Then I started running out of time, so I just focused on a few activities that tied into elements from the end of the book. We began with comparing how Narnia was created by Aslan singing and the creation story from the Bible. We spent some time talking about how God formed everything just by speaking. This led to a great discussion about the power of words, that life and death come from the tongue.
After discussing the power of our tongues, I just had to do a variation of this toothpaste object lesson from Spell Outloud that I saw on Pinterest. The toothpaste tube became our mouths and the toothpaste represented our words. We talked about how we use words and what a mess they can make. Well, if you have an industrious, young teenager in the house, you will have to be able to improvise quickly when they have a smart idea.
He found a medicine dispenser and started suctioning the paste back into the tube. Clearly I should have laid out better parameters, eh? I pointed out that even when we apologize and try to take back our words, we still have a mess. And sometimes we can create an even bigger mess when we try to take our words back. We made an easy homemade English toffee recipe in honor of the toffee that Polly and Digory plant which grows into a toffee tree. They decided on a lego and a cupcake. Our 2 year old joined in the fun with a blue tree. The last activity we did was make a silver apple.
We covered a paper plate in aluminum foil and added a stem with leaves. For there were any number of pools in the wood, and the pools were all alike and the trees were all alike, so that if they had once left behind the pool that led to our own world without making some sort of land-mark, the chances would have been a hundred to one against their ever finding it again. Digory's hand was shaking as he opened his penknife and cut out a long strip of turf on the bank of the pool. The soil which smelled nice was of a rich reddish brown and showed up well against the green.
The quarrel lasted for several minutes but it would be dull to write it all down. Let us skip on to the moment at which they stood with beating hearts and rather scared faces on the edge of the unknown pool with their yellow Rings on and held hands and once more said "One—Two—Three—Go! Once again it hadn't worked. This pool, too, appeared to be only a puddle.
Instead of reaching a new world they only got their feet wet and splashed their legs for the second time that morning if it was a morning: We've put our yellow Rings on all right. He said yellow for the outward journey. Now the truth was that Uncle Andrew, who knew nothing about the Wood between the Worlds, had quite a wrong idea about the Rings. The yellow ones weren't "outward" rings and the green ones weren't "homeward" rings: The stuff of which both were made had all come from the wood.
The stuff in the yellow Rings had the power of drawing you into the wood; it was stuff that wanted to get back to its own place, the in-between place. But the stuff in the green Rings is stuff that is trying to get out of its own place: Uncle Andrew, you see, was working with things he did not really understand; most magicians are. Of course Digory did not realise the truth quite clearly either, or not till later.
But when they had talked it over, they decided to try their green Rings on the new pool, just to see what happened. But she really said this because, in her heart of hearts, she now felt sure that neither kind of Ring was going to work at all in the new pool, and so there was nothing worse to be afraid of than another splash. I am not quite sure that Digory had not the same feeling. At any rate, when they had both put on their greens and come back to the edge of the water, and taken hands again, they were certainly a good deal more cheerful and less solemn than they had been the first time.
There was no doubt about the Magic this time. Down and down they rushed, first through darkness and then through a mass of vague and whirling shapes which might have been almost anything. Then suddenly they felt that they were standing on something solid. A moment later everything came into focus and they were able to look about them. What they noticed first was the light. It wasn't like sunlight, and it wasn't like electric light, or lamps, or candles, or any other light they had ever seen. It was a dull, rather red light, not at all cheerful.
It was steady and did not flicker. They were standing on a flat paved surface and buildings rose all around them. There was no roof overhead; they were in a sort of courtyard. The sky was extraordinarily dark—a blue that was almost black. When you had seen that sky you wondered that there should be any light at all. Both of them, without quite knowing why, were talking in whispers.
And though there was no reason why they should still go on holding hands after their jump, they didn't let go. The walls rose very high all round that courtyard. They had many great windows in them, windows without glass, through which you saw nothing but black darkness. Lower down there were great pillared arches, yawning blackly like the mouths of railway tunnels. It was rather cold. The stone of which everything was built seemed to be red, but that might only be because of the curious light. It was obviously very old.
