CHAPTER TWO | school letters

𝔄fter the unfortunate incident with the reticulated python, Charlotte had made sure to stay well clear of Uncle Vernon (who had been on the war path) until they reached the summer holidays.

Then, school was over, and Charlotte was finally free. Except, Dudley's annoying gang of friends kept visiting their house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all stupid and annoying. Charlotte despised all of them and found herself spending a lot of time with her aunt, gardening and exploring the rest of the neighbourhood.

When September came, she would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in her life, she wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Charlotte, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school.

Dudley thought this was very funny.

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Charlotte. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"No, thanks," said Charlotte. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it. It'll be sick."

"Charlotte," Aunt Petunia warned, a smile hidden behind the magazine she was reading as the girl grinned to herself, leaving Dudley huffing in a corner.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform. That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up.

Charlotte knew that if she spoke, she would end up cracking most of her ribs from laughing too hard.

The next day, Petunia took Charlotte to get her school uniform, and much like the night before, had Charlotte try on the white shirt, tie and black skirt that she was supposed to wear. She then forced the cousins into taking photos together with both in their school uniforms, gushing over how perfect the two looked.

The morning after started normally, with Petunia trying to teach Charlotte how to cook pancakes and Dudley and Uncle Vernon sitting at the table watching the tv.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Charlotte get it."

"I'm cooking!"

"Get the mail, Charlotte."

"Make Dudley get it," She huffed.

"Poke her with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

"Auntie!" Charlotte called in response, sticking her tongue out as Dudley as his mother confiscated the stick from him. In the end, Charlotte did go and get the mail.

Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and a letter for Charlotte.

Charlotte picked it up and stared at it, her eyes wide. No one, ever, in her whole life, had written to her. Who would? She had no friends, no other relatives — she didn't belong to the library, so she'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Miss. C. Potter

The Spare Bedroom

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.

Turning the envelope over, her hand trembling, Charlotte saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.

"Hurry up, girl!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.

"I could only hope," Charlotte muttered in response, before returning to the kitchen, handing Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard and began to open her own envelope in the safety of the kitchen.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk...."

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Charlotte's got something!"

"You snitch!" She cried in response, as the letter was snatched from her hands by her uncle. "That's mine! Give it back!"

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. 

His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge. 

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise, her entire face going pale.

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Charlotte and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.

"I want to read it," said Charlotte furiously, "as it's mine."

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Charlotte didn't move.

"I WANT MY LETTER!" she shouted.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Charlotte and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them.

"This is all your fault. If you hadn't snitched, I could have shown you," She hissed, barging him out of the way as she listened to the key hole. Dudley growled, trying to push her away. "Ladies first, gentlemen after."

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address — how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching — spying — might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want —"

Charlotte could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer...Yes, that's best...we won't do anything..."

"But —"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! You had one and look how that turned out!" Vernon replied, and the conversation ended there.

Charlotte spent the rest of that day sulking in her room, muttering insults about her uncle. 

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Charlotte was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing she'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Charlotte, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Miss. C. Potter, The Spare Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive —'"

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Charlotte right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Charlotte had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind.

"Dudley, run!" Her cousin nodded, making a beeline for the door, but Aunt Petunia appeared and grabbed the letter from Dudley's hands as both cousins cried out in annoyance.

"You two, rooms now!" She cried, as Charlotte and Dudley stomped up the stairs to make another plan for the next time the letter came.

They came up with an ingenious plan.

The alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Charlotte turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the her aunt and uncle. She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. Her heart hammered as she crept across the dark hall toward the front door —

"AAAAARRRGH!"

Charlotte leapt into the air; she'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat — something alive!

Lights clicked on upstairs and to her horror, Charlotte realized that the big, squashy something had been her uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Charlotte, or Dudley, didn't do exactly what she'd been trying to do. He shouted at Charlotte for about half an hour and then told her to go and make a cup of tea. Charlotte shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time she got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Charlotte could see three letters addressed in green ink.

"I want —" she began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes. Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him. Charlotte had raised an eyebrow at her aunt, who had patted her hair and taken her and Dudley to the pool.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Charlotte. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Charlotte found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.

"I don't understand why they won't let us read one," Dudley said to Charlotte, both of them sulking in the corner of the living room and glaring at Petunia, who was glaring right back as she shredded the letters. "It's just mean."

"Tell me about it."

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.

"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today —"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. Petunia and Vernon ducked, as Dudley and Charlotte shared looks and dove for the letters.

"Out! OUT!" Uncle Vernon seized Charlotte around the waist and threw her into the hall, Dudley being thrown shortly afterwards.

As soon as Aunt Petunia was through the door, Vernon slammed it shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing (it was an improvement Charlotte thought) that no one argued. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the motorway.

Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.

They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.

"Shake 'em off...shake 'em off," he would mutter.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Charlotte shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Charlotte stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering about those letters.

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"Excuse me, but is one of you Miss. C. Potter? Only I got about an hundred of these at the front desk." She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

Miss. C. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

Charlotte made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked her hand out of the way. The woman stared.

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room, as Charlotte went back to sulking.

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a ploughed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

"Have you only just noticed?" Charlotte muttered in response, as Petunia sighed. There was nothing she could really say to the cousins.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley snivelled.

"It's Tuesday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."

Tuesday. This reminded Charlotte of something. If it was Tuesday then tomorrow, Wednesday, was Charlotte's eleventh birthday.

"And it's my birthday tomorrow. Can't we go home?" She added on to Dudley's point as Petunia sighed again.

"I know. We'll find somewhere with a television and do something nice for your birthday, Charlotte, I promise."

Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"

A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-grey water below them.

"Are you kidding me?" Charlotte raised her eyebrow, as both her and Dudley turned towards Petunia with wide eyes.

"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shrivelled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Charlotte privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer her up at all.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy blankets in the second room and wrapped the cousins into them, as they sat shivering on the sofa.

She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Charlotte couldn't sleep. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which Charlotte could just about make out, told her that she'd be eleven in ten minutes' time.

Five minutes to go. Charlotte heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although she might be warmer if it did.

Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that she'd be able to steal one somehow.

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?

One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds...twenty...ten...nine — maybe she'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him — three...two...one...BOOM.

The whole shack shivered and Charlotte sat bolt upright, staring at the door.

Someone wanted to come in.

Hiya,

So Charlotte and Dudley are just making plans to get the letters and generally being rude to each other. Also Petunia forcing them both to take photos in their school uniforms is kind of funny.

Let me know what you think,

Love Li xx