Blankets

The sun was shining outside, the warm wind complimenting the blue sky.

Eustace curled up in his bed.

Not his bed though, just the guest bed in his uncle's house. It was holidays, and he was staying with his cousin’s once again. But now everything was silent. The only thing he heard was his own breathing and the rustling of his blanket when he moved.

The house was empty.

Peter was somewhere, his uncle was away.
Edmund had left quite early in the morning, and this aunt and the girls had wanted to go to the park and have a picnic and whatever else you could do there.

Their original plan was for Eustace to come along, and until yesterday everyone had been alright with that.

But when they'd gotten up in the morning, for the first time in his life, Eustace had slept in and when he'd finally woken up, he hadn't felt well at all.

It wasn’t that hard to tell everyone he wasn’t coming with them, because when he came down the stairs, Susan had already asked if he wasn’t feeling well, just by his looks.

What had taken him a while was to convince Susan, Lucy and their mother that they could still go and he was capable of staying back alone.
But that had already been a while ago.

The tea next to his bed was cold already and he didn't feel much desire to drink it.

Another coughing fit hit him.
The silence following after was almost scary.

Eustace almost wished Lucy had stayed. Talking to her seemed so easy.
She just seemed to understand everything without him even saying it.
Also with her by his side, there was no need for him to talk. She’d find enough things to babble all over him.

She’d have told him about Narnia maybe, or about other things, and even if it had been most boring, he’d still rather have her talking than being here in silence and alone.

Eustace heard the door open.
“Hello?”, Edmund called out.

Eustace tried to answer, but his voice failed him miserably. Maybe he should have drunk that tea when it had been warm.

He slowly sat up and shuddered when the blanket left his body. It wasn’t too cold outside, and he knew, and that annoyed him terribly.
Gathering that blanket, he got up and quickly wrapped it around his body. Then he made his way out the room.

He stopped, when he heard a surprising sound.
It was a quite normal sound, but not one he had expected coming from Edmund. Not one he had expected coming from Edmund now.

Eustace heard the quiet tones of a piano.

Edmund certainly didn’t seem to be very good at it, but brought out some nice chords and a fitting melody, and that was more than most people Eustace knew had to offer, even if they were choppy and sometimes had long breaks between them.

It was also certainly more than what Eustace himself could do.

He walked on and finally reached the stairs and then he looked at Edmund sitting at the unused piano in the Pevensie’s house.

“Hello”, he finally managed to say.

Edmund spun around, on his face an expression of pure shock.

“What are you doing here?”, he asked.

“I stayed here.”

“I can see that, but why?”

Eustace looked down at the blanket around his body. “I’d deem it obvious”, he answered.
Edmund sent a glance at the blanket now, too. “Right.”

As if to underline that, the younger boy had to cough again.

“I didn’t know you played”, Eustace said, coming down the staircase.
“I don’t”, Edmund answered. “Just sometimes, when no one’s home.”

Eustace nodded knowingly.
“So I’m the first to find out?”

“Yes, and I’d rather have it if it stayed like that.”

Eustace nodded again. “Sure.”
He coughed again and sat down on a chair. “Do you want to continue?”, he asked. “And should I go upstairs again?”

His cousin shrugged. “I guess you can stay.”
With a smirk, he added:”Are you warm enough?”

Instead of laughing, Eustace had to cough again.
“Very funny”, he answered.