Trust: The Magician's Nephew

Chapter 8

She ran back to the place where she had slept to find Fledge landing with Digory and Polly on his back.

She ran over to them and enveloped both of them in a hug.

"I've been so lonely without you." She said when she stepped back from the hug.

Then Digory stepped up to where Aslan was and pulled a silver apple out of his pocket.

"I've brought you the apple you wanted, sir."

"Well done," Aslan said in a voice that made the earth shake.

"Well done, son of Adam," the Lion said again. "For this fruit, you have hungered and thirsted and wept. No hand but yours shall sow the seed of the Tree that is to be the protection of Narnia. Throw the apple towards the river bank where the ground is soft."

Digory did as he was told. There was total silence so the thump of the apple landing could be heard.

"It is well thrown," Aslan said. "Let us now proceed to the Coronation of King Frank of Narnia and Helen his Queen."

The children now noticed these two for the first time. They were dressed in strange and beautiful clothes, and from their shoulders rich robes flowed out behind them to where four dwarfs held up the King's train and four river nymphs the Queen's.

Their heads were bare; but Helen had let her hair down and it made a great improvement in her appearance.

But it was neither hair nor clothes that made them look so different from their old selves. Their faces had a new expression, especially the King's. All the sharpness and cunning and quarrelsomeness which he had picked up as a London cabby seemed to have been washed away, and the courage and kindness which he had always had were easier to see. Perhaps it was the air of the young world that had done it, or talking with Aslan, or both.

"Upon my word," Fledge whispered to Polly. "My old master's been changed nearly as much as I have! Why, he's a real master now."

"Yes, but don't buzz in my ear like that," Polly said. "It tickles so."

"Now," Aslan said, "Some of you undo that tangle you have made with those trees and let us see what we shall find there."

Digory now saw that where four trees grew close together their branches had all been laced together or tied together with switches so as to make a sort of cage.

The two Elephants with their trunks and a few dwarfs with their little axes soon got it all undone.

There were three things inside. One was a young tree that seemed to be made of gold; the second was a young tree that seemed to be made of silver; but the third was a miserable object in muddy clothes, sitting hunched up between them.

"Gosh!" Digory whispered. "Uncle Andrew!"

Uncle Andrew had been planted by the other animals. The animals had thought he was a tree and therefore planted and watered him.

"Bring out that creature," Aslan said.

One of the Elephants lifted Uncle Andrew in its trunk and laid him at the Lion's feet. He was too frightened to move.

"Please, Aslan," Polly said, "Could you say something to — to unfrighten him? And then could you say something to prevent him from ever coming back here again?"

"Do you think he wants to?" Aslan said.

"Well, Aslan," Polly said, "He might send someone else. He's so excited about the bar off the lamp-post growing into a lamp-post tree and he thinks –"