Nobby's Daring

The two outside - George and Georgina - received Nobby and Charlie who had been posing as trying to "shoot a rope into the castle" Errol Flynn version of Robin Hood. Nobby was glad to see them, but the others told him they needed to get caught to do a diversion for the ones getting in. George and Georgina stand back.

When Nobby and Charlie are caught - it doesn't take too long, the two groups of five meet before the front porch.

The ten men stand menacing around Nobby and Charlie.

"What do you think you are doing?"

Charlie and Nobby didn't answer.

"We have some more men inside if someone else is trying to be funny."

A rustle which was very weak gave Charlie and Nobby some hope, they were "trying to be funny" ... but Nobby kicked a stone on the ground to hide that rustle, and the men did not notice. They were very well built.

Keeping their attention could prove to be painful. Even so ... Nobby kicked a stone again.

"Hey, stop that - we pay the people who rake the gravel path, don't destroy their work!"

He knew this would hurt, but he disobeyed.

"OK, you are asking for it ..."

The man punched a hard fist with a long windup into his stomach.

He heard Georgina shout "brutes!" and thought "no ..."

Soon Georgina Kirrin and George White were caught too.

Nobby was waiting still held in the arms of two men.

"So, you kind of betrayed your friend?"

Nobby didn't answer. He got a punch into his face with the notice:

"We don't like traitors ... we may use them, we don't like them."

He glimpsed over to Georgina who smiled very furtively, but triumphantly. Police were coming.

The Archers Do Their Work.

Over the fence, then onto the house, there were twenty feet or so to the path of the arrow. Charlie carefully laid down the strong but slender rope in large swathes over the ground, tied it to an arrow, shot at a wooden panelling part of the roof where it met the house.

The arrow stuck into it with a big thud. He started to draw the rope towards himself, though careful not to pull too strongly, just so as to slowly make it appear he was trying to climb the fence with the rope - when he arrived below the fence, a window opened, and a man, somewhat angry, took the arrow, pulled it out of the wood, and shouted to him:

"Ha, this only works in movies."

Charlie turned around and tried to escape.

The angry man turns inside the window and tells his fellows:

"See him running? No? See the rope? The arrow came from there ... see if he's still around"

About five men get out from the window, climbing down on the security ladder, and they use the rope, doubled, to climb up over the fence one after another and down on the other side. They then follow the rope to catch Charlie ...

Meanwhile, Nobby also shoots, at the other side of the house, where the front porch is, thirty feet, and about the same thing happens. He's detected, five men are told to get out, they do so through the front porch and chase Nobby.

Prologue to Chronicle on Susan Pevensie : Chiefly on Fan Fiction

I'm not sure if you know what fan fiction is.

It does not mean I write a novel entirely of my own, with all characters entirely of my own and take credit for that.

It doesn't mean I take someone else's novel and someone else's characters and change names and other items of exact wording and take credit for that (that's called plagairism).

It means I take the characters from someone else's novel and put them in a new novel or short story. I give them credit for original novels and take credit for my own imagination on what the original author(s) left undescribed.

As I said them, plural, not him, singular, this is actually fan fic on more authors' work than just C. S. Lewis' Seven Chronicles of Narnia.

As I wanted a girl somewhat more tomboyish than Susan Pevensie, and Lucy was already dead, and even Jill Pole was so, in came George (dare I mention at the end you may even call her Georgina?) from Enid Blyton. As I had Susan Pevensie persecuted by a Rabadash like person at the very first chapter, I felt like giving her a decent husband at the end. And Lost Road by Tolkien, John Ronald, came to mind. And obviously I mixed up Audoin and Alboin while doing so. Meanwhile, as she is a person living in England after seeing Narnia, he's one who has seen Numenor. And the Lombards. And a few more. Both have memories of a world they cannot go to. I'm going to explain (or here am explaining) the mixup with Tolkien giving the two Errols some anonymity by exchanging the names of father and of son in them.

As the presumed authorial voice in nearly all of the seven chronicles (all but the last) is a Digory Kirke, who was child and (I presume) well into his youth when Sherlock Holmes was doing detective work on Baker Street, in comes Doctor Watson. With Holmes and Watson around, I can't keep Father Brown out ....

Some guys have a deep antipathy for the whole concept of fan fic, not to mention fan fic crossing over between different authors' different universes. While bad stuff exist, good stuff also exists and on Narnia, mine is not the most noble, but perhaps the most exhaustive. Susan fics (that is fan fictions about Susan Pevensie, notably after the Last Battle) are hard to find but seem to have been very prolific once, and they are difficult to do well. I think my attempt may be the best one of those still available, because I do try to tie together so many loose ends, but there are other fields of Narnian fan fic and some have done better than I there. In Narnia, not in England, as I am doing. The best type, of those I have seen, are set between most chapters of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Horse and His Boy. Or some even introduce Swanwhite.

If you are longing for something set in Narnia, don't waste your time on this one right now, Aslan had told Susan she would never return to Narnia. A Susan fic is per definition, nearly, set outside Narnia.

My Susan fic was provoked by Neil Gaiman's (more or less acknowledged) such. Even before I read it, because I had heard of it and of its faults. Not as if I took up the pen (or keyboard) same second, I'm not Reepicheep, but inspiration came not very much later.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Timothy of Ephesus
24.I.2019

PS, plagairism is of course meant to be plagiarism./HGL

Now, if you are not already there, go to chapter 1:

Susan has a bad fright.
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2011/12/susan-has-bad-fright.html

Tea yes, Tilak no

Father Brown was asked by the two Whites what he would be saying to a Hindoo Brahmin. As he had been in India, he answered he had accepted a cup of tea after refusing a tilak. As they were curious, Father Brown told this story of his conversation in the Brahmin's house with his host:

I was lost one evening in a town of India. There were people there in cassock, I thought they were Catholic priests. There was a Brahmin talking with them. I went there and talked to them too. Not long after starting I found out they were really of the so called Liberal Catholic Church. A syncretistic sect, say Spiritists with a Catholic style ritual. I disagreed with them. The Brahmin invited me to his home and I thought I might as well accept. When we arrived home, his wife wanted to give me a kind of mark on the forehead. A tilak they call it. I refused. I was still let in, with friendliest welcome, I enjoyed a wonderful meal with them, and then we drank tea. And the Brahmin asked me:

"Do you believe that all traditions are one?"

"In what manner?" I said.

"Every tradition will tell you, you must not kill."

"Mine tells me I must not kill a man. With a cow it is different."

The Brahmin refrained from contradicting me and went on:

"Every tradition will tell you, you must not steal. If you steal your next life is bad."

"Mine tells me a thief won Paradise when he was executed next to God. His next and eternal life is good."

"God executed as a thief? Do you seriously believe that?"

"Yes" I replied solemnly.

The Brahmin sat silently for quite a while. After some time I could bear it no longer and sipped some tea. When I put down the cup he continued:

"At least every tradition will tell you - excepting the worthless Muslim one - that gods have walked as men among us."

"I agree with half of your tradition by saying the true God walked as a man among us. I agree with half of the Muslim one by saying he was not one god among many others, there is one God. I disagree with both in saying He was made Man only once. And remains so eternally. And that God is One God in Three Persons."

"As in Creator, Upkeeper and Destroyer of every Universe, you mean?"

