It was a beautiful summer day in Carlisle. In the old King homestead, Cecily was shelling peas, Dan was doing some carpenter work, Alec King was comfortably rocking in his chair, reading a newspaper, and Janet, his wife, was running around doing some drudgery. Mother is always so busy, running around day and night, thought Cecily.
Cecily, the younger sister of Dan and Felicity, was fifteen now. A few weeks ago she had taken the entrance exam of Queen's, and now all there were left to do was the unenviable business of waiting. She tried all she could to distract herself from the exam, but one could not expect other people never to mention anything that might remind her of it, especially mischievous Dan. And now he was going again.
"Now, Sis, stop acting so worried. Everyone knows you can no doubt pass. Why, Mr. Perkins said that you might even get into the top ten."
"Please, don't mention the exam again! It's good of you to try to comfort me, but I am worried. What a disgrace it will be if I don't pass!" said Cecily, her small face pale with anxiety.
"You must be joking." teased Dan.
Though everyone knew that Cecily was definitely not joking. Both of the King girls inherited much from their mother, but while Felicity got her cooking skills, Cecily was Janet's child for her seriousness and dislike of "nonsense", and grew more and more so as she entered her teenage years. It may be hard to imagine how a girl who rarely even smiled could be regarded as "sweet", and loved by almost everyone around her, but this was a fact. Maybe the Story Girl's prophecies, in a night so long ago, played some role in this.
Yet Cecily did not really need to worry so much, for she had always been a good pupil at the Carlisle school. Besides—
"The mailman is coming!" shouted Dan.
Cecily snatched the newspaper from Dan as he walked back in with it, and ran into her room. Is the pass list there? Oh, yes! But... Half a minute passed before Cecily with her crazily beating heart finally located her name in the list. She had got the ninth place in the Island—out of hundreds!
Dan had expected wild rapture or—god forbid—bitter tears from his little sister. But the girl walking out of her room was neither. There was just a faint, relieved smile appearing on her face.
The summer passed quickly, and now it was time for Cecily to leave for Queen's. It was the first time that Cecily had ever been away from home for more than two days, and she was feeling quite anxious. Would anything go wrong? Would the people there like her? How would she endure living in such a new place with so many unfamiliar faces? During the whole summer these problems had not meant much for Cecily, and she was just happy that she had passed. But now, she began to find it so hard to leave her lovely birthplace, her home folks, and most of her friends.
"At least Willy is also going to Queen's." Cecily thought. In the years gone by, Willy Fraser had become the boy Cecily liked most, and she no longer tried to deny things when other pupils put their names together on a "Take Notice". She was not "madly in love" with him, as certain other "pairs" in the school seemed to be. "But I think that's sheer nonsense." she said to herself. Anyway, she somehow felt that she belonged to him already, even though what that exactly meant, she had yet to know.
Cecily had wanted to do the packing herself, but before she realized it Mother and Felicity had already done most of the work for her. Clothes, books, money, various small gadgets, all done. Cecily searched all over her brain for something they might have missed—maybe something that could help her when she was homesick.
She found one thing—her dream book, recording her gory dreams dreamt so long ago. And that reminded her of another thing. Didn't she help to produce a magazine with her cousins three years ago? Yes, Our Magazine. She would ask Felicity if she would let her take it to Queen's. Cecily usually found it very hard to ask for favors from other people, even her own parents, brother and sister, but this time she didn't hesitate.
Finally it was the day to leave, and in the morning Cecily put on the new travel suit that Janet had made for her. She looked at herself in the mirror—
The girl in the mirror, dressed in her very first travel suit, looked awkward and unfamiliar. And impossibly grown up—Grown up. Cecily hated these words. While other girls of her age, Felicity in particular, just yearned to be grown up and dressed themselves accordingly as long as their parents permitted, for Cecily being "grown up" meant that the beautiful, carefree childhood had forever left her. Left forever—never would come back—how terrible! She wished she could always remain a little girl, and looking at herself in the mirror, it suddenly dawned on her that her wish would never be granted. Suddenly tears welled up in her eyes. Cecily hastily tried to wipe them out. It won't do to cry, now.
Then there was the breakfast, the good-byes and the train ride to Charlottetown. Cecily did these all in a daze, forgetting most of Janet's admonitions. Maybe she even forgot to say goodbye. Her first train ride was not a comfortable one because of her anxiety; during the journey she just mechanically checked the paperwork and her wallet over and over again, mighty afraid of losing something. Before she knew it, she found herself in Charlottetown, right at the gate of Queen's Academy.
Author's Notes: I have outlined my plans on my profile page. I had wanted to post the story after it gets finished, but somehow the temptation is just too much to resist :) English is not my native tongue, and since the main purpose of this story is to let out my feelings, I have not done much research when writing it either. So forgive me if the language is poor, the story makes no sense, and/or it makes historians cry. Read & review, please:)