Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia.

The Football Field

Edmund Pevensie wasn't happy about being sent away from home, he wasn't happy about his father fighting in the war, he certainly didn't like how his brother was treating him, or how much he was bullied at school. But most of all he was unhappy about the war, itself. It was spoiling everything, his family had been happy before the war; his brother had been his best friend. He was sick of it. Sick of everything to do with the war.

These were the kinds of thoughts running through the ten year-old's mind as he wandered the Professor's house. It was just before dinner and he was studiously avoiding his siblings, not Lucy so much, but Peter and Susan. They thought he was acting like a brat. Admittedly he hadn't been as nice as he could have been, but he wasn't nearly as bad as Peter had behaved at school. Just because he didn't act horrible directly to anyone, didn't mean ignoring your brother, especially when he was being beaten up by students your age, was very nice and that was what Peter had been doing all year.

Eventually he wandered into one of the bathrooms scattered throughout the house. He began peering into the many cupboards; he found quite a few different things: scrub brushes, toilet paper, towels, and more. But it was what he found in the last cupboard that took him by surprise; there, inside a cupboard, was a football field. A football field with goals, lines, and a few footballs. He just stared at it for minutes on end with his mouth open. Eventually he decided to go into the field, it was real. He spent hours there playing, and nobody noticed that he had vanished, not even Lucy noticed until he failed to show up for dinner.

The next day was rainy, and the Pevensies were all extremely bored. Susan had gotten them all playing a guessing game with what, in Edmund's opinion, was the largest dictionary in the entire universe, this world or the football field world, or any other world that might exist. She was currently quizzing Peter.

"Gas-tro-vas-cu-lar" said Susan, "Come on, Peter: "Gastrovascular."

Peter asked, "Is it Latin?" in a bored voice.

"Yes." Was the reply.

Edmund asked, "Is it Latin for the 'worst game ever invented'?"

Susan shut the book with slam. Lucy comes over and leans on the arm of Peter's chair; "We could play hide-and-seek." She said with hopeful eyes.

Peter replies sarcastically, "but we're already having so much fun." Of course they all knew he was about to relent; no one could resist Lucy's puppy-dog face.

"Pretty please?" Was all she had to say. Peter began counting. Edmund ran off to find a place to hide.

Not too long after this, Lucy burst out of the spare room, just as Peter reached one hundred. She yelled, "I'm back! I'm back! It's all right!"

Edmund poked his head out of the curtain he was hiding behind, "Quiet, Lu, he's coming!"

Peter came around the corner and said, "I'm not sure you two have quite got the idea of this game."

"But weren't you wondering where I was?" Lucy asked.

Edmund said, bitingly, "That's why he was seeking you."
"Does this mean I win?" Susan asked helpfully, as she came to see what was happening.

"I don't think Lucy wants to play anymore." Peter said.
Lucy, looking very confused, said, "But I've been gone for…for hours..."

Everyone went into the spare room to examine the wardrobe, the first one to say anything after they had finished was Susan: "The only wood in there is the back of the wardrobe."

Peter added, "One game at a time, Lu. We don't all have your imagination."

"But I wasn't imagining!"
Susan said, 'That's enough."
"I wouldn't lie about this!"
Meanwhile, Edmund was thinking hard, If I can find a football field in a cupboard, surely Lucy can find a wood in a wardrobe. It's not even that unlikely that the time flow is different in other worlds. The football field would be the same, because, if our world were like a castle, it's more like a secret room, while this Narnia place is a whole different castle that just happens to be nearby. "Well I believe you."

Lucy looked at him in disbelief, "You do?"

"Of course, didn't I tell you about the football field in the bathroom cupboard?" He'd meant to tell Lucy, 'though he knew Peter and Susan would never believe him.

Peter said, "Oh, will you just stop it? You always have to make everything worse."
"I'm not making fun of Lucy! There is a-"
Peter cut him off, "When are you going to learn to grow up?" Edmund lost his temper at this; that was something Dad used to say to him when he'd done something that disappointed his father, Peter shouldn't be saying it. "You think your Dad, but your not!" He yelled, and ran out of the room.

As he left he heard Susan say, "Well, that was nicely handled!" and saw her leave the room as well.

Edmund, feeling as though he wanted to cry, went to the only place he could be alone: The football field.

