Me? Honestly, I was almost not surprised because of all the strange things that had happened to me. My parents however, were not as pleased, nor did they believe a word of the letter.
"Paige, I promise you that you are not a wizard-"
"Witch, mom…" I corrected her.
"Witch, whatever. You are not a witch; this is just a scam from some strange man in South America or something. They just want to kidnap you or-"
"It was on an OWL. An owl. How could a man from South America send a letter by owl?"
This conversation went on for a few minutes, until my dad came in.
"What the heck are you guys fighting about?" I'm pretty sure half my neighborhood heard him by now.
"Mom thinks the letter is a scam."
"Well, your mother is right. There is no need to go all the way to the train station just to be kidnapped."
"Ugh! I'm going to my room."
On the day that I was supposed to leave for this "imaginary" Hogwarts, I had come up with a plan. The first step of this plan was to ensure my parents that I was going to my friend's house. Alaina already knew about this, although she didn't know I would be going to Hogwarts.
I was rushing to get my stuff packed. I had stolen my mom's luggage and I was packing frantically. I mean, what are you supposed to pack for a school year at a school for witches and wizard? Do they even need hairbrushes? How about toothpaste, couldn't they conjure it from toads or something? I decided to pack all of that stuff just in case. I unlocked my window, and hoping my parents hadn't already installed a new alarm system, I open the window. At first I opened it up just a little bit, taking in what was about to occur, then I grabbed the handle of my suitcase, and climbed out of the window.
I sprinted at first, scared that my parents would see me walking down the street, but when I got around the street corner, I started walking. After about a mile of walking, with a suitcase practically bigger than me, I had to take a long break. I sat down and watched the people in their cars staring at me, knowing that they wouldn't stop to help me because they thought that I was a hobo.
After a few minutes into my break, a car actually started to slow down. I thought about running, but then I realized that they might report me to the police or something, so I was forced to sit there and wait for them to slow down and pull over to the side of the road. Trying very hard to put those years of drama camp to practice, I mustered up the best tough looking face that I could. I could tell it wasn't working as soon as a young woman stepped out of the car.
"Hello there," she said with a look on her face that made me think I was a stray puppy. "Are you trying to run away?" her voice became suddenly urgent.
"No, my family is um, trying to 'go green', so I am walking to the train station." I knew instantly that I didn't sound convincing, but she apparently bought it.
"Oh! Well, are you sure you don't need a ride? I'm heading to the train station, you can think of it as carpooling!" As soon as she said that, I knew that I was going to have to accept her offer.
When we got there, she tried to lead me to my platform. I told her it was platform 9, even though my ticket said platform 9 3/4. When we got to platform 9, I acted as if I was going to get on the train, by walking toward the train and then "losing" my ticket. She left and then I was standing there with no idea where my platform was. I checked the clock on the wall, 4:30, and the train was supposed to leave in 15 minutes! Glancing around the area, I saw parents and their kids, the kids all seemed normal. I was so desperate now that I was looking for people with pointy hats and wands in hand, but there was one kid that was now reaching down to his boot. He was putting something back in it, and for one split second I saw it. A wand.
I considered screaming for a brief second, and then I got back to reality. I discretely walked over to the boy, and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked at me in shock, obviously signaling that he was hiding something.
"Have you heard of a platform 9 ¾? My train is supposed to leave soon and I don't know where to find it."
Startled, he responded, "Are you a um, you know…"
"Yeah, I guess we are kind of on the same boat. Well? Do you know where the train is?"
"Oh, right. Follow me." He put on a grin that made me think that I shouldn't trust him.
