June 5, 1942

I'm going to America! Mummy told me last night. Father was sent home from the war in April, and he has an appointment to be speaking in America. Everyone says he's so lucky to get this job, it's such an opportunity. He is, of course, taking Mother with him (she says she hasn't had a real holiday in years), and I'm to go as well! She said it would be such an experience: it would do me good.

Peter is going to be studying for his exams at the Professor's new house. The old house where we had such adventures a few years ago…well, he lost it. I don't know what became of the wardrobe. He would love to have us all stay but there's no room where he lives now. I can't say I'm sorry—too many memories.

Edmund and Lucy are going to be staying at our uncle and aunt's. They can have a splendid (or not so splendid) time with Eustace. Eustace is our cousin: the most horribly priggish boy I've ever met. Worse than Edmund used to be before

Never mind.

We're leaving in a few days—barely any time at all to pack! There's so much to be done. I'm glad. It will take my mind off Narnia where it still insists on staying. This trip to America is exactly what I need.

-S

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We're leaving tomorrow morning, early. Only Peter can come to see me off before he goes to the Professor's. Lucy and Edmund have already gone off to Harold and Alberta's. I must say I don't envy either of them.

With the excitement of preparing for this trip, it seems like the war is so far off: something that happened in the past, although it is still going on. Who knows how long it will last? Perhaps when I return I shall devote myself to the wounded soldiers. I might meet someone special there.

I am sitting on my window seat looking out at the dark sky over London. The moon is covered by a cloud, and there are no stars. You can never see stars anyway here. The streetlamps down below lessen them.

Peter knocks on the door and comes in before I can tell him to.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

"About what?" I pretend ignorance, but I really know exactly what he means.

"Your trip."

"I have everything ready. You know that."

"Yes, I know that. And you know that's not at all what I meant."

Peter knows everything.

"I'm glad to go."

Peter smiles. "I can understand that. I almost envy you your opportunity. But I suppose mine has to come in a different way."

I wish, I wish I didn't know what Peter was getting at.

"I still think about Narnia," Peter says. "It gets harder and harder for me to concentrate sometimes on such simple things that I just feel like I could explode and start screaming and screaming; I'd never be able to stop."

Peter looks out the window. "The Narnian stars were brilliant." Then he turns to leave. He pauses at the door and looks back at me. "You'll have a grand time, I know."

For the first time, I am skeptical.

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I am waving my hat as the ship pulls out. Barely I can make out Peter on the crowded dock which we have just left.

Finally, I can't bear to watch him standing there, and I turn to the other side of the ship. All I can see now is the ocean, spreading out before me.

I used to have such a view from my bedroom window, in Cair Paravel.

I shake myself and lean over the railing, watching the tracks left in the water.

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A/N: I know that in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it states that the war was over—but chronologically, that is not accurate! So in my story the war hasn't ended yet. It didn't really end until 1945.