A Year with Aslan: Daily Reflections from The Chronicles of Narnia (15 page)

A
PRIL 22

Eustace’s Sufferings

If we could, of course, the sensible thing would be to turn west at once and make for the Lone Islands. But it took us eighteen days to get where we are, running like mad with a gale behind us. Even if we got an east wind it might take us far longer to get back. And at present there’s no sign of an east wind—in fact there’s no wind at all. As for rowing back, it would take far too long and Caspian says the men couldn’t row on half a pint of water a day. I’m pretty sure this is wrong. I tried to explain that perspiration really cools people down, so the men would need less water if they were working. He didn’t take any notice of this, which is always his way when he can’t think of an answer. The others all voted for going
on
in the hope of finding land. I felt it my duty to point out that we didn’t know there
was
any land ahead and tried to get them to see the dangers of
wishful thinking.
Instead of producing a better plan they had the cheek to ask me what I proposed. So I just explained coolly and quietly that I had been kidnapped and brought away on this
idiotic
voyage without my consent, and it was hardly
my
business to get them out of their scrape.

September 4. Still becalmed. Very short rations for dinner and I got less than anyone. Caspian is very clever at helping and thinks I don’t see! Lucy for some reason tried to make up to me by offering me some of hers but that
interfering prig
Edmund wouldn’t let her. Pretty hot sun. Terribly thirsty all evening.

—The Voyage of the
Dawn Treader

What is your reaction to Eustace’s description of the situation? What do you think Caspian’s, Edmund’s, or Lucy’s account of the same events might be? What is your tendency in times of crisis: to offer comment or criticism or to offer help and solutions? Which is easier?

A
PRIL 23

The Water Thief

September 6. A horrible day. Woke up in the night
knowing
I was feverish and
must
have a drink of water. Any doctor would have said so. Heaven knows I’m the last person to try to get any unfair advantage but I never
dreamed
that this water-rationing would be meant to apply to a sick man. In fact I would have woken the others up and asked for some only I thought it would be selfish to wake them. . . . I got out all right into the big room, if you can call it a room, where the rowing benches and the luggage are. The thing of water is at this end. All was going beautifully, but before I’d drawn a cupful who should catch me but that
little spy
Reep. I tried to explain that I was going on deck for a breath of air (the business about the water had nothing to do with him) and he asked me why I had a cup. He made such a noise that the whole ship was roused. They treated me scandalously. I asked, as I think anyone would have, why Reepicheep was sneaking about the water cask in the middle of the night. He said that as he was too small to be any use on deck, he did sentry over the water every night so that one more man could go to sleep. Now comes their rotten unfairness: they all believed
him.
Can you beat it?

—The Voyage of the
Dawn Treader

Have you ever known someone who was so self-centered that he or she did not seem capable of thinking of others? Under what circumstances does such a tendency become especially plain?

A
PRIL 24

Lucy and the Trees

I
NSTEAD OF GETTING DROWSIER
[Lucy] was getting more awake—with an odd, night-time, dreamish kind of wakefulness. The Creek was growing brighter. She knew now that the moon was on it, though she couldn’t see the moon. And now she began to feel that the whole forest was coming awake like herself. Hardly knowing why she did it, she got up quickly and walked a little distance away from their bivouac.

“This is lovely,” said Lucy to herself. It was cool and fresh; delicious smells were floating everywhere. . . .

Lucy’s eyes began to grow accustomed to the light, and she saw the trees that were nearest her more distinctly. A great longing for the old days when the trees could talk in Narnia came over her. She knew exactly how each of these trees would talk if only she could wake them, and what sort of human form it would put on. She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face, and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his face and hands, and hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah!—she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the lady of the wood.

“Oh, Trees, Trees, Trees,” said Lucy (though she had not been intending to speak at all). “Oh, Trees, wake, wake, wake. Don’t you remember it? Don’t you remember
me
? Dryads and Hamadryads, come out, come to me.”

Though there was not a breath of wind they all stirred about her. The rustling noise of the leaves was almost like words. The nightingale stopped singing as if to listen to it. Lucy felt that at any moment she would begin to understand what the trees were trying to say. But the moment did not come. The rustling died away. The nightingale resumed its song. Even in the moonlight the wood looked more ordinary again.

