CHAPTER TWO:
The Home In England

Suddenly, the pilot called, "We will be reaching the London airport in about ten minutes. The time of day is now three fifteen in the morning of August third." When we left it was seven in the morning of August second. No, it was not a 20 hour flight. It's just that England was in a different time zone than California. Right now it wouldn't normally even be dinner time yet.

The weather was absolutely terrible. The sky was pitch black, (it was 3:15 AM though) and we had been experiencing very heavy rain that made a loud ruckus when it hit the plane ever since they were on the eastern half of the Atlantic. According to the pilot, it was 48 degrees with 'Very Heavy Rain' in London right now. Brr.

"Hey, we're almost there," I whispered to Tina, who was next to me on the plane. Whispering was necessary because more than half of the plane was asleep. And apparently, was Tina, I was able to gather by her silent response. I wished the plane would hurry up and land. I had been sitting in it for about 12 and a half hours and was getting pretty sick of the small, claustrophobic room I was in.

Suddenly, the 'Fasten Your Seatbelt' light ignited. A blonde stewardess said in a cheery voice, "We will be arriving shortly. Please fasten your seatbelt." As she did not bother to keep her voice down, just about everyone woke up at once, many grunted or yawned, and finally the engine made a different noise. I looked out the window. I could see a huge see of yellow dots, which had to have been London. Soon, there was a screech of tires and the plane rolled to a stop.

The stewardess rambled on again. "Blah, blah, blah, check your compartments for luggage. Blah, blah, blah, please exit the vehicle when the, blah, blah, blah." I wasn't really listening.

"Hey we're there!" That was Tina for you, as clueless as you can get. She was also a blonde.

"No, really?" I said sarcastically. I was starting to get crabby. I wanted off that plane.

Finally, we were in the London airport. I noticed that the lady in front of me that exited the airplane had some toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her shoe. As I tried to conceal a laugh, I noticed Tina doing the same.

"What's so funny?" my dad asked. Conrad nodded his head toward the toilet-paper-on-the-shoe lady and snickered. The toilet paper came off when she stepped in some gum. Gross.

Okay, so we were outside the airport, it was 47 degrees, and the black sky was pouring down rain. I shivered in my "Summery" outfit in the cold. When we left for the airport, I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt, but had pulled on a sweatshirt when we landed. Suddenly something occurred to me. "Dad, how are we going to get to the house from here?"

"When I was looking in the manual on England, I found out that there is a service called the 'Knight Bus.' You just put out your right hand and the bus comes to pick you up. The cars are waiting at the house." He put out his right hand, and, sure enough, along came a bus. But this was no ordinary bus. It was tree stories tall and was bright purple.

I snickered. "Jeeze, I knew that England had double story busses, but this is just ridiculous."

When we had finally gotten all our luggage on the bus, Tina and I started pelting our parents with questions.

"What was this new school called again?"

"Hogwarts, Tina."

"Why did we move here again?"

"Conrad! You should know that. Your father and I got an offer to work on a top-secret biological project. Sorry, but we can't tell you anymore that because it's top-secret.

So don't be blabbing to all those British kids at Hogwarts about it either, okay?"

Tina and I were muggle-born wizards. Our parents were both scientists.

"Sure," Tina and I replied.

Suddenly, the bus driver slammed on the brakes and our seats slid forward several feet. An old witch wearing bright green clothes hobbled out of the bus. The bus lurched ahead and sent our seats slamming against the back wall of the bus. My dad rubbed his back. My mom winced. Tina muttered something about crazy bus drivers.

It was about half an hour later and the bus had just roared away from the house and disappeared. I looked up at the street sign and then at the house. The address appeared to be Number 7 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surry. Sitting in the driveway were our two cars: My mom's blue Volkswagen New Beetle and my dad's red Ford Escape. They both had California license plates, as they had not yet been registered in England.

The house was a cookie-cutter house. That was the first thing I noticed about it. It looked exactly the same as all the other houses on the street, to the last perfectly manicured shrub. Thank god for the numbers on them or I wouldn't have known which one I lived in!

Tina seemed to have been reading my mind. "Wow. All these houses look exactly the same."

"Well, we need to get our stuff in," my dad said. Everything had already been moved into the house in advance except for our clothes and other accessories like such. Tomorrow, (or really today, as it was about 4:30 AM) we would have to figure out where we wanted all our stuff to be put. There was still a lot of work to be done. They went inside and plopped asleep wherever their beds had been put.