The Magician’s Nephew. Клайв Стейплз Льюис

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      “Digory,” said the boy.

      “I say, what a funny name!” said Polly.

      “It isn’t half so funny as Polly,” said Digory.

      “Yes, it is,” said Polly.

      “No, it isn’t,” said Digory.

      “At any rate I do wash my face,” said Polly. “Which is what you need to do; especially after—” and then she stopped. She had been going to say “After you’ve been blubbing,” but she thought that wouldn’t be polite.

      “All right, I have then,” said Digory in a much louder voice, like a boy who was so miserable that he didn’t care who knew he had been crying. “And so would you,” he went on, “if you’d lived all your life in the country and had a pony, and a river at the bottom of the garden, and then been brought to live in a beastly Hole like this.”

      “London isn’t a Hole,” said Polly indignantly. But the boy was too wound up to take any notice of her, and he went on –

      “And if your father was away in India – and you had to come and live with an Aunt and an Uncle who’s mad (who would like that?) – and if the reason was that they were looking after your Mother – and if your Mother was ill and was going to – going to – die.” Then his face went the wrong sort of shape as it does if you’re trying to keep back your tears.

      “I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” said Polly humbly. And then, because she hardly knew what to say, and also to turn Digory’s mind to cheerful subjects, she asked:

      “Is Mr Ketterley really mad?”

      “Well, either he’s mad,” said Digory, “or there’s some other mystery. He has a study on the top floor and Aunt Letty says I must never go up there. Well, that looks fishy to begin with. And then there’s another thing. Whenever he tries to say anything to me at meal times – he never even tries to talk to her – she always shuts him up. She says, ‘Don’t worry the boy, Andrew’, or, ‘I’m sure Digory doesn’t want to hear about that’, or else, ‘Now, Digory, wouldn’t you like to go out and play in the garden?’ ”

      “What sort of things does he try to say?”

      “I don’t know. He never gets far enough. But there’s more than that. One night – it was last night in fact – as I was going past the foot of the attic stairs on my way to bed (and I don’t much care for going past them either) I’m sure I heard a yell.”

      “Perhaps he keeps a mad wife shut up there.”

      “Yes, I’ve thought of that.”

      “Or perhaps he’s a coiner.”

      “Or he might have been a pirate, like the man at the beginning of Treasure Island, and be always hiding from his old shipmates.”

      “How exciting!” said Polly, “I never knew your house was so interesting.”

      “You may think it interesting,” said Digory. “But you wouldn’t like it if you had to sleep there. How would you like to lie awake listening for Uncle Andrew’s step to come creeping along the passage to your room? And he has such awful eyes.”

      That was how Polly and Digory got to know one another: and as it was just the beginning of the summer holidays and neither of them was going to the sea that year, they met nearly every day.

      Their adventures began chiefly because it was one of the wettest and coldest summers there had been for years. That drove them to do indoor things: you might say, indoor exploration. It is wonderful how much exploring you can do with a stump of candle in a big house, or in a row of houses. Polly had discovered long ago that if you opened a certain little door in the box-room attic of her house you would find the cistern and a dark place behind it which you could get into by a little careful climbing. The dark place was like a long tunnel with brick wall on one side and sloping roof on the other. In the roof there were little chunks of light between the slates. There was no floor in this tunnel: you had to step from rafter to rafter, and between them there was only plaster. If you stepped on this you would find yourself falling through the ceiling of the room below. Polly had used the bit of the tunnel just beside the cistern as a smugglers’ cave. She had brought up bits of old packing cases and the seats of broken kitchen chairs, and things of that sort, and spread them across from rafter to rafter so as to make a bit of floor. Here she kept a cash-box containing various treasures, and a story she was writing and usually a few apples. She had often drunk a quiet bottle of ginger-beer in there: the old bottles made it look more like a smugglers’ cave.