Sorry for taking so long to update, but I was being weighed down with essays, book reports, and homework from my school, which is where I get my inspiration to write about the Experiment House (hahaha, just joking). Well enough about my life and onto Chapter 2: The Long Walk Home.
Chapter 2: The Long Walk Home
It was 6:00 in the morning and Jill was walking to school, her eyes were half closed, and all she wanted to do was go back home, climb up the steps to her bedroom, and curl up in her nice warm bed.
Unfortunately she still had one more day of classes left at the Experiment House. At least after that day she would be done with the Experiment House completely and onto high school, which would be a proper boarding school, unlike the Experiment House.
Most of Jill's classmates would be able to overlook the injustice of having to wake up at 6:00 in the morning and look forward to the fact that summer vacation would be there the next day and they would be able to sleep in.
Jill knew that her vacation would consist of waking up early to help her mother before she had to go to work, babysitting Lily whiles her mother was gone, and helping her mother run the house in other ways.
Jill was mature for her age. Her maturity had been gained from having to deal with her parents' divorce. Usually Jill was proud about how sensible and mature she was, but sometimes having to be so sensible and mature, and having to grow up so fast wasn't so great.
The sun was not even up and Jill had to button her sweater all the way up to keep warm. She hated the Experiment House's early hours of school. Jill thought that the principal had to believe that old saying that went like, 'early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise', or something like that.
'Only we don't get early to bed with the piles of homework they give us.' Jill thought cynically to herself as she adjusted the strap of her heavy, book-filled, book bag. She was always cranky at 6:00 in the morning.
Jill looked at Lily who was skipping ahead of her in a mood that was disgustingly happy for so early in the morning.
Lily also attended the Experiment House, but the school was not as much as nightmare for the younger students. They got out of school two hours earlier and had yet to start dealing with the bullies. Jill still feared the day that her sister would be old enough to deal with the horrors of the school. Perhaps she would be able to convince her mother to send Lily to a proper school, her father had always been the one who had wanted to send the girls to the Experiment House anyway…
Lily stopped skipping and waited for her sister to catch up with her so she could walk with her.
Are you going to see your boyfriend at school today?" Lily asked gaily. They were just approaching the gates to the school and were about to go their separate ways so Lily could go to the lower class part of the school and Jill could go to the upper classmen's part.
Jill gave Lily a suspicious look. "What boyfriend?" she asked.
"The one we saw at the dentist's office yesterday." Lily said just as merrily, as if her sister had just forgotten that she had a boyfriend.
"Eustace isn't my boyfriend." Jill said quickly.
"Are you sure?" Lily asked.
"I think I would know." Jill said a bit more sarcastically then she had intended too.
"Okay, if you say so." Lily said as if she did not entirely believe what Jill was saying. Jill loved Lily and she thought she was the best little sister a girl could have, but sometimes Lily could just be so infuriating without even trying.
"I'll see you at home." Jill said as she turned to go to the upperclassman's part of the school. The Experiment House was very strict about keeping the young students away from the older students claiming that the older students should be separated from all things childish and that they should learn to be more mature.
"So." A voice said from behind Jill.
Jill recognized that voice, dreaded that voice, and knew exactly who that voice belonged to, Adela Pennyfather. Sure enough, when Jill turned around she was face to face with Adela and Edith Jackle. She seriously wondered if the two had nothing better to do but bully her, then again they had gone out of their way to pick on her specifically ever since Aslan, the mystical lion of Narnia, had chased them.
"I did not know that Scrubb was your boyfriend." Adela said with a mean glint in her eyes that only suggested trouble.
"He is not my boyfriend." Jill said. "You know that."
"We know that Pole, but that doesn't mean the whole school knows." Edith said.
"And it wont be so hard to make them think that he is." Adela added.
Jill was fed up.
"Why are you two always trying to make my life so difficult!" she exclaimed. "It's hard enough with school and my sister and my mother and dumb absentee father without you two!" she yelled.
"Well, well, someone got out of the wrong side of the bed today." Edith said, Adela and her both totally uneffected by Jill's outburst. Sometimes Jill wondered who was more heartless these girls or the evil queen she and Eustace had had to defeat when they had gone to Narnia.
