Schooldays of C.S. Lewis - boarding school misery and theological crisis.

Moonlight cuts the landing into pale bands as Alexander stops before the study door, the note heavy in his pocket. Lewis lingers a step behind, while the silence between them feels newly dangerous.

He turns the stolen paper over once, as if weighing a military order, then looks toward the corridor where prefects drift and vanish through the dark.

Alexander slips the note back into his pocket and starts down the landing, already choosing his next audience. Lewis follows, and the path ahead is no longer toward justice, but toward leverage.

Alexander pauses, his gaze lingering on the shadows where a group of older boys congregate near the common room entrance. He gestures toward them with a subtle tilt of his head, his expression devoid of warmth.

Alexander takes the confession in without smiling. The hard line of his mouth eases by a fraction, not into warmth, but into acceptance.

The corridor stays dim around them, the gas lamp shivering over the stone while moonlight lays a pale bar across the landing.

The joke lands sideways, dry as chalk dust. Lewis keeps his face mild, as if he has merely observed a convenient symmetry in the world.

For the first time, Alexander's mouth almost curves. It is a thin, private acknowledgment, but it changes the air between them.

Moonlight catches the edge of the note in Alexander's hand, while the gas lamp gutters lower above the stair.

Alexander lowers the note and glances toward the dark corridor, already weighing the usefulness of this small errand. The boots are back in Lewis's hands, and the landing feels less like a trap than a narrow passage forward.

The gas lamp dips again, and the moonlight sharpens along the stair edge. From below comes the faint stir of movement somewhere in the house, but no one steps into view.

Lewis stands with the boots and the brief leave he has been granted, while Alexander keeps the note and the upper stair to himself.

Lewis takes the stairs quickly, boots tucked tight against his coat, and the landing behind him falls away into moonlit stone.

He keeps to the edge of the hall, past dark panels and shut doors, every footstep softened by carpet and caution.

At Blugg’s room, he slips inside, sets the boots down, and straightens just long enough to leave them where they belong.

The floorboard gives under him with a sharp little crack, and he freezes before it can become a summons.

No one answers, but the sound hangs in the corridor like a dropped coin.

Lewis backs out with empty hands, feeling the errand done and the house a little more awake than before.

You have returned in one piece. Good. Keep that habit.

Lewis takes the rag and stoops to the refectory floor. The boards answer with a sour squeal under the moonlight, and the first passes only smear the dirt thin.

He kneels lower and works at the stubborn patch by the skirting, but his arms begin to shake. The cloth slips in his damp hand, and the shine stays stubbornly out of reach.

At the room’s edge, a line of old wax and grit catches his eye, pressed up where ordinary sweeping misses. It is not clean enough to fool anyone, but it shows exactly where the floor can be brought up with less waste.

Lewis shifts his weight, and a sting runs through his knees. He pauses a moment, breath shallow, while the rag hangs uselessly near the boards.

Blugg stays in the doorway, making no move to help, only watching for slowness. The floor remains dull where Lewis has worked, but the edge by the skirting offers a method, if not relief.

Lewis drags the rag along the skirting, and the packed grime yields at last. A pale strip appears beneath the moonlight, narrow but honest.

He keeps to the edge, working the boards where the scrub hides quickest. The rag darkens fast, and his wrist starts to ache.

The cleaner line runs farther than the rest, enough to show the floor can be done if he keeps at it. Behind him, Blugg’s silence grows heavier than the lamp ever was.

Lewis’s hand slips once on the damp cloth, and the skin at his knuckles stings against the boards. The scrubbed edge stays clean, but his fingers come away raw and blackened.

Lewis keeps at the skirting, but the rag skates on a damp patch and leaves a thin gray smear where the clean line should be. The boards take the polish in one stretch and the filth in the next, as if the floor is choosing what to surrender.

He shifts his weight, trying again from a new angle. His sore hand bites against the wood, and the effort only spreads the grime into a wider, duller streak.

