Hey, guys! I was glad to see someone took their time to follow me, and I really hope you enjoy this next chapter!

. . .

The escape of the boa constrictor gave Charlie her longest punishment ever: By the time she was allowed back out of her cupboard, the summer holidays had begun and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.

Charlie was glad school was over, but there was no hiding from Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the five, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Charlie Hunting, which consisted of them beating her up with their grubby, filthy fists.

This was why Charlie spent as much time as possible out of the house, sitting on the rusty old swing in the small playground at the end of their street and thinking about the end of the holidays, where she could see a tiny sliver of hope blooming. When September came she would be going off to her new 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. Charlie, however, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny, for some bizarre reason, whereas Charlie had to stuff her fist in her mouth to keep from laughing at Smeltings' ridiculous school outfit on him, which consisted of maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried tall, thin sticks, mostly so they could beat each other up when the teachers weren't looking.

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

"No, thanks," said Charlie, with a small smirk. "The poor toilets' never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick." Then she ran off, before Dudley could work out what she'd said.

But it wasn't like her own outfit was far better. She walked into the kitchen one morning and saw her scrubbing a pair of gray rags in the kitchen. "What are those?" She'd asked, and Aunt Petunia's lips tightened like they always did whenever Charlie even dared to speak. "This is your new school uniform," She finally said, and Charlie threw a disgusted look at the rags.

"Oh," She said, "I didn't realize it'd have to be so wet,"

Aunt Petunia sniffed angrily. "Don't be dumb- I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for you- It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished,"

Charlie seriously doubted it, but she just bit her lip as she sat down at the table, and tried not to think of the humiliation she would go through on her first day at Stonewall High. Uncle Vernon took a seat across from her at the table with the usual "Comb your hair!" just as Dudley walked in clad with his Smeltings' school uniform.

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. Charlie couldn't speak at all- her hand was covering her mouth as she burst into a fit of quiet, shoulder-shaking laughter.

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 Charlie get it," Dudley muttered without looking up.

"Get the mail, Charlie."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke her with your Smelting Stick, Dudley."

Charlie sighed, swooped down to avoid the stick coming her way, and went to retrieve the mail for Their Royal Highnesses. 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 Charlie.

Charlie's heart leapt. Nobody ever sent her mail before- she didn't have any friends, who could've sent it?

She peered closely at it, and her eyes widened. It was addressed by:

Miss C. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey'

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

She turned it over and bit her tongue in excitement. a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surround a huge letter H.

"Hurry up, girl! What are you doing- checking for letter bombs?" Uncle Vernon roared from the kitchen, then chuckled at his pathetic joke. Still grasping her letter with her long, pale fingers, Charlie walked into the kitchen as if in a trance. She gave Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust (he was so cheap Charlie wondered how he could've made it this far in his career), and flipped over the postcard.

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

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

Charlie, who was slowly unfolding her letter, glared at Dudley as Aunt Petunia ripped the envelope from her hands. "Let's see, girl, what you've got," She muttered, and as her eyes scanned the note her face became the color of rotten milk.

"Vernon- Come see this, Vernon!" She squeaked. Charlie stared helplessly as her uncle began to read the note. His face became very red, and his mustache twitched. "Give it back, you gits- that's my letter!" Charlie yelled and tried to snatch it back, but Uncle Vernon glared at her and read it again.

Dudley glared at his father and poked him with his stick. "Dad, I want to read it!" He whined, and Charlie was so mad she nearly pounced on him. Instead, she repeated, "Give me my letter!" And made a lunge for it.

"Get out, both of you!" Uncle Vernon ordered, but Charlie didn't move an inch.

"GIVE ME MY LETTER!" She screamed.

"Let me see it!" Dudley demanded.

"OUT! OUT! OUT!" Uncle Vernon roared, and, taking them by the scruffs of their neck collars, pushed them out of the kitchen. Dudley peeked inside the keyhole, and Charlie tried to peer through the slight crack between the door and the wall.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia said in a wavering 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 even be following us," He muttered as he jerked the curtains shut.

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

"No," he replied firmly. "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! Didn't we swear when we took the girl in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

Later that evening, when Uncle Vernon returned from work, he did something he never did: He visited Charlie in her cupboard. Her eyes, glistening with angry tears, suddenly turned hopeful as she asked, "Where's my letter? Who wrote it?" Uncle Vernon pinched the tip of his mustache.

"It was the wrong address," He finally said. "It wasn't meant for you."

"Liar- it had my cupboard on it!" She protested, and his mouth suddenly twitched into a very odd smile. "Charlie, your aunt and I have decided you've grown too much to live in your cupboard anymore, and decided you'll move into your cousin's second bedroom," He told her, and her eyes widened.

Why?" she suddenly asked.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's brat of a sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Charlie one trip upstairs to move everything she owned from the cupboard to this room- she hardly had any clothing, and of course she didn't have any possessions of her own. She gloomily sat down on the bed and stared at the room. Nearly everything in here was broken. The dusty old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.

