"OWW," Cassandra exclaimed, pushing herself off the floor into a sitting position. She glared up at the boys who'd tripped her, but she'd been told before that her glares were as effective as a butterfly wing using force to break a safe, and all the boys did was laugh and walk away. She was new at the school, but she couldn't have come at a worse time, the middle of a term, the middle of the year. Everybody had already made their friends, they were all in groups. Her trying to get into one was like... the metaphor about the butterfly floated into her mind.

She got up and walked over to an empty bench, sitting her bag down on her lap. Most people weren't anything like those boys but, she guessed someone had to be bullied, and that person was her.

It was alright though. Because it didn't really matter. She shut her eyes and just imagined. She might have been anyone else. She might have been famous, she might have been six foot tall, she might have been...

A couple of hours later Cass made her way home.

"Hello Mum, hello Dad." She greeted even though she knew they wouldn't be home at the moment. She knew of someone who would, her granddad who'd been staying with them for the last couple of months because he was Ill and wouldn't be able to stay by himself.

But she didn't say hello to him because she hated him. After getting herself an apple from the kitchen Cass entered her bedroom, sat on her bed and dropped her bag next to her. Leaning against the wall she bite into her apple, ooh it was nice and juicy, and let her eyes settle on a spot on the opposite wall. Her bed was opposite the window, as at night she liked to lie and stare out the window. The sky was a blank canvas in the night times, well, over the city only, as the stars were hidden by cee – oh two or something. She never really paid attention during science.

Anyways, the window. The view out the window was simple today. Just a blue sky, dash of cloud floating away, out of sight. Blue. It seemed to ripple, but she blinked and it stopped.

"-ssandra? Cassandra?" A wobbling voice called. "Are you home?" Oh gee, she wished she wasn't. If she kept quiet granddad would think she wasn't home. Cass shuffled over to the edge of her bed and dumped the apple core into her small metal bin. Then she went back to her previous position, staring out the window.

Again, the blue rippled, and didn't stop, even when she blinked. It seemed like... water?

Suddenly the glass of the window shattered. Water spilled all over the floor, rushing into the room. Cassie stood up, backing over to the door. This could not be happening. She had her hand on the door handle, about to pull it down, and then a face flashed into her mind. Granddads. The water was rushing in now, up to her ankles.

"G- grand..." she whispered, still hesitant. But this wasn't happening, it ... might have been happening? The water was up to her knees now. Coming in faster. She shut her eyes tight. Then opened them.

The water was FREEZING! She went under and sea water flooded into her mouth. Flailing her arms about madly brought her to the surface. Cass saw beautiful blue almost sparkly water for a second before it swept her under again.

Oh gee I'm going to drown, I'mgoingto – swim you idiot!

Some voice in her head somewhere reminded her of the front stroke, so she tried it out, cutting her arms through the water. This time she stayed above the water. Still she could see a lot of blue, blue sky, blue sea. There were sounds coming from behind her, but they were all weird, like speaking through water. She shook her head, water dribbling out of her ears.

"MAN OVER BOARD!" someone was shouting from behind her. She did an awkward paddle, to turn around. A huge ship loomed up in front of her, the mast an emerald green dragon mouth open, exposing sharp teeth. It was one of the most amazing things she'd ever seen before. It was approaching, casting a shadow over her. So was something else in the water. A person as it turned out.

"Are you alright?" he asked. He had a blunt nose, like it'd been broken, and short dark hair. Cass didn't say anything; she was finding it hard to even just continue paddling. It was a stupid question anyways. "Come, this way onto the ship." He took off swimming towards the side of the ship and having only two choices (1. Stay in the water, or 2. Follow onto the ship. It must have been just an imagination or dream, and Cass wasn't going to imagine anyone killing her, so she'd be alright.) Cass swum after him.

The man climbed onto a short of platform thing, with ropes which pulled it up to the ship. Cass did the same and held onto the rope, dripping water and shivering as they were pulled up to ship level. At what she saw on the ship level, she could only blink and stare at. There were mostly humans, but there was a... minotaur? A great black hairy thing with horns. Of course she was dreaming now.

She stepped onto the ship, slightly nervous of being the main focus of attention. It all dispersed as a girl with her brown hair pulled into a side ponytail said "Can someone fetch a blanket please." And most ...people went back to doing whatever they were doing before. A bandana-ed man passed Cass a blanket, a dull browny green colour, which she gratefully accepted.

"Hello, I'm Lucy Pevensie." The same girl with the brown pony tail said, smiling at Cass.

"I'm Cassandra Eldridge."

"How did you get into the water?" Lucy inquired. "We're miles away from any land."

"Um," Cass was distracted by the characters on the ship. Now the Minotaur was saying something someone who Cass couldn't see, in a short of gruff voice. It speaks? Then she saw something else which was weirder. A random moved, revealing the person the Minotaur was speaking to was a mouse. Who was speaking back.

She remembered Lucy asked her something.

"I don't know. I was in my room, then the window broke, all this water rushed in, then I was here."

Lucy's eyes widened and her smile grew. "Ooh, so you're not from Narnia?"

"Narnia?" Was this Narnia? It was rare that Cass ever gave any imagined places names; she was terrible at naming things. This place wasn't real, was i-

"Yeah, we're in Narnia now. I'm guessing you've never been here before."

"No." Cass looked around again, but all she could see was the ship, and lots and lots of water.

"It's such a magical place, you'll love it! Anyways, I should probably take you to the ship's captain, Dridian. Caspian and Edmund will probably be with him too." Lucy walked over to a set of double doors, pushed one open and motioned for Cass to follow her. Through the door was the control room of the ship, the place where they planned their course, and their plans. Three guys were standing over a table, on which a map was spread out on. The corners of the map were curling up slightly. They looked up when they heard the doors opening.

One of them was obviously the oldest, maybe in his forties; bald in a way that gave him enough of an air to look like a captain. Cass guessed that was Captain Dridian. The guy to the left of Dridian was tall and handsome with long girly boy style brown hair. And to the left of him was a guy probably just slightly older than Cass, with dark hair who was a bit shorter than the brunette.

"And who is this?" The bald asked, his accent sounded Irish.

"Er, I'm Cassandra Eldridge," Cass paused, biting on her lip.

"She got here sort of like me and Ed did, except she's never been to Narnia before." Lucy added helpfully.

"Well welcome to Narnia, Cassandra. I'm King Caspian," The brunette said, offering his hand. Cass shook it. "This is Captain Dridain," He gestured at the bald guy. "And this is a King of Old, King Edmund the Just" He gestured at the dark haired guy.

Wow. She was in the presence of royals. The closest she'd ever been to royals in London was driving past Buckingham Palace and the Queen wasn't even there. So actually she'd never been close to royals at all. Wow, this was a mega change.

"Seems we got another crew member," Dridian smiled.