Flying over London at night turned out to be the most remarkable experience any of the Darling children had ever had.
The city below them looked entirely different from above — orderly and beautiful and much smaller than it had seemed.
They had lived in London all their lives but had never seen it from this angle and it seemed an entirely new place.
Wendy noticed that her worries about tomorrow's lessons and her mother's opinions had completely disappeared for now.
John stopped thinking about being sensible and responsible and found that he was laughing at the top of his voice.
Michael simply spread his arms wide and let the cold air carry him wherever it felt like carrying him that night.
None of them could believe that something so completely extraordinary had required so very little to achieve at all.
To fly, you only need happy thoughts — and just a little fairy dust.

The flight of the Darling children over London is one of the most beloved images in all of children's literature.
Its power comes not from the spectacle of three children in nightclothes above Big Ben, though that is charming enough.
It comes from what the flight represents — the sudden and complete liberation from the weight of ordinary thinking.
Each child finds their happy thought and in doing so temporarily becomes the best and freest version of themselves.
Wendy becomes pure storytelling joy, John becomes pure intellectual delight, Michael becomes pure uncomplicated wonder.
The flight is Barrie's argument that this lighter and more alive version of each person is always available and waiting.
It does not require a dramatic event or a fairy — it requires only the decision to reach for the right kind of thought.
The fairy dust is almost incidental — a gentle nudge toward what the happy thought alone might have eventually accomplished.
To fly, you only need happy thoughts — and just a little fairy dust.