"No, God would have been Three Persons even if He had never created. But being Three Persons He was Eternal Love and of Love chose to Create. Of Love also he choose to Redeem, that is why He became Man and died on a Cross."

"And what do you think of our tradition?"

"In several aspects it is tainted with error by the Devil."

"Him you call the Destroyer?"

"Yes, we call Him the Destroyer and believe the Apollo of the Greeks and your Shiva is a mask of him and one under which he is not very much disguised."

"Is that why you refused the tilak earlier when we met?"

"That is why I will always refuse the tilak."

"If this is so, why are there traditions that are not Christian? Why are there Jews and Pagans, why are there Muslims? Do you call Protestants Christians?"

"Which ones of them? Salvation Army or Dean Inge? Pusey or Sankey and Moody?" - I decided to answer the Protestant question first.

"No doubt you have a reason for making these distinctions, like some of them being more or less Christian."

"Indeed: the Salvation Army takes most the main facts about our Salvation seriously. Dean Inge calls most of them a fable. Pusey took much of what the Church teaches as valid about how we get saved. Sankey and Moody have their own idea about it."

"And you consider Salvation Army more Christian than Dean Inge and Pusey more Christian than Sankey and Moody?"

"When God became Man, He made a Church with authority to teach all nations, not excepting the English one for other Churches."

"And the Jews?"

"They are the splinter of a people prepared to receive Christ, but refusing to do so themselves."

"And Muslims?"

"Are to Jews and Christians as Protestants or Mormons to us or Jainis and Buddhists to you."

"And Pagans?"

"They had refused the old teaching that the Hebrews kept."

"Hebrews and Jews is the same?"

"Jews are a tribe of the Hebrews, the one most directly concerned with rejecting Christ."

"Who were the first disciples?"

"Jews and more so Galileans. And Galileans were a kind of Jews."

"And if I were to say it is Pagans who kept and Hebrews who rejected the Old Tradition?"

"I would answer Pagans disagree among themselves. Hindoos and Indians of America do not agree, nor do Shintoists and Confucians. Nor are they at one with Parsees or with those Pagans who became Christians."

"But if I were to say the disagreements are to get the vulgar off the track, there is agreement among the traditions of the wise!"

"Galileans were vulgar Jews. God was crucified among vulgar thieves. And there is one more thing."

"Which is?"

"By appealing to secret tradition, you make yourself unable to verify where the traditions agree and not. Two traditions may disagree nearly completely except about their secrecy. Two people from those traditions may say to each other a thing about keeping their traditions secret, and both may conclude very wrongly that they agree about religion, when all they agree about is despising most of those Christ died for."

"Is not loftiness and detachment more important than doctrine?"

"No. That is a hideous spiritual pride, an arrogance of the worst sort."

"Is it not possible to be detached from taking pride in one's knowledge by saying knowledge is not important?"

"Saying knowledge is not important sounds too much like a hideous saying I have heard here in India: victory and defeat are the same. That is a very great blasphemy, if you speak about ultimate such, not just earthly. It detaches one from God who alone can give ultimate victory and attaches one to darkness and ultimate defeat."

"Then why did Krishna say so?"

"Because he was no god but a mistaken man."

"Why do our poets tell us he inspired Arjuna to victory? Why do they tell us he ascended to Heaven after dying?"

"Your poets say the soul was received by the gods high above us, no one to see it with his eyes."

"Do you not believe things no man has seen with his eyes?"

"We do, but on authority of Him whom several eyes saw resurrected after the Crucifixion. It was He who unfolded all the Secrets, not a merely human poet."

"And Ascension? Was not that like Krishna's soul ascending to Heaven?"

"No, the Ascension we believe in was before the eyes of the first Disciples so chosen to witness it."

"It was as a living body He ascended then?"

"As a living body He ascended, as a living body we eat His flesh and drink His blood."

"Let me go, this is too strong for me."

"No, I will not let you go, and it is good for you."

The Brahmin was baptised little later. With his wife and children. And grandchildren.

When Father Brown said these last words, the Whites said: "so will we be!" And Simon thought his son looked happier and saner than ever since he was sent to that horrible school.

Father Brown concluded the story: No longer tending the temple was of course ruin to him in the town, so it was fortunate that Goa, under the Portuguese, was near by. He found work as a translator and teacher of Vedic literature - for students whose purpose was purely literary and linguistic. And perhaps historic too. He once was approached by a Hindoo and refused to even talk to him. Now he is dead, his widow lived in the monastery some time afterwards.

The Idol and the Spell

When Georgina opened her eyes, she was tied hands on back - a situation she knew from earlier years (as you will know if you have read those of Enid Blyton's books where the title starts with "Five ..."). George was - poor guy - swaying back and forth with closed eyes in front of a man who seemed to dominate him. A thin and short man. Behind them there was some kind of broad fire - like fire for barbecues, but with no grate on it and much broader than any barbecue she had seen yet. She realised why the room was hot and she was thirsty.

Behind that there was some idol. Six arms, like the statues of Shiva in India. But unlike those, the head was a vulture's head, and the fingers and toes were rather claws, just as there was a beak on the vulture's head. It was an evil idol. I mean, idols are not exactly good, at least as far as Christianity is concerned, but Roman and Greek ones were usually at least gentle. This one was avid for blood.

"You thought you could rebel, that you could shake off Tash."

"Yes," said George in a very dry and lifeless voice.

What she heard thereafter, she was not able to recall without vomiting, so she has not told word for word. But it included a very abject submission from the poor enchanted George and also a very ugly incantation to someone or something called Tash (more than once called inexorable) by the evil little man. She looked about for something that could comfort her. At her side there was a Roman Catholic priest. But he too seemed under some daze.

Beyond him there was Simon, the father of George.

She got no further in looking about, since what happened before the idol called her attention back to it.

"Show us you are a vulture ..."

George started crying out with shrieks more birdish than human. And not the nicest birds at that. Then he started pecking on the ground, incredibly fast for a human as if guided by the forces of a bird, he picked up an unfortunate frog and swallowed it alive.

"Show us you can kill ..." the small man handed George a knife. A crooked knife like those found in the far off eastern countries. "Kill that girl" he said and pointed at Georgina.

George took the knife and started against his fiancée, the stopped.

"You need to practise a bit first. Pick some more food from the ground."

And George started pecking again, not using his hands except to still hold that crooked knife. He pecked after a very fortunate rat, whe ran away just in time. And he came closer and closer to Georgina.

She was sure he was so much under a spell that he would eventually kill her unless something happened. What could break a spell like that? Well, maybe some Christian confession of the truth. Of Christ's triumph over hell.

"The plowman answered then the priest,
Sir, I believe in Jesus Christ
Who suffered death and harrowed Hell
As I have heard mine elders tell."

As she said those words a few things happened. The evil man went forth to slap her. George, who was still under the spell and acted like a bird somehow found the independence to be a bird who shoved that man (who was occupied with other things than controlling him), and he shoved him so he fell into the fire. And the priest opened his eyes, just in time to hear the agony of the evil man, and see him try to get out of the fire but being pushed back time after time by George, who was using the pecking technique - as vulturish as the spell had made him.

The Exorcism.

"If only I could have my hands free to make a sign of the cross," sighed Father Brown.

