AN: This chapter is more about the Pevensies dealing with their problems than it is about the fairies. I hope you like it anyway.

Susan, Lucy, and Edmund sighed unanimously as they picked up the garbage that now covered the ground of Mrs. Esmara's garden.

People had come looking for the fairies. They'd brought nets and bird cages with them hoping to catch some. Unfortunately that wasn't all they brought, Sandwich wrappers, glas bottles, and other litter had come along with them only to be thrown on the ground and left there.

The trespassers were of all ages. Some were very little children with excited shinning eyes who'd come bringing nothing at all, hoping only to catch a harmless glimpse of a fairy or a gnome. You almost felt bad for them because they didn't see any. But most were middle aged, greedy adults who wanted money and fame. They thought that if two girls could get so famous for photographing a fairies, surely they'd get their heart's desire if they could only catch a handful of wee-folk.

Mr. and Mrs. Pevensie had warned the girls to stay away from the crowd but they couldn't help themselves. They had to see if the fairies were going to be alright. What if one of their friends was caught and taken away?

"I'll never forgive myself if that happens." Susan had said as she and Lucy raced down to the garden, closely followed by Edmund who was pleading with them to stay in the house where it was safe.

Thankfully, the crowd was shooed away by an angry Mrs. Emara and the police.

Although the chief of the police was tall and wide and scary enough to get order on his own, it was probably seeing Mrs. Esmara out of bed-shaking her cane in anger-for the first time in years that frightened most of the people off.

She was rather scary looking. Her unbrushed white hair stuck out like a great puffy mop and her eyes flared wildly. She was so old that had she not been quite so angry as she was at that moment, her eyes would have been unusually deep in their sockets.

"Get off my land all of you!" She hollered in a slightly hoarse voice. "Or do I have to spank you all?" She waved her cane about to and fro to show them she wasn't kidding.

"That's it now, everyone get gone." The chief of police said calmly. "None of you belong here."

Those where weren't frightened by Mrs. Esmara but dared not disobey the police, sighed, dropped their nets and/or cages, and left the garden at once.

Out of the corner of her eye, Susan noticed Roy as one of the last people to leave. He had been standing to the side, probably waiting for the girls to come near so he could grab them out of the crowd which he was sure would be too busy to notice. He shot the chief of police a dirty look before dropping a beer can on the ground and kicking it into the water of the bank before leaving with the others.

"Pig." Muttered Susan.

"What was that?" Edmund whispered back to his sister.

"Not you, Roy." Susan explained.

"Oh." Edmund grabbed onto Lucy's hand until Roy was completely out of sight. He wasn't going to let that jerk touch his sister again.

"You three!" Mrs. Esmara pointed out a long bony index finger out at them. "This is how you repay my kindness?"

"Mrs. Esmara-" Susan tried.

"Hold your tongue, girl!" She snapped. "I want no lip from any of you. If it wasn't for you horrible children, my garden would be neat as a pin."

"You're blaming us?" Susan gasped.

"Unless it was someone else's photographs that made this place a tourist trap then yes, yes, I am!" The woman was turning beet red with anger now.

Lucy hoped she wouldn't say that they weren't allowed in the garden ever again. If she banded them, how could they keep an eye on the fairies? Or how could she ever try to find out what they had been trying to tell her?

"You are to clean up every bit of trash in my garden." The woman told them. "And you will not leave until the place is sparkling clean. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Mrs. Esmara." All three of them said at once.

"Good." She huffed. "You all should be ashamed, causing such trouble that an old lady like me has to get out of bed and come all the way down here!" And with that, she stormed off, rarely to be heard from again.

Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. At least they weren't banded.

And so they'd been picking up trash for hours. The worst part was that it didn't seem to be getting any cleaner. The more they picked up they more litter they found under it.

"People sicken me." Edmund growled as he picked up a sticky candy wrapper and put it in a trash bag.

"Tell me about it." Susan agreed.

"Is that Phyllis-Susan cleaning up the trash?" A friendly voice called.

Susan looked up to see Charles coming towards them.

"Su, your boyfriend is here." Edmund teased.

Susan turned red. "He's not my boyfriend."

"Sure he's not." Edmund said with a smug smile on his face, as he held the bag open for Lucy to throw a couple more beer bottles in.

"Looks like you could use some help." Charles said when he finally reached them.

"Sure does." Edmund said dryly. "Feel free to pitch in."

"Edmund!" Susan snapped.

"It's alright." Charles shrugged. "I like picking up garbage."

Susan crinkled her forehead in confusion. One thing about Charles that she found amusing was that she could never quite figure him out. He was like one of those weird puzzle thingummys that had no real answer. She liked those sort of puzzles.

"You like picking up trash?" She asked, checking to see if she'd heard him right.

"Only to impress you." He smiled at her and started helping Lucy lift one of the bags that they'd filled.

Susan wondered how he could say that without blushing or at least showing some signs of embarrassment. He'd pretty much just said he liked her. Of course she'd already known that because of the efforts he made just to talk to her, but it was still some what surprising that he would just say something so blunt. In front of her siblings, no less.

