A/N: So it's been a while. Sort of like putting the training wheels back on. I left a little off the end. It feels incomplete, but I can always come back to it. Let me know.
Edmund Goes To School
Lucy would be going to school next year, her mother explained, as her sole playmate was led away by the two children who had stopped being so years ago.
Peter was used to Susan talking his ear off on the way to school. She had been doing it for two years now. He was used to Edmund's hand in his. Mother told him to hold his hand. He'd wander if he wasn't watched. But he wasn't used to Edmund not talking. He wasn't saying a word. Not arguing, not chatting, not mindlessly having conversations in the way small children do; not really listening to what anyone else has to say, but at least waiting until the other person is finished speaking. Most of the time.
But not today. Edmund didn't say a word.
Susan, all of seven years old, was excited to have both of her brothers in school. She couldn't say why, exactly. At least, not in a way that Peter or her parents could understand. Something about how, now that Edmund was in school, he could play grown up games. Edmund countered that always could play grown up games, Peter and Susan just wouldn't let him.
Edmund was scared. He had been excited just last night, but now, as the school loomed tall and large above him, three floors and hundreds of classrooms, according to Peter, he had the words scared right out of him.
Susan ran off with a couple of her friends, who already knew Edmund, so they didn't make a fuss over him the way Susan promised the bigger girls would. Susan kissed Edmund on the cheek. "Good luck, Edmund," she told him encouragingly. "See you later, Peter."
Peter waved goodbye and walked Edmund over to the congregation of children. "You'll do fine, Ed," Peter promised. Edmund still said nothing. "Both Su and I have done it. There's nothing to it, going to school!" Peter shook his blonde hair out of his eyes. "Listen, Ed," he said. "I've got to get going, but remember that this teacher had both me and Su. He's bound to love you." He smiled. He ruffled Edmund's hair. "Good luck! Have fun!" called Peter over his shoulder as he ran to meet up with his own friends.
Edmund stood among the other anxious children starting school. A couple of the braver ones already made friends. A couple of them already knew each other. But Edmund stood alone. He still hadn't spoken.
When an old woman who looked older than Grandmother rang an old looking bell –definitely older than Grandmother, thought Edmund –the older children filed into classrooms with general ease, but Edmund's class had to be herded into a line, straight and perfect. The teacher went down and asked each student his or her name, and last name too, if they could. The boy at the front of the line was called Matthew Greene. Behind him was Roger. The first girl in the line was Evangeline. "That's a pretty name," said the teacher. She thanked him and told him that she learned to spell it last summer. The boy in front of Edmund was named Thomas.
The teacher seemed taller standing right in front of him. About a hundred feet tall. "Your name?" he asked Edmund.
"Edmund Pevensie," said Edmund quietly.
"Another one," he said. He seemed happy. Peter would call it content. He liked to use grown up words now. "I had your brother, you know?"
"And my sister," added Edmund.
"How many are you?" he asked.
"Four," answered Edmund. "Sir," he added. Peter told him teachers were supposed to be respected, like Mother and Father. "Lucy is the youngest."
They went inside and sat at their desks. They sat in alphabetical order, according to their first names. "When I've learned your names," he said. "We'll sit according to last names."
Evangeline sat behind Edmund. "You're not the only one with older siblings, you know?" she told him. "Why did Mr. Harris only pick on you?" Edmund didn't turn around. He wanted to, though. "Do you know what?" she asked. Edmund did not, but he did not tell her either way. Mr. Harris was writing the alphabet on the chalkboard. Edmund knew those letters. Most of them, anyway. "I think I know your brother and sister. Pivansy sounds familiar," she continued. "'That mean old Susanne Pivansy,'" recited Evangeline. She reminded him a lot of Susan, just not the good parts. "'Doesn't mind her own business.'" Those were the parts of Susan that Evangeline reminded him of. "'Skeeter Pivansy is just as bad!'" continued Evangeline, oblivious to the fact that Edmund hadn't said a word. "'He's a do-gooder, but you say something about his dumb sister, he'll tear your head off!'" Evangeline was done with her performance, but she wasn't finished tormenting Edmund. "I hear he's dumb, too," she said.
"Peter's not stupid," Edmund growled at the board. Mr. Harris was telling the class about the sounds each letter made. It was boring but it was much better than Evangeline's choice of conversation. "He knows everything."
"He can't know everything, silly," goaded Evangeline. "Only God knows everything."
"He knows a lot," said Edmund defensively.
"Mr. Pevensie," Mr. Harris called. "Is there a problem back there?" For a second, Edmund felt like telling the whole class about Evangeline's discussion, but that would be tattle-tailing, and Edmund didn't need Peter to tell him that nobody liked a snitch.
"No, sir," he said.
"I don't want to hear another peep out of you," he said. Mr. Harris returned to the alphabet. Edmund turned around to face Evangeline.
"You got me in trouble," he hissed.
"Then you shouldn't have spoken," she huffed, crossing her arms.
Edmund huffed right back, and he sunk down into his seat and the rest of the morning passed dully.