"We were only thinking of going through with our little plan, but thanks to your little outburst now we're positive we're going to do it." Adela said. "See you later Pole." she said in a fake happy voice as her and Edith walked off to their first class of the day.
It was midday and Jill was in history class. You would have thought with all the interesting things that happened in the past history class would be more exciting, but their teacher had the kind of voice that made you want to put your head down on your desk and fall asleep.
Jill was sitting next Eleanor, who was her best friend in her school. Some of the other students who were in that class with her were Eustace Scrubb, Edith Jackle, and Adela Pennyfather. Eleanor was gazing out the window with her head in her palm, obviously daydreaming. Jill glanced o the back of the class and saw that Eustace was doodling in his notebook. It seemed that everyone in the class was just as bored as she was.
Jill returned her gaze to the teacher, Mr. Rhodes, and tried her best to give the impression that she was paying attention. It was just so hard knowing that in a few hours she would be out of the school for good.
Jill felt as if she was being watched and turned around in her seat to see Adela and Edith whispering to each other and smiling at her maliciously. She also saw them whispering to other students in the class and after that the students would turn to look at Jill as well, very suspicious. Before Jill could even wonder what was going on a girl from a lower grade knocked on the door and came in. "Mr. Rhodes the principal wants to see you." she said in a small voice.
Mr. Rhodes sighed. "Very well." he said. "You are to all open up your textbooks and read the last chapter silently and don't think just because I am not in the room you are not being watched." he said before leaving.
As soon as the door was closed everyone in the room burst out in whispers, despite the teacher's cryptic threat. "What's going on?" Jill asked Eleanor.
"Is it true?" Eleanor asked in a hushed voice.
"Is what true?" Jill whispered, completely confused.
"That you and Eustace are, you know, dating?" Eleanor asked again. It was a rare thing for anyone to be dating at the Experiment House, everyone pretty much went their own way with a few friends, and tried to keep out of the way of the bullies. The school's motto was 'Watch your back', well in actuality the school motto was, 'Spread wisdom, light, and peace into the world', but the first one was the one that the students really lived by.
"What? No." Jill said. 'Not this again.' she thought to herself.
Jill looked around the room and saw everyone still whispering, occasionally stealing glances at her or Eustace. She looked back at Eustace, who had a blank look on his face, obviously not having a clue as to what was going on.
Jill had had enough. She slammed her palm on her desk and stood up, silencing everyone in the room. "Look, I know what you all are saying so you don't have to go whispering on about it." she said angrily walking up to the front of the room so she could address the whole class. "Just so you know, it's all a lie, made up by Jackle and Pennyfather." she said pointing to the back of room at Adela and Edith. "I am not nor have I ever been dating Scrubb, so you can all stop with this whole thing, and I really think-"
"Ms. Pole, it would be best if you returned to your seat and got on with your reading." a cold angry voice said. Jill turned to the door to see Mr. Rhodes standing in the doorway looking rather annoyed.
Jill embarrassedly walked back to her desk, sat down, opened her book and sunk into her seat.
"I still cannot believe that happened." Jill said as she and Eleanor walked out of the school, speaking of what had just occurred in history class.
"It's not that bad." Eleanor comforted her. "At least it's the last day so you won't have to worry about people talking about it and teasing you for weeks." she said.
"I guess you're right." Jill said.
"I'll see you later." Eleanor said. She and Jill lived in different neighborhoods. "You have to come over sometime in the summer, or I can come to your house, then we can go the park or something."
"Right." Jill said before Eleanor turned the corner.
"Hey Pole!" Jill turned around to see Eustace walking towards her. She tried to remain calm, having no idea how this conversation would go.
"We live in the same direction, mind if I walk home with you?" Eustace asked.
"Sure, it's fine with me." Jill said.
"So that was an interesting history class." Eustace said.
"I would not use the word interesting to describe it." Said Jill "More like, completely horrid."
"So Pole, would it be so horrible to have me as a boyfriend?" Eustace asked.
Jill blushed. "Well, I-I, I didn't mean-"
"Just kidding Pole, no need to get all flustered." Eustace said.
"I was not flustered." Jill said angrily. "I was just trying to figure out the nicest way to inform you that you would make a perfectly horrible boyfriend." She retorted, and so the two of them settled back into their usual form of friendship, which entailed a lot of arguing and teasing. It was not the best way two go about their feelings for one another but it did set up a sort of shield for the both of them that made their relationship so much easier then being earnest about their feelings.
