england / november 27, 1947

prompt: "jumper"

word count: 1,667

xXx

Jill nudged the ball of yarn with one finger, sending it bumping over the length of the sofa as Mittens scrambled after it, grey paws padding it over the edge onto the sitting room floor and tugging at a bright yellow trail that still connected back to the scarf she'd given up knitting long ago.

At least the cat was having fun.

A Nancy Drew book lay propped beside her elbow on the back of the sofa, open to her last dog-eared page, but even "The Mystery of the Tolling Bell" couldn't seem to hold her interest tonight as rain pattered mournfully against the window.

It looked as if the upcoming December would be a wet one, if things didn't let up soon, the outdoors a drab mess of puddles and soggy brown leaves, the indoors little better, if only warmer and drier.

Mittens pawed at the yellow string and pounced when it moved as if it had been the aggressor, twisting over onto her back as Jill watched distractedly.

A door closed and she looked up just as her mother bustled in, striding quickly across the room and almost passing the sofa without notice before glancing at Jill for the briefest of instants.

"Whose jumper is that?" she asked absently, moving on to rifle through the coat rack by the door.

Jill glanced down to the oversized garment, lifting an arm slightly as the sleeve slipped down over her fingers and hung loose around a much narrower wrist than that for which it had been intended. "Oh— Just a friend."

Mrs. Pole hummed in distant acknowledgement as she pulled a silver-cased lipstick out of the pocket of one of her raincoats and retrieved a hand mirror from her bag, popping it open to examine her face and twisting the lipstick with a manicured finger.

Jill shifted a little on the sofa, her awkward answer evidently having been more than enough to assuage any curiosity the woman may have felt over her own daughter's social life.

She cleared her throat. "You remember Scrubb?"

Mrs. Pole glanced up and cocked her head, furrowing her brow for a moment as if the name rang only the most distant of bells. "Is that who visited in the summer?"

Jill nodded, and her mother went back to touching up her lipstick.

"You weren't home much," Jill tried again, fidgeting with the hem of one sleeve and slipping her fingernail in between stitches.

"No… I was awfully busy this summer, I'm afraid." The woman snapped her pocket mirror shut and tucked it back into her handbag with the lipstick, lifting a fluffy coat from the rack. "I'm sure he was a fine guest."

"Are you going out?"

"Oh, yes, dear, there's a society meeting at the Winterblotts'. If you get hungry, there ought to be something in the icebox, or you can walk to the store."

Jill averted her eyes and reached down to scratch her cat behind the ears. "Is Father working late?"

"No," said Mrs. Pole, fluffing her hood, "he's on a business trip."

"Oh, when did he leave?"

"This morning, dear."

Jill swallowed, trying not to think about the fact that he hadn't said goodbye.

"Have a nice time," she said as cheerily as she could manage, and her mother smiled, fastening the last button of her coat before taking an umbrella from the stand.

"Thank you, darling."

For a moment the sound of rain grew louder as she opened the front door, disappearing out onto the steps and closing it behind her with a muffled click.

And Jill was alone again.

She sighed.

Even Mittens seemed to have tired of the yarn by now, lying lazily in a bright knot of it, tail twitching faintly as Jill ran her hand down the cat's soft length and tucked her fingers back into her own sleeves.

She didn't feel like winding the yarn ball up again.

Instead she only sank into her oversized jumper, pulling it up over her nose with pale fingers and breathing deeply, the thick woven fabric still scented that stale, heavy, papery kind of mint that always seemed to cling to Eustace Scrubb—halfway between sterile and musty, yet oddly comforting, a bit like her oldest books that she couldn't help but breathe in whenever she opened them.

The faintest hint of cigarette smoke laced the rust-colored knit, too, lingering only where you knew to look for it.

He would probably have scoffed if he could have seen her now. If he knew how her chest swelled at the artificial sense of closeness. At the scratchiness of the wool. At the way the broad shoulders hung over her narrow frame, sagging entirely out of shape. At the silly tears that pricked at her eyes for a second before she blinked them back.