"That can be arranged, Father," said Georgina. "Turn your back towards me, I'll turn mine towards you and will untie your hands prettty quickly."

Meanwhile poor George was cackling like a rooster and pecking the ground. He just swooped down on a rat, got it up, bit its neck apart and started chewing ...

Georgina felt so disgusted, so she looked away and hurried up.

Father Brown, once free, stood up and started with a cracked voice, which soon became full and valiant and quarrelsome:

"... get thee out of this creature of God, foul demon, get thee out, Apollo or rather Apollyon, Shiva, Satan, Abaddon or whatever by thy Hellish name ... get thee out, foul Tash or even evolutionary life force, if such be thy hellish name ... of this creature of God, thy Lord against whom thou rebelledest and out of this room and out of the idolatrous image with which thou beguilest the unwary, in the name of the Father + and of the Son + and of the Holy + Ghost!"

He had made a sign of the cross for each of the three Persons as he spoke the Holy Name of the Triune God.

George dropped the rat. He seemed to be coughing. A stench as from a dead cat that had been lying on a hot street for days came out ... then he threw up ... and what came out was a smoke which took form as of a greyish putrid smoke and a shape nearly human except for the vulture head, and for the arms which were six instead of two, with claws instead of fingers. Exactly as the evil looking idol, but worse. George rolled over and was as if dead.

The demon stood upright and menacing against Father Brown, but he managed to get hold of his Crucifix and brandish it ... and the demon shrieked as if in pain and grew weak ... a shriek which curled the blood ad filled men and women with terror. Until it was reduced to a wail.

"Don't go soft on him now," whispered Georgina under her breath. But the priest had gone on menacing the demon.

Father Brown renewed his efforts and said a "begone, begone from the world of men!" with the cross on high.

Tash uttered another shriek of terror, and fled, across the fire, through the statue of itself, into some void. And the statue's limbs began to tremble, and totter, and it fell, and it lay in the fire, beside its chief worshipper, the bad Telmarine, the evil police officer, the former seducer of George to devilworship, who groaned.

"If I could untie someone's ropes and one could quench the fire, maybe we could save this man. He needs repentance."

He untied the ropes of Georgina, and of Charles, and these untied the ropes of Julian and Dick. And - with an excuse for the delay - Father Brown untied the ropes of old Simon. Then he went over to George, made a sign on the cross over the forehead, said "wake up young fool, should not have been dabbling in these things, you know ..." and if George did not wake up immediately, at least he moaned.

Meanwhile the others - or one of them - had found out how to turn on some water, and it filled the fiery basin with a sizzling and smoke - a much nicer smoke than the stench of Tash - and hot steam as water got hotter and lesser flames as fire grew weaker. Charles drew up the moaning evil man from the fire basin, where he had so oeftn committed ritual murders to honour the expelled demon.

"You were my boss at the police station, but now you are under arrest. You shall get to hospital and to prison, do you hear me?"

"You're a fool, I'm dying before I get anywhere like that."

And he lost consciousness, and before he reached the hospital he was dead.

But before the ambulance even came for him, George regained his consciousness. And Georgina and Simon and Father Brown were all looking at him. With some concern.

"I have a funny taste of blood in my mouth," he said (and indeed he had rat blood around the lips), "what happened?"

"We will tell you later, right now you seem to need a glass of brandy to wash your mouth ..."

And George who was himself again could indicate where that could be gotten, and they all had brandy - a glass each. "A friend of mine," said Father Brown, "said one should thank God for Beer and Brandy by not drinking too much of them. One can add: by not omitting the occasions when needed."

When the ambulance had arrived and taken away the unconscious culprit, they walked upstairs into the kitchen for breakfast. It was no longer night, but morning and the sun was bright.

Father Brown tottered into a chair. "Sorry, but this is the first time I deal with manifestations of the demonic. Like this. I am not sure I will be able to celebrate Mass this morning. I am not quite as used to things like this as a Franciscan in Pietrelcina that I have heard of."

Simon and George Catechumens

"I've seen a god of the Canaanites and Tyrians destroyed, and a Catholic priest did it ..." Simon White spoke that.

Father Brown blushed.

"Oh, the least I can do for the true one - once the physical odds are not too daunting immediately."

"All of my life, I have regarded Christians, especially Catholics, as worshippers of Bopheth."

"And today you have seen we are not."

"Tell us about the true Messiah!"

"How do you know Jesus Christ is the true one?"

"I saw you handle the demon. But more important, I saw you not be impressed by the swagger of the mage."

"I thought he was a fake mage, I had the habit. Never met a true one before."

"But your argument rests? The true God is neither cruel nor a lover of mystery for its own sake, but a loving father of his creatures and truth without a shade of lie?"

"That remains my answer."

"Even in front of the magic you saw?"

"You saw its unmaking, did you not?"

"Yes, of course ... I did. But once you had not seen it. Would you have doubted while he was strong?"

"Not one second. I mean, Odin did the same tricks in front of poor old Gylfi* in Sweden."

"If you had been brought to a previous life, would you have accepted that you were a reincarnation?"

"No."

"But if you had had memories of it?"

"I might conclude that either hypnosis opened my mind defenselessly to some show of demons, or some show of elves who did not want to be taken too seriously, or that my life had been extended into some loop of time, or anything leaving my soul and my body same relation since they were created in my mothers womb, nine months before my birth, and will remain until they are separated at the hour of my death (which may be soon, considering my age, Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us!). But I would not conclude my religion was in error."

"Then it shall be mine and my son's. I am Simon Ben Ruben White, my son is George White."

"George is a Greek name - has he no Hebrew name?"

"Ha, I thought I would trick you on that one, if only for a moment ... no, I did not, here is his full name: George Ruben Ben Simon White."

"Your father died when he was born?"

"He did."

"George Ruben - will you also study the Christian faith as your father wants you to?"

"Well, I can hardly ask Georgina to become Jewish, since she is not."

And that is how two conversions were decided, but Susan was not told this until some time later.



*Gylfi is pronounced with f like v. G is hard or like J or like Y. The vowel Y is best like French u or German ü, but an I (short) will do. He was the first known King of Upsala, the last of the previous régime, whether he was also first or not. He allowed Odin to usurp his place after being shown some hypnotic stuff and told a cock-and-bull story of the grand Marduk-killed-a-monster-and-created-the-earth style. Snorri wrote about it in Gylfaginning. Since Odin's cock-and-bull story was accepted by Swedes and Norse and Icelanders before they became Christian, it was just afterwards, so to speak, "required reading" for those wishing to understand recent pagan poetry. And Snorri was one Christian who did wish that. St. Olaf, the Christian convert and Martyr King of Norway, who descended from Odin or from his stepson Frey, was content to say "he must be dead, since he appears as a ghost" - after getting one such visit at night.

Who is Getting In?

They were outside the house of the thin, short policeman with the evil eyes, whom we know already and whom George White denounced as a worshipper of Tash, a renegade Telmarine from the Pirate Island where the Telmarines had gone centuries before.

"Someone has to keep watch outside", said Julian. "And try to contact the police if you do not get out in time - with or without him."

"I want to get in," said Georgina impulsively.

"No way," said George.

"Neither are you then."

"But that man ruined years and years of my life! He destroyed my morals after taking me out of the camp. Systematically. He made life outside the camp in some respects even worse than camp itself!"

