A/N: Well, here's the next chapter, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Narnia, but it'd be awesome if I did :D
Chapter 7 – Row, row, row your boat…
Evangeline watched as they loaded the boat with light necessities, water skins and spare clothes wrapped up and placed in bags in which they had found in the treasure room. Evangeline thing's were already in there, a spare dress, the armour set that she had found, undergarments, socks, a light pair of gladiator-like sandals, spare apples, a water skin and a small dagger which could be disguised as a hair pin that Lucy gave her. The young queen had said that she had no further use for them, because she always wore her dagger on her belt. Evangeline still had her suitcase filled with books, a spare sketchbook and notepad, pens and pencils of various colours, and charcoals.
Once the work was done, Trumpkin had decided that it was time to set out to search for the rest of the Narnians and their whereabouts. After the dwarf and the Pevensies got into the boat, there was hardly any room left for her, apart from the space next to Edmund, which he needed to use to guide the boat.
"Great," Evangeline muttered, "Just great…"
"Get in the boat, Evangeline!" she heard Peter say. She placed her foot on the bottom of the boat to steady herself. Edmund offered his hand to steady her but she ignored it, now's not the time.
"What? And get knocked over by Edmund? There's hardly any room left!"
She stepped into the boat, but as it rocked, she lost her balance and fell into the water.
The others were laughing beyond insanity as she stood up. Her dress, from the waist down was wet, and she rolled her eyes. Every fibre of her being was regretting taking Edmund's hand to transport herself into Narnia. The journey so far, unlike what the others said, it wasn't fun being in another world, it was annoying.
"Seems like you don't need any trouble getting knocked over," Edmund grinned. "Maybe it would be a better idea to accept my help, next time, just maybe..."
"Sorry," Evangeline apologized, "I couldn't resist. The water looked great."
Edmund smirked as the others laughed.
"Maybe now's the time for you to be helpful?" Evangeline asked.
Edmund grinned boyishly and offered his hand once more, pulling Evangeline into the boat and steadying her, so that no more accidents could happen.
"Thanks," she said, sitting down on the bench.
"Anytime, Soaking one," he replied.
Evangeline sighed and put her head in her hands, why did she agree to come to Narnia? Now she had obtained herself a new nickname, one that wasn't wanted. Instead of arguing back, she gathered her skirt together and wringed out the excess water onto Edmund's knees, where she knew, the water was going to trickle down into his boots.
She looked at Edmund and grinned, waiting for his reaction of annoyance. Instead she received a smile, one that looked calculating, and immediately regretted doing that because she knew that he was going to get her back somehow, and it may go on forever.
Peter launched the boat and hopped in, balancing on the boat as it rocked, making his way to his seat. Once he was seated he started rowing, following the direction of the river.
Lucy began to hum 'Row, row, row your boat' absently which made Peter smile. He kept his rowing in tempo with the music.
The water itself was so pure and beautiful, unlike the River Thames back in England. Its colour was blue, and it was so clear that Evangeline could see tiny fish darting underwater. She closed her eyes as the rhythmic splashing of the paddles through water lulled her to sleep.
And that was exactly when Edmund had decided for some payback.
"Ow! Could you refrain from hitting me with that thing?" Evangeline cried.
"It's not a thing Soaking Beauty, it's a steering rod," Edmund retorted, deliberately pushing the rod over to her side so that she could be cramped up on the side of the boat.
"You're making me go off course, Ed!" Peter yelled, losing the beat of his rowing.
"Sorry, Pete, it can't be helped. This one got my boots wet," He replied as he righted the steering rod again. A gust of wind blew over the river, making the water ripple in a pattern that looked like fish scales. Evangeline shivered. She was hoping that the sun would dry it out, but there seemed to be little sunshine as the mountain side was blocking it out.
"Cold there, Soaking Beauty?" Edmund asked in mock sincerity. Evangeline nodded, and gazed at him with wary eyes.
"Where's my jacket?" Edmund asked himself looking wildly around, "Oh I forgot! I left it at the Train Station! Sorry there wet one."
Evangeline couldn't take it anymore. Edmund needed to be taught a lesson on how to keep his mouth closed. She lunged at his throat, but he backed up, and placed himself on the side of the boat.
"Hold onto the boat, Lu," Susan said, she could tell that this was going to get rocky. Peter and Trumpkin took the advice to heart and gripped onto the edge of the boat tightly, they didn't want to get thrown overboard.
With one push, Evangeline had managed to make Edmund fall into the water. The boat rocked from side to side, but no one else managed to fall into the river but him.
"Man overboard!" Lucy laughed.
"Ahh, finally, Edmund meets his downfall, nice one Evangeline," Susan praised.
"My pleasure," Evangeline replied grinning broadly.
"How fares the water, my sodden king?" Evangeline asked, trying very hard not to laugh like the others, she ended up smirking as Edmund resurfaced.
Edmund glared at her, treading water as he ran his fingers through his hair, "It's great, just like you said. The only tweak in it is that it's a little cold."
"Do you require my assistance, my liege?" Evangeline said, finally cracking up.
"Yes, soaking beauty, it would be greatly appreciated..."
Evangeline offered her hand out to Edmund, gripping hard on the side of the boat in case he tried to pull her into the water with him. Luckily he didn't. Edmund was heavy to pull up only because he had layers of clothes and his boots were now filled up with water, much to Evangeline's satisfaction.
When he got into the boat and pulled his boots out to empty them back into the river, he shivered as a light breeze came by.
