"Come on, Susan, we need to get to the train station. We've only got a few minutes before it arrives."
Susan had her nose buried in a magazine. If she's as taken with this magazine as her furrowed brow says she is, she has no idea I'm even speaking to her right now.
"Sue," I nudge her with my elbow.
"Hm? Oh yes, we should get going," Susan puts down the article and adjusts her bag on her shoulder.
We turn in the direction of the train station, but before we could even take a step forward a boy stops us in our tracks.
"You go to Saint Finbar's," The boy declares. He's a bit awkward, but his demeanor seems friendly.
"That's right," Susan states bluntly.
I raise an eyebrow. Neither Susan nor I quite like being approached by strangers, and we are already in a bit of a rush.
"I go to Henson House across the road," he replies with a half smile. "I've seen you sitting by yourself."
"Yes, well, we both prefer to be left alone," I say firmly but sympathetically.
He's clearly trying to flirt with Susan, but I've seen boys try it before. It often ends with the boy being harshly rejected, and clearly this encounter is about end the same way.
Unfortunately, he either ignored or didn't get the hint.
"Me too!" He exclaims.
I roll my eyes. I tried to spare him, but he's on his own now.
"What's your name?" he asks Susan.
"Phyllis," she retorts. I try to hide my smirk.
Susan hasn't ever paid attention to boys as long as I've known her. We've been friends for a while, but we'd got particularly close in the last year because we were taking many of the same classes in school. She was a couple years older than me, but I had taken advanced classes over break to move up in class rank. Susan is even more dedicated to her studies than I, and she is not prepared to let boys distract her.
Before the boy has a chance to respond, Susan's little sister Lucy comes running up from behind the boy.
"Susan!" She calls.
A puzzled look crosses the boy's face, and I laugh to myself. Poor Sue can't catch a break with this one.
"You better come quickly," Lucy sighs.
She gives me a little nod before taking off towards the train station.
Susan looks at me and back at the boy. She hastens after her little sister, and I quickly follow her after shooting an apologetic glance at the boy we're leaving behind.
Lucy leads us down to the station, and we're suddenly slowed down by a crowd blocking the stairs to the platform. The people are jeering and crying out.
Oh no, I think to myself. Not again.
Susan has two brothers: an older one, Peter, and a younger one who is about my age, Edmund. There are four Pevensie siblings in total, and they have always been very tight-knit. I'm closest to Susan, of course, but the siblings have mostly all been kind to me since I've known them. Edmund used to be a bit of a problem, but he's grown up a lot in the last year.
About a year ago, something changed with the siblings. The Pevensies were still themselves, but they carried themselves differently, and their dynamic with each other changed significantly. The four of them became obviously closer with each other. Lucy, the youngest, had grown in her confidence and kindness, and her siblings had started taking her more seriously in the last year. Susan had allowed herself to become more empathetic, but she still let her logical mind and rationality get the better of her at times. That's why we get along so well, I think, because I appreciate her need for logic in all situations.
Peter, the oldest, has always been the loving, peacemaker, protective older brother type. He's level headed and mature, and those are things I have always admired about him. Recently, though, he'd been acting more entitled, and I was not enjoying this new side of Peter.
Edmund used to be, to put it bluntly, a pain. He was always picking fights and snapping at his siblings. He never bothered me too much, but we'd certainly gotten into spats when we were younger. Now, Edmund uses his wit and sarcasm to diffuse situations and lighten the mood, as opposed to stirring up trouble as he used to. Ed is much more empathetic towards his little sister specifically, and he's taken up the role of peacemaker and voice of reason in Peter's place. Something changed in those boys within the last year, and I still can't figure out what. It seems to be more than a sudden jump in maturity.
All of that to say, it appears as though Peter had picked a fight with some boys on the platform. Pete has a tendency to get his ego bruised, and sometimes things got physical. They push, shove, and hit each other repeatedly back and forth. Susan looked on with a disapproving look while Lucy looked like she could cry.
"This isn't going well for Peter," I mumble under my breath as one of the boys holds Peter's head against the ground.
Suddenly, I feel a hand roughly grab my shoulder as someone pushes past me abruptly.
"Edmund!" Lucy cried out.
Edmund sprinted past us through the crowd of people and tackled one of the boys to the ground. Peter and Edmund take on these boys for a few more minutes until security breaks up the fight.
See, this is what I mean. A year ago, Edmund would be the one in a fight and Peter the one lecturing Ed about it afterwards. Now, Peter has bit off more than he can chew, and Edmund is defending his brother without hesitation or even any knowledge of what caused the fight.
Once the crowd parts, the five of us walk towards a bench to wait for the train. Sue and I sit down first, then Ed and Lucy. Peter paces back and forth, still obviously angry about what had just taken place.
"You're welcome," Edmund mumbles in Peter's direction.
Peter shoots an angry look at Edmund.
"I had it sorted," he says.
"Clearly," I say under my breath.
