DISCLAIMER: HA! I DO OWN IT! ... lying...

Pardon me, but I do have a bit of language in this chappie. I know, you're all probably in shock! I swear once! Oh, no, the world's coming to an end... but really, I speak it a lot more than I write it. Apparently, I swear all the time (so says Kristin) but I don't really pay attention. So, heaven forbid you're offended, don't read the first paragraph. (Actually, if you ever saw me around or with the real Alan, you'd have to wash my mouth out with soap.)

Sorry it's been so long since I last wrote (this is including When Children Cry), but being in two plays at once is tough work. I had to turn down the part of Anna for the King and I so I could have spare time to write for you guys! Hope you're happy... ))goes off mumbling incoherently in some corner((

Chapter Five

Twin Imperfections

I'd seen people faint before. This girl in my drama class named Camilla passed out backstage only a few days ago. (Pardon my language, but she's a first-class bitch. You know the routine: gossipy, popular, enviously beautiful... I'll give her one thing, though. She's the best actress in the whole school.) At first I thought she was putting it on, cause she's always doing stuff like that to get attention... like giving Alan's older brother a blow job, for example. But she just closed her eyes and gasped with a pained but beautiful expression on her perfect face and fell... gracefully, silently to the ground. Larry, the lead role and such a gentleman, caught her and I helped her come to, but her skin was so cold. I had been put to the task of flying down to the vending machine to get her carbs. Poor girl was, I'll bet, starving herself again.

That was how Lori looked as she fell – almost bittersweet, a face of despair and frightening beauty. Of course, I didn't notice at first. Too distracted. Cecelia was yelling herself out of her skin the moment Daunin disappeared, her foxlike features twisted in disgust, as though we were a sticky specimen on the peak of her hawkish nose.

'Who are you? I demand you leave at once, all four of you –'

'Madam, you will calm yourself!' commanded Alan in tones I'd never heard him use. He spoke with such authority, such a regal air about him. It made my blood freeze with astonishment. He spoke like a king.

Benjamin was behind me, and I thought he might play the peacemaker as usual, so I turned around to see a sort of worried expression on his face, concerned eyes locked on Lori.

'Lori?'

She didn't answer, just closed her eyes and let out one short, shaky breath and collapsed.

'Lori! Oh my gosh. Lori!' I raced forward, but was passed up by a rush of wind and blur of colour. Everything was in slow motion as gravity, slacken as molasses, took its wretched toll on Lori –

– and Alan caught her.

'She needs help. Benjamin, go fetch some cold water!'

'Are you kidding?' Cecelia sneered. 'He doesn't know where to find it; he'll get lost in a few seconds! I will send for a servant–'

'Princess, I thought you said this was a secret room. A little strange, don't you think, asking a messenger to report here?'

A disbelieving Cecelia snarled, 'So what do you mean? That I–?'

'Your Highness, meaning no disrespect, but Lori needs help.'

With an indignant huff that sent her rosy hair flying, she climbed up the silver rope ladder and was gone with a sweep of elaborate robes.

Benjamin let out a long, low breath of air. 'Thank goodness she's gone.'

Alan was intently staring at Lori's pale face. 'She's going cold.'

'A normal symptom of fainting,' I said, gloating silently that I knew more about the subject than he. 'She'll be fine once we wake her. It was out of shock, I suppose.'

'Shock?' frowned Alan.

'Well, yeah. You know, that we're in Narnia and all–'

'Archenland,' corrected Benjamin.

Alan let out a low, halfhearted laugh. 'You don't really believe that, do you?' he asked, staring me directly in the eye.

I stared back, unperturbed. 'I don't believe it. I know it.'

Benjamin sighed. 'I don't really believe it myself that much.'

A wide grin spread over my face. 'And why not? If you spend your entire life thinking that every wonderful thing's a dream, you'll never get to live them.'

'But we are dreaming.' Alan's voice was flat.