She picked out a book and began to read, not really looking at the words. She heard Dudley throw a tantrum downstairs.

"I don't want her in my room; I need it, Mum," he argued with Aunt Petunia.

Sighing, Charlie shut her book shut and stretched out onto her bed. A few days before, she would've jumped with joy if she heard this would be her new bedroom. Now, she wished she'd just be holed up in her cupboard with her old-fashioned, yellow letter.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Charlie was thinking about this time yesterday and sincerely regretted she'd opened the letter in the kitchen.

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 Charlie (for a change), 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 Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive —"

"ARRGH!" Uncle Vernon roared. He leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Charlie at his heels. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Charlie had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick and Dudley's fists, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Charlie's yellow letter clutched in his hand.

"Go to your cupboard- I mean, bedroom- now, girl!" He shouted to Charlie. She clenched her hands and stiffly walked to her bedroom. Someone knew she'd moved out of her dark, spider-infested cupboard and they seemed to know she hadn't received her first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time she'd make sure they didn't fail. She had a plan. And even though in her gut she knew everything would backfire, she'd have to try to make sure she got that yellow letter before the Dursleys did.

When the broken alarm clock ringed at around 6 o' clock, Charlie silently crept out of bed, shut it off, and poked her head outside her bedroom. It was quiet and dark, but there was a very odd sort of sound echoing around the hall- sort of like a very large snore and an earthquake. She started to walk- but hadn't gone five inches when she stepped into something fleshy and big.

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

"My letters-" Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes, and she let out a muffled scream.

Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot, much to Charlie's extreme anger and disappointment.

"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."

He didn't appear to hear her; instead, he cheerfully hammered the mail slot. On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Charlie. 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.

Charlie, with extreme worry, knew her uncle was going completely bonkers.

"Daddy's gone mad, Mum, hasn't he?" She heard Dudley whimpering to Aunt Petunia, and shuddered. If he thought so too, it must've been serious. On Saturday, things began to get even worse (For Uncle Vernon, anyways). Twenty-four letters to Charlie 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.

Charlie had watched in helpless horror as they tore her yellow letters to bits.

"Who on earth would want to talk to you this badly?" Dudley questioned Charlie in amazement.

On Sunday, Uncle Vernon plopped at the table looking tired, and ill, and even uglier then he was before, but his mouth was stretched into a smile. "No posts on Sundays," He said gleefully to Aunt Petunia. Something came rushing 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. The Dursleys ducked, but Charlie leapt into the air trying to catch one, until Uncle Vernon screeched, "OUT, GIRL!" And pushed her out of the kitchen.

When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door 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 mustache at the same time (much to Charlie's complete disgust, he now only had half a mustache). "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 his half-mustache missing that no one tried to argue. About ten minutes later, they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. 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.

And so drove. And they drove. And 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 whenever he did this.

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 Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Charlie stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and trying hard not to cry, to scream, to throw a completely mad tantrum. 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- a tired-looking woman in a stained dress- came over to their table.

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Miss C. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred 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

Charlie made a grab 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.

"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 plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

'Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

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

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

Monday. This reminded Charlie of something. If it was Monday — and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television — then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Charlie's eleventh birthday. Of course, you could never call her birthdays enjoyable- on her last birthday, she received an ugly, old bow of Aunt Petunia's and a coat hanger- but you weren't eleven every day.

'Uncle Vernon was back and he was grinning so widely Charlie could see that his front teeth were chipping and growing yrllow. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked- quite timidly- 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, ugly gray rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable, tiny shack you could ever 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 disgusting, milky gray water below them.

'"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 across their faces, making them shiver uncontrollably. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, stumbling along the rain, 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, and much to Charlie's dismay, she wouldn't be sleeping in either of them- no, instead, she'd be sleeping on the couch, next to the damp fireplace. And it grew even worse from there.

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 shriveled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully, and it took Charlie all she had not to lunge at him and beat him up until he was a bloody pulp (not that she could even if she wanted to, anyways). He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Charlie privately agreed (though she'd rather swallow a raw salmon then admit it), though the thought didn't cheer her up at all.

As night came, 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 moldy, dusty blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Charlie was left to find the softest bit of raggedy couch she could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.

'The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Charlie, as usual, couldn't sleep. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach growling with hunger. Dudley's snores, which were about as loud as an earthquake, were drowned by the low shrieks of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Charlie she'd be eleven in ten minutes time. Smiling slightly, she lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Charlie 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? As much as she hated her life, she'd rather live without her note then die, death by crumbling rock.

One minute to go and she'd finally be eleven. Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… nine — maybe she'd wake Dudley up, just for the heck of it. Three, two, one- BAM.

The whole shack shuddered, and Charlie sat upright in the bed, clutching her thin, worn-out blanket tightly. Something was outside the door- someone was trying to get in.

I know this chapter wasn't very original, but I promise I'll portray Charlie as a bit more of a feisty character in the next chapter. Anyways, please review, and…

Love, hugs, and all that jazz,

Lyricalyrics