Eustace smiled. "Well this is my turn, see you later." he said.
'Later?' Jill thought to herself. 'What did he mean by later? He could not have meant at school, so maybe he meant he wanted so see me over the holiday-no now I'm being ridiculous people say that all the time.' Jill said to herself as she continued to walk home.
The sun had set on Jill's street and the only brightness that shone out into the darkness of the night was the light that came from within the illuminated windows of the houses.
They had just had dinner in the Pole house and Jill and Lily were dutifully helping Mrs. Pole with the dishes, Mrs. Pole washing, Jill drying, and Lily putting the plates, glasses, and silverware in the cupboards and drawers.
"I fell like I never get to talk to you girls anymore." Mrs. Pole said. "So what's going on in your lives?"
"Nothing." Jill said monotonously, drying a plate and putting down on top off the ones she had previously dried. Jill never really liked to give her mother much information on her personal life, but she was fourteen-years-old, who could blame her?
"We learned how to divide in class today." Lily said proudly as she stood on her toes to put a glass on a particularly high up shelf.
"That's nice Lillian." Mrs. Pole said.
"What about you Jill, I'm sure there is something more than 'nothing' going on in your life." Mrs. Pole said.
"Like your boyfriend." Lily interjected.
"I don't have a boyfriend Lily." Jill told her little sister.
"Yes you do." Lily insisted.
"No I don't Lily, I think I would know." Jill said starting to get a bit annoyed.
"But we saw him at the dentist office." Lily argued. "And I saw you walking home from school today with him from my bedroom window when I was playing with my doll."
"Boyfriend?" Mrs. Pole said thoroughly interested. "Jill I didn't know you had a boyfriend."
"I don't mum, Lily-" she said quickly, pausing to give her little sister a look, "was mistaken."
"Now don't be shy Jill, it is perfectly alright for a girl your age to have a boyfriend." Mrs. Pole said. "Of course, I did not have a boyfriend until I was in high school-"
"Mum honestly, he is not my boyfriend." Jill told her mother again. "We are just friends. We met one day when-" Jill paused. "When were paired up together for a group project in class." She finished knowing she could not possibly tell her mother and sister of the magical land that Eustace had introduced her to, or of the dangerous and exciting adventure that the two of them had embarked on together with their trusty friend Puddleglum, the marshwiggle.
Jill knew that they would have never believed her anyways, well, maybe Lily would have since she was young and naïve, but her mother would have probably shipped her off to an asylum if she started going on about talking animals and centaurs and mystical lions. Even she sometimes had a problem believing that the adventure had happened and she had not just dreamed it. The whole thing made her sad sometimes. Sometimes she wished she could see Narnia just one more time.
There was Eustace of course, though they had not talked about it, but the special look that he gave her whenever they met in the hall or were in the same class made her remember that they had their own little secret between the two of them that could never be told.
"Don't believe her mum, she is just saying that because she's shy." Lily said.
"We should invite him over for dinner." Mrs. Pole said thoughtfully.
"Mum, he is not my boyfriend." Jill insisted. "Lily thinks every boy she sees me talking to is my boyfriend."
Mrs. Pole thought about it. "You're right dear she said finally. "But this is just more proof of how I never get to see you two anymore. I have been so preoccupied with other things that I did not even know if my own teenage daughter had a boyfriend or not."
"We know you're busy." Jill said.
"That's no excuse." Mrs. Pole said. "Tomorrow I have the day off, why don't the three of us go on a picnic in the park?"
"A picnic?" Lily asked happily. "We haven't been on a picnic since Daddy went away!"
Jill saw the sad look quickly pass through her mother's eyes. Lily didn't know how much it her mother whenever one of the girls mentioned their father. Jill tried to talk about him as little as possible, but Lily just didn't know.
"Well we're going on one now Lily, and it is going to be more fun then any other picninc we've been on." Jill said hastily changing the subject earning an appreciative look from her mother.
Jill went back to drying off a plate, wondering what the next day would bring.
And that the end of Chapter 2, hopefully the next chapter will be up much sooner then this one was.
KatRules
