Scars

I sighed for about the fiftieth time. I wished for about the millionth time that I were back in Narnia. However, I was not in Narnia, I was in a small little waiting room, about to get my 'yearly checkup' as my mum put it. My brother, sisters, and I had been getting these checkups for as long as I could remember and my Mum would totally freak if she knew that it had been fifteen years since I had had one last. I was just thankful that I was old enough now that she wouldn't have to come in the room with me. She would have a heart attack. Ha, good thing we were in a hospital.

Soon a lady came through a wooden door and called my name, "Pevensie, Peter." I felt like telling her that it was the other way around but knew that it wouldn't help the situation. So, instead of correcting the lady I just walked into the little room and wrinkled my nose at the foul smell. Really, couldn't they make it smell a little better? Right then it smelled like ammonia, making me want to gag. I held it back though and hopped up on the table.

We waited for what felt like an hour but was really just a few minutes and when the doctor walked into the room he found me lying on the table, staring up at the ceiling. He said, "Peter Pevensie?"

"Yes sir."

"Good morning." He looked at his watch to make sure that it was still morning before continuing, " I see that you're here for your yearly checkup."

"That's right sir."

"Good, good. So, any problems?"

"No, sir. I'm feeling perfectly fine." I said this with a smile. I had been thinking about Narnia before he walked in and that always put me in a good mood.

"Good, well if you could take off your shirt for me, I would like to check your heart and lungs." I cringed inwardly, looking at my mum. This wasn't going to be easy for her. The doctor noticed my anxious glances in the direction of my mom and stepped in. "Mrs. Pevensie, could you step out for a moment please?"

"Oh, okay." She was bewildered, I could tell, and I gave her a small smile, trying to reassure her that everything was fine.

"Thank you Mrs. Pevensie."

She nodded as she left and then I was all alone with the doctor. I undid the buttons as quickly as I could and pulled off my shirt. I heard his gasp; when my brother and sisters had stepped out of the wardrobe again, we may have de-aged but we all still held our scars. I looked anywhere but his eyes as he took in my 'life story' (as Ed called our battle scars). I could name the various battles where I had earned these scars. Sometimes I would entertain myself by picking a scar and naming the battle. Morbid, I know.

I looked at him again and saw that his jaw had dropped. I knew why. he was thinking that I had been abused, and that was why I didn't want my mother in the room. That had never happened to me but with any other person it would have been a fair guess. "Son, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you how you got these scars."

"I'm sorry, sir, but you wouldn't believe me, even if I did tell you."

"Peter, I've seen some pretty evil people in my life. Try me."

I've seen some pretty evil people too. "Sir, I haven't been abused if that's what you're thinking."

"I believe you have been, Peter. Where else would you get all these?"

"You wouldn't believe me, even if I told you."

"Then I'm afraid that I'll have to take this to the government."

"Sir, with all due respect, you don't understand and I doubt that you ever will." I was channeling High King Peter now. That had always worked on emissaries from other countries, why not on a doctor from another world? I sighed again. Was this the fifty-first or the fifty-second time? I lost count. The man had a look on his face that clearly let me know that he wasn't going to give in. Taking a deep breath I calmed my nerves and spoke in a loud, clear voice, " Sir, I have not been abused in any way, shape, or form." Well that wasn't exactly true. There was that time when I was taken prisoner by a rogue group of evil Narnians, and that one time when I had smarted off to Orieus and the offended centaur had nearly taken off my head. I had scars from both incidents: A series of severe whiplashes and ring of pale, puckered skin around my neck. All the others were hard fought for in wars and campaigns. "All these scars that you see were inflicted by enemies, traitors, usurpers, and on a very rare occasion, friends and my brother. These are not the result of a mindless beating from my mother or father. If you were to blame somebody for them, you would be more correct in blaming me, for I was the one who allowed myself into those challenging situations. I was also the one to get myself out of them, most of the time. Please sir, if you could just ignore them and get on with the examination, I would very much appreciate it."

The doctor's jaw dropped even further at my little speech, I had been channeling High King Peter even more strongly, using a little of the flowery language of the court and drawing myself up to my full height, as well as I could, while sitting on an examination table.

He tried to compose himself, but failed miserably. "I'm sure there is a story behind each of these scars?"

"Yes sir." I could see in his eyes that he was seeing me in a different light now and I could almost see a little respect in his eyes.