With sure, certain movements, I lowered my face to his eye level and stared him directly in the eye. 'We are not,' I said assuredly. 'When you dream, you always see things in sort of a distorted manner. Like you don't see everything, and some of the pieces are missing. And things people say and things that happen don't make much sense put together. At least we're having civilised conversation. Besides, when you dream, don't you have that sort of heavy feeling of your real body in bed? Sometimes your foot will twitch on your body when your dream self didn't move at all, and that triggers a whole different action to your dream self, such as you trip.'

'Ah, of course,' said Alan, smirking. 'Just leave it to you, Miss Know-it-all, to correct our thinking.'

I sat back and chuckled to myself. 'Now I know I'm not dreaming.'

'And why not?'

Our eyes met, my Irish ones smiling. 'Because that's exactly the sort of thing the real Alan Bennet would say.'

The real Alan Bennet seemed about to say something else, when Benjamin broke in. 'Guys, I think she's coming around.'

She was. In little more than an instant, she was sitting up, alive and well, but shaky. I handed her a piece of fruit fro the bowl on the table to remedy her weakness. We all watched as she weakly drew her teeth onto the apple.

'What happened?' she moaned.

'You fainted,' said Alan, and glanced at me, 'from shock, apparently.'

'Shock?'

'Well,' I murmured, 'it is a bit strange, finding oneself in a book.'

Lori had a stunned look on her face, then fell back on the floor. 'Augh!' she groaned. 'I forgot about that. Great.'

'What's so bad about it?' Benjamin asked. 'It is a little unbelievable, but–'

'How are we going to get home?' Lori asked with a whine in her voice. 'I want an aspirin!'

'And Ethel, what exactly were you planning?' Alan looked at me sternly. I noticed he'd been getting good at that lately. 'When you requested that we stay for a night? Don't you think it's a little... presumptuous?

I looked at him and blinked. 'I don't believe it.'

'What?' Alan frowned.

'I think that's the first time I've ever heard you say something more than three syllables.'

For a moment, I caught a glimpse of something in his eye, but it was hidden and quickly disappeared.

Then Alan snapped. 'Ethel, I've just about had it with you! You absolutely refuse to face a problem when it's right in front of you! Can't you see we all need each other as much as possible? We're stuck here, inside a book, of all things! You don't tell any of us what you're up to, you won't side with me even this once, when the fate of our lives might even depend on whether or not we set our hatred aside. You've made them think we're royalty! How are we going to play that up? It's quite a mess you've put us in; first with the bell, now the lies – they're all lies, Ethel! – '

'Shut up, Bennet! Just shut up!' I screamed. 'I made a mistake but I'm doing what I can! Don't you understand? Without this I'm nothing! Just LEAVE ME ALONE!'

Alan stood to his full height, each movement screaming like tongues of fire. 'You can't keep it up and I'm sick of it! You think you're so much better than everyone else, all high and mighty, practically ruling the school just because you're a freak! You think you're even above everyone helping you, but you're so blind you can't even see how weak you are! Ethel, you aren't perfect! So stop trying to be!'

... We never stopped staring at each other. Both our eyes too were steely, sharp, and flaming to move.

He was breathing heavily with the outburst, and my heart felt wrenched out of my chest. I shouldn't have cared so much about this, about the things he said. He was my enemy, my nemesis, the scum on the bottom of my shoe. Nothing he said could harm me; I was strong, the insults always veered off the face of my heart. My heart. I turned it to steel whenever he was a mile away, so I was prepared for whatever he flung at me. He lacked the power to do as I did, so I always had the better hand. And yet now, I felt as though I was shot right through my ribs. I could have expected him to say it... in fact, I'd have been a fool not to. But now the words were out, I couldn't breathe for the life of me.

Why?

Lori coughed and glanced behind me. Something was there. I felt my skin freeze and lifted my head, turning on the spot...

Cecilia.