Crash!
I stood back aghast, unable to believe what had just happened. Every single CD in my brother's treasured collection lay smashed and scattered across the floor.
Moments earlier I had been reaching up to the top shelf of the huge unit that had housed Ben's vast selection of albums. I had known this was forbidden but he wouldn't have missed just one CD if I had returned it straight away the next morning.
Unfortunately, since Ben was much taller than me, I had had to climb onto one of the lower shelves to reach the disk that I wanted. I had just managed to slide the case from its place when all of the shelves had toppled down on top of me.
I was now standing in the middle of 74 shattered CD's. If I wanted to wake up the next morning, I knew I had to hide – and quickly.
As quietly as possible – though I wasn't sure that was necessary, considering the loud crash I had just made – I crept out of the bedroom and went straight to the one place in the whole house where I was sure nobody would find me.
Under the stairs was a small cupboard where my mother kept the vacuum cleaner. Behind that were all of the things that we never used, lying in untidy piles and gathering dust. At the very back of this tiny, cluttered storage space was a gap just large enough for me to squeeze into.
It was in no way comfortable, but at least this hiding place would keep me safe until the danger had passed. There was no way Ben would think to look for me in the spider-infested cupboard underneath the stairs.
A while passed before I found a bearable position. I managed to drag an old, orange, moth-eaten blanket out from beneath a smashed china plate and used it as a pillow. Slipping my trainers off, I curled up into a ball and tried to be quiet.
There was a long stretch of silence and I would have drifted off into a peaceful sleep if footsteps had not thundered past my head. The floorboards began to shake beneath me, as if a giant had just passed by.
"Dad?" I heard my brother's voice, realizing it was just Ben walking past the cupboard. My father grunted in response to Ben. I found myself crossing my fingers in the hope that my brother had not found the destruction that I had left in his bedroom. "Is that an owl?"
"An owl?" my Dad echoed my thoughts exactly. "At 11 O'clock in the morning? Are you sure it's not just a big pigeon?" I heard him wander across to the window by the front door. "Blimey! Your right, Ben! That is an owl!"
As quietly as possible, I turned around so that my ear was pressed right up against the wall. I wasn't sure if I was hearing Ben and Dad right. There couldn't possibly be an owl in ... in the broad daylight. There were rarely any owls at night around here.
"Do you think it's all right?" Ben asked, though he hardly sounded concerned. "Maybe it got hit on the head." I could just imagine Dad shrugging.
"I don't know, Ben," he admitted. "There could be an impossible amount of answers as to why that owl is outside at this time in the morning." There were more footsteps as Ben made his way to the kitchen.
"I'm going to go play football with Jake!" he yelled as the door slammed shut. I breathed a sigh of relief. If Ben was hanging out with Jake Brown from next-door then he wouldn't be seen for a while. It was possible that he wouldn't even return until the morning.
At last I could venture from my hiding place, though I wouldn't dare to with Dad standing right outside the cupboard door. Sinking back down underneath the piles of unwanted junk, I waited for him to leave the window.
Five minutes ticked by and I still hadn't heard any footsteps. I was beginning to think that I had missed them when the letter box on the front door clattered. Instantly I was curious. The postman only ever came at 1 O'clock.
"Em!" my Dad's loud voice made me jump. "Can you come here a minute?" I forced myself not to cry out as my head collided with the stair above me. There was a dull thump which I prayed my Dad to pass of as a noise coming from the kitchen.
"What is it?" my mother asked impatiently as she walked down the hallway. "I'm in the middle of making lunch." At the mention of lunch I felt my stomach growl loudly. I tried to ignore it.
"I know this is going to sound crazy," came my father's voice. "But there's an owl outside. And it just posted a letter through our door." Crazy was exactly how it sounded. My mother obviously thought so too.
"What?" Emily Frost cried as if she could not believe what she had just heard. Frankly, couldn't either.