"Son, I have to be absolutely sure that you have not been abused. I need to call in your mom, I'll know by her reaction."

"Do you have to?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Okay then. I'll be ready to catch her though; she'll likely have a heart attack."

"Mrs. Pevensie?" The doctor was at the door, calling my mum.

"Yes doctor?" I head my mum say.

"Would you please come back in here?"

"Of course doctor." That was my mom, always polite.

I was prepared for the worst and that's almost exactly what I got. When my mom came into the room and took in the sight of me with my scarred back, the blood rushed from her face and she went deathly pale before promptly fainting. When I had seen what was about to happen I jumped from the table and ran to catch her. She fell right into my waiting arms and I gently lifted her to my previous perch. I gently slapped her cheeks until she blearily opened her eyes and looked at me. She frowned worriedly at me and before I knew it I was in a bone-crushing hug that only a mother could give. She held me sat arms length then and looked at my scarred torso. "Oh Peter! What happened to you? Tell me! Where in the world did you get all these scars? Why didn't you tell me? I'm your mother, for heavens sake! Why didn't I hear about this?"

I'd never been more mothered and smothered. I knew that the doctor had seen that I had not been abused in any way and he had a small smile on his face. I looked at him, and he gave me a small nod. We were free to go.

Later, in the car, I start to get nervous. My mum was still ashen-faced and she was shaking. Last time I had seen her like this was when Ed and I were six and eight and we had tried to make her breakfast. She had seemed to like the food okay; it was when she laid eyes on the kitchen that she got mad. That wasn't half as bad as this though and I was starting to wonder if it was healthy to be this… what was it? Mad? Scared? Livid?

"Peter Pevensie! You have some explaining to do and I suggest you do it quickly!"

"Sorry, mum." Was my lame-o answer.

"For what, Peter?" her tone was still harsh.

"For scaring you like that; I should have been more careful."

"Careful about what, Peter? Why wouldn't I know about this? Why wouldn't you tell me? Where did you get all those scars? It looks like you've been through a war!"

She was still yelling and all I could do was cringe and try to keep my voice even. "Mum, when you sent us to Professor Kirk's… Let me put it this way: It all started on a rainy afternoon when we were sitting around the house being bored. Lu decided that she wanted to play hide and seek and when she gave me those big puppy eyes, I had to say yes."

My mum gave a chuckle at this; Lu had the whole family wrapped around her little finger.

"So I started to count, and when I got to a hundred, I started searching the house. I heard voices up ahead and when I turned the corner, there was Ed with his head sticking out of a curtain and Lucy in the middle of a hallway. Of course, I said 'I don't think you two quite have the idea of this game.' (Or something to that affect.) They both rolled their eyes at me. Susan came around the corner asking if she had won and Lucy started babbling on about this magical country that she had found inside a wardrobe in a spare room. We went and checked it out, no magical country, just a closet full of coats."

My mother had a knowing expression on her face. After all, Lucy was known for her games.

"She was still convinced that it was there and we had a little argument about it. I guess what happened was that Lu slipped out in the middle of the night and went into the wardrobe. Ed followed her, and not two minutes later, yelled for me to wake up saying that she had been to her magical land again, 'And this time Edmund went too!' Edmund said that he had just been playing along, and that little kids these days just never know when to stop pretending. Lucy, of course, burst into tears and ran out of the room."

Mum got a look on her face that clearly said that Edmund would be getting a talking to.

"After that, Su and I comforted Lucy. The next day we were all outside playing Cricket. Edmund was acting a little strange and when I bowled the next ball Ed hit it right through an upper window, accidentally, and when we went to inspect the damage we heard the house keeper coming to tell us off. We started running through the house, trying to escape. We ran into a bunch of dead ends that we had to double back from and our journey finally led us to the spare room and the wardrobe. Susan muttered in my ear something along the lines of, 'You've got to be kidding.' There wasn't anywhere else to hide however and we all piled into the thing, me last. I pushed them all back a smidge so I could shut the door most of the way and we all sort of fell. But we didn't fall on wood like one might think, we fell onto snow."

Mom had an incredulous look on her face. She nearly forgot to take her turn at an intersection, and I had to yell to get her attention back to the road in time. As soon as all was quiet again I resumed my tale.

