It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the
floor and then from the beds, but they always went down instead
of up.

"I say, how do you do it?" asked John, rubbing his knee. He
was quite a practical boy.

"You just think lovely wonderful thoughts," Peter explained,
"and they lift you up in the air."

He showed them again.

"You're so nippy at it," John said, "couldn't you do it very
slowly once?"

Peter did it both slowly and quickly. "I've got it now,
Wendy!" cried John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of
them could fly an inch, though even Michael was in words of two
syllables, and Peter did not know A from Z.

Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly
unless the fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately, as we
have mentioned, one of his hands was messy with it, and he blew
some on each of them, with the most superb results.