"I know," my Dad replied. "But look at it." There was a brief silence as my father passed the letter to my mother.
"It's addressed to Rowan!" my ears pricked at the mention of my name. Was this a dream? Or had an owl really posted a letter through our door in the middle of the day with my name on it? "H-How is this possible?" my Mum continued, slight panic in her voice. "An owl? Are you sure the postman didn't just come early?"
"Positive – Ben saw it too," my Dad said. I pressed my ear even harder against the wall. Guilt was squirming in my stomach for eavesdropping on my parent's conversation, but they were talking about me.
"I really want to open it!" my mother murmured to my utter disbelief. No way could she be suggesting that they should open my letter.
"We can't!" my father cried, apparently as outraged as I was. "Its Rowan's letter – she should open it!"
"Come on!" my mother encouraged. "We have to see what's inside! Besides, it could be important."
"Okay," Dad sighed. "But we'll have to seal it up as soon as we've looked at it." I wanted to leap from the cupboard and rip the envelope from their hands, but I knew I couldn't. Instead, I lay on the ground where I was, struggling to contain the anger that was bubbling up inside of me as I heard the sound of paper tearing.
"Dear Miss Frost," my mother read. "We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry? Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on the 1st September. We await your owl by now later than 31st June. Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall Deputy Headmistress."
For a moment all I could do was stare at the wall, gawping. Then, as I heard more voices, I leant back against the wall.
"-Not what it says, is it?" my Dad's voice was asking, sounding slightly dazed. Then again, I was slightly dazed too.
"It is," my mother replied calmly.
"Emily Frost, please tell me you're kidding me on?"
"Read it yourself."
There was silence as my Dad read my letter. Nobody spoke for a long while.
"It's a joke," my father declared finally. "It's some bloody kids playing some stupid joke."
"It doesn't look like a kids joke, Will," my mother said slowly. "Look at the quality of the paper and there's even a wax seal. Somebody has put a lot of time and effort into this and I seriously doubt that children could write in such an old-fashioned style."
"Are you actually suggesting that this is all real?"
"I don't know."
I didn't know what to think either. A strong part of me believed my Dad – this was after all a bit to... magical to be real – however, a stronger part of me wanted to believe my mother. What she had said was absolutely true and made me think that it was unlikely that this was just a couple of kids goofing around.
"Well I know that this is all a loud of rubbish," my Dad scoffed, wakening me from my thoughts. "I really don't think we should share this with, Rowan." I felt my silent anger rise again, but continued to listen.
"Why not?" my mother demanded. "What harm could it do? It looks like just a bit of fun."
"No Emily!" my father snapped. "We don't want her getting excited over this. I'll only end in tears!" If I could have slapped him, I would. My eyes narrowed at the junk piles and my lip set in an unhappy frown.
"Just looks at what else is inside it," Mum went on."It could give us a clue."
"Okay," Dad agreed. Nobody spoke for a moment. "There's just a list of all the books and equipment Rowan would need. Look at all of this stuff! Where are we supposed to get a cauldron or a wand?" I had to admit, it did sound rather ridiculous.
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
"There's still a piece of paper inside."
I listened closely as my father pulled the paper from the envelope.
"It looks like... directions," my Dad decided. "They're trying to get us to drive to... Diagon Alley to buy stuff. I bet the place is made up." Diagon Alley? I hadn't heard of it either.
"There's only one way to find out if this is true," my mother told us. "Who knows – it could be fun! We'll soon find out if somebody is playing a trick.
"No!" Dad roared, scaring the living daylight out of me. "This is crazy!"
"Please?" Mum appealed. "There's no harm in it. We could tell the kids that we're going on a family outing." I raised an eyebrow at that one.
"No," Dad repeated firmly.
"We need to find out!"
I listened while they argued. It took a long time before Dad finally gave in.
"Okay," he sighed. "I'll go and round up the children. We'll see if we can find this so called 'Diagon Alley' after lunch."