"Precisely why you should keep out of here. He had a hold on you."

Simon broke in: "but not on me. I am in to avenge for the horrors he did to my son. And made him do."

"Father, I know the house best."

"That is the worst of reasons with magicians like that. You drew a very good set of maps."

"And we studied them," said Julian.

"OK, I'll keep out then."

"That," resumes Julian, "means I am in with old Mr. White, the two Georges are out ..."

"I am in," said Dick.

"Ann is hopefully already at the radio at Spivvins old place. We'll test." Julian picked up his handie talkie from his rucksack and pushed a five, then pushed the talking button. "Julian calling Ann. Julian calling Ann. Do you hear me?" - He left off pushing to receive.

A voice from the "walkie talkie" (as they are now called, but back then these were bigger) was heard: "I hear you fine, brother! I mean Ann calling Julian and all that and hearing you fine."

"We are getting in now, me Simon and Dick. The two Georges are waiting outside."

"Got it: Julian, Dick, Simon, into the house. Georgina and George outside."

All were missing Tim, of course. But he would not be barking at the wrong moment. Or chasing a rabbit.

"That is right. We're off - over."

"Noted, 23:53 three into house - over."

Julian put his HT into the rucksack and the three men throw ropes over the fence, pull them down through the other side and each leads five men climbing over.

Forgiveness Has Its Sides.

Susan had as you remember decided to forgive the attempt of rape that George White had committed back in 1949. And as a token of her real forgiveness, she did not take that up with the Gárda when questioned next morning.

"We cannot keep him if we cannot prove he had no criminal intent against you."

"But burglary?"

"You said nothing was missing, right?"

"No."

"Did you see him pick things?"

"No. I just caught him where he should not be."

"And the earlier bad behaviour was not bad enough for you to lodge a complaint against him either?"

"As said, it was ugly, but as I have forgiven him, I do not delve into it."

"He walks, then. Just one moment for you to change your mind."

"No, I won't."

"Then he walks."

And he went down the corridors, turned a corner and after a minute or two came back with - George White.

"He generously said he would not file a complaint against you for violence, since you were a bit hysterical."

They went out. The Gárda man came back and said:

"Now you may walk too."

And Susan left the office. George - as in Georgina this time - was waiting outside.

"Well, I am glad he did not file a complaint," said she, as they started walking. "As I hurt him most, and since this does not count as self-defense, I might have, if not gone to prison, since I 'took him for a burglar' (as if he weren't), at least paid some fines for excess in defense and for the mistake."

"But how could he explain it?"

"He had lived in the house before you. He wanted to get a few old chests out. He tried to ask you in a friendly manner, but after your old history (the nature of which you would not tell) ... well, he got off with a warning too."

"And what did he say about our old history?"

"He slandered you."

"What did he say?"

"That you had had the hots for him and been sudden shy when he tried to go about it."

"That is also a way of putting it. I went out with him, and I liked him in a friendly fashion as long as he showed no too personal interests in me."

And they rounded a corner ... and there he was.

"Ah, my lady, you do hurt me as you say that you know!" (wonderful how much more suave he was when George was around thought Susan). "No, do not scowl! I will admit I went too far, and should not have taken up any kind of contact with you ever again. But ... I was put under pressure."

"Under pressure?" said both girls.

"Well, can I offer you a drink while we talk?"

"Not for me, please!" said Susan.

"Not for me neither," said George (or Georgina as we will call her when George White is along) with some solidarity for Su.

"Then let us sit, next park."

They did. He started explaining. It seems his father was being held hostage, while everyone believed he was away in Israel, which was not true. A hostage by the policeman who had sat in the car when Susan was taken to the judge, a hostage by the shrink Coon, a hostage by the guy who had wanted to bomb Dresden ... and a few others. So, in order to free his father, who by the way would have to swear on the Torah not to speak about it, if and when he was released, he had to do another dirty trick on Susan.

"Namely?" said Susan with a bit sharpness.

"Arrange some oddity about the electric lights. Make you doubt your sanity. Make others doubt it if you wouldn't."

"What kind of oddity is that?"

"Well, turning it up and down and on and off ... especially when you were sleeping, so as to wake you."

"And if I had said it was most certainly not me who turned it on and off?"

"Well, in the eyes of some doctors that would seem a bit odd. They might conclude you did it to yourself out of some kind of attention seeking ..."

"But that would be a lie!"

"And they have always been able to tell lies from truth in your own experience?"

She was silent for a moment before saying: "no."

"You see, what a plan that was."

"Are you going to try carrying it out now?"

"When I told you?" He paused. Then he added with a gleam in his eyes: "that would be pretty diabolical."

Susan looked at him as if he was something the cat had brought in, some dead rodent, which, being no cat, she had no appetite for.

"No, I will not. Father may be killed for me not serving them, but on the day of judgement he shan't have to be ashamed also."

"Something we could do to help him?" Susan asked.

"Na, not likely."

"Are you aware who George here is?"

"You mean Georgina?"

From her he got a frown and fro Su a "don't call her that."

"No, we did not really catch her back in that day, she went to hiding with the tinkers or something. Odd, we usually get to know who most people are."

"Heard of Famous Five?"

"No ... not really."

Then he went on: "oh, you mean the four kids with a dog who were the terror of criminals not to mention of constable .... in the early forties? The ones who snooped around where police would not? Julian, Richard, Anne and a Georgina who insisted on being called George? Plus a Tim who was more of use through his clumsiness than through ... wait, are you that 'George'?"

"I am."

"And your cousins are still alive and well and ... could you do something for my pa, please?"

George, Meet George!

George turned back. Susan would not yet be in bed, and she did not want to get out to the tent without a torch.

Oddly enough, as she was watching Susan's house across the square, in went a man who had a key.

"Susan never told me she had an acquaintance like that." And she did not find it very likely that Susan was hiding anything from her. So, probably this man had got the key in a wrongful way - unless it was merely a janitor. But was that likely when Susan rented the house?

Fortunately the balcony window was still open. George climbed up into the tree - not caring if people saw it or even preferring they did, since she was not the burglar - and let herself fall onto the balcony.

"Are you there Su? Are you all right?"

"Yes! Why?"

"There is a man who has a key, he entered here."

Susan came out of the bedroom. She was across the dining room.

"Where is he?"

"Have you got my torch?"

"I have. Here."

She lighted, but there was no man to be seen.

"Let's search the house together!"

They went downstairs, and found the staircase empty. Had they heard something? Nothing there either. Down the cellar? Well, there was one man huddling down there. "Sorry, I'm homeless!" he said in a muffled voice.

"How did you get into the cellar?" asked Susan.

"Door was open."

"You lie. I checked it just before George went away."

An advantage of living in detached houses is that every one knows it is his or her responsibility to check the cellar door, at least there are no neighbours who could do it as well as you can. And if you want to let some homeless guy in, you can do that too, since you need ask no neighbour for permission, you are the only one taking a risk, and you estimate if it is safe for you or not. In a case someone clearly lies, it is not.

"George? You have a man there?"

"He's got a gun too. Lie down, face to floor."

And the man lay down. "George, sit on him, we'll tie him up."

George preferred putting a foot on the neck. Susan got out and checked for ropes. She was not long, some electric cables not used would do well around his hands and feet. The torch was placed on the floor. She approached and thought there was something familiar with him. Once she had tied his hands and feet together she said: "George, you may take your foot off his neck."