"Are you cold, my sodden king?" Evangeline asked politely, she knew she got away with the voice of genuine sincerity. Edmund nodded, taking off his tunic.
Please, not here. Don't take your clothes off in front of me... I'm not family, or Trumpkin… Evangeline thought. A sigh of relief almost escaped her lips as she saw that he had another shirt underneath.
She continued to taunt him, remembering and repeating what he had said to her five minutes ago. "Oh, then let me get your jacket for you, wait a minute, I almost forgot! You told me that you left it at the train station! Oh well!"
Edmund had another one of his calculating look in his eyes as he raised his tunic over Evangeline's head. She knew that he was going to wring it on her. She cringed, waiting for the water to come. But it didn't. Edmund discarded the idea and placed his tunic on the side, a trick shouldn't be used twice on one day.
"Actually Evangeline, you would do just fine..." He said as he turned to her again.
"What?" She managed to say before he grabbed her by the waist, and drew her into his arms, hugging her in wet clothes.
"No..." Evangeline moaned as she felt the water seep into her body, she was cold enough as it is.
Evangeline tried to wriggle free, but his grip was so strong, after a few tries, she gave up.
"I hate you Edmund," she muttered darkly. She could tell that he was taken aback. To show that she was only speaking in jest, she looked at his face, and grinned.
"What?" He asked, meeting her green eyes.
"You look so much better like this..."
"I look better in wet clothes?"
"No, your hair, it gives you a more 'devil may care' look," Evangeline replied, hoping that at the compliment he'd let her go.
"Suits him just fine then, doesn't it?" Susan said, grinning.
Lucy giggled and grinned with her sister, "Definitely," She agreed.
"Could you let me go now? Please?" Evangeline asked.
"No way, you're so warm, like a toaster..." He said pulling her in closer.
Evangeline pouted.
"I'd laugh if your face got stuck like that, just like a bulldog, like the one Mrs Mack has," Edmund teased, everyone (well, except Trumpkin) knew who Mrs Mack was, she was an elderly woman who lived on the Pevensie's street, and whenever Evangeline came to visit them, the bulldog would chase her.
"You always had a negative aura that makes dogs attack you, Evangeline, it's like you're a magnetic field for that sort of thing," Peter added, laughing. Evangeline quickly rearranged her face into a glare.
"If looks could kill, I'd be dead, twice over," Edmund continued. When he realised that she'd been taunted enough, he let her go, helping her back to her seat. After some minutes of silence and of Evangeline and Edmund unsuccessfully trying to warm themselves up, Trumpkin broke the silence.
"What's a toaster?" He asked. Evangeline and the Pevensie's exchanged knowing glances and laughed.
Peter began to explain what a toaster was, Trumpkin understood what it's purpose was for, heating up bread slices to give it a crusty texture. "How does it work?" Trumpkin asked.
"Well, it uses electricity to work..." Peter started.
"What's electricity?" Trumpkin asked gruffly.
"Electricity is a source of energy that we use to run our home appliances, a lot of things in our house rely on it."
"How is the electricity made?" Trumpkin asked. Peter was silent for a bit as he racked his brain around for the answer.
"Ummm... Coal, they burn coal to produce electricity."
"How does burning coal produce electricity?"
Peter sighed in defeat, explaining the workings in his world were too complicated. "Don't worry..."
Susan laughed when she looked at Peter's face, "Don't worry too much about it, Peter, if we're in Narnia, we concentrate on Narnia…"
Peter nodded his head and continued rowing, waiting for Lucy to start humming. When the music didn't come, he shook his head and started humming to himself.
***
Guided while being shouted at the same time by Trumpkin for missing the stop at the opening that lead to the forest, Peter and Edmund had finally managed to guide the boat onto a pebbled bank; which seemed more safer than getting off on the side of a river.
Even though Evangeline wanted to be the first to get off the boat, Lucy beat her to it, as she had almost nothing to carry and began to wander off. She shook her head and helped the others pull the boat up to anchor it to the spot.
"Hello there! It's alright… I'm a friend." She heard Lucy call out to nothing.
The group all simultaneously turned around. At first Evangeline spotted nothing and began hoping that for everyone's sake that Lucy wasn't delusional. She then saw a mass of black fur moving closer, growling. Lucy was delusional after all; she was talking to a bear.
"Your majesty… Don't move…" Trumpkin warned.
As if Lucy hadn't heard what the dwarf had just said, she turned around abruptly, which triggered the bear's instinct to attack her.
Lucy ran as it began to chase after her and fell as it took a swipe at her feet. Everything was going much too fast for Lucy, she felt disoriented, her mind was alert, but she couldn't react fast enough to anything. She didn't know what to do, even if she did know what to do in this situation, she must have forgotten it.
She shrieked as the bear rose up its paw to crush her, it roared but stopped as a smoothed out white rock hit the side of its head.
"LUCY!!!" She heard Evangeline and her siblings yell.
A/N: OMG… Who the hell threw that rock?
LOL, help me and Peter out here? I wasn't sure whether they had electricity at that time, and my friend said that if it was during or after the war, there would be. So I wrote a small scene about it, but it might not be correct to how electricity was produced back then… Ahh god, I don't live in Britain, Australia's board of studies only teaches us Australian history, and a little bit of Britain's 'cos of federation and shizzle. Ok, now I'm rambling like my history teacher...
If I wrote something wrong, please tell me so that I won't make the story seem so out of its era. Although I have no problem doing it already…
Leave a review and peace out,
Wyngana