Many of the flat stones that paved the courtyard had cracks across them. None of them fitted closely together and the sharp corners were all worn off. One of the arched doorways was half filled up with rubble. The two children kept on turning round and round to look at the different sides of the courtyard. One reason was that they were afraid of somebody—or something—looking out of those windows at them when their backs were turned. They stood still and listened, but all they could hear was the thump-thump of their own hearts. This place was at least as quiet as the quiet Wood between the Worlds.
But it was a different kind of quietness. The silence of the Wood had been rich and warm you could almost hear the trees growing and full of life: You couldn't imagine anything growing in it. All we've got to do is to remember that our yellows are in our left hand pockets.
You can keep your hand as near your pocket as you like, but don't put it in or you'll touch your yellow and vanish. They did this and went quietly up to one of the big arched doorways which led into the inside of the building. And when they stood on the threshold and could look in, they saw it was not so dark inside as they had thought at first. It led into a vast, shadowy hall which appeared to be empty; but on the far side there was a row of pillars with arches between them and through those arches there streamed in some more of the same tired-looking light.
They crossed the hall, walking very carefully for fear of holes in the floor or of anything lying about that they might trip over. It seemed a long walk. When they had reached the other side they came out through the arches and found themselves in another and larger courtyard. In one place a pillar was missing between two arches and the bit that came down to where the top of the pillar ought to have been hung there with nothing to support it.
Clearly, the place had been deserted for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. You know a noise sometimes brings things down—like an avalanche in the Alps. They went on out of that courtyard into another doorway, and up a great flight of steps and through vast rooms that opened out of one another till you were dizzy with the mere size of the place.
The Magician's Nephew
Every now and then they thought they were going to get out into the open and see what sort of country lay around the enormous palace. But each time they only got into another courtyard. They must have been magnificent places when people were still living there. In one there had once been a fountain. A great stone monster with wide-spread wings stood with its mouth open and you could still see a bit of piping at the back of its mouth, out of which the water used to pour. Under it was a wide stone basin to hold the water; but it was as dry as a bone.
In other places there were the dry sticks of some sort of climbing plant which had wound itself round the pillars and helped to pull some of them down. But it had died long ago. And there were no ants or spiders or any of the other living things you expect to see in a ruin; and where the dry earth showed between the broken flagstones there was no grass or moss. It was all so dreary and all so much the same that even Digory was thinking they had better put on their yellow Rings and get back to the warm, green, living forest of the In-between place, when they came to two huge doors of some metal that might possibly be gold.
One stood a little ajar. So of course they went to look in. Both started back and drew a long breath: For a second they thought the room was full of people—hundreds of people, all seated, and all perfectly still. Polly and Digory, as you may guess, stood perfectly still themselves for a good long time, looking in. But presently they decided that what they were looking at could not be real people. There was not a movement nor the sound of a breath among them all. They were like the most wonderful waxworks you ever saw. This time Polly took the lead. There was something in this room which interested her more than it interested Digory: If you were interested in clothes at all, you could hardly help going in to see them closer.
And the blaze of their colours made this room look, not exactly cheerful, but at any rate rich and majestic after all the dust and emptiness of the others. It had more windows, too, and was a good deal lighter. I can hardly describe the clothes. The figures were all robed and had crowns on their heads. Their robes were of crimson and silvery grey and deep purple and vivid green: Precious stones of astonishing size and brightness stared from their crowns and hung in chains round their necks and peeped out from all the places where anything was fastened.
I bet this whole room is just stiff with enchantments. I could feel it in the moment we came in. But Digory was more interested in the faces, and indeed these were well worth looking at. The people sat in their stone chairs on each side of the room and the floor was left free down the middle.
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You could walk down and look at the faces in turn. All the faces they could see were certainly nice. Both the men and women looked kind and wise, and they seemed to come of a handsome race. But after the children had gone a few steps down the room they came to faces that looked a little different. These were very solemn faces.
You felt you would have to mind your P's and Q's, if you ever met living people who looked like that. When they had gone a little further, they found themselves among faces they didn't like: The faces here looked very strong and proud and happy, but they looked cruel. A little further on they looked crueller. Further on again, they were still cruel but they no longer looked happy. They were even despairing faces: The last figure of all was the most interesting—a woman even more richly dressed than the others, very tall but every figure in that room was taller than the people of our world , with a look of such fierceness and pride that it took your breath away.
