I read the first chapter or two for Lucy, until we decided that two chapters was enough. I'd read the book a lot in the last few days, as I found that it was my only comfort. Around midday, the train began to slow down, and I guessed that we were pulling into a station. Folding down the corner of the book, I closed the cover and checked the label hanging from my collar. As the conductor on the platform began shouting the name of the platform, I sighed in relief when I found that I wasn't getting off here.
"Where are you going?" Lucy asked, as she heard me sigh. I glanced down to the label a second time, but the location of my destination was unfamiliar to me.
"I don't know." I say, but as I read the label a little more, I glance at the name, of the people who are taking me in. "But apparently, I'm being taken in by a... Professor Digory Kirke."
Peter grasps the label attached to his jacket, and looks down at it. His face turns into a frown, confusion written all over it. "That's weird." He says, and we all look at him.
"What is?" Edmund and Susan ask at the same time, but I get an idea what he will soon say.
"That's where we're being sent." He says and Lucy's face lights up in joy. She jumps up and down. hugging me tightly.
"Lucy, let go of the poor girl." Susan says, and Lucy quickly retracts her arms from around my waist, before muttering a 'sorry' and sitting beside her sister, staring out of the window.
I sigh as I glance outside, to see two siblings being split up. I silently thanking the world that these four were kept together in the Evacuation, although I felt very sorry about those two that got split up. This was one of the times, that I was glad that I was an only child.
The train juttered forward, and continued down its route, stopping at stations every so often, to drop children off.
~*~
It was hours before the train came to a standstill at a deserted platform, with a sign saying a location that I was unfamiliar with. Geography has never been my strongest point, and I doubt that it will be. I glanced down at my label, and saw that it was the location of the Professor's house, and I stood up, grabbing my bag above my head before picking up the book and opening the door. But before I do, I glance back to the other four. Peter and Lucy had fallen asleep, and Susan was reading. Edmund was staring longingly at my empty seat.
"You know that we've all got to get off now, right?" I ask, gently nudging Peter's shoulder to wake him up. At my words he stirs before they sink in, and he quickly jumps up, helping Susan get the bags down. I offer to help but they brush it aside, and I walk outside onto the platform.
Nobody stands there to greet me, and nobody walks past. The place is empty and a small dirt road crosses over the tracks. I stand there, clutching onto my bag, hoping that I wasn't in the wrong place, when I hear the four siblings walk off the train. They seem to be thinking the same thing as me, but I choose to ignore them, sitting down on the broken bench and watch as the train's doors are closed and the locomotive sped away along the tracks.
I sat there, watching the smoke dispersed around the corner, and we were left in silence. The five of us didn't say anything for a moment, believing that we were all in the wrong place.
"Are they sure that anyone lives here?" I asked, speaking up, and they turn to look at me, all of them without an answer. Edmund picks up the label that's been attached to him, and reads it.
"Perhaps we've been incorrectly labeled?" He says, and Susan shakes her head.
"Not five people, no Ed." She says, worried.
We all turn to the dirt road when we hear the engine of a car, and I jump to my feet, my bag tight in my hand. I turn my head to see a car heading this way, driven by an old man with grey hair and glasses, with a young girl, around Edmund's age in the front seat. Her face in planted in a book, but she glances up at us, when she hears the four siblings run forward, to try and get the attention of the driver. Maybe that was the Professor? I hope not.
I watch in disbelief as he drives straight past us, not even noticing us standing there. He drove inches away from the siblings, so why did he not see them? I slowly walk down from the platform and sigh in a state of depression. If that was him, does that mean we have to walk?
"Did he even know that we were coming?" Peter asked Susan, and she doesn't give an answer. Wrapping my arms around myself, I sit down on the lowest step from the platform, and stare at the ground around my feet. Dirt, and lots of it. The sight is a big change from the usual concrete surroundings of London. The quiet is a massive change from the hubbub of talk and the roar of engines. The sounds of life, that what I miss right now.
The sound of hoof prints makes me glance upwards, and I see an elderly woman bringing a horse and carriage to a stop in front of the Pevensie's.
"Mrs Macready?" Peter asks slowly, and apprehensively. She looks down at him, and her face is emotionless; her glasses seem to amplify the hidden glare she gives them.
"I'm afraid so." She replies, and she glances around the four of them, taking good care at looking at their bags. "Is that it then? Haven't you brought anything else?"
"No, ma'am." Peter answers, before casting a glance around his siblings. "It's just us."
She nods slowly, before getting a small piece of paper out of her coat pocket. "Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, and Thea Carter." She says, glancing at the four, and then at me. As I make eye contact with her, she speaks to me. "I take it that you're Thea Carter, then." she comments, as the four get onto the back of the cart.
"Yes, I am Miss." I reply.
"Well, come on, let's get the five of you to the Manor." Mrs Macready says, as I walk forward, to the back of the cart, and sit down at the edge. I grip the sides tightly, as I hold my bag with my feet, and the horse is ushered onward.