Chapter One
A long time ago, about 70 years to this day, there lived four children: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. They lived in London with only their mother, as their father was away fighting in the war, but our story does not take place in London. I would be happy to tell you that this story is set at the seaside with delightful hot sun and endless amounts of ice-cream, or maybe in some beautiful distant land where the sun always shines, the grass is always green, and animals have the ability to speak. No, our story is set in neither of those places. But before we get to our setting, I must start in a rather large house in the countryside – the house of Professor Digory Kirke.
It was to Professor Kirke's house that the four children were evacuated during the war. They were frightened, naturally, but being children they soon settled in and accepted that they were staying with the Professor and his unsavoury housekeeper, Mrs Macready, whether they liked it or not.
Our story truly begins one rainy day in September when the children decided to play Hide-and-Seek. That is how Lucy found the wardrobe.
Having found no appropriate place to hide, she stumbled into one of Professor Kirke's many spare rooms, gaping in awe at the humungous oak wardrobe before her. Hearing her brother, Peter, who was currently 'it', approaching the door, Lucy ran into the wardrobe and pulled the door shut behind her.
It was quite a large wardrobe, filled with the most luxurious fur coats. Lucy crept backwards in it slowly, so as to not alert Peter to her presence in there. She kept walking and walking, wondering just how big this wardrobe really was. It seemed to go on forever and then… Have you ever had that curious feeling when your ears don't seem to work and everything sounds as if it's underwater? And then suddenly your ears pop and sound comes flooding back into them? Well that was exactly how Lucy felt stepping over the threshold between the wardrobe and this strange new world.
It was nothing like she had ever seen before; incredibly tall buildings painted with bright pictures surrounded Lucy. At least, they looked like pictures, only they lit up like television sets. But they couldn't have been television sets – they were attached to the side of buildings!
The road before her was frightfully large, at least three times the size of the ones back in London, and on them rode extraordinary vehicles. They looked a bit like the cars in London, but they were smaller and most were bright yellow. They were the source of that deafening noise.
Lucy stumbled backwards, covering her poor ears with her hands. She had never before experienced such noise. It was simply ghastly! Why was everything so loud?
She bumped into a man in funny attire – a sort of long-sleeved vest and blue shorts made out of material that looked like it had an incredible amount of starch on it – but didn't mention it. Instead she asked, "Excuse me, Sir? Do you have any idea where I am?"
The man ignored her and rushed past her into the crowd. There were people all around Lucy as she walked further into this strange new world. They bumped into her harshly and didn't even apologise!
"I say!" exclaimed Lucy. "How rude!"
The people paid no attention to the poor girl whatsoever, ignoring her pleas for information. Where was she? What year was it? Would she be home in time for dinner?
Finally she came across a respectable gentleman who was led on a bench in a park nearby. He kindly let her sit next to him and showed her one of his newspapers that he had been lying under. He confirmed her worst fear. She was in some other land – New York City to be exact. And the year? 2012.