I have a strong distaste for Peter's newfound arrogance. If you have an ego, you best have the ability to back it up, and how I see it, Peter, in this case, did not.
"What was it this time?" Susan asks her older brother.
"He bumped me," Peter said.
"So...you hit him?" I chuckle. "Practice self-control much, Pete?"
Edmund nudged me and shook his head as if to say don't poke the bear.
"No, y/n, he bumped me and demanded I apologize," Peter spits his words at me, "Then I hit him."
"Oh, well in that case," I say with an eye roll.
"Is it that hard just to walk away?" Susan inquired.
"I shouldn't have to! I mean, don't you ever get tired of being treated like a kid?" Peter threw his hands up in anger.
"Um, we are kids..." Ed pointed out.
"Well, I wasn't always," Peter sighed.
The siblings shot nervous glances at each other and at me.
What the hell does that mean? "I wasn't always"? Does this man think he's aging backwards or something?
"Its been a year," Peter sits down between Edmund and I, "How long does he expect us to wait?"
Ed nudges his brother and subtly nodded to me, as though I'm not supposed to be hearing what he said.
"What are you going on about, Peter?" I asked.
"We live here," Susan says sharply. "No use pretending any different."
I become distracted by the sound of the train approaching. As I look in the direction of the train, I see the boy from the magazine stand.
"Sue, don't look now, but your little friend is walking this way."
"Wha-" Susan turns around and quickly turn back towards us.
"Pretend you're talking to me," she says desperately.
"We are talking to you," Edmund says dryly.
I chuckle at his comment. Even when he was being pretentious, I always appreciated his dry sense of humor. We have that in common.
"Ow!" Lucy jumps up from her seat.
"Quiet, Lu," Susan shushes while looking back to make sure the boy hadn't noticed her.
"Something pinched me!" Lucy whined and rubbed her arm.
Suddenly, I feel something pull on my skirt. I stand up, whirl around, and face Peter who is sitting next to me.
"Excuse me, Peter, but what makes you think you can mess with my skirt like that? Does my obvious distaste for your attitude turn you on?"
"Excuse me-" Peter begins, rising to face me but is quickly cut off by Susan.
"Peter!" Susan shot her older brother a disgusted look.
Edmund hits his brother hard in the arm and glares at him.
"It wasn't me-Ed, stop pulling!"
"I'm not pulling you!" Ed shouted over the roar of the train, which has suddenly gotten very close and extraordinarily loud.
"What is that?!" I shout.
"Feels like magic!" Lucy yells with a smile.
"Magic? There's no such thing! What's going on?" The Pevensies almost look excited, but I'm nothing short of concerned and confused.
"Quick, everybody hold hands!" Susan grabs mine and Lucy's hands.
Peter grabs mine, and I give him a glare, still not convinced he wasn't messing with me a second ago.
Peter reaches for Edmund's hand, but he rips is away and goes,
"I'm not holding your hand!"
Peter quickly lets go of my hand and switches positions with me so that I'm standing between the brothers. Edmund grabs my hand, and Peter switches my hand from his right hand to his left. I look at the siblings. They look calm, almost hopeful. The train is unbearably loud now, and I look up and notice that the tile on the tunnel has started falling and ripping away.
I try to scream, but the wind is so strong that I can barely breath in. The tunnel is practically falling in on top of us. I tighten my grip on Peter and Ed's hands. Edmund tightens his grip on mine in return and shouts,
"If this is what I think it is, you have nothing to worry about!"
My face must look all kinds of confused, because Edmund just smiles and looked back out towards the train.
I do the same.
No way. There's no way.
Through the windows of the train, I think I see a beach. The walls rip away from the sides of the tunnel. The light fixtures spin violently and get sucked into the powerful force of the train. I close my eyes for not even a second, and when I open them, the train station has disappeared. I'm still holding hands with the Pevensies. I look to my right and see the ocean.
THE OCEAN.
I decide I've died in some sort of train wreck or something and gone to heaven when the boys let go of my hands and start walking towards the end of the tunnel.
Susan and Lucy walk with them. I stand still. I'm too in shock to think clearly. I notice my legs are shaking as well as my hands. I take in a deep breath, not realizing I hadn't really inhaled for quite some time.
"Y/n, are you coming?" Lucy gives me the biggest grin I have ever seen.
The other siblings are looking at me excitedly.
I take a step forward, and Lucy runs to me and grabs my hand. She sprints forward dragging me with her. Peter laughs and calls after us,
"Lucy, be careful with Y/n! This is new to her!"
Lucy runs into the water with me and tells me to take off my shoes and socks. Before I do anything, I look back at the two older Pevensies.
"Alright, one of you tell me what on earth is going on. Where are we? By all means, this makes no sense."
They all look at each other with a grin.
"She sounds a bit like you, Sue," Edmund yells from the edge of the water, where he's begun to remove his shoes and coat.
"Y/n, this, this is Narnia," Susan says proudly.
Narnia. I am in Narnia.