“Half-way up the second flight of stairs, Edmund stopped quite suddenly.
Below him, his brother gasped, ‘Is it him?’
Edmund hushed him crossly.
‘But did you hear him?’ continued Eustace regardless, his eyes cast upwards.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s much too soon.’
‘Then why did you stop like that? We need to go to bed, Edmund. If we don’t go to bed, he won’t come at all!’
Edmund couldn’t fault his brother’s logic, but didn’t say so. Eustace was too full of himself as it was. Neither would he be putting into words what had brought him up so sharply these few short moments before. Older brothers didn’t go about the place explaining themselves, and anyway, how to explain it? There had just been something about the give of the worn tread under his bare feet, and a certain thing, just then, about the gleam of the bannister; and the clean smell of his own flannel pyjamas, as comforting as the palms of his mother’s hands; and also in the falling temperature, now that he was nearing the top of the house, these many steep stairs from the parlour. Edmund had noticed all these things, none, in their way, remarkable, but striking him with a sensation of importance.”