She did so, they rolled him over and the surprise was double.

"Why, you're a girl! I'd have freed myself if I had known!"

"But you didn't know."

Meanwhile Susan was gasping too. "Mr ... White, right?"

He answered nothing.

"George, this is the man who would have raped me on that island in the Thames!"

People were ringing the bell furiously above. As grimly as George looked on the man, that was his luck.

"Alright, I'll open, neighbours!" And before going to fetch the key she asked: "What's your name, by the way?"

"My name is George."

Guffaw. Susan thought it odd her best friend alive and one of her worst enemies should have the same name. And George thought it odd she had the same name as this dishonest and despicable man.

"I have the extra key in the right pocket."

George digged it out of there, handed it to Susan, and she went up and opened to a worried crowd of Irish neighbours.

"It's alright, folks. We just caught a burglar."

They came down and witnessed the catch. The Gárda was called. They told the girls: "Well done, young ladies, now we take care of him."

Sorcery Worketh Not

Midnight approached as the black cavern in the hillside was all that was not bathed in the silver light of the full moon. A pillar protruded on each side in front of the cave.

A man came along and started some funny preparations. Funny as in weird, not as in amusing really. George White had made up his black mind. He was going to do magic. Susan was going to be his.

The hairlock was there. The diverse magic items by which he was goin to invoke the dark forces were there. He knew the books of Kabbalah and similar lore. Now was the time.

He started drawing a diagram with chalk on the granite floor. One line, a corner, another line … the diagram was soon complete. He shouted out for triumph :

 « Susan, you'll be mine after all ! »

As he turned down again to draw the signs in the corners, a foot came out behind the pillar to the right. It was the foot that had kept him down in Dublin. Another one stepped out, trod on the diagram, smudged a corner. He looked up at Georgina. She waited until she had his eyes facing hers.

« Why are you so eager to damn your soul for Susan, when you can have me with no magic at all ? »

« What … what did you say, Georgina ? »

« I somehow knew I'd regret listening to that name, George. Came a warlock, called me Georgina, and hey presto, I'm … well, I'm an idiot. 

« Don't touch me yet ! You will abjure the devil and all his works and all his pomps before we are wed, or it's off. »

George White stared at her, gasped for a moment, then helped her efface the diagram.

« Guess I've been an idiot for most of my life. But I do guess I owe you that too. »

There was not a line left, just some chalk smudge, but he bowed down and swept as much off with his hand as he could. And a smile cracked across the face of Georgina.

« For how long were you standing there ? »

« Well, I had prayed a rosary all over three times before you arrived. »

« How long is that then ? »

« Ah, you won't know unless you learn to pray the rosary. »

« You might teach me ? »

« Yes, but not here and not now . » Then Georgina called back into the cave : « Julian, Dick, get out and see him burn the hairlock. »

They came out. Ann was not there, she would have thought this adventure even scarier than those she had when younger. Tim, of course was no more. But the three remaining of the Famous Five watched the hairlock take fire, burn with a flame, curdle up into burnt hair which is no longer hair. That was not the only reason : they also knew how he might have interpreted Georgina being there alone with him, so they took no risk about that.

Wedding in Cornwall

Audoin decided he wanted to accept the offer from Kirrin Island. And Susan of course had nothing against it.

In St Mary Immaculate three sundays on a row the announcement was made that on Saturday 31st of July Audoin Errol would marry Susan Pevensie in the Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows chapel in a little village on the coast of Cornwall.

And it was a beautiful wedding. Susan was a bride in white, Audoin had a white tail suit and bow tie. The choir was small but very musical, but above all, in that day and moment, two lonesome people (as Audoin was and as Susan had become after the railway accident) said farewell for ever to loneliness and to certain hardships that go along with it. They took Our Lord's Body after vowing fidelity, and they prayed. After the wedding the priest also placed the brown scapular on Susan's shoulders and on Audoin's.

While the other went off to the feast, Audoin and Susan and the priest read the Vespers, Compline and Matins of the Little Office of Our Lady, than they went on to join the others. The priest gave them a dispensation to skip Matins this time.

George announced she was going to marry Mr White. Yes, the very same guy who had tried to ravish Susan and who had also helped her out of Mental Hospital.

"But he's Jewish?"

"Well, he is preparing for baptism."

"Oh, good for you."

Rose showed her a girl four years old now. "This is the girl you helped to save, back then. She is called Susan, obviously."

"And what about her father?"

"Well, the principal did not marry me, and I don't think I would have married him after he proposed abortion. But Nobby's cousin took extra good care of me - here he is by the way ..."

And there came a somewhat darker copy - and younger too - of Nobby out behind the corner of the inn, Susan had not noticed him in Church. He carried a boy on his arm. And another one toddled behind. "It is an honour for us to be present when she who saved our baby is getting married. I am Bobby and these are Peter and Paul."

"And I am pleased to meet you. Glad Rose made a good party."

"So am I," said Audoin.

A telegram of congratulations was also arriving from Setúbal in Portugal. Roy Campbell had moved there.

The port - which was a gift from Roy and his wife - was getting emptied in the glasses and they went in to the feast.

George's cousin Dick was the cook - and in Cornwall seafood was plenty. Flanders and Swann entertained at the piano. Dancing was done till late at night. Then people noticed that Susan and Audoin were gone. Off to Kirrin Island.

Just to make sure they were in the right place, a few girls from the tinker camp went on to the island too and went to the little hut. At some distance they sang a song which Donald Swann had composed, not quite the style of his comic songs with Flanders, but rather more romantic, and when Susan and Audoin showed their faces behind a linen sheet in the window, they clamoured for her garter.

She threw it out of the window, and the girl who caught the garter was sure to be married during the year. But then Susan and Audoin shut the shutters and the gipsy girls pretended to be disappointed - then went roaming off to the shore, left a few gifts, including not a little food, and Rose had given them Lucy's essay note book to leave Susan as a farewell gift from her, so they left that too and they took the boat and went back to the main land. It was a calm summer evening and full moon and it could be done without danger.

In the morning Susan and Audoin woke up late and after dressing, praying the minor hours of the Little Office of Our Lady - together and alone for the first time - and taking a cup of tea walked down the cliffs to the beach and thankfully noted the gifts of the giggling gipsy girls. Susan was glad to see the notebook again. And Audoin was curious about it too.

Some Arrows and Some Bullets Whistle Keenly

What would the policemen do? She did not wait to find out, she put her arrow on the bowstring.

Out came two policemen from the car. The muscular one remained silent. A portly man with round face said in a jolly manner: "Put that down, young lady. We are not going to hurt you."

"What about Rose and her baby?"

"Well, she can't have a baby at her age. She's not grown up herself." That was not an extremely common sentiment at the time, but some of the responsible people already shared it. Like this policeman.

"So if teens get pregnant, you find murder alright?"

"Wouldn't put it that way, seems there is a medical problem ..." So the lie about Rose's life being endangered was already being spread.

Susan noted the muscular one was getting his hand back towards his pistol, and also that the one inside was phoning.

Twang. Chuck. The muscular officer let go of his pistol, and shouted out for pain, then groaned. There was an arrow in his flesh and it hurt like jiminy.

