𝙸𝚁𝚁𝙸𝚃𝙰𝙱𝙻𝙴. ➪ 𝙴. 𝙿𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚒𝚎

𝚘𝚗𝚎

"Phillis!" Virginia called for her daughter.
"Coming, Mother!"
Ralph and Virginia waited at the bottom of the stairs for their thirteen year old daughter. Elmer was round at the Pevensies for dinner. Peter had invited him over, as the two were best friends, and Elmer couldn't refuse because he'd developed a crush on the wisest of the Pevensies. Phillis teased him about it relentlessly, but he only fired back remarks about her secret love for Edmund. Phillis would always scoff. She despised the youngest boy. She found him intolerable. And he found her insufferable. So, they were quite happy to say they hated each other. However, Phillis adored Susan and Peter and trusted Lucy with her life. It was just Edmund she couldn't stand.

Ralph hugged his daughter tightly, kissing her forehead. "We'll be back before eight o' clock," he smiled.
"Okay," Phillis sighed.
"I love you, darling," Virginia smiled.
"Love you too," Phillis muttered.
And so, Mr and Mrs Opal left the Opal home to go for an anniversary meal, leaving Phillis alone with the family cat, Bea.

Phillis despised two things in this world. Edmund Pevensie and cats. So, when her parents adopted a little ginger kitten three years ago, Phillis was horrified. But the cat and the girl had learnt to avoid each other over the years.

Imagine Hell. It might sound something like this: your house is riddled with the one thing you try so hard to stay away from and the house next door had everything you adored and something one might consider to be a 'disease'.

Phillis was so up to date with the current matters concerning the war. She knew her father was at risk from being sent away, as Mr. Pevensie had, and her brother would be old enough to join soon enough. She found the speeches from Winston Churchill to be truly inspiring she understood why they withheld the power to make boys want to enlist. She didn't see the attraction with flying away to fight in a bloody war, but she did understand the urge to stand up and help as she felt that urge most days.

It was when the letter arrived in the post on the 28th of August, saying Ralph Opal was to be deployed on the first of September, that Virginia first grew infuriated at the war. As much as it had been a colossal disaster so far, it hadn't affected her, so she hadn't bothered about it. But now her husband was being ripped from her grasp and she wasn't sure if he was to return. She had a son who was practically queueing up to enlist, despite being merely sixteen years of age, and a daughter who was trying to figure out any possible way she could help the war effort. Virginia Opal couldn't escape the war and it infuriated her. And then the call that all city children should be sent away to a country home to protect them from the imminent attack came. At first, Virginia paid no mind to it, but then the first air raid came. Ralph had made her build a shelter in the back garden in case of a bombing.

It was the siren that scared Phillis the most. It came in the middle of the night and Virginia dragged herself out of bed and into Elmer's bedroom and then Phillis'. She shook her children awake and told them to get up and out of the house immediately. Virginia hurried downstairs and grabbed some necessities and shoved them into a spare biscuit tin. Elmer arrived at the foot of the stairs, a grumpy Bea in his arms. "Where's Phillis?" cried Virginia.
Elmer's eyes went wide and he hurried up the stairs again without saying a word to his mother. He barged through Phillis' slightly ajar bedroom door. "Philly, come on!" he said.
She was flicking through the drawers of her desk, clearly looking for something valuable. "Just a minute!" she called.
"Phillis!" his tone was firm and quite scary.
Phillis clearly found whatever she was looking for as she stumbled to her feet and grabbed a hardback book from her unmade bed. She'd retrieved a thick, damaged black leather notebook from her drawers and Elmer wasn't quite sure what was so important.

He grabbed her arm and dragged her from her room. The windows in Virginia and Ralph's bedroom smashed suddenly, clearly indicating that a house on their street had been hit by the Luftwaffe's bombs. Virginia stood by the back door, ushering her kids out of the house. They ran through the garden and into the Anderson shelter at the end of the plot of land. They could distantly hear the screams of the Pevensies next door. Virginia tossed a blanket, one that Helen had knitted Phillis for her eighth birthday, over her children. Carefully, Phillis opened the leather notebook and a picture of Ralph slipped out. No one said anything, but they saw. Phillis sniffled quietly as she carefully nudged Bea away from her.

The next day, Helen and Virginia agreed to send their children to the same house. A grand rural home owned by Professor Kirke. And that was all they told their children the day they were sent away on a train to wherever. "Keep her safe, won't you?" Virginia asked her eldest, kissing his forehead.
"Yes, of course I will, Mum," he nodded.
Virginia crouched down so she was level with her daughter. The station had never been so busy before and Elmer was in awe. He was excited to be going away with Peter, particularly Susan. He was sad to be leaving his mother, but he didn't see what all the fuss was about. "Don't let go of your brother's hand, okay? Remember, Peter and Susan will be there too. Along with Lucy and Edmund," Virginia smiled through her tears down at her little girl.
"We'll be together again soon. I promise you, it'll be so, so soon. I love you. Okay, run along now. You don't want to miss the train. Make sure you get a compartment!" Virginia called as she blew kisses to her children as they boarded the train to safety. Helen and Virginia cried into each other as they waved their children goodbye.