The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. It was even longer than Olivia's longest punishment.
Her longest punishment happened when she was nine. She was mad at the Dursleys for taking her drawing book because she had drawn a witch for Halloween. Uncle Vernon took her picture and shredded it right before her eyes. Then made her follow him to the bathroom and forced her to watch him flush the pieces down the toilet. As he finished flushing it the toilet suddenly squirted a ton of water into his face. The house flooded with water 1 foot deep. According to Uncle Vernon, she had sabotaged the pipes and endangered the entire family's safety. Dudley had sworn that he had almost drowned in the water. Dudley had been 10 and over 5 feet tall, so she knew that he was lying. Olivia promised that she didn't know how it happened and how she watched Uncle Vernon flush it. But he punished her for flooding the house and lying.
By the time Harry was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started 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.
Harry and Olivia were glad school was over, but there was no escaping 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 lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting, if you got Olivia it was a bonus as she was quite hard to find and catch.
This was why Harry and Liv spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and playing Ditch the Dudley.
One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry and Olivia at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Olivia and Harry watch television and gave them a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for years.
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 in 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. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. Olivia on the other hand tried really hard to keep a poker face as she said. "Oh my God, where has the ogre gone, has anyone seen him? His name is Dudley. If you see him... Never mind I found him, he's in disguise." She got ready to bolt from the room.
Uncle Vernon's face turned from red, then to a deep shade of purple and he roared in anger. "BASEMENT... No dinner... One month..." and he lurched towards her and she took off down to her safe basement. She was now grounded for a month.
That night she heard Harry sneak down the stairs to the basement. She sat up on her couch. "Hey..." She moved over and Harry sat down and handed her the food.
"Wow... I can't believe you said that." Harry said grinning at her. "It was pretty funny though."
"What did Dudley look like after he realized what I said?" Olivia asked curiously.
Harry laughed. "At first he was confused but then he turned red and tried to punch me for laughing at him. I think he agrees with you."
Olivia laughed. "Totally..." she turned suddenly serious as she remembered that she had something to tell Harry. "Harry... I had the dream again..." Harry's face changed from laughter to concern in a flash. It was the same dream she'd been having for the past year. As it started out, she was soaring over a forest in the cool night breeze. Suddenly she started to fall. As she was speeding towards the earth she saw a man with a creepy looking thing coming out of the back of the man's head, standing there laughing at her. Then she hit the ground and woke up.
The dream itself was just weird, but what freaked her out was the laugh. It didn't sound human at all. It was like Dudley's fake cry mixed with nails on a chalkboard.
"Anything different?" She shook her head. "Same thing."
"Weird." He said and she nodded in agreement.
There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Olivia came up for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. She went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.
"What's that?" She asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if she dared to ask a question.
"Harry's new school uniform," she said.
Olivia looked in the bowl again. "Oh," she said, "Why's it wet?"
"I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for him. He will fit right in."
Olivia hoped that it turned out ok for Harry's sake. She sat down and wondered what it would be like with Dudley gone every night and him only coming home on the weekends.
Harry came in and asked Aunt Petunia if he would have to drench his clothes everyday before school, and Olivia had to stifle a laugh.
Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.
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 Harry get it."
"Get the mail, Harry."
"Make Dudley get it."
"Make Olivia get it." Olivia glared at Dudley, who tried to glare back meanly but looked like he was trying to get a fart out instead.
"Poke Harry with your Smelting stick, Dudley."
Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Olivia ate her bagel. Harry stood in the hall for a minute or two.
"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.
Harry came back to the kitchen, staring at a letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope. Olivia looked intently at it.
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, Harry's got something!" Olivia looked at Dudley.
Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.
"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch 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 grayish 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.
"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!"
They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry, Olivia, and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.
"I want to read that letter," he said loudly. want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."
"Can I read it? If you let Dudley read it I can read it for him." Olivia chimed in, Uncle Vernon didn't hear the last part.
"Get out, all of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.
Harry didn't move. "I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.
"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.
"I want to read it too!" Olivia said loudly. "Give it to Harry so we can all read it."
"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall and Aunt Petunia pushed Olivia out, then Uncle Vernon slammed the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the key hole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor. Olivia silently laughed at how stupid they were. And she snuck down to her room and listened through the floor boards.
"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where he 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 -"
Harry 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! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"
That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.
Apparently Uncle Vernon told Harry that he could have Dudley's extra room. Suddenly Olivia heard Dudley complaining to his mother, "but I don't want him in my room... I need that room... make him get out..."
Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather 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. Olivia wanted to know why they took Harry's letter. She wasn't even allowed to get the mail either.
When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, and 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! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -'"
With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him and Olivia behind Harry. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact
that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. And Olivia grabbing Uncle Vernon's hands. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.
"Go to your cupboard - I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Go to your closet- Dudley - go - just go."
Olivia was really interested now. Someone knew Harry had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again?
6 o'clock the next morning Olivia woke up to a scream. She ran upstairs just in time to see Uncle Vernon get off of the floor and Harry diving for cover. Uncle Vernon shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and Olivia went back downstairs to get dressed.
On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot, because Uncle Vernon nailed it shut, 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 Harry 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.
"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement. For once in her life, Olivia agreed with Dudley.
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. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one. Olivia did the same.
"Out! OUT!"
Uncle Vernon seized Harry and then Olivia around the waist and threw him into the hall. 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. 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 mustache missing that no one dared argue. Olivia packed up her clothes for five days, and Harry's birthday presents. 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.
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 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. Olivia got her own room. It was bigger than she'd had, and the bed seemed much bigger than her entire closet
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.
"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. 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:
Mr. H. Potter
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth
Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his 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.
"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.
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. Tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Last year Liv had drawn him a picture of her and Harry having a really good looking cake. But Liv's drawings were getting better. This year she had drawn him a really cool dragon and made a bracelet and found a bead in her dresser. It had coat of arms on one side, and three words on the back.
She was excited to give this to Harry because she didn't have money to get him any thing and he always got something for her. Her last birthday, he gave her a really cute necklace.
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. Olivia wrinkled her nose. "Do we have to?" She whispered to Harry. He hung his head.
"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-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 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 five 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.
He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him 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 moldy blankets in the second bedroom, 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 Liv and Harry were left to find the softest bit of floor they could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blankets they'd ever had.
The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. Livvy looked so peaceful, until her face started to change to look more scared. She started to toss and turn and mumble.
"No Liv, it's ok. It's just a dream." Harry whispered to soothe her. The reason she would sleep with him when she was little, was to stop the nightmares, but they've been coming back recently. If someone doesn't comfort her in time first she screams, and then she starts to shake and cry. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now. He also wondered what Liv was dreaming about. Last time she was falling to her death and a creepy dude was laughing at her.
Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he 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 he'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 he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty ... ten... nine - maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him - three... two... one...
BOOM.
The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.