"Lucy had said something about a faun, Tumnus. So when we realized that we might as well explore a little we got some coats and began the trek to go visit Tumnus. When we got to his house we found that it had been ransacked and, nailed to a post, a note from the police. We had another argument then about what we should do. Su said that we should go back. Ed said that we shouldn't help the faun; after all, he was a criminal. Lucy said that we should help him because he had only been arrested because of her. Before I could voice my opinion we were interrupted."

"Peter, you don't really expect me to believe this, do you?"

"It's the truth mum. I know it and so do Su, Lu and Ed."

"Okay, continue."

"So, where was I? Ah yes. We were interrupted. A bird got our attention by whispering, 'Psst.' it turned out that he was only trying to get our attention for somebody else. A beaver." I laughed at the thought of myself trying to make friends with the beaver by letting it sniff my hand. " It turned out that this beaver could talk and that he wanted us to follow him."

"Peter, really!"

"It's true, mum."

"Continue."

" So we went with the beaver and he led us to his dam. He told us of a prophecy:

When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone

Sits at Cair Paravel in throne,

The evil time will be over and done.

Apparently a long time ago it was prophesied that we would come and save this land called Narnia. After he told us about the prophecy, he told us about Aslan. When he told us about Aslan he repeated a rhyme, it went like this:

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,

At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again

.

Apparently, Narnia had been under a spell that made it always winter. The 'queen' was the one who cast the spell. The White Witch. The beavers urged us to go see Aslan and I admit, I really wanted to, until Susan reminded me that you sent us to the country in order to stay out of a war, and that we might find ourselves in the middle of one, if we continued. We were about to leave, when we realized that Edmund had gone."

Mum had a look of worry on her face, "Where did he go?"

"He had gone to the White Witch. The first time he had come to Narnia he met the White Witch and she had pretended to be nice, gave him Turkish-Delight. He didn't know any better, really." I sighed. Fifty-four. " Well, I, of course, went after him. I could just see him walking into her castle and I yelled, trying to get his attention. In the end, we went to Aslan for help. He's, well, He's a great Lion.

He put us up and said that He'd do his best in order to get Edmund back. All that I had to do in return was think about my destiny as High King of Narnia. We were in the middle of talking, when I heard a horn, Susan's horn."

"Where did Su get a horn Peter?"

"Oh, sorry, almost forgot; on our way to meet Aslan we met Father Christmas. He gave Susan a bow and arrows, along with a magical horn that would always bring aid. He gave Lucy a dagger and a cordial; a drop would cure any wound. To me he gave a shield and the sword of the High King, Rhindon."

"Oh, okay." She was using that tone of voice that almost screamed 'you're crazy.'

I kept talking though, and went on to tell her all about how Aslan had saved Edmund and died in doing so. I kept speaking and told her about the battle and being crowned Kings and Queens. "So Aslan crowned us, 'Queen Lucy the Valiant, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just and High King Peter the Magnificent.' We ruled for twenty-five years, mum. Twenty-five. Then one day we went out hunting and stumbled across the lamppost. Lucy started to remember about Spare Oom and we all tumbled back through the wardrobe, not five minutes after we had first jumped in. In those twenty-five years, Ed and I fought over fifty battles, won six wars and became the best warriors Narnia had ever seen, as well as two of the best Kings.

Before we left, Aslan told me that He was in our world as well; He just went by another name. He told me that I needed to find Him in this world, that I was to consider it my mission. I've looked mum, and I've looked, but I can't find Him. I need to find Him." I was about to cry; I felt so hopeless without Aslan.

We pulled up into the driveway and Mum silently strode into the house and up to her room. I walked quickly to the room I shared with Edmund and found my brother sitting on his bed reading a book on law. He looked up when I came into the room and saw by my face that it hadn't gone well. "What happened Pete?"

"Mum happened."

"Oh no." he groaned. "What did you tell her?"

"The truth."

His eyes went wide and he gulped. "Then that means…"

"That we're all lunatics? Yep."

"Oh, great." Another groan.

I was about to try engrossing myself in books when I heard a soft knock on the door. "Come in!" I spoke loudly in order to be heard through the door. To my surprise, my mum entered and she was carrying a book. She looked at me with shining eyes and set the book on my desk, without saying a word she left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

I walked over to the desk, on top of the book was a note, hiding the title. It read:

Peter,

He's in here.

-Mum

I moved the note to look at the title of the book: The Holy Bible.