A/N: The long-awaited Bastable/Narnia crossover. If you have not read The Story of the Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit, you should do so at once. Although you should be able to enjoy this chapter without having read said fantastic novel, you will get more out of it if you have.

For those who /do/ know the Bastables and have asked for this, I apologize for any discrepency about time. Treasure Seekers was published in 1899, and Magician's Nephew supposedly happened around 1900. So really the Bastables would already be living with the Indian Uncle instead of at Lewisham road, still, but Lewis does say at the beginning of MN that the Bastables were still digging for treasure there, so one may assume what one likes. Perhaps MN takes place earlier. Whatever. Probably only OldFashionedGirl95 (for whom I must thank for previewing this beforehand and giving me feedback) and perhaps Eavis will really care, but if you have any insights, please let me know!

Oh, and I apologize right up front for the ending. It hints horribly at a sequel that may or may not be written, but if it is, it will be a mystery in five parts.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy. :)

15.

It was raining outside and Polly was book shopping.

She only lived a block or two away from the book stalls. Normally Digs came with her, but he had a cold and was holed up inside with ginger root tea and Aunt Letty had said that no visitors were to be allowed. Digory's mother had let her hang around a bit, and had even offered to come to the stalls with her in Digory's place (his mother was awfully great, for a grownup).

She seemed even more of a brick because Polly's own mother, the dimple-cheeked, sharp-eyed Mrs. Plummer, was not very lenient when it came to her daughter's activities. The coming-home-with-wet-shoes-and-stockings after the Adventure in the Wood Between the Worlds (during which she had jumped in several puddles) had been enough to cement her mother's conclusion that she was not wise enough to be left to herself.

"But Mummy," Polly protested, when her mother put her foot down. "I'm older now."

"By two months, Polly!" exclaimed Mrs. Plummer with more than a little exasperation. "You are only twelve years old—," ("Twelve and a half," muttered Polly), "—and I positively forbid you from wandering the streets of London alone. You remember that wild woman and the scene she caused—something to do with that Digory-boy's uncle. The streets aren't safe anymore."

But that was all beside the point, as Mrs. Mabel Kirke, pretty nearly completely recovered from her near-fatal illness, had persuaded Mrs. Plummer into letting her take Polly to look for books.

If there was anything Polly loved more than ginger root tea and a stack of favorite books, it was a good rainstorm. She liked the rare, sunny days well enough—especially the days when the earth was warm and damp, and they could go out and dig worms or adventure about the neighborhood. But when it rained, there was a beautiful, chilly greyness that hung about everything, and although most of these days were spent inside the smuggler's cave or playing games with Digory, book-shopping was just as nice.

"Polly, do look at this one!" whispered Aunt Mabel—Mrs. Kirke, really, but she insisted that she was practically an aunt now. Polly set down a beautifully illustrated copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and turned to look at whatever Digory's mum was holding out to her. Before she could examine what looked to be a first edition of a Kipling, a sudden pattering and splashing of feet, followed by a long crack of thunder, drew her attention to the door. Six shivering figures, dripping and trembling like wet dogs, began hissing at each other while the tallest one looked about as if trying to get his bearings.

"Oswald—he's soaked through and through. You know it isn't good for him!"

"He's not the only one who could catch a cold, you know, just because he's a poet and fragile."

One of the figures sneezed.

"You see!" the first voice said. "I told you this was a bad idea!"

"Oh, shut it and let us think." This last was from the tallest figure, a boy who looked to be a year or two older than Polly. He had fair hair (although it was very wet) and was absently stripping off his coat and handing it to one of the smaller figures. "Take that, Noël."

There were, Polly thought, four boys and two girls. It was one of the boys (a good deal younger than her) who was shivering and sneezing, and one of the girls looked like she was trying not to cry.

"Excuse me," said the tall boy, glancing around the shop and at last fixing his gaze on the shop's owner. "Can you tell me the quickest way to Lewisham road?"

"Lewisham—you're a good way off. It's about eight miles south, across the Thames."

"Eight miles!" The boy looked slightly distressed. He muttered something under his breath, and glanced over at the other children. "Would you mind very much sir, if we waited here until the storm passes?"

"Here?" the owner sighed. "The lot of you? And soaked—I don't run a charity house, lad."

Polly wished there was something she could do, but then she felt Aunt Mabel move beside her and was glad that she was not alone and that there was a grown-up with her who could (and would) do something.

"You come with me, dear," Aunt Mabel said, setting down the antique book and giving the stall owner a reproving glance. "I'm sure we won't mind a little company on a rainy day. Will we, Polly?"

"No, m'am," Polly replied, grinning. The boy looked awfully relieved, and as soon as they were out the door, the oldest girl began to thank Aunt Mabel profusely and say she was awfully sorry for the trouble, and was very grateful, and hoped they wouldn't be too much of a nuisance.

"Never mind that, dear," Aunt Mabel said. She was a wonderful grown-up. "My, but there are a lot of you—what are your names?"