The portly and talkative officer got his hand back, turning the left side to Susan. She was not waiting for the pistol to appear, but ducked below the fence while taking out the next arrow.

The policeman turned again, shot too soon and missed her with a whistle near her ear, then she shot. Twang, chuck, he too let go of his pistol, and his arrow was just above the elbow, on the inner side. He simply groaned, as a man used to pain and torture.

Susan wondered where George was waiting, but the car was in fact gliding around the corner. The policemen withdrew towards the car, Susan got out of her gate, pursued with another arrow ready, they stepped into the car which backed, backed, backed, while she went forth, forth forth with her arrow.

From the side of her eyes, she glanced people gathering on both sides, at a safe distance, and she was sweating cold sweat.

"Steady now, Miss!"

Some huge man grabbed her from behind. She was lifted up and could not aim properly, he was pressing her arms to her side, so she dropped the bow and arrow. She could however kick backwards from her knee on her captor's face. That did not help. "Whoa, steady now!"

"She's out of her mind!"

"What is it all about?" She recognised the milkman's voice, he did not try to help, although he sounded awkward.

She heard a car start, and it sounded like her own. She turned her head slightly, glanced and saw, yes, George was driving away, and noone seemed to notice.

"Put her down on the ground," ordered the policeman who had stayed in the car. Which they also did. The other policemen came forth , thanked her captors, said it was well they understood she was not quite herself (and they showed off the arrows), and they continued with some groaning, it was again the portly man speaking: "We've called an ambulance for three. Two places for our arrow-wounds - it hurts like fire, I tell you, and one place for her head. She seems to have taken us for some nightmare monsters of hers."

"I took you for policemen trying to ..." she shut up quickly, she did not want to pull their attention to George and Rose.

"Trying to calm a dangerous lady with arrows who wounded officers of the law doing their duty. Right?"

She said nothing.

"Well, let's wait for the ambulance, if you will hold her, my colleague has handcuffs and fetters."

And she was fettered legs together, and she was cuffed arms behind the back, and she was allowed to sit, but she said nothing.

The ambulance came. The three policemen walked in, after the paramedics had carried Susan in like a package. As the doors closed, the two wounded policemen had their sleeves clipped off oround the arrows. "Sorry about the uniforms, Sirs!" - Susan watched this with some interest - and the shoulder and arm disinfected around the wounds and protruding arrows. The muscular man hissed as the peroxyde touched the flesh, but the portly one just bit his teeth together.

"My lady, what kind of arrows were they?" asked one paramedic.

"Normal sport arrows with field points. An iron coating to protect the sharpened wood, basically."

"No poison?"

"No poison."

"Does that mean," asked the policeman, the muscular one spoke for the first time, "that we can pull them out?"

"It will be better to wait till we arrive. If you wish, we have some analgetics for you. Painkillers."

The ambulance driver said: "Two police cars escorting us have arrived, give Lady Marion a pillow so we can drive."

It was the third policeman, the one who had stayed in the car, a small man, who put the pillow between her neck and the wall between driving space and medical space of the car. A safe place from which she could not run away. As the ambulance started driving, the small policeman spoke to her, silently. "How come you did not try to tell the crowd we were forcing Miss Pole to abort? It's regarded as immoral by many, it is still illegal, you could have stumped us there."

Susan did not answer.

"If it was to help Rose escape, it was no use. We did not forget her. I phoned a description of the car and of her, and took a photo of the driver, some redhead friend of yours. Irish?"

Susan, again, said nothing. She gave him a look with less love for him than the arrows she had fired at the other too. If only she had had an arrow now. She bit her lip in order not to cry.

"What are you going to do about it?"

« Well, what are you going to do about it? » The principal repeated his question. « You cannot get at the abortionist legally, until he commits the crime – if you think it is a crime, he can always claim he was in good faith – and then it's too late. »

Susan felt tears rise in her eyelids.

« You can tell her not to go to him, and she can do as you say, and we can shut her up as mentally unstable. You help her run away, she is one really hunted young lady, 'for her own best interest' as we say. And so are you. »

Susan felt grief turn to anger, but she would not show.

« You can tell your dear little friend you are sorry to have raised any hopes, she might just as well get it over and done with, fast. »

If you have read Prince Caspian – it was still just a few months after the previous and first book to appear in the Narnia series, as said – you will know what memory « dear little friend » sparked. She, and even more so Peter, had called the dwarf Trumpkin « dear little friend » so long they started abbreviating it as DLF. And she had started by saving him from Telmarine soldiers by shooting arrows at their armour.

« Or I could do some archery, » she said as she rose to walk out of the principal's office.

« Oh, brilliant, do some archery! » he guffawed and bawled after her.

Back in her own office, Rose was still waiting. « We have to get out of here, quick as possible. I'll take the bow and arrows. » Which she did.

They would have to pass the principal's office walking to the door to the parking place. They walked a little fast but pretending to be calm till they passed it. Then they went a little further, and Rose looked back. Unfortunately, the principal just looked out of his office. He looked at both of them, at the bow and arrows in Susan's hand, at Rose's face. She breathed « he's seen us » to Susan, she looked back and said: « run ! » So did she and took her hand, and the principal shouted fast and loud: « Miss Pevensie's abducting a pupil! She's mad! Keep them! »

They ran fast enough to get to the door, then they were being overtaken by some teachers, Su and Rose used their fingernails on their eyes to make them withdraw, and they used the breathing space to get a last run up to the car. On the front porch of the school there were a few ones gathered, as a car had just come in. As they jumped into the car, Susan started it without waiting for the doors to close, backed as fast as she could, faster than anyone thought possible, and it made the crowd withdraw again. Then she changed the gear forward, and raced to the closing porch. The crowd withdrew without closing it, they went through with a bang. « Rose, now you can close the door. » And as Rose closed the door on her side, Susan closed the one on hers.

Fast she took the shortcut home, even if she drove through some narrow paths, once she had to stop and let people on foot pass behind them on the field. She breathed again as she saw home. George was there, and Susan was glad for that. « George, Rose here is pregnant. They want to kill her baby. Take the car, but when I start shooting arrows at policemen you must get out – there they are by the way. Take her out of London, as fast as possible. »

« Horrid, I will of course. »

Susan and George just had time to change places, George into the car and Susan across the house, to the front porch. And sirens were already howling as she arrived, bow and arrows in hand. The police car came, it was fortunately only one.

... Who Would Not Eliminate the Possibility Prematurely

"What do you mean 'eliminate'?"

"Eratosthenes eliminated the theory that earth was totally flat, excepting montains. Egypt is as flat ground as you get in the world, but between Assuan and Alexandria there is clearly something bulging, so that up is not the same direction in both places. He proved it."

"How?"

"Well if the sun at noon when it is high shines straight down in Assuan and slightly northwards in Alexandria, that means the direction of sunbeams is perpendicular in one place and not in another. And if their direction is really the same, up must be slightly north of the sun in Alexandria, but not in Assuan. Assuming it is midsummer, of course."

"If the sunbeams are really coming exactly the same direction, but how do we know that?"

"Back then it was an assumption, it has been validated since. Remember how we used to do surveying out on that hike?"

"Yes."

"You survey distance to moon by taking angles from two places on earth at same time. With modern watches that is no problem. Then you know the moon might shine on different places with different angles. Now, if you measure the angle of sunlight on the moon, which is what you do by measuring the phases, you can survey distance to sun. Since it shines on the moon at a slightly different angle than on earth. Very slightly. Actually that may have been how Eratosthenes knew sun was too far away to shine different angles on Alexandria and Assuan."

"But I thought people thought the earth was flat up to the time of Columbus?"

"If you mean people like Spanish and Nordic sailors, sure, some of them or even most of them might have believed that. If you mean scientists, no they did not."

"So Columbus proved nothing that wasn't already known?"

"Columbus and Vasco da Gama proved that the non-flatness of earth amounts to a complete globe. Noone had seriously suggested it might be a half-globe - at least pa knew noone who had - but Columbus and Vasco da Gama gave proof it was not.

"They also disproved - along with James Cook - Saint Augustine's theory that there are no people on the opposite side of the earth."

"How so? I mean they discovered Red and Honest Injuns and Aboriginees with their didgeridoos and boomerangs, but why was Saint Augustine sure there were none?"

"He was maybe the one Church Father back in those times to care about the question, but his take depends on the fact he had never been in the Atlantic. You know the Gulf Stream?"

"Sure, it keeps us warm in winter and starts from the Gulf of Mexico."

"That's it. And where is water floating the other way, back to the Gulf Stream?"

"Wasn't that the stream from the Azores, the one that Columbus used?"

"Exactly. Now, he knew of neither of these streams, so he thought it must be either physically possible to sail and sail back like that, to get West and back East to where you came from or physically impossible to get West across the Ocean at all."

"He didn't count on parting from Azores and getting back to Ireland? Surely scientists have been taught to make no such blunders?"

"He was from the Mediterranean, not the Atlantic. Great if you want good food and people talking nice, but less great for some scientific observations. Do you think Galileo was a real scientist?"

"Wasn't he?"

"He was, like St Augustine, from the Mediterranean. One of his judges, can't recall which process, was from Portugal. He knew, from observation, that Galileo was wrong on tides."

"But the modern theory of tides is a heliocentric theory, right?"

"If you like, but it is not Galileo's. It was in fact very recently that Sir George Darwin (grandson of 'Mr-Man-Descends-From-Apes' Charles Darwin himself) who founded the modern theory of tides."

"Anyway: as Galileo was wrong about tides, St Augustine did not count on parting from Azores and getting back to Ireland?"

"No. In this case, the lacuna ..." she stopped. "Can I have some more tea please?"

When she got it, and her throat was less parched, she continued:

"In his case the lacuna in his enumeration of possibilities was discovered through making the voyages. But he also gave a real alternative, something to disprove, which was not disproven until then. I mean the non-existance of antipodes, of people walking with feet against ours."

"Which was exchanged for the very clear existance of Injuns, Maoris, Aboriginees, and so on. - So you mean, one cannot eliminate a possibility by just ignoring it?"

"Exactly: no one cannot do so properly."

"Not even by discovering the opposite?"

"How can you discover the opposite of a non-real possibility and not eliminate it?"

"Getting back to Ramandu and so, if people thought that Mars was a god because there are not just the movements around us along with the rest of the sky but also retrograde motions and getting through the zodiak, and now we know it is because Mars and Earth turn around the Sun at a different pace, and when Earth goes faster on same side as Mars, it looks like Mars is going backwards."

"How is that a discovery that Mars is neither a god nor any other type of guy?"

"Well, if we now know it is because of gravitation and momentum."

"Well, we would know it is because of that, if we had properly eliminated the theory that Mars is being moved around by some guy."

"But we have seen Mars in telescopes, it is a ball with channels on it, not a guy with a face."

"Even if not, why must all and every kind of people or beings with a conscience have a face?"

"Well, without eyes it would be blind, without mouth and ears it wouldn't communicate with others of its kind..."

"First of all, it might not need either of it to guide Mars, as the rock we see. It might be feeling its way around some gravitational field around the Sun. Of course, Mars as seen by us need not be the actual guy either."

"But who could be strong enough to push all of planet Mars around its orbit, we know how big it is and how heavy, right?"

"It is assumed we know how heavy it is, because if Mars is moved only by mechanic causes, if these are its previous momentum being calculable from speed and mass, and its gravaitation towards the Sun, where the calculation is from distance and from both Sun's mass and its own, then by knowing distance and orbit we can calculate its mass."

"You mean, how heavy it is?"

"Right."

"But the distance, the orbit, the speed are all known and the calculations have been made."

"They have been made by scientists who assumed they knew the precisely two only reasons for its movements, both of which involve masses."

"But scientists aren't supposed to assume, are they? They are supposed to know and prove before they talk as if they knew, right?"

"And how often do you think people failed to do what they were supposed to? I mean the driver of the locomotive in that train was very much doing nearly what he was supposed to. If he had also slowed down a bit earlier, your family and friends like Jill and Polly and Professor Kirke would still be alive."

"OK, that was a slip of his mind."

"Well, as said, scientists have for centuries not been paying attention to the possibility that the movements of stars and planets may be a form of conscious art. That also may be a slip of mind, though in this case it has lasted centuries."

"So you say you believe Lucy is right?"

"I may come to believe that about stars later on, right now I am only trying to not eliminate the possibility prematurely."

And Su Called George About It ...

George came for a visit.

"Hi Su, any news? You sounded eager to see me when speaking on the phone."

"Welcome George. I was rather wondering what you would think of something sister wrote."

"Why me? Oh, I know I am your best friend still alive, but you stressed the you. Why me?"

"Well, your father is a scientist, a physicist, right?"

"Yes ... but I thought you said your sister was all into the Middle Ages ... either some fantasy country with castles and no factories and with swords and archery but no guns or, well, praying and never dancing, like some Hildegard or Julianne or something?"

"You know Hildegard of Bingen and Julianne of Norwich? I thought you were very much not into the Middle Ages?"

"Oh, pa looked them up lately."

"But in a way you do not know how right you are. That Tolkien guy, a friend of Jack and Warnie, he even wroter her a letter asking her opinion on a comment he had to do on his edition of Ancrene Riule. It's a rule for people like, not quite Hildegard, she was a nun, but at least Julianne of Norwich."

"OK, where do I and father come in? Even if he lives like a recluse nowadays, whenever ma gets on pilgrimage or monastic retreats, he is not even fully a believer, although he considers it."

Susan bit her lip in order to stop herself from saying: "that's my case too."

She actually answered:

"Got that, but ... you see, she thought it possible - or she listened to a conversation with Edmund who thought it possible that stars are in fact a kind of people and that that is why their movements look funny - like it seems the explanation you give is you-know-the-train-and-how-it-looks-like-the-trees-are-moving-when-you-look-out-from-the-window. Retrograde motion for planets and parallax and things like aberration too for the stars."

"Well, that is not what scientists have been reasoning from lately: to them, at least to most, stars and planets are dead matter and so they either move for reasons of either previous movement or gravitation or both or they seem to move because it's earth that moves in space with us. So, your late brother and sister thought otherwise?"

"Can you read her essay on that conversation in a secret writing she used, if I give you the alphabet, or do you need my rewriting of it in English letters?"

"If you have already rewritten it ..."

"I have!"

"Then I will look at the script later, if you don't mind. I am all for reading the essay, if you need no help with transcription."

"Ah, you know I do not!" Susan was as good as Dick when it came to deciphering scripts, and George knew it.

"Pulling your leg, will you serve me tea while I read?"

"Rather. But first take the essay."

She did. Susan went for a big pot of tea, sat down opposite George reading it, and they both had tea.

And after a while, George too had read Lucy's essay.

"A bit elaborate for just a game if you ask me!"

"How?"

"Well, would people gaming be referring to their game as something real when discussing philosophy, science and Christian confessional history?"

Susan was silent. She nodded.

"Especially if it was the kind of game you say of pretending to be kings and queens for the glamour of it. That is a bit more your line. You have a weakness for dresses and dancing if you ask me."

Oh boy, that blue dress she bought just after leaving off the black.

"Do you think they were mad?"

"Of course not! Madmen are not able to understand each other enough to get something together like that. But what is more, they reasoned with perfect calm except when Lucy got a bit impatient, and with perfect logic."

"Perfect logic? But you said scientists have not believed for centuries that stars are people or anything like that?"

"Well, not to judge from their published writings."

"So, they are saying something scientists have thought was bosh for centuries, but they still say it with very good logic?" Susan raised her eyebrows.

"Well, good logic and what scientists believe are two different concepts. Of course scientists try to use as good logic as they can, but if a thing simply is ignored by them - and stars being guys like Ramandu and Coriakin has been simply ignored, not argued about at all - then it is not a worse logic than that of the scientists to fill in the lacuna."

"Lacuna?"

"Like a piece lacking. You learn a foreign language - I've tried Cornish - and you lack a verb tense like the pluperfect or a word for some object, now that is a lacuna in your knowledge of that language. Here it is a lacuna in attention."

"Word sounds a bit like 'lagoon'?"

"Father uses that as a thumb rule: a lagoon is a lacuna of land within the coastline."

"OK, but even if scientists aren't thinking of everything, that doesn't mean they reason badly, does it?"

"It does, at least if what they leave out is a thing worth considering. If you enumerate all possibilities correctly, if all thinkable thoughts are there, and then you eliminate all except one, you have proven that one to be the truth. But if you leave out a possibility, you jump to conclusions when eliminating all but one of those you thought of, and you may overlook the truth, which may be one of two or three possibilities that you have not eliminated properly."

Good Old George (and don't you ever call her Georgina!)

"Tim is dead."

"How awful! Such a dear old dog!"

"I know."

Here George grabbed Susan with both arms around the neck, bent the head and started crying.

Maybe she had already cried around the necks of her cousins also, but wanted to cry again. Or maybe she hadn't really wanted to cry around Anne's, since she did not want to be more girlish than her. Or around those of Dick and Julian since she wanted to be no less boyish than they. Or maybe she had somehow just not had the opportunity. Susan did not know.

One thing is sure: Susan, what with riding and swimming and archery, was a girl of her own mind. Maybe she would have thought that about Lucy too, if she had been around her, but she met Susan in America, just after she had renounced Narnia after the letter from her cousin Eustace.

When she had cried, it was soon Susan's turn.

"How are Pete and Ed and Lu?"

"They died in a train crash last year." And she grabbed George around the neck and started crying.

And after crying, she asked George: "How are your cousins?"

"Oh, no train crashes for them so far! Anne is married. She's expecting. Julian is in training for army officer."

"And Dick?"

"Sit down."

"But ..."

George took a grip on her shoulders and pushed her down on the sofa.

"OK, what is so shocking?"

George nearly started giggling before telling. She laughed out loud for the splendid vision it gave her:

"He's training to be a cook. A real chef. He's even learning French .... hahaha .... so he can go down to France and study there."

Susan laughed too. When she had stopped she said: "It's incredible! He's really made for that!"

"Well, he was on the chubby side, rarely said no to food ever ..."

"Speaking of which, you are not saying no to a cup of tea, are you?"

"What do you think? I am after all Dick's cousin. Even Anne, now she has got her husband is getting a wee bit chubbier than the months would warrant. Or maybe its just a big child. And as for Julian, if he is not chubby, it's for all the running and the pushups and some weightlifting too."

"Tea won't wait long, water is already boiling ..."

To correct Susan: it was. They had been taking turns crying for so long that the kettle had boiled dry and she had trouble getting it quickly off the stowe and under cold water to start a new kettle of tea water.

Meanwhile, George had found the red whig, and tried it on - with a grimace, way too girlish for her, long red hair ...

Susan had a laugh.

"Really unlike your black hair, you normally have ..."

Nobby

One of the better things with being one kind of worldly person - as Susan had been for the years between restoring Caspian X and the railway accident - is that you get good at doing pleasant things, for other people as well as for yourself.

The loneliness did not stop her from cooking well. The evening she had made a beef stew with carrots, she had also had ground horseradish to go with it. And she had saved half the Lavazza of coffee for the morning.

Which came much earlier than she had reckoned with. The doorbell rang, it was dark, and a few voices were discussing with some heat outside.

"She's not awake, guv'nor!" it was a voice she knew - yes, the milkman. "Either you leave, or I'll have to call the cops"

"Just another try, it's just this morning and she might be in a good mood about it."

"She yes, me no. If it is not funny with a man in a sleepingbag lying outside a young lady's rooms ..."

"Jumping Jiminy, how was I to know ..." the voice was a bit plaintive, but not unkind.

"And how do I know you did not know, for all I know ..."

Here Susan shouted out: "Oh stop it!"

She ran out of bed, to the window, and while both men were looking up - the milkman as blonde and tall as usual, the other one swarty, like some of the pikeys, she added:

"If you will wait till I am dressed, I will make you some coffee. You can have the jug through the window."

"Sure about it, Miss Pevensie?" said the milkman.

"As sure as I am sure I am alive. I will not ruin this chance to be kind to a poor man."

"Well, if you want me to call the police, it's now. I have my round to do."

"Do go on, I'll manage." Then she turned to the pikey, young as well:

"You want coffee or tea this morning?"

"Oh either will do. I like coffee." - The milkman was watching him, but started walking away, as he saw he was a rather peaceful fellow, once he talked to the ladies.

"Can you take some warmed up from yesterday?"

"Might do."

"Hand me the milk bottle then, it's the only decent way of warming coffee to add hot milk to it."

"Coo. Now you are talking. You know coffee better than most English!" And the milk bottle went up to her, as she had taken on the sleeping gown.

"I was in Italy this last Christmas."

And less than one minute later - she had a gas stove - the steams of hot milk and coffee reached his nostrils, so he scrambled up from the sleeping bag a second time.

"Here you are. Sorry I have only biscuits to go with it - unless you would like some of yesterday's food."

"Coo. Not saying no to that."

She went in again, reached him horseradish to grind, and a few minutes later came out dressed in sweaters and a woollen dress with two plates of beef stew, one in each hand, and the forks in the right hand. Lots of potatoes and carrots to go with the boiled beef. He took the one she held in the left hand, then she sat down.

"Ah, that is a relief, it is." He handed her the plate with the grater and the horseradish. She had a spoon among the two forks, and she divided the horseradish on the two plates.

"What is your name? I am Susan and the milkman already told you it is Pevensie."

"Nobby."

"Wait, I had a friend - George told me about a Nobby."

"Wait, the George you talk about - is it a girl?"

"You are Nobby! Come in, let us talk!"