We own not the miraculous works of my hero, C.S. Lewis. Nor Star Wars, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The awesome "Malfunction" quote from our teacher, Mr. Pullings, or Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy. Brownies to Rusco! This Chapter isn't as funny as when we first wrote it, long ago, I dunno why. But, we have to get through the Lone Islands, right? We love you Sam!
"You barbarians!" Max shrieked as she raced after the men. "I'll sue you for every penny you've got! I'll have you hung, drawn, tarred, feathered! And whipped! And boiled...until...until...until you've had enough!" All the worry and surprise Caspian had a moment ago, vanished into botheration and entertainment. He just folded his arms and sat back watching the scene unfold.
"And then I'll do it again!" she squalled. "And when I've finished I will take all the little bits, and I will jump on them!" She stopped running to demonstrate the jumping part. The men ignored her and kept walking.
"And I will carry on jumping on them," yelled Max, continuing the chase, "until I get blisters, or until I can think of anything even more unpleasant to do, and then..." She tripped, and fell headlong, rolled and landed flat on her back. Caspian scurried over to her with a small smile of amusement. As soon as she saw Caspian, she forgot the men and grinned, grabbing his arm and pulling herself up with a huff. "THERE you are! Where have you been! I've been looking ALL over for you! I can't believe you'd just disappear like that!" She grabbed him by the sides of his head and shook him as she said this. Caspian could do nothing but gape. Where had he been? He! No, no. The real question was where had she been.
When they had reached Felimath, Eustace, Caspian, Lucy, Edmund, Reepicheep, Jack, and Max had decided to walk across and meet the ship on the other side. There they were enjoying themselves, strolling through long grass, stretching their legs, and observing the fluffy, white baa-ing farm animals when the group noticed that both Jack and Max had vanished. Caspian thought it was a bit suspicious, but they had to meet the ship before the tide was out. Shortly they were captured by slavers, and before long Caspian was sold to a bearded man who, wonder of wonders had turned out to be one of the lords they were looking for, Lord Bern. They had come through a tiny town to get to the ship and just a couple of minutes ago, he had seen a couple of lanky men saunter out of the pub, and then a second later an unmistakable Max stumbled out of the doors shouting and chasing the men down the road. He quickly caught up with her, but she kept running after the men. Caspian followed with mixed emotions of astonishment and worry, trying to understand what she was shouting. And now she was just standing there and shaking him, as if all this was his fault.
"Where have I been! What could you possibly mean by that! You were the one who disappeared right before we were kidnapped!" He cried. Lord Bern looked amused. But not in a normal way. He was grinning like a lunatic, waggling his eyebrows, and winking at Caspian in a disturbing manner. Max looked annoyed.
"What's YOUR malfunction?" she demanded in an ill-mannered tone. Lord Bern wiped the smile off his face and coughed into his hand.
"Where's Jack?" Caspian throttled the embarrassing hush by changing the conversation.
"This way." Max waved towards the beach. As they walked, Caspian pointed out that Max hadn't answered his question yet.
"So we were just walking along, yeah? And then this giant fluffy, white, baa-ing farm animal abducted us, and we were like, AH! And it took us to the pub and made us drink, like, this nasty concoction, yeah? And then Jack escaped, you see? But I didn't, and I was all, DUDE-MAN-BRO! I ain't down with that! But she was all, Talk to the hand, and she LEFT me there with the giant fluffy, white, baa-ing farm animal to fend for myself! Then these two rangy men STOLE my Kit Fisto action figure and said they were gonna burn it! And I was all, NOOOOO! And that's where you found me." Max said this all too quickly for Caspian or Bern to take in, but they could tell she was lying through her teeth.
What had really happened was that Max and Jack had remembered, just in the nick of time, that the party was going to get kidnapped. So they hurried off to find the pub. There they had joined in a game of Texas Hold 'em. Jack folded on the second round and went to see if the ship was here yet. The men they were playing with cheated and won. Max was furious, and that, reader, is how she came to be running down the street, chasing two gangly men.
