Dead computer, lost documents. New computer, no decent word processor. Fun stuff.

Fifteen minutes later the Pevensie boys were sitting in their house's living room, books in hand. Neither one of them could come up with an explanation of how the books could have found their way into the messenger bags. Magic was the most obvious explanation, but neither boy wanted to say it out loud because entertaining the idea that there could be magic involved was setting themselves up for so much potential disappointment. And so they continued to stare in wonder, occasionally vocalizing a theory. Edmund picked up the pen, miraculously full of ink and twirled it between his fingers. Suddenly the tip twisted off the fountain pen and a jot f ink spurted out of the pen and onto the open page of his book.

"Oi!" Peter yelled, "You got ink on my book!"

"I did not! Edmund replied, hurrying to put the head back on his pen, "you're way over there! There is no way the ink got on it. It only splashed on my book right here." Edmund reached out and grabbed his book, pointing to where the ink blot should have been, but there was no ink blot. His eyebrows met in the centre as he looked around for where the ink had landed. Peter held out his book and on the left hand corner of the page was an ink stain about the size of a one pound coin.

Both boys stared at Peter's book in wonder, fixated on the blot on the page. Edmund's book was still blank. Carefully, Peter withdrew his pen from the spine of the book and wrote "hello" in handwriting strangely reminiscent of the writing he used to have in Narnia. His page stayed blank, but as he wrote, the letters appeared on the open page in Edmund's book.

The next hour was spent learning exactly what these magical books, for now they were clearly magical, could and couldn't do. They learned that the writing appears on whatever page the person first opens to, or is open on at the time unless that page was already full in which case it moved on to the next one. "Convenient," Edmund stated, "I'd hate to have to flip through all the pages each time." Less convenient, yet still practical was the books' habit of erasing messages once they were closed. By the end of the hour the brothers found themselves sitting at opposite ends of the room, writing notes to each other and pushing the books to their limits. Peter drew pictures in his book to see how they would turn out, they weren't his best work, but, then again, the pen wasn't the ideal drawing utensil. He had tried using other pens and pencils, but none worked.

After a while, they both decided it was probably time to turn in, classes started in about six hours. Peter got the best night's sleep he had in a long time.

--

The next day, neither Pevensie boy paid much attention in class. While people found it a little off that Edmund would be reading and taking notes in class, no one even noticed Peter's substitution of his notebook for the newer, fancier, book. There wasn't much to say, but neither Peter nor Edmund could keep away from their book or the magic it clearly possessed.

'My teacher sounds like a broken foghorn'

'My class is so boring'

'Hah! I bet Lucy and Susan didn't find anything this interesting'

Short thoughts and the occasional illustration from Peter littered the pages. Edmund was busy re-reading a short comic strip about the teacher they both had for gym when he noticed what looked like text on next piece of paper. Flipping the page, Edmund read Peter's message.

'Do you think this is a sign we will be needed in Narnia soon?' Edmund shut the book quickly. They had avoided mentioning Narnia directly in case a classmate decided reading over shoulders was an acceptable way to pass the time. Opening the book again, Edmund wrote back, "I doubt it, Pete, you know what Aslan said…"

'I know, but we can't have just found them out of coincidence!'

'Perhaps we were drawn to them because we have been to Narnia'

'You mean lived in Narnia. Ruled Narnia' Edmund found himself seriously hoping Peter had the sense to close the book as often as he did.
'Yes Peter, I know that we lived there at one point, but not anymore. Can't we just be happy that we have a little bit of magic here now?'

'I'd rather have no magic there than all the magic in all the worlds here'

It was clearly time to change the subject. If he couldn't convince Peter to just be happy in Finchley face-to-face, how could he possibly get through to him with ink and paper? Edmund wasn't exactly a brilliant writer.

'Think we should show these books to Susan and Lu?'

'Probably'

'What about just Lucy?'

'Why not Susan?'

'More likely than not she'd make us put them back'

'Well we can't exactly show up at Saint Finbar's and refuse to talk to Susan can we?'

After much deliberation, they decided that they couldn't risk showing the books to Lucy in the chance that Susan might notice them. At first they had felt a little bad about taking the books, but now each boy felt there was a reason they had them and were not particularly inclined to return them to a dusty shelf. What good could they possibly do there anyways?

Right as Edmund was about to start a note to Peter about the rather boorish kid sitting in front of him, said boorish kid turned around and whisked the book out of Edmund's hands. Apparently the teacher had excused herself from the classroom for a moment, something Edmund had failed to notice until right then, and he was all alone in this classroom of rather stupid rugby players. Science just wasn't Edmund's subject. Teachers nowadays didn't much appreciate essays about how the world began from a lion's song. They wanted something about particles and other nonsense. Unlike Edmund, the rest of the people in his remedial biology class were just plain stupid and none of them were his friends.

"Dearest Diary," the boy, Arnold, pretended to read, "today I went to the shopping centre and found the cutest shoes ever. They will look just smashing with my eyes." He paused to give his cronies time to get the complex joke and laugh appropriately. Then, deciding that just pretending to read wasn't enough, he reached out to grab the pen on Edmund's desk. As soon as his fingers touched the (intricate, designed) pen, he yelped in pain and clutched his hand to him like a wounded animal would his injured paw. Not out of fear for Arnold's phalanges, but rather out of confusion, Edmund asked his classmate what had happened.

"Your fucking pen burnt my fingers!" Arnold shouted angrily, sucking on his burnt fingers.

Very confused at this point, Edmund cautiously picked up the pen, the metal felt cool beneath his fingers just as it had every time hitherto.

