To understand the story you need to understand the context.

1) The Pevensies have stayed in Narnia with Caspian

2) They have aged with Narnia and now +3 years to the age they arrived there

3) Time has carried on in England - +1 year

I hope that is not too complicated?

Eustace sulked. Ever since their disappearance, all anyone had ever talked about were those odious Pevensies. No one talked to him about interesting things, like the inside workings of a train, only about how upset he must be that his cousins were missing. To be frank, he couldn't have cared less if they had existed.

He was sitting in the back bedroom of his house on the bed, glowering at a picture of a ship. He did not like the picture. It unsettled him. He could not say why it unsettled him – it just did.

It was while he was sulking, that he remembered, just before their disappearance, earwigging on a conversation those four Pevensies had had when they thought no one could hear them. Both Eustace and the children's parents had wanted to go for a walk and they had all been dragged along. Soon they came to a river. It was a beautiful river and both Lucy and Susan said so. Eustace had no interest in such things but when Edmund pointed out a tree which could, at a stretch, look like it had a face in it, and Lucy commented on how much she missed the talking trees of Narnia, he began to listen. Susan said that she thought that, while they were very beautiful and graceful one could never have decent conversation with them and they were so sleepy in winter one never saw anything worth counting for of them

As he listened, Eustace became more and more incredulous, it seemed that all of them, even Peter, who should be to old for such things, and Susan, the sensible one believed they had been to an imaginary country where fauns and dryads and naiads existed.

They were obviously completely batty.

As he was thinking these things, he suddenly noticed a cool breeze whipping round the room. Looking up to see where the draft was coming from, he realised that both he door and window were shut tight. The wind grew stronger and with it came the faint, but ever increasing sound of waves crashing over and over. Wide eyed with confusion, he realised that not only was the sound coming from the painting but that he could feel the spray coming off it.

The painting loomed.

Then, all of a sudden, he found himself fully submerged in icy cold water. Thrashing around, he broke the surface, only to be hit by a wave, giving him a mouthful of salty water. Having very little experience of swimming, he foundered in the foam. Finally from above, he heard voices and the splash of a rope landing close by. Eustace grabbed hold and clung on for dear life.

He fell flat on his face, gasping for breath, on the wooden deck of the ship, dripping.

"What's going on?" asked a voice from a way off.

"Found him floundering in the sea, sire. Couldn't just leave him" replied another.

"Lucy, come look at this," came a voice that sounded familiar.

Eustace looked up and found himself looking at a lot of leather boots but among them, and approaching rapidly were a pair of smaller, more closely cut shoes, surrounded by skirts. Daring to look at him rescuers at last, he realised, to his horror that he recognised two of the faces, and, although they were older that they should be, they recognised him too.

"Eustace?" came the voice eventually.

"Lucy?" he replied, wondering if this was a very bad dream.

"You know this person?" asked the first voice incredulously "But how?"

Edmund, for it was his voice that Eustace had recognised, cleared his throat,

"Well, yes, you see," here he paused, "Eustace is our cousin,"

A rather flabbergasted silence filled the ship. Meanwhile, a noticeably shorter and hairier pair of legs approached the gathering.

"What, sirs, is going on?" came shrill, piping voice. Eustace had a moment of sudden revelation and scrabbled backwards until he reached the edge or the ship as fast as he could. The reason for this was that the owner of the voice was also the owner of the legs and was, in fact, a Mouse.

"Get that thing away from me," he said through gritted teeth, "trained animals are vulgar!"

The Mouse, who, as I am sure you already know, was called Reepicheep, became extremely insulted.

"Are you saying, young knave, that I am a mere dumb animal with brains only for eating and sleeping? That I, Reepicheep, leader or the Mice of Narnia, am to lower myself as to be mollycoddled and told what to do by men?, begging your Majesties pardon, I do not mean yourselves!"

At this moment in time someone decided that it would be good idea to tell him that Eustace was Lucy and Edmund's cousin and took him off down the deck to do so.

Eustace was now standing, shivering, and taking in his surroundings. The boat was small but fast, but Eustace did not know this. To him the only thing less safe on the middle of the sea would be a rubber ring surrounded by sharks.

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Annapurna