—Prince Caspian

What do you think causes the trees around Lucy to stir? Have you ever wished that desperately for something to happen?

A
PRIL 25

Them

O
H, GO AWAY
and mind your own business,” she said. “Nobody asked you to come barging in, did they? And you’re a nice person to start telling us what we all ought to do, aren’t you? I suppose you mean we ought to spend all our time sucking up to Them, and currying favor, and dancing attendance on Them like you do.”

“Oh, Lor!” said the boy, sitting down on the grassy bank at the edge of the shrubbery and very quickly getting up again because the grass was soaking wet. His name unfortunately was Eustace Scrubb, but he wasn’t a bad sort.

“Pole!” he said. “Is that fair? Have I been doing anything of the sort this term? Didn’t I stand up to Carter about the rabbit? And didn’t I keep the secret about Spivvins—under torture too? And didn’t I—”

“I d-don’t know and I don’t care,” sobbed Jill.

Scrubb saw that she wasn’t quite herself yet and very sensibly offered her a peppermint. He had one too. Presently Jill began to see things in a clearer light.

“I’m sorry, Scrubb,” she said presently. “I wasn’t fair. You have done all that—this term.”

“Then wash out last term if you can,” said Eustace. “I was a different chap then. I was—gosh! what a little tick I was.”

“Well, honestly, you were,” said Jill.

“You think there has been a change, then?” said Eustace.

“It’s not only me,” said Jill. “Everyone’s been saying so.
They’
ve noticed it. Eleanor Blakiston heard Adela Pennyfather talking about it in our changing room yesterday. She said, ‘Someone’s got hold of that Scrubb kid. He’s quite unmanageable this term. We shall have to attend to
him
next.’ ”

Eustace gave a shudder. Everyone at Experiment House knew what it was like being “attended to” by
Them.

—The Silver Chair

Who in your childhood represented
“Them”
? Did you ever undergo a change as Eustace does when you were a child? Or stand up to
Them
?

A
PRIL 26

The Lion-Skin Coat

I
WONDER WHO KILLED
the poor lion,” said Puzzle presently. “It ought to be buried. We must have a funeral.”

“Oh, it wasn’t a Talking Lion,” said Shift. “You needn’t bother about
that.
There are no Talking Beasts up beyond the Falls, up in the Western Wild. This skin must have belonged to a dumb, wild lion.”. . .

“All the same, Shift,” said Puzzle, “even if the skin only belonged to a dumb, wild lion, oughtn’t we to give it a decent burial? I mean, aren’t all lions rather—well, rather solemn? Because of you know Who. Don’t you see?”

“Don’t you start getting ideas into your head, Puzzle,” said Shift. “Because, you know, thinking isn’t your strong point. We’ll make this skin into a fine warm winter coat for you.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d like that,” said the Donkey. “It would look—I mean, the other Beasts might think—that is to say, I shouldn’t feel—”

“What are you talking about?” said Shift, scratching himself the wrong way up as Apes do.

“I don’t think it would be respectful to the Great Lion, to Aslan himself, if an ass like me went about dressed up in a lion-skin,” said Puzzle.

“Now don’t stand arguing, please,” said Shift. “What does an ass like you know about things of that sort? You know you’re no good at thinking, Puzzle, so why don’t you let me do your thinking for you? Why don’t you treat me as I treat you? I don’t think I can do everything. I know you’re better at some things than I am. That’s why I let you go into the Pool; I knew you’d do it better than me. But why can’t I have my turn when it comes to something I
can
do and you can’t? Am I never to be allowed to do anything? Do be fair. Turn and turn about.”

—The Last Battle

How does Shift talk Puzzle into the lion-skin coat? What would happen if Puzzle really did as Shift asked, and treated Shift as Shift treats him?

A
PRIL 27

The Plan to Impersonate Aslan

C
OME AND TRY ON
your beautiful new lion-skin coat,” said Shift.

“Oh bother that old skin,” said Puzzle. “I’ll try it on in the morning. I’m too tired tonight.”

“You
are
unkind, Puzzle,” said Shift. “If
you’re
tired what do you think I am? All day long, while you’ve been having a lovely refreshing walk down the valley, I’ve been working hard to make you a coat. My paws are so tired I can hardly hold these scissors. And now you won’t say thank you—and you won’t even look at the coat—and you don’t care—and—and—”

“My dear Shift,” said Puzzle, getting up at once, “I am so sorry. I’ve been horrid. Of course I’d love to try it on. And it looks simply splendid. Do try it on me at once. Please do.”