The task is not finished, but the edge now shows its flaw plainly, a half-clean path that proves where the dirt lies thickest. Lewis can see that if he changes to the near end first, the stubborn patch may give way faster.

Blugg’s boot shifts a little farther into the doorway, and his shadow cuts across the strip Lewis has already made. The room feels smaller for it, but the floor is no longer a single broad failure, only a line with a weak point.

Lewis drags the rag back through the stain’s edge, and the gray line gives a little. Not enough to vanish, but enough to show the dirt is not one solid mass, only a crust with a softer seam beneath it.

He changes angle again, working along the weak spot instead of across it. The boards answer unevenly, one narrow band taking on a dull shine while the worst patch breaks into smaller, tractable streaks.

Blugg’s tone stays smug, but his boot eases back from the doorway. The refectory remains under his eye, yet Lewis has made one thing plain, the stain has a direction, and so does the work.

The rag comes away with a dark, wet line on it, and beneath that line the wood shows cleaner than before. Lewis has not finished the floor, but he has found the path that makes the task possible.

Lewis keeps to the skirting, but the rag catches on a raised splinter and slows him. The clean band widens by a finger’s breadth, then frays at the edge again, as if the floor will only yield in strips.

He shifts the cloth to the crack and works with the grain. Dust lifts in a thin gray breath, and for a moment the stain gives up a hidden seam of pale wood beneath the grime.

Blugg remains in the doorway, but his stance changes, less sentry now than overseer of a task that is beginning to make sense. The refectory stays quiet, the only movement the dull shine spreading along the boards.

Lewis has not won freedom from the work, yet he has found the split in the floor’s resistance. If he follows it, the scrubbing can be broken into manageable lengths instead of one useless battle across the whole room.

Blugg steps fully into the room, his shadow stretching long and dark across the freshly scrubbed wood, effectively sealing the exit.

Lewis drags the rag across the next boards, but the grain catches, and the damp smear blooms sideways instead of vanishing. Blugg’s shoes stop near the edge of the clean strip, his patience thinning as the floor answers stubbornly under Lewis’s hand.

He shifts his angle and tries again. The motion improves the patch by a little, enough to show the method works, but the rag frays on a splinter and leaves a grey thread snagged in the seam.

Blugg’s remark is not mercy, only permission, but it changes the room. He is no longer merely blocking the exit, he is judging the work, which means Lewis now knows the floor itself is the measure he must satisfy.

As Lewis lowers his head again, the clean boards stretch farther than before, and the next rough section comes into view beside the wall. The smell of wet polish hangs in the air, sharp and ordinary.

The sting in his wrist eases if he works slower. A narrow, usable rhythm opens up, and with it the possibility of keeping Blugg occupied without inviting another order.

Blugg shifts his weight, the floorboards groaning under his boots as he leans closer to the patch Lewis just scrubbed. He points a thick finger at a faint, lingering smudge near the corner, his expression hardening into a sharp, predatory mask.

Blugg does not wait for a response, his hand darting out to seize Lewis by the collar and haul him upright. The prefect's grip is iron, and he drags Lewis toward the center of the room, his eyes gleaming with the dark satisfaction of a man who has finally found his justification.

Blugg raises his cane, the wood whistling through the air as he tests its weight against his palm. He does not strike yet, instead letting the silence of the refectory stretch, his eyes fixed on Lewis with a cold, deliberate intensity that confirms the violence is not a possibility, but a certainty.

The cane descends with a sharp, stinging force that leaves Lewis gasping for air. Despite his resolve to remain silent, a sharp cry escapes his lips as the pain overwhelms his composure.

Lewis swallows against the pain and forces the words out. His voice comes thin, but it holds.

Blugg hesitates, cane lifted, his smugness tightening into calculation as the room goes very still.

Lewis keeps his eyes lowered. The blow has changed the air in the refectory, and Blugg now listens instead of striking.

At the edge of the room, Alexander remains silent, his attention fixed on the exchange as though weighing every word for its price.

