HEROES; 𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐞

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

HENDON HOUSE BOARDING FOR BOYS. It was a gloomy building, its worn brick wall frowning to all those that walked past, the netting patching up its war wounds, unable to withstand the wind very well. A suiting infrastructure, really. Peter Pevensie was just as miserable.

More miserable than the rest of them, at least.

Hendon House indeed did look just like a house. But if you sized it up by 20 and stuffed it with mothball ridden curtains, and the most polished squeaking floors you would ever come across. The staff took pride in its cleanliness, for what else was there to appreciate?

Perhaps the grass of pooling mud, sprinkled with debris from the most recent bombing that had taken out the groundskeepers house. It was a good thing he'd been up the pub when the air raid siren had gone off, for he was dragged into the London Underground, stumbling and hiccuping as he was towed, so he came to no harm aside from a hangover. Or the admiration could be  directed towards the Atrium. This was the living quarters for the pupils, detached from the rest of the school. There was an entryway, with a small reception, where there was a designated staff member positioned day and night. This was to:

- Ensure everyone was out safely during an air raid.
- Make sure nobody was sneaking out at night/ when they weren't authorised to be off school grounds.
- Make sure the Atrium was clean at ALL times (indicated by the mop and bucket propped against the wall for the five minutes it wasn't in use, accompanied by various cleaning products).

But the boys had managed to find a way around point 2.

If you were to walk to the very end of the second floor corridor, you'd come across a window. Beneath the window, was the the roof of the janitors closet. If you were to climb out of said window, onto the roof, and hop down onto the bins, you were free to go; it wasn't necessarily hard to find a hole in the brick wall to escape out of in 1941.

But how could they get away with it, surely somebody would hear them thundering about on the roof?

The janitor's room was never in use. Because the cleaning supplies were permanently in the lobby.

"Oh hurry up Ed," Peter Pevensie grumbled, watching as his brother stumbled out of the window, hopping along on one leg twice before settling his other leg down on the roof.

"Give it a rest, Pete, we're not in a rush to get anywhere," Edmund replied snidely, sitting and sliding off the roof, avoiding use of the designated bins as to not make a racket. Peter sighed, and nodded, waiting for Edmund to gather himself before they set off across the school grounds. It was a large premises- with an exceptionally large playing field to the left of the building, which was out of bounds this late in the evening, unless you were part of the fencing team, who were practicing on the plain a few metres away, ran by the Headmaster.

Peter and Edmund had been part of the fencing club. Edmund had thoroughly enjoyed it, disarming people coming to him as easy as breath did his lungs; it fuelled his competitive streak. Peter had too, for a time, having temporarily befriended the lads on the team. However, much alike most things in Peter's life, the friendship was not too last. That week Peter had been kicked out, having 'accidentally' sliced Raymond Brant's cheek, leaving him needing several stitches.

 And in the end, there had been no real competition 

They'd had supper an hour ago, and the sun was just beginning to set over the streets of London as the brothers slipped through a dishevelled gap just behind a large oak tree, the usual passage the boys of Hendon would take in order to escape.

"Oi! You boys get back here, I'm warning you!"

It was the Headmaster, who had gone from observing fencing to observing them. Edmun and Peter shared a look. Peter remained entirely nonchalant, with his hands in his pockets, Edmund shaking his head with a grin and rubbing the palms of his hands together in anticipation. Just as the Headmaster got close enough to grasp them by their necks, they made a dash for it, in opposite directions down the road, splitting up as he came bundling after them, cheeks already crimson as his shins attempted to haul his bulging work-shirt after Edmund, who was already halfway up the road by the time he'd made it through the wall gap.

Peter looked back at his brother's antics, and halted in his tracks as Edmund swerved away from the Headmaster, taunting him, unaware of the series of girls watching from the dining hall window in curiosity.

And this is where our story begins.