"Let me see that pen." One of Arnold's brutish friends called out and tried to take it from his hands, but he too recoiled in pain. Despite the complaints about burns, there were no visible marks on neither Arnold's nor his friend's hands. It took a while for the less than brilliant children to catch on, and by the time the bell rang, the teacher still hadn't returned, five students were holding their pained fingers.

Hurrying out of the room, Edmund knew he had to find Peter so he opened the book and pulled out the pen, the pen that had still caused him no trouble, and wrote a quick where are you note. A few seconds later, letters appeared on the page spelling out 'in the library.' Edmund hurried off and in a few minutes he was searching the library for his brother.

"The strangest thing just happened" Edmund stated as he plopped down in the chair across from Peter.

"Oh?"

"Yeah! So some fucker-"

"Language Ed"

"So some fucker," Edmund continued, ignoring his brother's chastisement, "took my book away and pretended to read it, don't worry there were no notes saved on the page. Then he decided to try and write or something so he reached out and grabbed the pen but it burned him and a bunch of other guys tried it too and they all said it burned their fingers too. But it doesn't bother me at all." Edmund concluded and looked up at Peter expectantly. Peter paused and took his own pen out of his bag.

"Here," he said, holding the pen out to his brother, "See if you can hold this." Cautiously, Edmund reached out and touched the pen with his pinkie. As soon as his skin made contact with the writing utensil, he jumped back. Peter's pen had hurt his finger.

Nothing about these books made any sense.

After a good deal of arguments and discussions, they both decided it would be best to go talk things over with Lucy. They knew that they ran the risk of running into the older Prehensile sister as well, but Lucy had always had a better understanding of magic than the rest of them and they needed her help.

Once classes had let out for the day (Peter maintained that he couldn't miss yet another afternoon of classes), the two boys set off to Saint Finbar's. It didn't take them long to find Lucy once they got there, thankfully she wasn't talking to Susan. They quickly filled her in on everything that had happened and shown her how the books work. She too found she was unable to touch the pens.

"Have you shown them to Susan?"

"Nope" Edmund answered, "and we don't plan to. She seems to care less about Narnia each time I see her. She'd probably just tell us we have to go put them back on that dusty old shelf and then lecture us for a bit despite the fact that we didn't do anything and she isn't our mother."

"Yes she does seem to care less about Narnia now than before. I wonder if that will happen to each of us as we grow up."

"I'm older than her and I still care more about Narnia than everything in this world combined. That's off the point anyways. The point being these books."

"Yes yes, Lu," Edmund chimed in, "do tell us what you think of our books."

In all honesty, Lucy didn't really know what she thought of the books. They appeared to be a useful form of communication and there was clearly something magical about them. She also knew that there must have been a reason her brothers had found them because, judging by the pens' intense hatred of everyone else, they were the only ones that could use the books. She told all of this to her brothers. They had figured out as much as the pens were only to be used by them, but none of the children could figure out what the boys were supposed to use the books for. They had checked to see if Lucy could see the writing when it was written in the books and she could.

The children continued to discuss the books until they realized they were all famished. Edmund and Peter decided they would rather eat in a hall full of girls than wait until they got back to Stanton so the three siblings headed off to the dining hall. They spotted Susan and she came over to their table. The four of them laughed and ate and reminisced about Narnia for what was probably the thousandth time. Susan joined in, but none of her memories were as fond or vivid as the others'. Soon she grew bored of the discussion and excused herself back to her group of friends. Discussion resumed without her and before long the meal was over and it was time for the male Pevensies to depart. They gathered their things and Lucy decided she would walk them to end of the premises.

As they approached the ornate gate, they saw a small animal just outside. In the rapidly approaching darkness, it looked from afar to be a cat or a small dog, but as they drew nearer it became clear it was nothing of the sort. It had a feather affixed to its head by a gold headband, a sword at its hilt and a long, bare tail.

"Reepicheep!" Lucy ran over to the mouse and fought the urge to give him a hug deciding that twice in as many months might be too much of a blow to his dignity. The boys weren't far behind and within moments the four friends were standing together by the gate.

"High King Peter, King Edmund and Queen Lucy," the mouse said as he bowed, "I bring a message from Narnia and King Caspian. Peter looked like he was about to grab the scroll out of Reepicheep's paws in his eagerness to find out what Caspian had to say and Edmund put a hand on his arm to steady him. Reepicheep unfurled the scroll and began to read:

"I, King Caspian X, King of Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Isles etc... request counsel with any of the four Kings and Queens who Alsan allows to pass through the gate with Sir Reepicheep. I look forward to meeting with as many of you as possible soon.

Caspian X"

"Where is Queen Susan, Your Majesties? She too should try to get through the gate with me."

"Queen Susan would not wish to accompany us." Lucy stated. Susan had told her many times how hard it was to move on from life in Narnia and their trip there last month hadn't helped matters.

Edmund, Peter and Lucy all glanced at each other. They all knew that Peter would not be able to get through. None of them said it, none of them needed to. Lucy turned and walked with Reepicheep through the gates. Both boys looked after her and Edmund began to follow, not able to look his brother in the eye.

"Ed, wait." Edmund turned back and cautiously drew his eyes up to meet Peter's, "I, uh, well, tell Caspian 'hi' for me, would you?" Edmund nodded, adjusted the strap of his bag and walked through the gate and out of sight.

Peter sighed and dropped his chin to his chest. He thought about looking for another open exit, but he knew all other gates would be closed this late. After many deep breaths, Peter gathered the strength to walk through the gate and onto the street outside.

I hope it was worth the wait. Sorry.