Yet she was beautiful too. Years afterwards when he was an old man, Digory said he had never in all his life known a woman so beautiful. It is only fair to add that Polly always said she couldn't see anything specially beautiful about her. This woman, as I said, was the last: The thing in the middle of the room was not exactly a table. It was a square pillar about four feet high and on it there rose a little golden arch from which there hung a little golden bell; and beside this there lay a little golden hammer to hit the bell with.
They both looked at it hard and, as you might have expected, the letters cut in the stone were strange. But now a great wonder happened: If only Digory had remembered what he himself had said a few minutes ago, that this was an enchanted room, he might have guessed that the enchantment was beginning to work. But he was too wild with curiosity to think about that. He was longing more and more to know what was written on the pillar. And very soon they both knew. What it said was something like this—at least this is the sense of it though the poetry, when you read it there, was better:.
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger; Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had. We shall always be wondering what would have happened if we had struck the bell. I'm not going home to be driven mad by always thinking of that. What does it matter what would have happened? That's the Magic of it, you see.
I can feel it beginning to work on me already. You're just putting it on. Girls never want to know anything but gossip and rot about people getting engaged. I've had enough of this place. And I've had enough of you too—you beastly, stuck-up, obstinate pig! I can't excuse what he did next except by saying that he was very sorry for it afterwards and so were a good many other people.
Before Polly's hand reached her pocket, he grabbed her wrist, leaning across her with his back against her chest.
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Then, keeping her other arm out of the way with his other elbow, he leaned forward, picked up the hammer, and struck the golden bell a light, smart tap. Then he let her go and they fell apart staring at each other and breathing hard. Polly was just beginning to cry, not with fear, and not even because he had hurt her wrist quite fairly badly but with furious anger. Within two seconds, however, they had something to think about that drove their own quarrels quite out of their minds.
As soon as the bell was struck it gave out a note, a sweet note such as you might have expected, and not very loud. But instead of dying away again, it went on; and as it went on it grew louder. Before a minute had passed it was twice as loud as it had been to begin with. It was soon so loud that if the children had tried to speak but they weren't thinking of speaking now—they were just standing with their mouths open they would not have heard one another. Very soon it was so loud that they could not have heard one another even by shouting. And still it grew: Then at last it began to be mixed with another sound, a vague, disastrous noise which sounded first like the roar of a distant train, and then like the crash of a falling tree.
They heard something like great weights falling. Finally, with a sudden rush and thunder, and a shake that nearly flung them off their feet, about a quarter of the roof at one end of the room fell in, great blocks of masonry fell all round them, and the walls rocked. The noise of the bell stopped. The clouds of dust cleared away. Everything became quiet again. It was never found out whether the fall of the roof was due to Magic or whether that unbearably loud sound from the bell just happened to strike the note which was more than those crumbling walls could stand.
The children were facing one another across the pillar where the bell hung, still trembling, though it no longer gave out any note. Suddenly they heard a soft noise from the end of the room which was still undamaged. They turned quick as lightning to see what it was. One of the robed figures, the furthest-off one of all, the woman whom Digory thought so beautiful, was rising from its chair. When she stood up they realised that she was even taller than they had thought. And you could see at once, not only from her crown and robes, but from the flash of her eyes and the curve of her lips, that she was a great queen.
She looked round the room and saw the damage and saw the children, but you could not guess from her face what she thought of either or whether she was surprised. She came forward with long, swift strides. But you are only a child, a common child. Anyone can see at a glance that you have no drop of royal or noble blood in your veins. How did such as you dare to enter this house? The Queen put her other hand under his chin and forced it up so that she could see his face better.
Digory tried to stare back but he soon had to let his eyes drop. There was something about hers that overpowered him. After she had studied him for well over a minute, she let go of his chin and said:. The mark of it is not on you. You must be only the servant of a magician. It is on another's Magic that you have travelled here. At the moment, not in the room itself but from somewhere very close, there came, first a rumbling, then a creaking, and then a roar of falling masonry, and the floor shook. If we are not out of it in a few minutes we shall be buried under the ruin. Polly, who was disliking the Queen and feeling sulky, would not have let her hand be taken if she could have helped it.
