AN: So this is the first chapter of my brand new AU Narnia story! Yay! Anywho, the main idea of this story was requested by Mystic Lover of the Fairytale, who will also be writing a prequel to this, which I will be betaing. I'm not going to spoil too much of the plot here, kinda hoping the story and its summary will mostly just speak for itself, but basically all the non-Narnia parts are set in New York 1998, not England in the 1940s, and the main pairing of this fic is Peter/Susan. And, yes, I have taken the liberty of changing Anne Featherstone's name to "Jessica Featherstone" and Marjorie Preston's into "Ashley Preston" for the simple reason of believability due to the time-period change; I've also made both characters American and much closer to Peter's age than Lucy's. And here's a little bit of "spot the re-used OC" trivia, LOL; I re-used the surname of an OC of mine I invented back in 2008 for an old fanfic completely unrelated to this one, changing only his first name and making him and his friends American instead of British.

Hello. My name is Digory Kirke; Professor Digory Kirke. I happen to be something of an expert on inter-world travel. And, while I played a relatively small part in the story you are about to hear, I think it would be safe to say that I was somewhat central, in a less than conspicuous manner, to the tale.

You see, inter-world travel is a very imprecise science at times. Some people find the theories-even though, logically, they can only be the truth-all too impossible to believe.

Wait a moment. If you are worrying now that this is going to be a very dull story about an old man who likes to sit in his study pouring over old tomes and smoking his pipe and, in reaction, are looking for the nearest exit, calm down, it's all right; I'm not the subject of this story, I promise.

Nor is my other-worldly colleague, a certain Doctor Cornelius (very nice chap, by the way; you'll be hearing a bit about-and from-him later), the main character.

The hero of this story is a lad who goes by the name of Peter Pevensie. (I can vouch for the fact that he's as interesting a fellow as any you're likely to meet; he is, after all, my own great, great nephew.)

Now, being (in his own, perhaps somewhat faulty, perception) a very ordinary sort of boy, Peter hadn't the slightest notion he was about to have the adventure of a lifetime; he never imagined that the sort of thing he read about happening to young boys in books would happen to him.

Much less did he think he would change the course of history in another universe for ever.

Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'd best begin in the autumn of 1998. That's when young Peter, aged thirteen at the time, was staying in my house in the New York countryside.

He and his mother had just moved to the United States from London England, after the unfortunate divorce, and being the youngest brother of Helen's (that's Peter's mother) grandfather, I naturally thought it best that they both come and stay with me, on good, clean property where the air was fresh and there was room enough for a young boy to run about, as opposed to some ghastly little flat in the city.

"Morning, Mum," said Peter as he approached the head of the long, walnut table.

It was oval-shaped, so there was still a head as there would be on a square or rectangular table, though just barely, making it a little reminiscent of King Arthur's famous Round Table. Which, given the fact that Uncle Kirke's enormous house had all these empty suits of armour standing about at attention like in magician's castle, doubtless waiting for some spell to order them to life, was perhaps only fitting, in retrospect.

Helen looked up from a dense stack of paperwork crammed much too tightly onto a single blue plastic clipboard that did not at all look up to its assigned task of holding so many information sheets. "Oh, hallo, Love. All ready for school?"

Peter pulled out a chair. "I guess." He dropped his backpack on the floor and lightly kicked it under the table.

"Are you feeling all right?" Helen asked, glancing down again to adjust her Nurse H. Pevensie name-tag.

"I don't like school here," he mumbled to the bowl of oatmeal that one of Uncle Kirke's maids (Ivy, Margaret, or Betty; the three housemaids were so indistinguishable from one another that Peter figured they must be sisters, but he'd never gotten any of them into a long enough conversation to ask and was at the point of giving up) had just placed in front of him.

Helen sighed. "I know it's been hard for you, Darling, being in a new country and a new school all at once, but you'll get used to it." She gave him a strained, tired smile. "It's only been one week."

He shook his head and over-turned a spoonful of oatmeal. "I doubt it. Do you know everyone here has some kind of problem with my accent?" He rolled his eyes. "They say it sounds pretentious."

"Oh, I'm sure you're not the only one those ignorant kids pick on," said Helen. "What about that Russian girl you sit with on the bus and at lunch? You told me she has a thick accent."

Peter was surprised his mother even remembered him telling her that. These days she seemed so busy with her nursing career and other things that half the time she hardly seemed to be listening to him at all. This was only the second time since they had moved to New York that she'd even still been at the house at breakfast to begin with. Usually she left for the hospital when it was still dark out.