When they found Jack, she was standing on the beach next to a row boat taking to Quin. They boarded the Dawn Treader and went to Lord Bern's bachelor pad. While they were there, everyone ate and, much to Max, Lucy and Jack's pleasure, they got Narnian clothes.
The Next morning the Lord Bern called his guests early and after and breakfast he asked Caspian to order every man he had into full armor. "And above all," he added, "let everything be as trim and scoured as if it were the morning of the first battle of a great war between noble kings with all the world looking on." This was done and then, in three boat loads, Caspian and his people, and Bern with a few of his, put out for Narrowhaven.
Jack and Max were also dressed elaborately in long, full Narnian dresses. It was so early in the morning that Jack and Max sat down against the side of the ship, out of the way, and fell back asleep.
Max awoke to find herself slumped forward on top of Jack, who was sleeping contentedly in her lap.
"Oh, good. You're awake," said Quin, who was towering over her. "We're about to land." He continued, crouching down to her level. "Better wake her."
"Jack," max shook her a bit.
Jack groaned and without opening her eyes mumbled, "Is someone dead or dying?"
"No," answered Max.
"Then, Orin, shut up and go back to bed."
Max suppressed a laugh.
"Who is Orin?" asked Quin.
"Her Padawan," Max replied.
"Her what?"
"Her Padawan, her apprentice guy. Yeah, he's your age, or so," she explained. "I've an idea." Max bent down to Jack's ear. "Master! A Sith lord!"
In a blink of an eye, Jack kicked Quin's feet out from under him and had a knife to his neck. She blinked. "Oh." She looked around, unaware of her surroundings, saw Max, and scowled. "Hello Quin." She greeted as she slipped the knife unto its hiding place. Jack let Quin stand up and dust himself off. "Well, you look," Jack looked around, trying to find inspiration from the deck. "Shiny." She concluded, eyeballing his chain mail.
"Thank you, I think," he replied, watching her warily.
On shore, there was a pretty big crowd assembled to meet then, and as soon as Caspian stepped ashore the crowd broke out in to huzzahs and shouts of "Narnia! Narnia! Long live the King!" Bells began ringing and Caspian blew his horn so that everyman dressed up, drew his sword. Jack and Max pulled out their borrowed swords and made their way to the front of the procession and walked on either side of Caspian to be body-guardish. The crowd grew rapidly and the cheering got louder and the solders were marching up the street so that the ground shook.
"This has to be registering on some seismograph," commented Jack to Max who nodded and then pointed. Jack looked and saw the Castle Gates. Caspian's trumpeter grabbed his horn and blew it again and cried,
"Open for the King of Narnia–" but was cut off by Jack.
"Yeah! Didja here that! A KING–" who was promptly disrupted by Max.
"YOUR MOM! SO OPEN UP QUICK–" who was smothered by the hand of one solider.
The harbinger continued. "...come to visit his trusty–"
Max bit down on the hand and yelled, "More like rusty!"
"TRUSTY and well-beloved servant–" the trumpeter was beginning to feel like he needed a new job.
"Yeah! What now? Didja here that! Servant!" taunted Jack.
"SHUT UP!" Caspian bellowed. "You are throwing off my shiny groove!" he shrieked. Apparently he had grown a large head during the procession.
"... The governor of the Lone Islands." Finished the harbinger triumphantly, with a long sigh.
Throughout all this commotion, a little puny man had squeezed his way through the gate. He was standing there, blinking, a mite bit garbled.
"Carn seez fishany," he muttered.
"Pardon?"
"No interviews without 'pointments 'cept 'tween nine 'n ten A.M. second Saturday, every month," the diminutive person stated.
Max whipped out her wristwatch and glanced back at the mingy man. "Er. It's 9:03 and 37 seconds on the second Saturday of June."