But though the Queen spoke so calmly, her movements were as quick as thought. Before Polly knew what was happening her left hand had been caught in a hand so much longer and stronger than her own that she could do nothing about it. And now that she's got my left hand I can't get at my yellow Ring.
If I tried to stretch across and get my right hand into my left pocket I mightn't be able to reach it, before she asked me what I was doing. Whatever happens we mustn't let her know about the Rings. I do hope Digory has the sense to keep his mouth shut. I wish I could get a word with him alone. The Queen led them out of the Hall of Images into a long corridor and then through a whole maze of halls and stairs and courtyards.
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Again and again they heard parts of the great palace collapsing, sometimes quite close to them. Once a huge arch came thundering down only a moment after they had passed through it. The Queen was walking quickly—the children had to trot to keep up with her—but she showed no sign of fear.
Digory thought, "She's wonderfully brave. She's what I call a Queen! I do hope she's going to tell us the story of this place. She did tell them certain things as they went along: They had had rebellious thoughts. They came at last into a hall larger and loftier than any they had yet seen. From its size and from the great doors at the far end, Digory thought that now at last they must be coming to the main entrance.
In this he was quite right. The doors were dead black, either ebony or some black metal which is not found in our world. They were fastened with great bars, most of them too high to reach and all too heavy to lift.
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He wondered how they would get out. The Queen let go of his hand and raised her arm. She drew herself up to her full height and stood rigid. Then she said something which they couldn't understand but it sounded horrid and made an action as if she were throwing something towards the doors. And those high and heavy doors trembled for a second as if they were made of silk and then crumbled away till there was nothing left of them but a heap of dust on the threshold.
In the meantime, remember what you have seen. This is what happens to things, and to people, who stand in my way. Much more light than they had yet seen in that country was pouring in through the now empty doorway, and when the Queen led them out through it they were not surprised to find themselves in the open air.
The wind that blew in their faces was cold, yet somehow stale. They were looking from a high terrace and there was a great landscape spread out below them. Low down and near the horizon hung a great, red sun, far bigger than our sun. Digory felt at once that it was also older than ours: To the left of the sun, and higher up, there was a single star, big and bright. Those were the only two things to be seen in the dark sky; they made a dismal group. And on the earth, in every direction, as far as the eye could reach, there spread a vast city in which there was no living thing to be seen.
And all the temples, towers, palaces, pyramids, and bridges cast long, disastrous-looking shadows in the light of that withered sun. Once a great river had flowed through the city, but the water had long since vanished, and it was now only a wide ditch of grey dust. Does your uncle rule any city as great as this, boy? He was going to explain that Uncle Andrew didn't rule any cities, but the Queen went on:.
But I have stood here when the whole air was full of the noises of Charn; the trampling of feet, the creaking of wheels, the cracking of the whips and the groaning of slaves, the thunder of chariots, and the sacrificial drums beating in the temples. I have stood here but that was near the end when the roar of battle went up from every street and the river of Charn ran red.
May the curse of all the Powers rest upon her forever! At any moment I was ready to make peace—yes, and to spare her life too, if only she would yield me the throne. But she would not. Her pride has destroyed the whole world. Even after the war had begun, there was a solemn promise that neither side would use Magic. But when she broke her promise, what could I do? As if she did not know that I had more Magic than she.
She even knew that I had the secret of the Deplorable Word. Did she think—she was always weakling—that I would not use it? But the ancient kings were weak and soft-hearted and bound themselves and all who should come after them with great oaths never even to seek after the knowledge of that word. But I learned it in a secret place and paid a terrible price to learn it. I did not use it until she forced me to it. I fought and fought to over-come her by every other means. I poured out the blood of my armies like water——". For three days I looked down upon it from this very spot. I did not use my power till the last of my soldiers had fallen, and the accursed woman, my sister, at the head of her rebels was half way up those great stairs that lead up from the city to the terrace.
Then I waited till we were so close that we could see one another's faces. She flashed her horrible, wicked eyes upon me and said, 'Victory. A moment later I was the only living thing beneath the sun. And the women, and the children, and the animals. They were all my people. What else were they there for but to do my will. How should you understand reasons of State?
