DISCLAIMER: Just to say it right off the bat: I DO NOT OWN NARNIA.

Rated Teen for safety, there might be some ahem questionable content. Meaning violence, not sexual stuff. (Actually, I dunno, Kristin might put in some of that. She didn't entirely tell me what went on...)

Just because some people were wondering, the bell is one of those little brass bells with the handle sticking vertically out of the top. A few readers thought it was really big, but it's only about six inches. Like those little school bells that quaint little teachers will have on their desks next to the ceramic apples or whatever.

Chapter One

The Bell and Fight

'No! Alan,' moaned Mrs Lokke, our omnipotent and flamboyant drama class instructor, 'you've gotten your entrance wrong again. Give it another go.'

'Nice, Bennet,' I snarled. Alan Bennet, my sworn arch-nemesis, frowned and took two long strides to his origin backstage. 'This is theatre business. Did you expect it would be easy?' He didn't answer, but again tried his entrance.

Mrs Lokke attacked, screaming. 'No! no, no, no, no. Wrong again!'

Alan made a face and cursed 'Crap!', stamping his foot animatedly.

'Hey, Alan! Watch that mouth of yours.' Mrs Lokke had a way with discipline, thoroughly demonstrated as she peered sternly down her nose at the helpless prey.

'Say "oh dear", Bennet,' I challenged, staring him down. This enemy and I have a little game of keeping cold, cruel eye contact until we're interrupted (it usually only takes a moment, but enough for the hatred to silently shoot between glares).

He intently stared at me with his dark facial features. 'Oh dear,' said he in a spiritlessly mocking tone.

'Try it again, Alan,' Mrs Lokke instructed.

❦

'Oh, I just can't stand him!' I muttered, a complaint to Lori, which was indeed foolish because she already knew I hated the man and could do nothing of it. 'He's horrible.'

'You mean Alan again?' sighed Lori, biting into her sandwich at our lunch table.

'Of course. Who else?'

'Ethel, you know you're going to end up marrying him someday.' A comment she made daily. Lori had an ever-alert eye for romance and was endlessly attempting to set me up. Her ideal match: Bennet and I.

I made a face, and it wasn't due to the school pizza. 'Highly unlikely.' I suspected him to be a pothead, and a man-slut. I certainly wasn't even close to dating him, let alone getting married. How could I feel for anyone who hated The Chronicles of Narnia (as he'd so openly remarked dozens of times before)?

Lori nudged me as Bennet clamoured into the cafeteria, followed by his troublemaker crowd that stuck to him like spiny burs. I relished in his expression: the usual cocky smirk swiped of with a dirty rag of a grimace. His mob was buzzing, phrases being thrown into the air: 'Can I see it? Wha'd you do? When is it?'

Bennet's left hand clutched a yellow square of paper in shock. Of course, the purpose for the crowd was now obvious – a detention slip.

'What happened?' asked Chris, a disgusting crony of his.

'I just –' stammered Alan. 'I dropped my pottery piece in art class and said Crap and... and she gave me a detention! All I said was Crap!'

'Bennet, I told you to say "oh dear",' I smartly said, wickedly grinning in satisfaction. Once again, I'd triumphed.

Alan seemed so altogether taken aback that the paper fell from his hands, fluttering to the floor. 'How did you – ?'

'I've told you a thousand times I'm psychic.' Really, it was a joke from our reading class that I was a psychic, but the wit came in handy sometimes.

Alan blinked with the speed of molasses, said in a low, serious voice, 'Ethel, you amaze me.'

The bell rang.

❦

It's a tradition at our school to wallpaper someone's locker with wrapping paper on their birthday. I don't know how it started or when it will end, but that's the way we do it. Tomorrow was October 11th – my friend Andy Finn's birthday. I'd talked to Benjamin, and we both agreed to stay after school to get the job done. Lori found out about it and decided to help us with the task.

It was an enjoyable time, though not so much, I expect, for Benjamin. Lori had a never-ceasing habit of accusing him of being gay. I shan't write every detail down, because that would bore you. Only the most important, life-altering segments.

At a closing to our hour of delight, Alan was walking down the hallway. I cringed while listening to his question: 'Having fun?'

'We were,' I snapped.

But Benjamin would have none of that. He deeply admired Alan (for what reason, I'll never know – Benjamin says, 'Ethel, he's funny. And nice. How could you hate him?' ), and was entirely too cordial with him. 'Hey Alan! What's up? Why are you staying after school?'

'I got a detention,' he said in a level voice.

I went in for the kill. 'I won't say you didn't deserve it.'

'Ethel, shut up!' he yelled. 'Just stop it!'

'Stop what? Saying the truth?' I leered.

'Why do you do that?' he screeched.

'Because I hate you, Bennet! Because you're perverted, horrible, cruel person!'

'Shut up, shut up!' he cried.

'Ethel, I think he means it,' whispered Lori, but it was far too late. I'd brought out a fierce hand lifted it to strike his face. My hand flew forth, but Bennet caught it in mind-soar.

'Why?' he whispered.

We turned our faces against each other.

I jerked back my hand so hard that I fell down, crashing into the wall behind me. I didn't see him turn against me, lean his head against the wall. I didn't see him press his palms flat against it, breathing angrily. I didn't see him turn around, almost in slow-motion, and begin running away.

He didn't see my impact with the wall, didn't see me punch the floor in anger. He didn't see me wince in pain as my hand fell on something that wasn't the floor, didn't see me stare in confusion at the thing that was there instead.

He didn't see me lift the bell, and what a bell it was. It was small, a tiny hand-bell with the long mahogany handle atop the gold trumpet shape. I didn't see the glossed-over engraved words in the gold – and if I had, I wouldn't be able to read it – and he didn't see me stare at the trinket, something so small and entirely outlandish, here in the school hallway. He didn't see me give it a tiny shake to hear its sweet music...

But he heard it.

We both heard it, and so did Benjamin and Lori.

Alan slowly turned around to see the strange sound, and I saw him. For the first time, I think I really saw him.

The sound was entirely unlike any sound I'd ever heard before – not only was it just so beautiful, but the twinkle of bright noise was so filled with joy and kissed with valiance it stirred something in me – in all of us. I think we all knew in our hearts then who we were, who we truly were, and who we wanted to be. You have no idea what it feels like, that solid assurance, knowing that there was hope. It was, more than anything, a promise that all is not lost. What's more, that we should deserve something so beautiful as the music of that bell to promise us. I cannot speak for the others, but the bell made me want to cry like an infant.

We all felt a tugging sensation from behind our stomachs. The world became a blur of colour and mere shape,

and we didn't see anything more.