on her wound, and she tells Jamie and Charlie that her real name is Sally. She has been pretending to be a boy for a few years now because it is safer. Peter, Nod, and Crow return after defeating the pirates, and Peter is furious to learn that Sal is a girl. He insists that Sal tricked him and will have to go back to the Other Place. The other boys ignore Peter’s ranting. Nod weeps next to his brother’s body while Crow helps Jamie get Sal on her feet. Crow also tells Jamie that the pirates killed all the other boys; only he, Nod, and Peter survived the fight. Jamie tells Nod to bury Fog in the field next to the Battle arena and catch up with the rest of the group. They have to get Sal back to the tree in order to treat her wounds. They all leave the arena, taking the weapons that Nip stole from the graves because Jamie reasons that the pirates will keep hunting them and they will need the weapons to defend themselves. Eventually, they make it back to the tree house. Peter has not come with them.

Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary

Peter does not return for more than a week, but Jamie does not have time to worry. Sal gets a fever due to her injuries, and the boys have to work together to take care of her. When Sal recovers, Nod presents her with clothes that he has made to replace her bloodstained ones. Nod and Jamie both develop romantic feelings toward Sal, growing flustered in her presence. Sal asks Jamie if he remembers his mother because he often hums a tune that sounds like something a mother would sing to a child. Jamie insists that he does not remember anything about his life before the island, but he privately admits that he does remember the song and has a memory of blue eyes “and a red mouth carved in a smile where there should be none” (158). Sal admires Jamie’s dedication to caring for the other boys. They both lament the lies that Peter told them about the island, but Jamie insists that life on the island was not always like this. He still believes that living here must be better than living on the streets in the Other Place. He knows that he should take Sal and Charlie back to the Other Place, but he does not want to be parted from them.

Days later, Peter returns. No one is happy to see him, but Peter announces that he has found a new tree for them to live in. The others do not want to move, but Peter says that their current home is too big given how small their group is now. He reveals that Jamie has forbidden him from bringing any more boys from the Other Place. Nod attacks Peter for not caring about Fog’s death, punching him in the face. Jamie has never seen Peter fight one of the boys or get hurt before. Peter decides to go play by the mermaid lagoon, but no one wants to go with him. Peter threatens to go to the Other Place to get more boys if Jamie does not come with him to play, so Jamie reluctantly joins him. Jamie tells Peter that they should leave the pirates alone for a while. However, Peter insinuates that the boys’ deaths are Jamie’s fault because he was the one who killed the Many-Eyed and tried to blame the pirates. Jamie refuses the blame and privately thinks that the boys died because of Peter.

Part 3, Chapter 13 Summary

Peter spends more time away from the others. He occasionally makes Jamie go with him on his adventures, but mostly he goes off alone. One day, Jamie takes a walk with Sal. He brings her to the tunnel under the tree that leads to the Other Place so that she can escape one day if she needs to. Sal insists that she would not leave without Jamie and promises to stand by him if there is a fight. He is gratified to hear this but insists that she should know the way home just in case they need to get Charlie out quickly. Sal wonders whether Peter might originally be from the island, not the Other Place like the rest of them. Jamie does not know how that would be possible, but he knows that because Peter can fly, he is not like other boys.

Sal observes that Jamie is taller and asks if he is growing up. She wants to grow up too and wants Jamie to become an adult alongside her. She urges him not to grow up too fast and leave her behind. She kisses him on the cheek, and Jamie reflects that although they are not children anymore, they are not yet adults. Sal fantasizes about growing up and having a big house for all the boys; they both want to take Charlie, Nod, and Crow with them when they leave. Jamie plans to test the tunnel first to make sure it works, then take all of them through together before Peter realizes what is happening. Sal does not like this plan, but she eventually agrees. Suddenly, they see a bright flash of light but cannot find its source. Jamie and Sal return to the camp and are surprised to see Peter sitting with Charlie. He has carved a toy fairy for Charlie out of wood, and Charlie is delighted. Peter tells them that he met fairies in the Other Place long before he ever met Jamie.

Part 3, Chapter 14 Summary

Peter now makes it a point to spend most of his time with the boys, which makes it hard for Jamie to sneak away and check the tunnel. Meanwhile, Charlie becomes enamored of Peter, which worries Jamie. He is also worried that Peter is plotting something. Sal warns Jamie that they have to leave before Charlie becomes fully loyal to Peter. She promises to watch out for Charlie while Jamie checks the tunnel. Jamie stays awake until everyone, including Peter, is asleep, then heads to the tunnel. When he arrives at the tree that hides the tunnel, he is horrified to find that the tree has been cut down and the tunnel no longer exists. Jamie realizes that Peter must have destroyed the tree to prevent them from leaving. Furious, he heads back to the tree house, dagger in hand. He plans to take the boys to the pirate ship and use it to leave the island and vows to kill Peter if Peter tries to stop them.