You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny. Digory suddenly remembered that Uncle Andrew had used exactly the same words. But they sounded much grander when Queen Jadis said them; perhaps because Uncle Andrew was not seven feet tall and dazzlingly beautiful. And the force of those spells was that I should sleep among them, like an image myself, and need neither food nor fire, though it were a thousand years, till one came and struck the bell and awoke me.
Have you a different sort of sun in your world? The Queen gave a long drawn "A—a—ah! She paused for a moment to look once more at the deserted city—and if she was sorry for all the evil she had done, she certainly didn't show it—and then said:. Polly and Digory looked at each other, aghast. Polly had disliked the Queen from the first; and even Digory, now that he had heard the story, felt that he had seen quite as much of her as he wanted.
Certainly, she was not at all the sort of person one would like to take home. And if they did like, they didn't know how they could. What they wanted was to get away themselves: Digory got very red in the face and stammered. It's very dull; not worth seeing, really. The Queen gave a contemptuous smile. But they all fell, and their very names are forgotten.
Do you think that I, with my beauty and my Magic, will not have your whole world at my feet before a year has passed? Prepare your incantations and take me there at once. I am not coming to fight against him. He must be a very great Magician, if he has found how to send you here. Is he King of your whole world or only of part?
Who ever heard of common people being Magicians? I can see the truth whether you speak it or not. Your Uncle is the great King and the great Enchanter of your world.
And by his art he has seen the shadow of my face, in some magic mirror or some enchanted pool; and for the love of my beauty he has made a potent spell which shook your world to its foundations and sent you across the vast gulf between world and world to ask my favour and to bring me to him. But in so doing she let go of both the children's hands.
They plunged their left hands into their pockets. They did not even need to put the Rings on. The moment they touched them, the whole of that dreary world vanished from their eyes. They were rushing upward and a warm green light was growing nearer overhead. Then their heads came out of the pool and, once more, the sunny quietness of the Wood between the Worlds was all about them, and it seemed richer and warmer and more peaceful than ever after the staleness and ruin of the place they had just left.
I think that, if they had been given the chance, they would again have forgotten who they were and where they came from and would have lain down and enjoyed themselves, half asleep, listening to the growing of the trees. But this time there was something that kept them as wide-awake as possible: The Queen, or the Witch whichever you like to call her had come up with them, holding on fast by Polly's hair.
That was why Polly had been shouting out "Let go! This proved, by the way, another thing about the Rings which Uncle Andrew hadn't told Digory because he didn't know it himself. In order to jump from world to world by using one of those Rings you don't need to be wearing or touching it yourself; it is enough if you are touching someone who is touching it.
In that way they work like a magnet; and everyone knows that if you pick up a pin with a magnet, any other pin which is touching the first pin will come too. Now that you saw her in the wood, Queen Jadis looked different. She was much paler than she had been; so pale that hardly any of her beauty was left. And she was stooped and seemed to be finding it hard to breathe, as if the air of that place stifled her.
Neither of the children felt in the least afraid of her now. They both turned and struggled with her. They were stronger than she and in a few seconds they had forced her to let go. She reeled back, panting, and there was a look of terror in her eyes. You cannot mean to leave me in this horrible place.
It is killing me. Do be quick, Digory. But as they jumped Digory felt that a large cold finger and thumb had caught him by the ear. And as they sank down and the confused shapes of our own world began to appear, the grip of that finger and thumb grew stronger. The Witch was apparently recovering her strength.
Digory struggled and kicked, but it was not of the least use. In a moment they found themselves in Uncle Andrew's study; and there was Uncle Andrew himself, staring at the wonderful creature that Digory had brought back from beyond the world. And well he might stare. Digory and Polly stared too. There was no doubt that the Witch had got over her faintness; and now that one saw her in our own world, with ordinary things around her, she fairly took one's breath away. In Charn she had been alarming enough: For one thing, they had not realised till now how very big she was.
But even her height was nothing compared with her beauty, her fierceness, and her wildness. She looked ten times more alive than most of the people one meets in London. Uncle Andrew was bowing and rubbing his hands and looking, to tell the truth, extremely frightened. He seemed a little shrimp of a creature beside the Witch.
And yet, as Polly said afterwards, there was a sort of likeness between her face and his, something in the expression. It was the look that all wicked Magicians have, the "Mark" which Jadis had said she could not find in Digory's face. One good thing about seeing the two together was that you would never again be afraid of Uncle Andrew, any more than you'd be afraid of a worm after you had met a rattlesnake or afraid of a cow after you had met a mad bull.