"They don't bother her."

"Why not?"

"Well," said Peter, "three days ago, her father picked her up from school early."

"And?"

"And, let's just say he makes Goliath look like a dwarf."

"Oh, that big, eh?" She arched an eyebrow.

"And there's a pretty good chance the man brought his collection of rifles with him when he and his family moved here from Russia." Peter nudged his backpack with the toe of his left sneaker. "She would have to pay those kids to steal her lunch money, and even then dashed if they'd actually go through with it."

"Well, that glass of orange juice is hovering over my papers like a ticking time bomb," said Helen, standing up; "and it's getting late, so I'd best get off to work."

Peter nodded. His oatmeal was getting cold, but he didn't care. He wasn't feeling all that hungry anyway.

"Now, try not to miss the bus and show up late for class covered in rubbish again today," she told him as an after-thought.

"But yesterday I didn't," Peter protested, as Helen disappeared through the archway leading into a vestibule with a newly installed elevator.

Actually, he'd lied to her about missing the bus and cutting through an alleyway, tripping over his own two feet, falling head-first into an open dustbin two days before. He had been on the bus, and arrived at school on time. The whole showing up covered in garbage thing had been entirely the fault of bullies. But, everything as it was, he thought his mother had enough to worry about. She didn't react too much when he told her they called him names; but he knew his mother wouldn't stand for them getting physical. And, to make matters worse, he would have to admit (it would come out sooner or later) that, during the only big fight he'd ever been in during his first week of school, he had been the one to throw the first punch; after a boy bumped him and tried to make him apologize. She would be very disappointed in him. He hated it when his Mum was disappointed.

Peter had to walk almost five miles, to the property edge, a good ways out of sight of Uncle Kirke's house, in order to get to the school bus.

The driver, an old man with a bad hair cut, sporting clothing that was way too tight on his pudgy, almost sumo-like, body, always scowled at him as he got on.

At first, Peter had assumed the driver simply didn't like him; eventually he'd figured out that, in fact, before he moved there, the driver had never had to go that far in-country to pick up a student and was sour at having an extra ten to fifteen minutes of driving every day.

So, ignoring the customary scowl, he boarded the bus and kept his eyes open for tossed banana peels or other slippery items that might 'accidentally' be thrown in the aisle as he made his way to his seat.

Taylor Ehatwich, Peter's biggest bully and archenemy, threw a Ring Pop wrapper with a small a rock he'd picked up off the pavement near his house inside, at his head as he passed.

"Ow!" Peter grimaced, rubbing the side of his right eyebrow, where the wrapper-covered rock made contact.

The bus driver barked for him to find his seat already.

Taylor's friends, Trevor, Tommy, and Tony, seated next to-and directly behind-him, snickered into their palms.

A girl in a blue sweater three rows behind the bullies glanced up from the book she was reading and waved Peter over.

"Hey, Mashka." He sat down beside her.

"Hello, Petya." She smiled at him. "You have got a lump forming on the side of your eyebrow."

"I know," he groaned.

"Taylor again?" Reading, she hadn't seen it happen.

"Of course."

Mashka sighed sympathetically.

Aside from her thick accent, name, dark eyes, and the fact that only about half of her not directly school-related books were in English, you would never know she wasn't American. She had chocolate brown hair, an up-turned nose with seven small freckles on it, and skin so overtly Caucasian she would have given Barbie a run for her money.

Her mother had actually been from Ohio, and her father had met her as a teenager, as an exchange student from Russia. They corresponded with letters after he returned to his home country and, shortly after college, Mashka's mother just went ahead and got herself a plane ticket to Russia so they could see each other again.

And while Mashka's first language was Russian and she spoke English with that thick accent of hers, she knew English well enough not to mix up sayings or sound-accent aside-too much like a foreigner. She did occasionally slip Russian words into her otherwise completely English sentences, or call people by their names in Russian, but that was about it.

So far, Mashka was the only friend Peter had in New York. He didn't really count Mark and Noel (the goofy, unkempt boys seated at the back of the bus) even though they were harmless and even said good morning to him sometimes; they were a bit too dim-witted to be best mates with. Currently, Mark was strumming a guitar covered in Gargoyles stickers. His primary dilemma in life seemed to be that, evidently, nothing rhymed with the word 'jingle'. Equally simple-minded Noel was preoccupied with stamping his feet extra hard on the floor of the bus to activate his light-up sneakers.

Peter took a peek at what Mashka was reading. On the off-chance that she actually had a book written in English.