That night he had followed Lucy into Narnia, and met the White Witch. He wasn't sure if she was telling the truth, as she seemed to be the villain from Lucy's telling. But first he wanted to prove to Lucy that he hadn't been making fun of her. "Lucy, you know what I was saying this morning? I really did believe you, there is a football field in the cupboard."

Lucy didn't believe him, it never really occurred to her that he could be telling the truth. "Ed, it doesn't matter. You don't have to pretend anything exists to make me feel better."

All right then, he though, See if Peter and Susan believe you when I tell them we were playing. That'll show you to believe me.

Lucy yelled, "Peter, Peter wake up! It's there, it's really there!" Just as soon as they got into the boys' room.
Peter rolled over as Lucy jumped onto his bed and bounced,. He murmured, "Lucy, what are talking about?"

"Narnia! It's all in the wardrobe, like I told you"
Susan, who had come to see what the fuss was all about, said, "Oh Lucy, you've been dreaming."
Lucy protested, "But I haven't! I've seen Mr. Tumnus again! Oh, and this time - Edmund went too."
At this Peter asked Edmund, "You saw the faun?"
Lucy answered for Edmund, "Well, he didn't actually go there with me… What were you doing Edmund?"
Edmund, thinking it was time for his revenge, said, "I'm sorry, Peter. I shouldn't have encouraged her."
Lucy ran out the room sobbing, Susan and Peter soon followed, Peter pushed his younger brother over as he left.

They had gotten back into Narnia, found that the Witch had taken Mr. Tumnus, and were now following a Beaver back to his house. As they walked, Edmund pulled Lucy to the side. He had decided that he needed to find out if his family would ever believe him. For some reason he felt that this would show whether or not his family cared for him at all. Whether or not you, the reader, think this was rational is for you to decide, the point is that it seemed true to Edmund.

So he again asked Lucy if she believed him about the football field. Apparently she didn't. "Edmund, why do you want to trick me so much?"

"Because it's true." Edmund said, begging her with his eyes.

Lucy said, "Edmund, I'm not that gullible! Really, you've tricked me like that too many times for me to believe you." She walked over to talk with Mr. Beaver.

Well, that fixes it. Edmund thought, They really don't care about me. The Queen was right, I've tried being nice and they all thought I was just trying to be nasty. They don't care at all.

Everything that happened in the wardrobe is recorded in another story, my story concerns only a disbelieved boy and a football field in an unlikely place. So my story shall end not long after those who became High King Peter the Magnificent, Queen Susan the Gentle, King Edmund the Just, and Queen Lucy the Valiant left the wardrobe through which they traveled to Narnia.

That afternoon, Peter and Susan were off doing something-or-other, Edmund again pulled Lucy aside. "Lucy, do you remember how I kept trying to tell you about a football field in the bathroom cupboard?"

Lucy said, "let me think... Oh, yes! You were forever trying to trick me into believing you..." Her eyes widened as she thought, for the first time, that he might have been telling the truth. "It wasn't a trick, was it?"

"No, it wasn't." Edmund stated.

Lucy hugged him, "I'm so sorry, Ed. I never even stopped to think that you might be telling the truth."

"it's fine, Lu, I never should have expected anyone to believe me. I had played to many tricks too many tricks for any of you to believe me. Do you want go play?"

Lucy grinned, "Of course, good sir."

Edmund extended his arm to his little sister, and they went together to play football.

Later that day, Peter was wondering where his youngest two siblings were. He saw Susan and asked her: "Have you seen Edmund and Lucy?"

Susan turned and replied, "No, I was just going to look for them, it's not like them to disappear." In Narnia they had always stuck together if they were anywhere but Cair Paravel, and as they had just gotten back, Susan felt quite the same about the Professor's house as she would about a foreign monarch's castle.

They started looking together, and just as they were getting worried, they saw the two they were looking for. Edmund and Lucy were walking towards them, looking sweaty and somewhat disheveled. Peter asked, "Where have you two been?"

They turned, grinning, and Edmund said, "Playing football-"

Lucy finished; "-In the bathroom cupboard."

Their older siblings could do nothing but stare.

A/N: I'm having a bit of writer's block with my other story The Snow Queen, so I wrote a one-shot about a subject I've been wondering about for a while. Please review!