When Jamie returns to the tree house, Peter and Charlie are gone. He is furious with Sal for not watching over Charlie more effectively and believes that Peter has taken Charlie to the nest of the Many-Eyed. He gathers weapons and asks Nod and Crow to check the crocodile pond to make sure that Peter did not take Charlie there instead. He and Sal head for the plains. They find Peter and Charlie, and Charlie excitedly tells Jamie that Peter has shown him how to fly. Before Jamie can stop him, Peter floats into the air with Charlie and flies toward the Many-Eyed. Jamie tells Sal to burn the grass of the plains so that the Many-Eyed will be forced into the sea or will be burned to death. He runs after Peter in the hope that he might be able to save Charlie in time. Nod and Crow arrive and help to light the fires. Sal catches up with Jamie, and they run into the Many-Eyed’s nest. They find Charlie there, miraculously alive; Peter has dropped him from above. The three of them outrun the fire and make it onto some jagged rocks, far enough out in the sea that the fire cannot touch them. They watch as the Many-Eyed die. Sal asks how Peter is able to fly, but Jamie does not know. He also does not know how to tell her that the tunnel to the Other Place is gone. Exhausted and overwhelmed, he falls asleep.

Part 2, Chapter 10-Part 3, Chapter 14 Analysis

In this section of the novel, Peter’s rage over the discovery that Sal is a girl represents a distinct departure from the source material, for in Barrie’s version, there were several female characters, including Wendy and Tiger Lily, who were welcome among the motley community of Lost Boys. In fact, Wendy is the original book’s protagonist, and she not only has adventures in Neverland, but she returns in later years to do Peter’s spring cleaning, and both her daughter and granddaughter eventually follow in her footsteps. As a nod to the original storyline, Sal speculates that Peter came from the island originally, and while this comment honors the novel’s source material, it also serves as a form of foreshadowing, for the final part of the book confirms that her suspicions are accurate. In this way, Henry strikes a fine balance between utilizing aspects of the original storyline while freely forging a unique plot that adheres to much darker and more sinister themes.

To that end, Henry firmly establishes Peter’s Machiavellian nature, for he is highly skilled at courting new followers and Gaining Power Over Others. Every rule of his warped little society is designed to maintain his control, and whether his followers support or oppose him, he always ensures that they fight and die for his purposes alone. Thus, although he has created the rules for the ritual Battle and judges each of the fights, he never participates in the life-or-death struggles that ensue. In fact, Jamie realizes that Peter never gets hurt at all until Nod finally loses control and punches him. This dynamic reveals Peter’s strategy of keeping the boys so occupied with fighting each other that they never think to directly oppose him. This behavior pattern is also apparent when he discovers that Jamie is organizing a much greater resistance to his rule, for his manipulative response is to bolster his power by winning Charlie over. He knows that Jamie cares about Charlie, so gaining Charlie’s favor is a way to pull the boy away from Jamie and make him easier to kill. Thus, befriending Charlie is a deceptive act that is designed to control both Charlie and Jamie, for Peter is a deeply jealous boy who does not want his closest friend to care about anyone but him. Focused entirely on his own needs—a veritable walking “id”—he believes that if Charlie dies, Jamie will automatically love him again. However, unlike Peter’s self-centered focus on maintaining power for power’s sake, Jamie’s method of gaining his own power reflects his community spirit and inner empathy for the boys who make up his found family. As the best fighter in the group, he uses direct means to gain the boys’ respect and trust. Thus, the balance of power has been slowly shifting from Peter to Jamie, and that pattern continues in this part of the book.

Yet even within this very real fight for dominance, the children still have trouble understanding the nuances of Reality Versus Make-Believe, and this struggle is reflected in the fact that there are two kinds of Battle: one for fun, and one that is a fight to the death. Significantly, although Jamie is generally very aware of the violence around him, he too makes little distinction between the two activities when he describes them to Sal. In the original Peter Pan story, there is a constant push and pull between Neverland and the real world, with the real world ultimately winning when Wendy and her brothers return to their normal lives. Unlike the boys of Henry’s novel, however, the original characters have the option to return to a happy family, while in Lost Boy, there simply is no good option available. Life on the island is violent and frightening, but for most of the children, life in the Other Place means enduring a harsh life on the streets or with abusive parents. There is no option that would allow them to be safe and happy, even if Peter had not destroyed the tunnel to the Other Place.

As Jamie struggles to reconcile The Tension Between Childhood and Adulthood, he realizes that the eternal childhood he was promised is actually a cruel illusion, for even if the boys survive the dangers of the island, they are eventually doomed to become adults, albeit very gradually. Only Peter gets to remain an eternal child, and as the years and centuries pass, his promise to the boys is revealed to be hollow. This realization precipitates Jamie’s ultimate rebellion against Peter’s abusive status quo, for when he learns that Sal is a girl, he takes a big step toward adulthood by developing romantic feelings for her. This shift in mindset places both him and Sal on a different level from the childish, selfish Peter, for Sal also holds the novel perspective that growing up is a positive thing. Thus, she embraces the future instead of running from it, much like Wendy does at the end of the original book. Peter’s rage at Sal’s true identity also implies his awareness that romance threatens his world on a fundamental level, even if he does not entirely understand why. This is his deeper reason for opposing the presence of girls on the island, for he knows that they might pull the boys toward a more positive view of growing up, thereby drawing them away from his control.