Nope. Anna Karenina. In the original Russian, naturally. And Peter wasn't much of a Tolstoy fan.

What kind of pathetic novel ends with a main character getting killed by a train? He thought to himself.

For a passing moment, something seemed to jab at him-like a memory of another life, or other universe-and his mind kind of went, "Hey, wait a minute..."

Shuddering involuntarily, he shrugged it off and pulled out his own current bus book. It was one he'd brought over with him from England. Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman.

"Oh, Petya?"

Peter closed the book, using his index finger as a bookmark. "Yes?"

"Did you have the dream again?"

Ever since his first night at Uncle Kirke's house, Peter had been having the same dream over and over again: a castle built on a cliff by the sea...a dark, stormy night...clichéd lightning striking round the marble walls and flashes of purple over the choppy waves...

Mashka was the only person he decided he maybe trusted enough to tell, so he'd told her, thinking she wasn't likely to make fun of him. He thought of telling his mother, but it was yet another thing he didn't feel he should bother her with. Besides, he knew she would only say the old structure of Uncle Kirke's house and the suits of armour had caused it. And, while that would seem most likely to be true, Peter didn't need or want to hear it.

"Yes," said Peter. "That's just the funny thing about it. I keep having it; and it's always exactly the same."

"My papa says dreams are a way for the subconscious mind to explore fears and other repressed emotions."

"So my subconscious is afraid of a castle?" Peter raised an eyebrow.

"Or thunderstorms," Mashka teased, elbowing him lightly and turning her attention back to Tolstoy.

When the bus finally screeched to a stop in front of the school, Peter put his book away and prepared to get off.

Outside, on the lawn in front of Pulverulentus Siccus Junior High School, a group of cheerleaders were attempting to do a routine to Wannabe by the Spice Girls.

Commercial-worthy tragedy struck when one cheerleaders' Giga Pet went off. She stopped to feed her virtual puppy before it ran away or died, causing the girl to her left to go slamming right into her while attempting a backflip.

The captain of the cheer-squad started raging at her, waving her pompoms emphatically.

So emphatically, in fact, that she accidentally sent one sailing towards the group of kids getting off of the bus.

"Hit the deck!" cried Peter, dropping to the ground and bringing Mashka down with him as soon as they were off the bus and noticed the puffy glittery thing coming at them at alarming speed.

Taylor and most of his idiot friends ducked, too.

With the sole exception, that is, of Tony; who, in turn, got struck full-force, dead in the face, by the pompom.

"Dude," said Tommy, jaw agape. "Tony got pompomed!"

Trevor pointed and laughed, only to get a baton hurled at his right kneecap.

Taylor mouthed "Call me," to the head cheerleader as he tossed the pompom and baton back to her.

Peter decided to get out of the bullies' sight while they were preoccupied with being morons (the only thing they excelled at).

"Good morning, Peter," said the principal as Peter and Mashka walked inside. "Nice to see you're not covered in garbage today." He was pulling an errant sixth grader by the ear behind him, headed up the stairwell to his office to phone the troublesome kid's parents. "Mashka, tell your father we're still on for golf Saturday."

They walked down the hallway and up three cement steps to their lockers. Mashka was chattering on about something, but Peter had stopped listening, staring at a girl a few feet ahead.

Jessica Featherstone, blonde, green-eyed, and one of the few girls in Peter's grade who weren't at that stage where they were temporarily a full head taller than him, had been one of the first people he'd noticed at his new school. Of course, given how poorly his first week had gone, he still hadn't worked up the nerve to talk to her. The one conversation they'd had was in math class when she asked to see his notes and then had forgotten to return them.

Her locker was only four down from his. Yes, he'd counted, and felt unbelievably stupid.

At least nobody knew he liked her.

Mashka laughed, "Why don't you talk to her?"

Peter's face reddened. "What?" So much for nobody knowing...

"Come awn, Petya! Every day you stare at her, using the mirror on the inside of your locker."

"I do not!"

She folded her arms across her chest. "Sure."

"She doesn't like me," he said quickly, shaking his head. "I can tell."

"Oh, so you are psychic now!" Mashka pouted faux-dramatically. "Where were you when I put my whole month's allowance on the dapple-gray horse to win?"

"Mashka..."

"Say something to her, Petya!"

"Like what?"

"Like ask her for your notes back," she suggested.

"I can't do that!" he gasped. "She'll think I'm some kind of pretentious grade-grubber. Enough people here already assume that based on the poor reason of my being British."

"Then ask her out!"

"What? No way!" He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Jessica wasn't listening.

