When Magic Begins-Narnia Fanfiction

Chp 2.

Chp 2. Surprises come sooner than expected

‘Rachelle and May are here, Kelly. You better come down quickly. You don’t want to keep your friends waiting, honey,’ called out Mrs Evans to her daughter.

‘Coming mom!’ Kelly replied, adjusting her dress and grabbing the gift she’d bought for her friend’s birthday.

‘Whoa! You’re looking gorgeous Kel! Someone’s not going to be able to take their eyes off you, is he?’ May teased in a sing-song voice.

‘Stupid stuff!’ Kelly remarked, rolling her eyes. Her best friends had some dreadfully stupid jokes regarding this person they called her ‘secret admirer’ and often gave her vague hints as to who it might be, but she’d never been able to guess correctly. Either this person existed only as a figment of their imagination or was very unfortunate to fancy a girl like her, who had no idea if she had seen him at all. To conclude, it all seemed absurd to her, unlike other sixteen-year-old girls, who went head all giggles and blushes on hearing ‘make-up’ and ‘boys’.

Kelly gave him a bear hug as soon as she spotted him, making a surprised Ryan wobble over and almost fall.

‘Happy Birthday, Ryan! You’re finally sixteen!’

‘Thanks Kelly,’ he smiled, taking the bright blue package from her hands. ‘That sounds like the millionth time I’ve heard you utter those words today,’ he added in a matter-of-fact tone.

‘Okay, I might just have said that about eight times over the phone, but how would you feel if I had not wished you on meeting you? I daresay…’

‘…that you’re not allowing Rachelle and May to give me my presents.’

‘Oh! right,’ she said, as if suddenly remembering the presence of the two other souls in the Carter’s living room. ‘Sorry guys,’ she said apologetically to her friends.

After everyone had finished, they went into Ryan’s room, where they found Steve, Mike and Lily digging into the delicious pumpkin pies Ryan’s mother had baked.

‘Give me one of them right now, else I might murder you, Ryan Carter!’ Kelly joked.

‘Second helpings for only those who come down to the kitchen to help me carry them upstairs,’ he shrugged.

‘Fine…I’m coming.’

‘What did you do today?’

‘Nothing much, really; just a family trip in the morning and chilling out with you guys now.’

‘Oh! Pity we didn’t have school today. I promise we’d have secretly arranged a party or something.’

‘Yeah, yeah…like we did on yours,’ he winked.

‘God! Was that amazing! And boy, I remember how pissed off I had been at first, and furious with all of you for...well, pretending to forget my sixteenth birthday.’

‘I was surprised that you thought we had actually forgotten. But you looked beautiful in that dress you wore to school, in fact,’ he paused and smiled shyly, ‘you still are.’

Kelly felt the colour rising to her cheeks and laughed, a little awkwardly. They had reached Ryan’s room.

May opened the door and dramatically exclaimed, ‘Finally! You’re here at last! We were afraid you’d started baking the next lot.’

‘We did help mom with the third helping, guessing you’d need some.’

‘‘Course we do, mate,’ called out Steve, with a mouthful of pie.

The bell rang downstairs. ‘Dad’s home. I’ll come back after a minute, continue with the game, guys.’

Ryan hurried downstairs to greet his father. The Carters were standing in the doorway, speaking in hushed tones. Something about the look on their faces told Ryan that they were not planning one of the birthday surprises. Something bad had happened, and it was bothering them.

‘Mom, Dad, is everything alright? Why’re you looking so glum?’