"Thanks." She quickly looked away and got back to work.

Thanks? Susan thought to herself, he admits that he's trying to impress you and you say, thanks? What's wrong with you?

After they'd finished cleaning, Edmund and Lucy headed back to the house, leaving Charles and Susan alone.

"Charles?" Susan said as she took a seat on a tree stump.

"Yes?"

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Susan asked him. "Why are you trying so hard? I mean I did nothing but ignore you except for that one time on the train when we talked and the time when you helped me look for my sister."

"Because, Phyllis-Susan," He explained. "I like you."

"You don't really know me." Susan pointed out.

"That's why I'm trying so hard." Charles said, laughing a little. "I want to know you, I find you fascinating."

Susan was a little taken back by that. In Narnia, princes had found her fascinating because she was a beautiful queen. But this wasn't like that. Something about the way he spoke, told her that it wasn't really how she looked that cared about enough to pursue. He'd noticed she was an attractive, he wasn't blind but that wasn't the limit of his interest and Susan had to admit, she liked that almost as much as his puzzling personality.

"Can you keep a secret?" Susan asked him.

"Sure." He said.

"I think you're pretty fascinating too." Then before she he could say anything, Susan got up and went back home.

Charles just sat there for a few moments smiling to himself. He'd known she come around some day if he didn't give up.

At suppertime that night, Mr. Pevensie had an announcement for them. "I've gotten word from Colin Lee Marcus." He started.

Everyone looked up feeling rather excited. they hadn't heard from him in a while. Lucy was the most excited. She'd been fond of the writer and missed him.

"He's having a book signing at a mall opening in his home town and has invited us to attend."

"Really?" Edmund asked.

"Yes, really." Mr. Pevensie laughed. "We leave tomorrow."

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" Mrs. Pevensie asked, looking a little anxious. "I mean, is it safe to leave now that everyone know where we live?"

"It'll be fine, Helen." Mr. Pevensie assured her. "Things have calmed down a bit."

"No they haven't." Edmund said. "Remember what happened to Mrs. Esmara's garden today?"

Mr. Pevensie sighed. "Edmund, we can't live our lives in fear."

"I guess you're right dad." Edmund sighed, moving the food on his plate around with his fork but not putting any of it into his mouth.

"Don't play with your food, Ed." Susan told him.

"Don't tell me what to do." Edmund retorted.

"Fine." Susan huffed.

"And Colin Lee Marcus has kindly agreed to let us spend a few days visiting him at his house." Mr. Pevensie added.

Lucy felt a tingle of excitement run up and down her spine. What would an author's house be like? She'd never been in one before. Would it be messy because he was too busy being creative to clean? Or would it be neat because he couldn't work in a mess? Or maybe he had a house keeper and didn't need to bother himself with that sort of thing. Also she wondered if he had a library in his house. She'd heard some writers did. She wondered if the sort of books he had were anything like the kind on Mr. Tumnus's shelf in Narnia.

Colin Lee Marcus's house was not as big as Lucy would have guessed but it was big enough to be impressive. And it did have several guest rooms. Some of the rooms were shut off (Maybe because they're not clean, Lucy had thought) but most were open wide and Colin made sure the children knew they were free to wander.

"Don't you go snooping just because he's letting you have a look around." Mrs. Pevensie had told them. "It wouldn't be seemly. Just take a quick look a room, say 'how nice' and walk away."

Susan didn't find it hard to do just that but Edmund and Lucy did. There were so many things to look at. He had some of the funniest little sculptures on his desks and Lucy even found a bunch of scrolls behind a bookshelf Edmund had bumped forward by accident.

"What are those?" Lucy asked.

"I don't know." Edmund said, holding the open scroll, feeling rather like he had during the old days in Narnia when he'd read proclamations written by The high king. It was funny how a simple thing like a scroll could make him miss his brother even more. "They're not in English."

"But what's that?" Lucy pointed to an image that did not look like a word.

"It sort of looks like..." Edmund tilted the scroll a little. "...a fairy."

"I guess that's why he keeps it." Lucy shrugged, gently fingering the old globe in the middle of the room. "Ed?"

"Yes, Lu?" He looked up at her.

"Do you think the fairies know where Peter is?" Lucy asked.

"I don't know." Edmund answered. "Why would they?"

"I just have this feeling that whatever they're trying to tell me is about Peter." Lucy explained.

"But they didn't write 'Peter' on your slate, they wrote 'Rupert'." Edmund reminded her.

"I know." Lucy took her finger tips off the globe and turned to look out the window. "That's what I don't get."

At the mall opening, Lucy, Susan, and Edmund decided to look around after the book signing was over.

"Do you think they have archery here?" Susan asked her siblings.

Edmund shook his head. "I didn't see it on the sign. But there is fencing."

"Oh." Susan wasn't interesting in that.

"That's nice." Lucy said politely.

Edmund sighed and thought about his brother. Peter loved sword fighting and would have been excited to see it after all this time away from Narnia.