She wasn't; she was too busying using Ashley Preston, one of the cheerleaders involved (by association, not directly) in the Giga Pet/flying pompom incident, as a pack-mule to hold/carry her books, pencil boxes, and Lisa Frank folders.

When Jessica decided her best friend for the time being was loaded down with about as many random school supplies as she could physically hang onto for any extended period of time, she noticed that oddball Russian girl repeatedly nudging the new British kid towards them.

"Will you stop shoving!" Peter exclaimed over his shoulder. "All right. I'll talk to her. Don't get your knickers in a twist, yeah?"

Jessica fiddled impatiently with the candy necklace she was wearing. It seemed as if the British kid wanted to talk to her. Whatever, but she hated being kept waiting. Standing around in the drafty hallway currently void of most of the cool people was so unspeakably dull.

"Hi, uh, Jessica," Peter stammered. "We're in the same math class."

"Uh-huh," she said, letting go of her candy necklace and examining her nail-beds with undue fascination.

"Well, I was wondering..." He glanced over his shoulder at Mashka who was making a 'so-so' motion with her hand to indicate how well he was doing. Turning back to Jessica, he resumed. "...Uh, wondering...would you be, I don't know, interested in maybe going to a movie or out for pizza or something?" In response to Jessica's unmoved expression, he added, perhaps needlessly, "With me, I mean?"

"You're asking me out?" Jessica crinkled her nose. "That's cute."

Ashley, ever the one to suck up, made a little, "Aww," noise.

"Shut up, Ashley," Jessica said off-handedly.

"Okay." Ashley's jaw shut tight with an almost audible click.

"So..." Peter said.

"Listen, that's really sweet and everything," simpered Jessica, patronizingly, "but I don't think you're my type."

Peter looked down at his feet. "All right, then. Fair enough."

Mashka was stunned. She had fully expected Jessica Featherstone to say yes, even if she was a bit stuck up and bossy. Peter wasn't bad-looking; and considering Jessica was so puny that most of the boys in their grade looked like beanpoles standing next to her, Mashka didn't see how she could afford to be so choosy.

"Sorry," she mouthed.

He shrugged like it didn't really bother him, but she could tell it did.

And it certainly didn't bother him any less when, not even a minute after Jessica turned him down, Taylor decided to grace them with his presence and show his macho-manliness by shoving Peter into his own locker and snapping the combination lock down so he couldn't get out, then proceeded to ask Jessica if she wanted to grab a burger after school.

She said yes, and Peter felt as miserable as he imagined the dying blue bottle in the hotel he and his mother had stayed about a week at back in London before leaving for America felt when he stepped on it by accident. With one major exception. At least the fly was out of its misery. He still had to go to school at Pulverulentus Siccus Junior High for at least another year, and after that, High School, which didn't exactly seem bright with promise, either.

He was starting to wonder if anything good was ever going to happen to him. If moving to a new country was supposed to be his great adventure, leading up to his fate or destiny or whatever, he was hoping for a bit more. At this rate, the most thrilling thing likely to happen in his life was a fire drill in fourth period. Or, if he was really lucky, something other than dry turkey, string-beans, and a square of stale carrot cake offered to him in the cafeteria.

"Oy, Petya!" Mashka knocked on the opposite side of his locker. "That jerk Taylor finally left. The bell just rang. Tell me your combination so I can get you out."

"Seven, seven, three, seven, round to zero, five," he told her.

"Seven, three?" He could hear the combination lock turning the wrong way.

"No, Seven, Seven, three!"

"That is what I just said, no?"

"That's two sevens!"

"There is no eleven!" Mashka exclaimed. "Numbers one through ten only."

"Seven!"

"Oh, seven." She sighed and turned the lock the other way. "Why didn't you say so?"

Peter lightly banged his forehead against the metal inside of the locker.

The really sad part was that, so far, this was turning out to be a comparatively good day. He was going to be late for class again, but at least his locker wasn't full of stinky rubbish like the dustbin had been; that much was a fairly large step up.

Later, in History, the teacher was telling them about William the Conqueror and how it is believed he bullied Matilda of Flanders into marrying him via pulling her by her braids.

Peter fought against the urge to suck his teeth as he took notes. This was the first thing in History class since moving to this blasted country that was not about the pilgrims, or else George Washington, or else the Boston Tea Party (by Jove was that one loads of fun...), and all he found he could really take away from it was that, even way back then, posh girls had a preference for jerks.

How lovely.

AN: *-Pleaseth to be Reviewing-*