Lewis steadies himself, then gives Blugg the shape of the thing, not the whole knife. Fribble has been using boys as couriers, runners, and cleaners, with notes and payments passed out of sight.

Blugg’s cane lowers a fraction. He does not look pleased, only newly attentive, as if a door has opened into a room he means to search.

Alexander’s mouth tightens into something almost amused. He looks from Lewis to Blugg, already measuring what this admission can buy.

Blugg releases Lewis’s collar, not from mercy, but because the exchange has become useful. He turns slightly toward the room, weighing the tale against his own advantage.

Blugg’s gaze hardens into a clerk’s attention. Lewis, still catching his breath, gives him names and duties, the boys who slip notes, the ones sent for ink, bread, coal, and excuses.

The prefect’s face shifts as the pattern becomes plain. This is no single prank, but a tidy little system with a center and routes, like a map folded in a pocket.

Lewis names the runner, then the second boy who takes folded notes past the servants’ door. Blugg listens without interruption, already filing the information away for use.

Blugg’s hand tightens on the cane, but he is not looking at Lewis now. He is looking past him, as if the refectory wall has become a window into Fribble’s reach.

Blugg turns his back on Lewis, his posture shifting from a guard to a predator scenting blood. He begins to pace the length of the refectory, his cane tapping a rhythmic, sharp cadence against the stone floor.

The words come out flat and small in the echoing refectory. Blugg stops pacing for a moment, then resumes, cane ticking once against the boards as if marking the value of the information.

Lewis stays where he is, breathing carefully. The prefect’s attention narrows, not on punishment now, but on tallying leverage.

Alexander’s voice is mild, almost amused, but his eyes do not leave Blugg. The balance in the room shifts, not toward mercy, but toward calculation.

Blugg turns partly back toward Lewis, no longer hunting him with the cane, but measuring whether he is worth more alive than broken. Lewis’s attempt lands, yet it does not buy safety, only interest.

Blugg lifts his head at once, the cane shifting in his grip as he measures the advantage. The refectory feels suddenly narrower, as if the walls themselves are listening.

Alexander's mouth tilts faintly, and his attention stays pinned to the note, already weighing who benefits from the report.

Blugg turns toward the door, decision made, while Lewis is left in the cold spill of lamplight, watching the power shift begin to move without him.

The Housemaster of School House listens to Blugg's account with a stony, unblinking intensity, his gaze sharpening as the prefect details the illicit courier network. He accepts the note as evidence without a word of doubt, his stern features hardening into a mask of cold, administrative fury.

The Housemaster strikes the brass bell, its sharp, resonant tone cutting through the heavy silence of the office. A servant appears at the doorway almost instantly, his face pale as he receives the order to fetch Fribble for an immediate reckoning.

Lewis takes the spare chair by the wall and waits. The Housemaster keeps the note under his hand, and the room goes still except for the ticking clock and the faint scrape of the desk blotter.

The door is ajar. Fribble will hear the bell before he sees the desk.

The servant hurries back into view, breathless, and whispers from the threshold that Fribble has been found. The Housemaster gives one sharp nod, sending him away again without a word.

Lewis stays silent, but the waiting costs him. His shoulders stiffen under the chair back, and the smart from Blugg's cane flickers anew across his side.

Outside, footsteps stop in the corridor. The Housemaster straightens, still and prepared, as if the entire school has narrowed to the strip of light under the door.

Lewis keeps his gaze on the doorway, and Fribble steps into the strip of lamplight at last. The Housemaster does not rise, only turns the paper slightly beneath his hand.

Fribble halts short of the desk, all color draining from his face as he sees the note. Lewis's mouth tightens with the effort of silence, and the old ache in his side sharpens.

The Housemaster's answer is a small movement of the hand, and Fribble's confidence collapses with it. Lewis sees the prefect's shoulders draw in, as if the room itself has turned against him.

Lewis does not smile, but inside the chair he feels the matter land cleanly. Fribble is ordered back into the corridor, and the Housemaster's lamp throws his shadow long and thin across the floor.