The oldest boy turned to her and said, quite grandly, "We are almost all that remains of the Noble House of Bastable. I am Oswald, and this is Dora, and the others are Dicky, Alice and Noël (they're twins) and H.O."

He said it in a very lordly fashion, and Polly couldn't help but be struck by his tone and manner and think, Well, now. He's had Adventures.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," said Aunt Mabel, smiling at him (for she had also been amused by his introduction). "I am Mabel of the Noble House of Kirke, and this is Polly Plummer."

Oswald turned his gaze to Polly, and she couldn't help but blush a little. He looked as though he were reading her all the way through.

"I say," said the girl named Alice a minute or so later, when Digory's mother was speaking with Dora and walking a little ahead. "You've had Adventures, haven't you?"

"Course she has, ninny," said the one called Dicky, scornfully, before Polly had a chance to answer. "You can see she's not like some of the other girls. Bet she doesn't mind beetles and wasps and mud."

"I don't," said Polly, quite truthfully. She'd seen too much to be terrified by those sorts of things now—memories of a cold, dead world and a cold, dead sun quite displaced any irrational fears she might have that were natural to most girls her age.

"Do you know Kipling?" the littlest one asked.

Polly grinned. "Wouldn't be an adventurer if I didn't. 'Good Hunting,' and all that."

And then the questions were fast and quick around her—had she ever found any treasure, had she ever been captured by outlaws, had she solved a mystery, did the fortune of the House of Plummer need restoring, and so on. She learned, by and by, that they were very accustomed to doing all of those things. They were all (Oswald especially) very interested to hear about the house next-door that she and Digs never did explore, and they wanted to know all about Uncle Andrew and was he really mad?

They reached the house at last, and Aunt Letty fussed over Digory's mother (who was really still in the process of getting better from her illness and really shouldn't have been out in the rain) and then she began to fuss over the children, particularly Noël, who was turning a little blue. Ginger root tea was made and handed out, and Oswald made a fine speech to the grownups about never being able to repay their kindness and being forever in their debt.

"Yes, yes," said Aunt Letty, wrapping another blanket around Noël. "Polly, be a dear and take some tea up to Digory."

Polly's face brightened. She hurried up with the tea on a tray before Aunt Letty could remember that he was probably contagious and hadn't been allowed visitors thus far. When she opened the door, he was sitting up in bed, staring into the crackling fire on the hearth with a thoughtful expression on his face. Everything looked soft in that fire's light—his brown hair and eyes gleamed, and even though he was a little pale (the effect of the cold), the fire seemed to cast a rosy flush upon his cheeks.

He turned when Polly opened the door the rest of the way and first looked very glad to see her, then very pitiful indeed. "I am dying," he said.

She raised an eyebrow, so he added, mournfully, "Of boredom."

"You look alright," Polly remarked, setting down the tray on the table and smiling at him teasingly. "Aunt Letty's been a tiger—she wouldn't let me in for anything earlier today."

"I know," Digory said. Then, "I say, what's all that row downstairs? Have we got visitors?"

She nodded. "Six—and they're all related. They're lost adventurers Aunt Mabel and I found at the book stalls and took pity upon."

"Adventurers?" Digory's voice lost the faint hint of self-pity it had been carrying up till now and suddenly rang with that life-saving sentiment: curiosity (granted, it has been said to be injurious to the life of certain feline beings, but in Digory's case it brought the vigor of life back to his cold-stricken limbs).

"Yes," said Polly. "They know Kipling and all about treasure seeking and detectives. I think…I think they're the sort of people we could tell. If we could tell anyone."

A thoughtful silence followed. Digory rubbed his fingers through his hair (ignoring the ginger root tea, of which he was getting rather tired) and said, "I'd like to meet them. Their voices sound jolly—like they would understand, and not tell us it was all made-up and silly. Almost like they know about other worlds."

"I rather think they live in one," Polly said. She was feeling rather pensive, and the Bastables were certainly an anomaly one must consider very pensively.

There was a spot more of quiet, then Digory let out a great gusty sigh. "Oh, bother. I shan't get any rest now—here, hand me that robe. I'm coming down to meet them."

"Are you sure you're quite well enough?" Polly asked, though she obliged and handed him the robe without trying to keep from exerting himself.

Digory returned her concern with a rather scornful look. "It's a cold, silly, not pneumonia. And supposing we never see them again?"

Once he and Polly made it downstairs, however, it was clear that never seeing the Bastables again was not something they should be concerned about. Dora and Dicky had quite endeared themselves to Mabel Kirke, while Aunt Letty was very much attached to poor Noel (a grand poet, Digory and Polly soon learned) and funny little H.O. And Oswald greeted Digory as courteously and jovially as a merry knight would greet another, and Digory soon found himself agreeing with Polly about these funny people being from rather another world.

They did not tell the Bastables about their adventures in other worlds, though one time they came very close, and it is not entirely impossible that Oswald and the others would have believed them. Indeed, they became so attached during the Mystery of the House Next Door that it was really the only secret Digory and Polly had from him and his jolly siblings…but as Kipling says, that is another story for another time.