What's up, Lu? How are your swimming lessons? It must seem a bother having to learn to swim all over again but perhaps, if we ever get back you'll swim twice as well because you learned it twice. How is Susan? Does she ever speak a sentence without "America" in it? It's all she seems to write about, when she does write at all and I am wondering whether she ever mentions the past. Our real past.

In reference to your last question about your cat, of course, I'll take him for the summer. I'm not too fond of cats (non-talking ones that is) but I am fond of you so I'll be glad to care for something that is yours. I'm just warning you: the cat might be rather overeducated by the time you get it back. All that Greek and Latin and all those formulas and theories might turn it into one overly clever animal.

I know that this letter might miss you because in a few days you'll be boarding the train and going home. I'm sorry for not writing before but I'm simply swamped with last minute assignments and of course, saying goodbye to the fellows here at school is a bit difficult since I won't be seeing them again. Once you've lived in the same room with someone for a year, you become rather good friends.

With Love,

Peter

Lucy sighed and put the letter down on her desk.

"You become rather good friends," she murmured. Yet, she and Susan had shared a room all year and they had only grown apart. Susan had stopped trying to bring Lucy into her circle of friends but still spent as much time with them as before. Susan didn't say Narnia was a game anymore. Lucy didn't think she'd bear it if she did. But then Susan never referred to Narnia at all anymore. When Lucy asked why Susan wouldn't speak of it when they were alone, she said that speaking of it privately might cause her to speak of it publicly by accident and there was no real privacy in boarding school anyway; everything was overheard eventually. She promised Lucy that once they were back at home they would speak of Narnia for as long as she wanted. It was the end of May now and tomorrow Lucy and Susan would take the train to Finchley and would arrive home late in the evening. But they would go straight to bed and in the morning, Susan would go off to America with mum and dad and Peter would stay at the Professors's and she and Edmund would be stuck at the Scrubbs. And then it would be time for school again and time for secrets and silence.

And during the summer she wouldn't even have Nalsa…

The pitiful gray kitten Lucy had brought to her room in November had grown into a handsome gray feline. Since November, everybody at the boarding school except the headmistress slowly learned that Susan and Lucy Pevensie had a cat in their room. But then Susan had sweet-talked the school cooks into giving her scraps of food, bits of meat and fish and even pitchers of cream on weekends. Nalsa grew smooth and sleek and strong. Lucy loved the cat and not just for all the usual reasons that girls love cats. Nalsa was probably the only thing Lucy and Susan shared an interest in now. They would both play with Nalsa, laugh at her antics, feed her, clean up after her. Lucy had found her and Susan had named her.

But Peter would have her all summer.

Lucy heard Susan's voice outside the room; she was evidently talking to a school chum and saying goodbye. Then Susan entered the room, still laughing and red-cheeked from her quick walk.

"Morning, Lu. Isn't it a beautiful day? I've heard that in America there's hardly any rain in the summer, only sunshine. I shall have to visit the seaside when I'm there. Once I buy a fashionable swimming suit, of course. Not that I'm not taking my own, just in case. You ought to take yours too, I'm sure Aunt Alberta can't have anything against swimming. Oh, is that a letter from Peter?"

Lucy smiled and nodded. "He says he'll take Nalsa for the summer."

"Oh, that's wonderful!" Lucy noticed that Susan did not ask to read the letter but kept on talking. "Of course, I'll have to give Peter a serious lecture about taking care of cats properly because although he means well, he can't know very much about the subject. Nalsa needs more than a bowl of food and a bowl of water. She needs affection and conversation." Susan knelt to stroke the cat fondly and sighed. "I suppose, she'll miss us at first."

"We'll miss her," Lucy said. "At least I know I will. I do wish I could take her to the Scrubbs."

"You know perfectly well that is out of the question," Susan said, as she took some last minute things out of a drawer and placed them in her suitcase. "Even if Aunt Alberta did agree to take her, which she won't, that horrid Eustace would be cruel to her. He's the sort of boy who throws rocks at kittens and pulls cats by the tail for fun. You know that it's out of the question." Susan finished her speech and began to hum a song from a Shirley Temple film she had seen recently.

"I know," Lucy said forcefully. She picked Nalsa up, held her to her cheek and listened to her purr, thinking about how lonely it would be all summer without Susan or Nalsa nearby.

"Goodness, she's purring so loudly, I can hear her from across the room," Susan said. "Of course, it's not a particularly large room. Mother says that the rooms in American hotels are so lovely."

"Doesn't she have a musical purr?" Lucy asked.

Susan stopped, cocked her head and listened. "Yes," she said. And then she said a very wonderful thing. She said, "It makes me think of Aslan when he's happy."

Lucy turned her head sharply. Did she really hear…? Yes. Susan had said His name. Lucy felt the tears rush to her eyes. Never mind the fact that she didn't quite understand how a little purr could remind one of Aslan. It was rather like looking at the light of a lamp and being reminded of the sun. But for Susan to mention Aslan here at boarding school was so unusual and unlikely that it came to Lucy as a delicious surprise.

Perhaps, she could get Susan to say more now that the invisible wall between them had been removed. "Do you remember–?" she began but just then the door opened and Marjorie entered, carrying a pile of books in her arms.

Lucy glanced at Susan, but it was too late. The wall was back in place. Susan put on an artificial smile and Lucy knew that there was no hope of mentioning Narnia as long as Marjorie was here or even after that. It had been a special moment and Marjorie had ruined it.