Further Up & Further In

Peppermints

Jill didn't like Eustace Scrubb. Nobody liked Eustace Scrubb. He was tolerated - at most - by the older kids, and that was only because he worshiped the ground they walked on. All the other kids couldn't stand him. He was rude, and condescending, and yet still grovelled at the feet of the Gang as if he didn't have any pride at all. He was, in short, infuriating. Jill supposed maybe his mother loved him, but Jill herself was one of the latter. She didn't like Scrubb, and never would. It was as simple as that.

But nothing was ever simple, was it? Jill didn't like Scrubb, but he wasn't exactly the same boy he used to be. He was... odd. Now, for the older kids, "odd" chiefly meant that he no longer bowed to their every whim, and this made him a target. But for everyone else, "odd" meant anything from "inspirational" to "foolish." You'd have to be either very brave or very stupid, of course, to stand up to Them. That was something nobody did. Well, nobody but this boy who looked like Scrubb, and sounded like Scrubb, but didn't act like him at all. He was strange, to say the least. None of the other kids were certain what to think about him or his new attitude, yet, and so they largely left him alone, (with the exception of Them.)

Jill, however, still blamed him. She associated him with the kids who bullied her, and no matter how odd he got, that wasn't going to change. Not even when he sat with her while she cried, never once judging her for it. Not even when he offered her a peppermint. Not even when he started telling her about magic. Not even when... oh, but all too quickly, it did change.

They were holding hands, and it wasn't a big deal, because they were kids, and all at once they were on an adventure. Adventures changed people; Eustace Scrubb was evidence enough that. Adventures changed everything.

Eustace was less and less the Scrubb she had known, and Jill herself? Why, she didn't even know if she'd been Jill before. She wasn't someone else - not exactly - but she was closer. Closer to what, she didn't know, but she felt certain that was the right word. Eustace was Eustace, and Jill was Jill, and they were a little bit braver, and a little bit kinder, and a little bit more considerate than they had been before. If Eustace had seemed odd when the term started, he was doubly so now, but Jill didn't mind it. She'd be odd, too. They would fight off bullies with swords and riding crops, with a king by their side, and a lion at their back. Jill would learn the points of a compass, and she would learn how to shoot a bow, and she'd be a little more scared of heights, and a little less scared of the dark. She would. She could. This was who she was. This was who they were, now.

It seemed silly to Jill now that she hadn't liked Scrubb, and that she had thought she never would, because he was her closest friend. His friendship gave her strength. It gave her faith. It gave her hope, and other friends, and bravery, and dedication, and, a few years later, a tingly feeling in her stomach.

Oh. Well. That wasn't supposed to happen. Eustace was, first and foremost, her friend. Her Always friend. Her Forever Friend. And the idea of falling for him... well, it was awful! How was she supposed to hold a conversation with him when he talked about God, and the world's mysteries, and the night sky with such a matter-of-fact passion, that he started to look rather like the stars themselves in her eyes? How was she supposed to walk with him when in the back of her mind all she could think about was holding his hand back in Aslan's country, and how much she'd like to do it again? She could just reach out. She could just take it. But was it really that simple? No, she told herself, of course not.

So she'd be his friend, and try not to look startled when he dressed up particularly nice. She'd be his friend, and force conversations, even when she'd rather just listen to him speak. She'd scold herself, and dedicate herself to paying attention. She wouldn't be caught staring. She wouldn't say the wrong thing. She'd be his friend, always and forever.