Now she's the real thing. Uncle Andrew kept on rubbing his hands and bowing. He was trying to say something very polite, but his mouth had gone all dry so that he could not speak. His "experiment" with the Rings, as he called it, was turning out more successful than he liked: Nothing at all like this had ever happened to him before.
Then Jadis spoke; not very loud, but there was something in her voice that made the whole room quiver. I hope you will excuse any—er—liberty these naughty children may have taken. I assure you, there was no intention——". Then, in one stride, she crossed the room, seized a great handful of Uncle Andrew's grey hair and pulled his head back so that his face looked up into hers. Then she studied his face just as she had studied Digory's face in the palace of Charn. He blinked and licked his lips nervously all the time.
At last she let him go; so suddenly that he reeled back against the wall. Stand up, dog, and don't sprawl there as if you were speaking to your equals. How do you come to know Magic? You are not of royal blood, I'll swear. The Ketterleys are, however, a very old family. An old Dorsetshire family, Ma'am. You are a little, peddling Magician who works by rules and books. There is no real Magic in your blood and heart. Your kind was made an end of in my world a thousand years ago.
But here I shall allow you to be my servant. You talk far too much. Listen to your first task. I see we are in a large city. Procure for me at once a chariot or a flying carpet or a well-trained dragon, or whatever is usual for royal and noble persons in your land. Then bring me to places where I can get clothes and jewels and slaves fit for my rank. To-morrow I will begin the conquest of the world. My eyes can see through walls and into the minds of men. They will be on you wherever you go. At the first sign of disobedience I will lay such spells on you that anything you sit down on will feel like red hot iron and whenever you lie in a bed there will be invisible blocks of ice at your feet.
The children were now afraid that Jadis would have something to say to them about what had happened in the wood. As it turned out, however, she never mentioned it either then or afterwards. I think and Digory thinks too that her mind was of a sort which cannot remember that quiet place at all, and however often you took her there and however long you left her there, she would still know nothing about it.
Now that she was left alone with the children, she took no notice of either of them. And that was like her too. In Charn she had taken no notice of Polly till the very end because Digory was the one she wanted to make use of. Now that she had Uncle Andrew, she took no notice of Digory.
I expect most witches are like that. They are not interested in things or people unless they can use them; they are terribly practical. So there was silence in the room for a minute or two. But you could tell by the way Jadis tapped her foot on the floor that she was growing impatient. Presently she said, as if to herself, "What is the old fool doing?
I should have brought a whip. I shall catch it. We must make some sort of plan. Hang it all, you can't leave me alone in a scrape like this. And if you want me to come back, hadn't you better say you're sorry? What have I done? Only struck the bell with the hammer, like a silly idiot. Only turned back in the wood so that she had time to catch hold of you before we jumped into our own pool. And I really am sorry about what happened in the waxworks room. I've said I'm sorry. And now, do be decent and come back. I shall be in a frightful hole if you don't. Ketterley who's going to sit on red hot chairs and have ice in his bed, isn't it?
Suppose that creature went into her room. She might frighten her to death. We'll call it Pax. I'll come back—if I can. But I must go now. We must now go back to Uncle Andrew. His poor old heart went pit-a-pat as he staggered down the attic stairs and he kept on dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. When he reached his bedroom, which was on the floor below, he locked himself in. And the very first thing he did was to grope in his wardrobe for a bottle and a wine-glass which he always kept hidden there where Aunt Letty could not find them.
He poured himself out a glass-ful of some nasty, grown-up drink and drank it off at one gulp. Then he drew a deep breath. And at my time of life! He poured out a second glass and drank it too; then he began to change his clothes. You have never seen such clothes, but I can just remember them. He put on a very high, shiny, stiff collar of the sort that made you hold your chin up all the time. He put on a white waistcoat with a pattern on it and arranged his gold watch chain across the front.
He put on his best frock-coat, the one he kept for weddings and funerals. He got out his best tall hat and polished it up. There was a vase of flowers put there by Aunt Letty on his dressing table; he took one and put it in his button-hole. He took a clean handkerchief a lovely one such as you couldn't buy today out of the little left-hand drawer and put a few drops of scent on it. He took his eye-glass, with the thick black ribbon, and screwed it into his eye: Children have one kind of silliness, as you know, and grown-ups have another kind.
