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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐕𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐆𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬

"Up! Get up! Now!" A shrill voice echoed through the house. I woke up. Oh dear God, not again. It was Mum, screaming at Harry.

"What day is it?" I muttered as I looked at the calendar. Holy lemons - it's my birthday!

"Up!" Mum screeched. I heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. I yawned once again before hurrying to the bathroom to find my outfit.

I hurried down the stairs wearing the yellow summer dress Aunt Marge sent for me. Mum was again standing in front of Harry's closet.

"Are you up yet?" she demanded.

"Nearly," said Harry.

"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy and Didi's birthday."

Harry groaned.

"What did you say?" Mum snapped through the door.

"Nothing, nothing..."

Mum looked up to see me. "There's the birthday girl!" she exclaimed as she hugged me. "Happy birthday darling!"

"Thanks, Mum," I said as Mum dragged me to the kitchen.

The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. That was exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to me, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise — unless of course, it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look at it, but he was very fast.

That minute, Harry entered the kitchen. I waved a little to him and he smiled back. Mum and Dad always said not to get too friendly with him, but Harry and I were close. He was one of the only friends I had. The only friend I have.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.

Dad entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.

"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Dad looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way — all over the place.

"There's the birthday girl!" Dad said as he hurried up to hug me as he sat down.

"Aw thank you, Dad," I said.

"The books you asked for, Diane," Dad said as he handed me a stack of books.

"Dad, this is awesome thank you!" I said as I hurried to kiss Dad on the cheek. I'm not like Dudley - I prefer books.

Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with Mum. Dudley looked a lot like Dad. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Mum often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel— Harry and I often said - in whispers - that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig. Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room.

Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.

"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at Mum. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.

I and Harry I, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down our bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.

Mum scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, Popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?"

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally, he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty...thirty..."

"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Mum.

"Because," I piped up, "thirty-seven plus two - add two fingers - thirty-nine."

"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel, ignoring me. "All right then."

Dad chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.

At that moment the telephone rang and Mum went to answer it while Harry, I, and Dad watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Mum came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.

Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but my heart gave a leap. YES! Maybe I could stay home with Harry! Yes, yes, yes! Every year on Dudley's birthday, our parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. I came along too, pretending to have fun. Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away every year. Harry hated it there, he kept telling me. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.

"Now what?" said Mum, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this.

"We could phone Marge," Dad suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."

Mum and Dad often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there— or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.

"What about what's-her-name, your friend — Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Mum.

"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer).

Mum looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon." And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.

"I won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.

"I could stay with him!" I suggested, but they weren't listening.

"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Mum slowly, "...and leave him in the car...."

"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone...."

Dudley began to cry loudly. He wasn't crying — it had been years since he'd cried — but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, Mum would give him anything he wanted.

"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.

"I...don't...want...him...t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!"

He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in Mum's arms.

I had to grab Harry's hand under the table for him to stop jumping on Dudley. "Oh don't," I whispered. "He's a git, he's not worth it."

Just then, the doorbell rang —

"Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Mum frantically — and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Harry and I, we're sitting in the back of our car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo. Mum and Dad hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Dad had taken Harry aside." I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly..."

But Dad didn't believe him. No one ever did. The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling us he didn't make them happen.

Once, Mum, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. I had slapped Dudley that night, reminding him to shut up or I would have shoved his face in the toilet.

The next morning, however, Harry had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Mum had sheared it off. Cool, isn't it? He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly. I kept unlocking the cupboard at night so we could see the stars together.

While he drove, Dad complained to Mum. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.

"...roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.

"I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly."It was flying."

Dad nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"

Dudley and Piers sniggered. I shot them both a look.

"I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream."

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. Mum and Dad bought Dudley, me, and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance, and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, I guessed because Harry was licking it as we watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.

"Looks like Dudley doesn't it?" I whispered to Harry.

"Yeah, except that it wasn't blond," Harry whispered back.

Harry was careful to walk a little way apart from Mum and Dad so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. We ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Dad bought him another one, and Harry was allowed to finish the first.

After lunch, we went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Dad's car and crushed it into a trash can — but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. It was fast asleep. Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

"Make it move," he whined Dad. Dad tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.

"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Dad rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.

"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.

"Snakes need sleep too, Dudley, you aren't the only one," I muttered angrily.

Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself — no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's. It winked. I gawked at the snake.

Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too. The snake jerked its head toward Dad and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling.

It hissed. Harry hissed back. "Harry?" I whispered. "Harry, are you okay?" But Harry didn't answer. I stepped back scared.

The snake nodded vigorously after Harry hissed.

Harry hissed again. The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry and I peered at it. Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and I read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. Harry hissed at it.

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry and me made all of us jump.

"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. I held out my hand.

What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leaped back with howls of horror.

Harry sat up and gasped; the glass in front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor.

People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"

The zoo director himself made Mum a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as I had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Dad's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.

But worst of all, for me at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"

Dad waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak.

He managed to say, "Go — cupboard — stay — no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Mum had to run and get him a large brandy.

"No!" I exclaimed as Harry dawdled back into his cupboard, "Dad, you've got to listen, Harry's not insane!"

But Dad shook his head and said thickly, "No." 

{Word count: 2661}