Letters To Edmund |book 1|

Chapter 28. Professor Pevensie

The old man slowly picked up the boxes and carried them to the storage room. He didn't pay any attention to the ancient artifacts which were on the shelves as if he had already seen them too many times to be excited. His melancholy demeanor followed him every step he took.

He didn't even pay any attention to the girl who was helping him move the boxes until one of them fell from her hands. Professor Pevensie shook his head and turned it to the scene of scattered books on the floor, "clumsy child."

"I'm sorry," she picked up the books which fell from the box. Frantically trying to gather them as fast as she could, she didn't notice how all the books didn't have titles on them. Such a strange concept, a book without a title on it. 

Professor Pevensie walked up to her knelt down, and started gathering the papers with her, "hasn't anyone taught you to not be so clumsy?" He said it more as a question than a statement. He wanted to be anywhere else but there, and so did she. 

"Geez, what do you have against me? You don't even know me." Her bad habit of talking back to older people emerged again, and she bit her tongue, instantly regretting it.

"I know about you. The new girl who always gets in trouble. Why, when I was your age I'd keep to myself." He growled at her again.

Angelina decided to not comment on that, he was just another old man who thought that she was a no good teenager out to destroy the world he once built. She didn't know him, not that he was a war veteran, or how many people he had lost in his life. All she knew was that he reminded her of someone, someone almost unreal.

After silently helping the professor with his boxes she took a look at his desk. There was a photograph on it, a photograph of four kids smiling. It looked old, Angelina would at least give It 60 years. She made her way to his desk and picked it up, examining the picture. The yellow haired boy who smiled softly with an authoritative look, the brown haired girl with the most beautiful face Angelina had ever seen, then a smaller girl with a huge grin and shorter hair. Next to the young girl was another boy with very dark brown hair and beautiful brown eyes. He didn't smile, only grinned a little bit.

"My siblings." The professor spoke softly from a distance.

Angelina looked at him, "which one is you?"

"The one behind the little girl, not smiling." She knew exactly who he was talking about. Of course, he was the sad child at the end of the photograph.

"Why aren't you smiling?" Angelina wanted to smile at the old professor, but for some reason it felt inappropriate.

"I never liked smiling when I was a child." He simply looked at her, his face cold and expressionless, as the man himself.

She put down the photograph and slowly made her way out of the room, "I'll be on my way."

"Good riddance." The professor managed to spit out.

For some strange reason he was sad and miserable and anyone who knew him could tell. Of course, Angelina figured that it was his age that made him seem like an unfriendly part of the society. She quickly shook the professor out of her thoughts and picked up her bag from the floor. These were after school hours and she was shocked that she managed to spend extra time at school.

As she walked down the path, the same angry professor bumped his way through to get to the gate quickly and go back home. A single paper fell from his huge stack and Angelina ran forward to pick it up. When she caught up with the papers she looked around for the professor who was nowhere in sight.

She shook her head and furrowed her eyebrows reading the title of the paper, "Narnia". Not thinking much of the title she stuffed the paper into her backpack to give it to the professor later. It crossed her mind to find out where he lived and give it back to him, but that would be the most rash thing to do. He wasn't in dire need of it, at least she didn't think so.