At this moment Uncle Andrew was beginning to be silly in a very grown-up way. Now that the Witch was no longer in the same room with him he was quickly forgetting how she had frightened him and thinking more and more of her wonderful beauty. He kept on saying to himself, "A dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine woman. A distinguished-looking man, sir. You see, the foolish old man was actually beginning to imagine the Witch would fall in love with him.
The two drinks probably had something to do with it, and so had his best clothes. But he was, in any case, as vain as a peacock; that was why he had become a Magician. He unlocked the door, went downstairs, sent the housemaid out to fetch a hansom everyone had lots of servants in those days and looked into the drawing room. There, as he expected, he found Aunt Letty. She was busily mending a mattress. It lay on the floor near the window and she was kneeling on it.
Just lend me five pounds or so, there's a good gel. You will put me in a deucedly awkward position if you don't. There was a long, dull story of a grown-up kind behind these words. All you need to know about it is that Uncle Andrew, what between "managing dear Letty's business matters for her," and never doing any work, and running up large bills for brandy and cigars which Aunt Letty had paid again and again had made her a good deal poorer than she had been thirty years ago.
I shall have some quite unexpected expenses to-day. I have to do a little entertaining. Come now, don't be tiresome. At that moment the door was suddenly flung open. Aunt Letty looked round and saw with amazement that an enormous woman, splendidly dressed, with bare arms and flashing eyes, stood in the doorway. It was the Witch. Uncle Andrew cowered away from her. Now that she was really present, all the silly thoughts he had had while looking at himself in the glass were oozing out of him. But Aunt Letty at once got up from her knees and came over to the centre of the room. Instantly, as it seemed to Uncle Andrew, the Queen towered up to an even greater height.
Fire flashed from her eyes: But nothing happened except that Aunt Letty, thinking that those horrible words were meant to be English, said:.
It must have been a terrible moment for the Witch when she suddenly realised that her power of turning people into dust, which had been quite real in her own world, was not going to work in ours. But she did not lose her nerve even for a second. Without wasting a thought on her disappointment, she lunged forward, caught Aunt Letty round the neck and the knees, raised her high above her head as if she had been no heavier than a doll, and threw her across the room.
While Aunt Letty was still hurtling through the air, the housemaid who was having a beautifully exciting morning put her head in at the door and said, "If you please, sir, the 'ansom's come. He began muttering something about "regrettable violence—must really protest," but at a single glance from Jadis he became speechless. She drove him out of the room and out of the house; and Digory came running down the stairs just in time to see the front door close behind them. And with Uncle Andrew. I wonder what on earth is going to happen now.
If Aunt Letty had fallen on bare boards or even on the carpet, I suppose all her bones would have been broken: Aunt Letty was a very tough old lady: After she had had some sal volatile and sat still for a few minutes, she said there was nothing the matter with her except a few bruises.
Very soon she was taking charge of the situation. I will take Mrs. Kirke's lunch up myself. Kirke was, of course, Digory's mother. When Mother's lunch had been seen to, Digory and Aunt Letty had their own. After that he did some hard thinking. The problem was how to get the Witch back to her own world, or at any rate out of ours, as soon as possible. Whatever happened, she must not be allowed to go rampaging about the house. Mother must not see her. And, if possible, she must not be allowed to go rampaging about London either.
Digory had not been in the drawing room when she tried to "blast" Aunt Letty, but he had seen her "blast" the gates at Charn: And he knew she meant to conquer our world. At the present moment, as far as he could see, she might be blasting Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament: And there didn't seem to be anything he could do about that.
I wonder will she go all faint again there? Was that something the place does to her, or was it only the shock of being pulled out of her own world?
But I suppose I'll have to risk that. And how am I to find the beast? I don't suppose Aunt Letty would let me go out, not unless I said where I was going. And I haven't got more than twopence. I'd need any amount of money for buses and trams if I went looking all over London. Anyway, I haven't the faintest idea where to look. I wonder if Uncle Andrew is still with her. It seemed in the end that the only thing he could do was to wait and hope that Uncle Andrew and the Witch would come back. If they did, he must rush out and get hold of the Witch and put on his yellow Ring before she had a chance to get into the house.
