Submitted by: Submitted by abhishiktav
Views: 10
Words: 52005
Pages: 209
Category: English Composition
Date Submitted: 09/09/2016 08:44 AM
THE SILVER CHAIR
by C.S. Lewis
First published 1953
VERSION 1.1 (Feb 04 00). If you find and correct errors in
the text, please update the version number by 0.1 and
redistribute.
CHAPTER ONE
BEHIND THE GYM
IT was a dull autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym.
She was crying because they had been bullying her. This is not
going to be
a school story, so I shall say as little as possible about Jill's
school,
which is not a pleasant subject. It was "Co-educational," a school
for both
boys and girls, what used to be called a "mixed" school; some said
it was
not nearly so mixed as the minds of the people who ran it. These
people had
the idea that boys and girls should be allowed to do what they
liked. And
unfortunately what ten or fifteen of the biggest boys and girls
liked best
was bullying the others. All sorts of things, horrid things, went
on which
at an ordinary school would have been found out and stopped in
half a term;
but at this school they weren't. Or even if they were, the people
who did
them were not expelled or punished. The Head said they were
interesting
psychological cases and sent for them and talked to them for
hours. And if
you knew the right sort of things to say to the Head, the main
result was
that you became rather a favourite than otherwise.
That was why Jill Pole was crying on that dull autumn day on the
damp
little path which runs between the back of the gym and the
shrubbery. And
she hadn't nearly finished her cry when a boy came round the
corner of the
gym whistling, with his hands in his pockets. He nearly ran into
her.
"Can't you look where you're going?" said Jill Pole.
"All right," said the boy, "you needn't start -" and then he
noticed her
face. "I say, Pole," he said, "what's up?"
Jill only made faces; the sort you make when you're trying to say
something
but find that if you speak you'll start crying again.
"It's Them, I suppose - as usual," said the boy grimly, digging...