It was already dark outside the window, rain pattering its old monotonous rhythm as the wind howled low, a winter chill edging in on the last traces of autumn, just as it had on the platform last week when the students of Experiment House huddled under the station awning, waiting in the cold for their train.

Jill had hugged herself tight against the brick wall, sitting stiff on her upright suitcase as Scrubb shared his lighter with Spivvins, their cigarette smoke affording her only the acrid tang in the air and none of the warmth it did them.

"You're not shivering, are you, Pole?" Scrubb had asked when he glanced back at her, the railway lights catching his pale hair and turning the smoke white against a shimmer of rain beyond the awning as it drifted up from his bony fingers.

"I didn't know we'd be waiting this long," she snapped, irritable with the cold, "and I can't exactly open my trunk here, can I?"

Scrubb rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath about 'girls' as he ducked down and flipped the clasps open on his own suitcase.

"Scrubb," she hissed, "that's not decent, we're on the platform!"

"So?" He glanced up, only prolonging her agitation at the open case of personal belongings. "We've traveled together with a lot less, you oughtn't still be so prudish about seeing a man's clothes."

Jill scoffed, then glanced sharply around the platform, but Spivvins had turned away to talk to someone else, and no one else had been close enough to hear the comment about traveling together.

"Yes," she snapped as he held his cigarette between his teeth and fished through folded clothes, "but this is England."

Scrubb made no reply, pulling out a rust-colored jumper and throwing it at her before she could protest, snapping the case closed and taking a drag of his cigarette as he stood, a motion far too practiced than it should have been for a fourteen-year-old.

She huffed with a glare. "And you needn't get so uppity talking about men, you're no older than I am, and we were even younger then, so there."

"Funny you haven't matured since then, if that's the case," he said casually, and Jill nearly threw the jumper back at him. But the moment she moved to do so, the wind nipped with an especially icy gust, and she breathed a deep, reluctant sigh, pulling the garment over her head with gritted teeth.

"The others are looking at us," she muttered once she'd settled it around her shoulders and crossed her arms again.

"No they're not."

"They'll talk."

"And what exactly are they going to say that they haven't said already?"

Jill pursed her lips, tucking her fingers up inside the knitted sleeves, their warmth slowly soaking in as her mind gradually cleared.

A few minutes later, she glanced up from the damp platform bricks to look at him again, feeling rather sheepish about the outburst, only to find him watching her with steady grey eyes as if waiting for her sanity to return.

She sighed with a forced, shy smile, and finally muttered "Thanks."

He shot her a tiny smirk.

He never did question her snappish attitude on days like that, no matter how venomous her words turned, for the same reason she never questioned his smoking.

They both knew what they were going home to.

There was no need to say it aloud.

And when at last the train came and she'd moved to give the jumper back to him, he'd only waved her off and said "It's too small for me now, anyway. At least wear it home."

She hadn't argued.

Now, huddled up alone in her sitting room with her nose tucked under his woolen neckline, she couldn't have been more thankful for its weight or its warmth, breathing in his papery, smokey scent just as if he were sitting beside her.

It had only been a little over a year since that first grey afternoon behind the gym, but already Eustace Clarence Scrubb was the oldest friend she'd ever had.

He could easily have had his pick of the school by now—moved on to someone more impressive, just like all the others had done—but still he spent every rainy afternoon with her, studying or procrastinating or making up games; still he found her every morning and took the seat beside her in class, still they soaked in every ounce of freedom and sunlight they could scrounge from their dull surroundings, even talking in hushed tones about Narnia whenever they found themselves well and truly alone.

She squeezed the heavy knit between her fingers, clinging to that one tangible thing like a promise, a tiny smile twitching at her lips at the thought of seeing him again for Christmas this year.

How silly he would think her if he saw her now.

But even that thought in itself sent a breath of fondness blooming in her chest, and the mingled scent of cigarettes and old parchment flooded her senses as she grinned, winding a loose thread around her finger despite the incredulous grey eyes watching in her mind.

"Oh, shut up, Scrubb."