“Well, stand still then,” said the Ape. The skin was very heavy for him to lift, but in the end, with a lot of pulling and pushing and puffing and blowing, he got it onto the donkey. He tied it underneath Puzzle’s body and he tied the legs to Puzzle’s legs and the tail to Puzzle’s tail. A good deal of Puzzle’s grey nose and face could be seen through the open mouth of the lion’s head. No one who had ever seen a real lion would have been taken in for a moment. But if someone who had never seen a lion looked at Puzzle in his lion-skin he just might mistake him for a lion, if he didn’t come too close, and if the light was not too good, and if Puzzle didn’t let out a bray and didn’t make any noise with his hoofs.

“You look wonderful, wonderful,” said the Ape. “If anyone saw you now, they’d think you were Aslan, the Great Lion, himself.”

“That would be dreadful,” said Puzzle.

“No it wouldn’t,” said Shift. “Everyone would do whatever you told them.”

“But I don’t want to tell them anything.”

—The Last Battle

Why do Puzzle and Shift want such opposite things? How could two such different creatures be friends?

A
PRIL 28

A Sign

B
UT YOU THINK OF THE GOOD
we could do!” said Shift. “You’d have me to advise you, you know. I’d think of sensible orders for you to give. And everyone would have to obey us, even the King himself. We would set everything right in Narnia.”

“But isn’t everything right already?” said Puzzle.

“What!” cried Shift. “Everything right?—when there are no oranges or bananas?”

“Well, you know,” said Puzzle, “there aren’t many people—in fact, I don’t think there’s anyone but yourself—who wants those sort of things.”

“There’s sugar too,” said Shift.

“H’m, yes,” said the Ass. “It would be nice if there was more sugar.”

“Well then, that’s settled,” said the Ape. “You will pretend to be Aslan, and I’ll tell you what to say.”

“No, no, no,” said Puzzle. “Don’t say such dreadful things. It would be wrong, Shift. I may be not very clever but I know that much. What would become of us if the real Aslan turned up?”

“I expect he’d be very pleased,” said Shift. “Probably he sent us the lion-skin on purpose, so that we could set things to right. Anyway, he never
does
turn up, you know. Not nowadays.”

At that moment there came a great thunderclap right overhead and the ground trembled with a small earthquake. Both the animals lost their balance and were flung on their faces.

“There!” gasped Puzzle, as soon as he had breath to speak. “It’s a sign, a warning. I knew we were doing something dreadfully wicked. . . .”

“No, no,” said the Ape (whose mind worked very quickly). “It’s a sign the other way. I was just going to say that if the real Aslan, as you call him, meant us to go on with this, he would send us a thunderclap and an earth-tremor. It was just on the tip of my tongue, only the sign itself came before I could get the words out. . . .”

—The Last Battle

How could Puzzle know if the earthquake and thunder were a warning or a positive sign? Have you ever experienced something you took as a sign?

A
PRIL 29

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

T
HEY BOTH GOT UP
and left the tea things on the table, and Mr. Tumnus once more put up his umbrella and gave Lucy his arm, and they went out into the snow. The journey back was not at all like the journey to the Faun’s cave; they stole along as quickly as they could, without speaking a word, and Mr. Tumnus kept to the darkest places. Lucy was relieved when they reached the lamp-post again.

“Do you know your way from here, Daughter of Eve?” said Tumnus.

Lucy looked very hard between the trees and could just see in the distance a patch of light that looked like daylight. “Yes,” she said, “I can see the wardrobe door.”

“Then be off home as quick as you can,” said the Faun, “and—c-can you ever forgive me for what I meant to do?”

“Why, of course I can,” said Lucy, shaking him heartily by the hand. “And I do hope you won’t get into dreadful trouble on my account.”

“Farewell, Daughter of Eve,” said he. “Perhaps I may keep the handkerchief?”

“Rather!” said Lucy, and then ran toward the far-off patch of daylight as quickly as her legs would carry her.

—The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Why do you think Lucy is so quick to forgive Mr. Tumnus? Do you find it’s easier to forgive someone who asks for forgiveness? What conditions make it more difficult for you to offer forgiveness?