This meant that he must watch the front door like a cat watching a mouse's hole; he dared not leave his post for a moment. So he went into the dining room and "glued his face" as they say, to the window. It was a bow-window from which you could see the steps up to the front door and see up and down the street, so that no-one could reach the front door without your knowing.
He wondered about this a good deal as the first slow half-hour ticked on. But you need not wonder, for I am going to tell you. She had got home late for her dinner, with her shoes and stockings very wet. And when they asked her where she had been and what on earth she had been doing, she said she had been out with Digory Kirke. Under further questioning she said she had got her feet wet in a pool of water, and that the pool was in a wood. Asked where the wood was, she said she didn't know.
Asked if it was in one of the parks, she said truthfully enough that she supposed it might be a sort of park. From all of this Polly's mother got the idea that Polly had gone off, without telling anyone, to some part of London she didn't know, and gone into a strange park and amused herself jumping into puddles. As a result she was told that she had been very naughty indeed and that she wouldn't be allowed to play with "that Kirke boy" any more if anything of the sort ever happened again. Then she was given dinner with all the nice parts left out and sent to bed for two solid hours.
It was a thing that happened to one quite often in those days. So while Digory was staring out of the dining room window, Polly was lying in bed, and both were thinking how terribly slowly the time could go. I think, myself, I would rather have been in Polly's position. She had only to wait for the end of her two hours: And in between these false alarms, for what seemed hours and hours, the clock ticked on and one big fly—high up and far out of reach—buzzed against the window. It one of those houses that get very quiet and dull in the afternoon and always seem to smell of mutton.
During his long watching and waiting one small thing happened which I shall have to mention because something important came of it later on. A lady called with some grapes for Digory's Mother; and as the dining room door was open, Digory couldn't help overhearing Aunt Letty and the lady as they talked in the hall.
But poor, dear little Mabel! I'm afraid it would need fruit from the land of youth to help her now. Nothing in this world will do much. If he had heard that bit about the land of youth a few days ago he would have thought Aunt Letty was just talking without meaning anything in particular, the way grown-ups do, and it wouldn't have interested him. He almost thought so now.
The Magician's Nephew Curriculum - Literature Study - Language Arts - Shop - Hands of a Child
But suddenly it flashed upon his mind that he now knew even if Aunt Letty didn't that there really were other worlds and that he himself had been in one of them. At that rate there might be a real Land of Youth somewhere. There might be almost anything. There might be fruit in some other world that would really cure his mother! And oh, oh—— Well, you know how it feels if you begin hoping for something that you want desperately badly; you almost fight against the hope because it is too good to be true; you've been disappointed so often before. That was how Digory felt. But it was no good trying to throttle this hope.
It might—really, really, it just might be true. So many odd things had happened already. And he had the magic Rings.
There must be worlds you could get to through every pool in the wood. He could hunt through them all. And then—— Mother well again. He forgot all about watching for the Witch. His hand was already going into the pocket where he kept the yellow Ring, when all at once he heard a sound of galloping.
I wonder what house is on fire. Great Scott, it's coming here. First came the hansom. There was no one in the driver's seat. On the roof—not sitting, but standing on the roof—swaying with superb balance as it came at full speed round the corner with one wheel in the air—was Jadis the Queen of Queens and the Terror of Charn. Her teeth were bared, her eyes shone like fire, and her long hair streamed out behind her like a comet's tail.
She was flogging the horse without mercy. Its nostrils were wide and red and its sides were spotted with foam. It galloped madly up to the front door, missing the lamp-post by an inch, and then reared up on its hind legs. The hansom crashed into the lamp-post and shattered into several pieces. The Witch, with a magnificent jump, had sprung clear just in time and landed on the horse's back. She settled herself astride and leaned forward, whispering things in its ear. They must have been things meant not to quiet it but to madden it. It was on its hind legs again in a moment, and its neigh was like a scream; it was all hoofs and teeth and eyes and tossing mane.
Only a splendid rider could have stayed on its back. Before Digory had recovered his breath a good many other things began to happen. A second hansom dashed up close behind the first: