Susan and Lucy were fighting again.
It wasn't the first time they'd argued in the past year, but it was possibly their most heated disagreement yet. Peter and Edmund could hear their sisters screaming at each other from three floors up, and the things they were screaming were horrible.
"Why won't you just come,Susan?" Lucy pleaded. "It's just dinner at Professor Kirke's house, that's all!"
"To talk about Narnia." Susan retorted. "A fairy tale!"
"It was real and you know it! Just come, Susan, please, everyone will be so happy to see you!" Lucy secretly hoped that if Susan came to the dinner and heard her friends and family reminiscing about their times in Narnia, it might shake her out of this ridiculous phase she was going through. It broke Lucy's heart to see her older sister deluding herself, pretending that Narnia was just a silly childhood game.
"I will not come, Lucy, and that's final! I have better things to do than listen to a lot of babies making up stories!"
"Oh Susan, how can you say that?" Lucy implored. "How can you deny Narnia and all our friends, and growing up as kings and queens? How can you deny Aslan?"
Susan seemed to flinch slightly at the sound of the Lion's name, but she instantly regained her composure. "I can deny it," she said coolly, "because none of it is true. And by believing in it, you're lying to me and to yourself."
"No!" shouted Lucy, her fury breaking. "You're the liar, Susan! Listen to yourself, pretending that Narnia doesn't exist! Some queen you are!"
"Lucy! Hurry up!" Peter called from the bottom of the stairs. He turned to Edmund and shook his head. "I don't think Susan's coming." he said quietly.
"She was never going to." Edmund replied sadly.
Susan and Lucy came down the stairs, still arguing. Lucy was crying now, and at the door she turned, grabbing at a last chance to talk some sense into her sister.
But the Gentle queen was unforgiving.
"You have to grow up eventually, Lucy." Susan said angrily. "You can't keep on playing this silly baby game forever."
"Well, if growing up means becoming like you, then I don't want to grow up." said Lucy, sobbing. Then she rushed out onto the street to where Peter and Edmund were waiting, shocked at the things they had heard.