Lucy noticed the sad look on her brother's face. "Why don't we go see it?"

"Really?" Edmund's face lit up. "You want to see it?"

Lucy shook her head. "No. But you do."

"Thanks, Lu." Edmund smiled at her. "Coming Su? You don't have to if you don't want to."

"No, I'll come." Susan shrugged. "I can look at other stuff later."

The sword fighting was nothing short of pathetic. None of the people fencing knew what they were doing. They were clumsy as a deer on ice skates and it was a good thing they had rubber tips at the ends of their swords because other wise they'd have all killed themselves by mistake.

"Why don't you go show them how it's done, Ed?" Susan encouraged her brother to join in.

Edmund shook his head. "No, I really shouldn't. What about my arm?"

Susan rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe he was hiding behing that excuse. "It's almost back to normal, isn't it?"

"Yes, but..." Edmund turned a little red and lowered his voice. "What if I've forgotten how to fight?"

"Don't worry about that." Susan assured him. "I heard all about your fight with Rabadash to keep him from kidnapping me. Anyone who can do what you did, doesn't forget."

"Su, I won because he backed up against the wall and got caught on a hook." Edmund reminded her.

"You're still an amazing swordsman." Susan said firmly.

"You really think so?" Edmund asked.

"Of course!"

"Oh no!" Lucy gasped suddenly.

"What happened?" Edmund looked around but didn't see anything alarming.

"I just saw, Roy." Lucy gulped. "He's followed us here."

"Are you sure it was him?" Susan asked.

Lucy pointed to a man who was watching them out of the corner of his eye pretending to look for a good fencing sword. "He's right over there."

"I can't believe he followed us all the way from London." Susan said.

"I'm scared." Lucy whimpered.

"Don't be." Edmund said, his eyes darkening with anger. "I'm going to take care of this guy once and for all."

"Oh, Edmund, don't do anything risky." Susan pleaded. "Let's just go find Mum and Dad."

Edmund didn't listen to her. "Stay here with Lucy." He ordered in a kingly voice he hadn't used in a long time.

"Well if it isn't the fairy-tale brother." Roy said mockingly. "What do you want?"

"I want you to leave my family alone." Edmund said coldly.

"Not going to happen." Roy shrugged. "But nice try."

"If you ever lay one finger on either of my sisters again, you'll regret it." Edmund warned him, reaching for the hilt of one of the swords.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Roy said.

"I saw the marks your nasty finger nails left on my baby sister's arm." He hissed. "And you're lucky my elder brother wasn't around to see those."

"You're brother's dead." Roy said meanly. "Underground in a coffin dead as a door nail, slowly decaying...."

Lucy took a step closer to Susan. She wasn't close enough to hear what Edmund and Roy were talking about but she'd never seen her brother look so angry before. He looked like he was about to explode. The hair on the back of his neck was sticking up like a cat's fur before a fight.

Edmund whipped out the sword, not worrying about the rubber tip knowing he could get around that if he had to, and pointed at Roy. "Are you certain you want to finish that sentence?"

Roy started laughing. "You've got to be kidding me."

"You're walking on thin ice." Edmund warned him.

"You really think you could fight me and win?" He laughed harder now. "Boy, I grew up taking fencing lessons. I could whip your sorry butt if I wanted to."

"I except the challenge." Edmund said without a moment's hesitation.

"What?" Clearly that was the last thing Roy had expected him to say.

"Pick up your sword and fight me." Edmund demanded. "We'll see who should be afraid."

Roy picked up his sword and aimed it at Edmund's feet. Edmund jumped over it swinging his own sword at Roy's with such speed that it almost knocked it out of his hand.

Roy tightened his grip slightly unnerved at the close call. Soon there was nothing to be heard but the clinking of their swords back and forth.

"Go Edmund!" Lucy shouted. "You can do it."

"Be careful, Ed!" Susan shouted. "And for Aslan's sake, don't actually kill him! The last thing we need is a lawsuit!"

Two seconds after Susan finished shouting, Edmund managed to disarm Roy and then trip him so that he fell to the ground. and now the rubber tip of Edmund's sword was pointed at his chest.

"Next time," Edmund hissed. "There wont be rubber stopping me from plunging this into your heart. Assuming you actually have one."

Roy gulped. He couldn't believe the boy was such a dangerous swordsman, no one had ever unarmed him that quickly before. (It had all happened in under three minutes.) This boy could kill him if he wanted to! No news story was worth that! Roy let out a whimper, got up and ran out of there. And the Pevensies never heard from him again.

Edmund heard clapping and suddenly noticed that everyone in the room had broken into an applause.

"Thank you, thank you." He bowed and then proceeded to blow air kisses to his new fans.

"You did it!" Lucy squealed, throwing her arms around her brother's waist.

"Good work." Susan told him, holding back tears. "Peter would have been so proud of you."

Edmund got misty eyed and pulled Susan into the hug he was sharing with Lucy. The three of them held onto each other tightly and didn't let go for a long time.

AN: How'd you like this chapter? Please review and tell me.