CHAPTER ONE
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BEHIND THE GYM IT was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was g behind the gym.She was g because they had been bullyihis is not going to be a school story, so I shall say as little as possible about Jills school, which is not a pleasant subject. It was "Co-educational," a school for both boys and girls, what used to be called a "mixed”
school; some said it was not nearly so mixed as the minds of the people who ran it. These people had the id<tt>.９9liｂ?t>ea that boys and girls should be allowed to do what they liked. And unfortunately what ten or fifteen of the biggest boys and girls liked best was bullying the others. All sorts of things, horrid things, went on which at an ordinary school would have been found out and stopped in half a term; but at this school they werent. Or even if they were, the people who did them were not expelled or puhe Head said they were iing psychological cases a for them and talked to them for hours. And if you khe right sort of things to say to the Head, the mai was that you became rather a favourite than otherwise.
That was why Jill Pole was g on that dull autumn day on the damp little path which ruween the back of the gym and the shrubbery. And she hadnt nearly finished her cry when a boy came round the er of the gym whistling, with his hands in his pockets. He nearly ran into her.
"t you look where yoing?" said Jill Pole.
"All right," said the boy, "you start -" and theiced her face. "I say, Pole,”
he said, "whats up?”
Jill only made faces; the sort you make when youre trying to say something but find that if you speak youll start g again.
"Its Them, I suppose - as usual," said the boy grimly, digging his hands farther into his pockets.
Jill here was no need for her to say anything, even if she could have said it.
They both knew.
"Now, look here," said the boy, "theres no good us all -”
He meant well, but he did talk rather like someone beginning a lecture. Jill suddenly flew into a temper (which is quite a likely thing to happen if you have been interrupted in a cry).
"Oh, go away and mind your own business," she said. "Nobody asked you to e barging in, did they? And youre a nice person to start telling us what we all ought to do, arent you? I suppose you mean we ought to spend all our time sug up to Them, and currying favour, and dang attendan Them like you do.”
"Oh, Lor!" said the boy, sitting down on the grassy bank at the edge of the shrubbery and very quickly getting up again because the grass was soaki. His name unfortunately was Eustace Scrubb, but he wasnt a bad sort.
"Pole!" he said. "Is that fair? Have I been doing anything of the sort this term? Didnt I stand up to Carter about the rabbit? And didnt I keep the secret about Spivvins - uorture too? And didnt I -”
"I d-dont know and I dont care," sobbed Jill.
Scrubb saw that she wasnt quite herself yet and very sensibly offered her a peppermint.
He had ooo. Presently Jill began to see things in a clearer light.
"Im sorry, Scrubb," she said presently. "I wasnt fair. You have done all that - this term.”
"Then wash out last term if you ," said Eustace. "I was a different chap then. I was - gosh! what a little tick I was.”
"Well, holy, you were," said Jill.
"You think there has been a ge, then?" said Eustace.
"Its not only me," said Jill. "Everyones been saying so. Theyve noticed it. Eleanor Blakiston heard Adela Pennyfather talking about it in our ging room yesterday. She said, `Someones got hold of that Scrubb kid. Hes quite unmanageable this term. We shall have to attend to him .“
Eustace gave a shudder. Everyo Experiment House knew what it was like being "atteo" by Them.
Both children were quiet for a moment. The drops dripped off the laurel leaves.
"Why were you so different last term?" said Jill presently.
"A lot of queer things happeo me in the hols," said Eustace mysteriously.
"What sort of things?" asked Jill.
Eustace didnt say anything for quite a long time. Then he said: "Look here, Pole, you and I hate this place about as much as anybody hate anything, dont we?”
"I know I do," said Jill.
"Then I really think I trust you.”
"Dam good of you," said Jill.
"Yes, but this is a really terrific secret. Pole, I say, are you good at believing things? I mean things that everyone here would laugh at?”
"Ive never had the ce," said Jill, "but I think I would be.”
"Could you believe me if I said Id been right out of the world - outside this world - last hols?”
"I wouldnt know what you meant.”
"Well, dos bother about that then. Supposing I told you Id been in a place where animals talk and where there are - er - entments and dragons - and well, all the sorts of things you have in fairy-tales." Scrubb felt terribly awkward as he said this and got red in the face.
"How did you get there?" said Jill. She also felt curiously shy.
"The only way you - by Magic," said Eustace almost in a whisper. "I was with two cousins of mine. We were just - whisked away. Theyd been there before.”
Now that they were talking in whispers Jill somehow felt it easier to believe. Then suddenly a horrible suspi came over her and she said (so fiercely that for the moment she looked like a tigress): "If I find youve been pulling my leg Ill never speak to you again; never, never, never.”
"Im not," said Eustace. "I swear Im not. I swear by everything.”
(When I was at school one would have said, "I swear by the Bible." But Bibles were not enced at Experiment House.)
"All right," said Jill, "Ill believe you.”
"And tell nobody?”
"What do you take me for?”
They were very excited as they said this. But when they had said it and Jill looked round and saw the dull autumn sky and heard the drip off the leaves and thought of all the hopelessness of Experiment House (it was a thirteeerm and there were still eleveo e) she said: "But after all, whats the good? Were not there: were here. And we jolly well t get there. Or we?”
"Thats what Ive been w," said Eustace. "When we came back from That Place, Someone said that the two Pevensie kids (thats my two cousins) could never go there again. It was their third time, you see. I suppose theyve had their share. But he never said I couldnt. Surely he would have said so, unless he meant that I was to get back? And I t help w, we - could we -?”
"Do you mean, do something to make it happen?”
Eustaodded<kbd></kbd>.
"You mean we might draw a circle on the ground - and write in queer letters in it - and stand i - ae charms and spells?”
"Well," said Eustace after he had thought hard for a bit. "I believe that was the sort of thing I was thinking of, though I never did it. But now that it es to the point, Ive ahat all those circles and things are rather rot. I dont think hed like them. It would look as if we thought we could make him do things. But really, we only ask him.”
"Who is this person you keep on talking about?”
"They call him Aslan in That Place," said Eustace.
"What a curious name!”
"Not half so curious as himself," said Eustanly. "But lets get on. It t do any harm, just asking. Lets stand side by side, like this. And well hold out our arms in front of us with the palms down: like they did in Ramandus island -”
"Whose island?”
"Ill tell you about that aime. And he might like us to face the east. Lets see, where is the east?”
"I dont know," said Jill.
"Its araordinary thing about girls that they never know the points of the pass,”
said Eustace.
"You dont kher," said Jill indignantly.
"Yes I do, if only you didnt keep on interrupting. Ive got it now. Thats the east, fag up into the laurels. Now, will you say the words after me? "What words?" asked Jill.
"The words Im going to say, of course," answered Eustace. "Now -”
And he began, "Aslan, Aslan, Aslan!”
"Aslan, Aslan, Aslan," repeated Jill.
"Please let us two go into -”
At that moment a voice from the other side of the gym was heard shouting out, "Pole?
Yes. I know where she is. Shes blubbing behind the gym. Shall I fetch her out?”
Jill aace gave one gla each other, dived uhe laurels, and began scrambling up the steep, earthy slope of the shrubbery at a speed which did them great credit. (Owing to the ethods of teag at Experiment House, one did not learn much Frenaths or Latin or things of that sort; but one did learn a lot about getting away quickly and quietly when They were looking for one.)
After about a minutes scramble they stopped to listen, and knew by the hey heard that they were being followed.
"If only the door en again!" said Scrubb as they went on, and Jill nodded. For at the top of the shrubbery was a high stone wall and in that wall a door by which you could get out on to open moor. This door was nearly always locked. But there had been times when people had found it open; or perhap<strike></strike>s there had been only oime. But you may imagine how the memory of eveime kept people hoping, and trying the door; for if it should happen to be unlocked it would be a splendid way of getting outside the school grounds without being seen.
Jill aaow both very hot and very grubby from going alo almost double uhe laurels, panted up to the wall. And there was the door, shut as usual.
"Its sure to be no good," said Eustace with his hand on the handle; and then, "O-o-oh. By Gum!!" For the haurned and the door opened.
A moment before, both of them had meant to get through that doorway in double quick time, if by any ce the door was not locked. But when the door actually opehey both stood stock still. For what they saw was quite different from what they had expected.
They had expected to see the grey, heathery slope of the moing up and up to join the dull autumn sky. Instead, a blaze of sunshihem. It poured through the doorway as the light of a June day pours into a garage when you open the door. It made the drops of water on the grass glitter like beads and showed up the dirtiness of Jills tear-stained face.
And the sunlight was ing from what certainly did look like a different world - what they could see of it. They saw smooth turf, smoother and brighter than Jill had ever seen before, and blue sky, and, darting to and fro, things sht that they might have been jewels e butterflies.
Although she had been longing for something like this, Jill felt frightened. She looked at Scrubbs fad saw that he was frighteoo.
"e on, Pole," he said in a breathless voice.
" we get back? Is it safe?" asked Jill.
At that moment a voice shouted from behind, a mean, spiteful little voice. "Now then, Pole," it squeaked. "Everyone knows youre there. Down you e." It was the voice of Edith Jackle, not one of Them herself but one of their hangers-on and tale -bearers.
"Quick!" said Scrubb. "Here. Hold hands. We must separated." And before she quite knew what was happening, he had grabbed her hand and<bdo></bdo> pulled her through the door, out of the school grounds, out of England, out of our whole world into That Place.
The sound of Edith Jackles voice stopped as suddenly as the voi the radio when it is switched off. Instantly there was a quite different sound all about them. It came from those bright things overhead, whiow turned out to be birds. They were making a riotous noise, but it was much more like music - rather advanced music which you dont quite take in at the first hearing - than birds songs ever are in our world. Yet, in spite of the singing, there was a sort of background of immense silehat silence, bined with the freshness of the air, made Jill think they must be oop of a very high mountain.
Scrubb still had her by the hand and they were walking forward, staring about them on every side. Jill saw that huge trees, rather like cedars but bigger, grew in every dire.
But as they did not grow close together, and as there was no undergrowth, this did not prevent one from seeing a long way into the forest to left and right. And as far as Jills eye could reach, it was all the same - level turf, darting birds with yellow, onfly blue, or rainbow plumage, blue shadows, ainess. There was not a breath of wind in that cool, bright air. It was a very lonely forest.
Right ahead there were no trees: only blue sky. They went straight on without speaking till suddenly Jill heard Scrubb say, "Look out!" a herself jerked back. They were at the very edge of a cliff.
Jill was one of those lucky people who have a good head for heights. She didnt mind in the least standing on the edge of a precipice. She was rather annoyed with Scrubb for pulling her back - "just as if I was a kid", she said and she wrenched her hand out of his.
When she saw how very white he had turned, she despised him.
"Whats the matter?" she said. And to show that she was not afraid, she stood very he edge indeed; in fact, a good deal han even she liked. Then she looked down.
She now realized that Scrubb had some excuse for looking white, for no cliff in our world is to be pared with this. Imagine yourself at the top of the very highest cliff you know. And imagine yourself looking down to the very bottom. And then imagihat the precipice goes on below that, as far agaiimes as far, twenty times as far. And when youve looked down all that distance imagitle white things that might, at first glance, be mistaken for sheep, but presently you realize that they are clouds - not little wreaths of mist but the enormous white, puffy clouds which are themselves as big as most mountains. And at last, iween those clouds, you get your first glimpse of the real bottom, so far away that you t make out whether its field or wood, or land or water: farther below those clouds than you are above them.
Jill stared at it. Thehought that perhaps, after all, she would step back afoot or so from the edge; but she didnt like to for fear of what Scrubb would think. Then she suddenly decided that she didnt care what he thought, and that she would jolly well get away from that<bdo></bdo> horrible edge and never laugh at anyone for not liking heights again. But wheried to move, she found she couldnt. Her legs seemed to have turned into putty. Everything was swimming before her eyes.
"What are you doing, Pole? e back-blithering little idiot!" shouted Scrubb. But his voice seemed to he ing from a long way off. She felt him grabbing at her. But by now she had no trol over her own arms and legs. There was a moments struggling on the cliff edge. Jill was thtened and dizzy to know quite what she was doing, but two things she remembered as long as she lived (they often came back to her in dreams). One was that she had wrenched herself free of Scrubbs clutches; the other was that, at the same moment, Scrubb himself, with a terrified scream, had lost his balance and gone hurtling to the depths.
Fortunately, she was given no time to think over what she had done. Some huge, brightly coloured animal had rushed to the edge of the cliff. It was lying down, leaning over, and (this was the odd thing) blowing. Not r or sn, but just blowing from its wide-opened mouth; blowing out as steadily as a vacuum er sucks in. Jill was lying so close to the creature that she could feel the breath vibrating steadily through its body. She was lying still because she could up. She was nearly fainting: indeed, she wished
she could really faint, but faints dont e for the asking. At last she saw, far away below her, a tiny black speck floating away from the cliff and slightly upwards. As it rose, it also got farther away. By the time it was nearly on a level with the cliff-top it was so far off that she lost sight of it. It was obviously moving away from them at a great speed. Jill couldhinking that the creature at her side was blowing it away.
So she turned and looked at the creature. It was a lion.
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