Chapter Three
Dear Diary,
I was really rushing into things when I said I might actually have a chance to like Hogwarts yesterday. McGonagal and the rest of Groany Council just had to ruin things for me. Today when my dad came, he was really quite cheerful (and that's not often) because he'd just been to my brother's prize-giving ceremony. He went on being happy until the teachers "spoke to him about my unruly, crude behaviour on my June 30th incident". As if being forced into six days of child labour and going from the 'weird, quiet foreign girl' to 'mad lunatic off a banana boat from a third-world country' weren't punishment enough! Now my only consolation is that the 30th will be a day to go down in school history thanks to me, because after the professors had given dad their one-sided, exaggerated version of the story, even he was rather cross with me. He told me as we were on the way home from the station (we first went there from the school by Floo, using the sooty school kitchen fireplace—I'll bet they made it that way on purpose), and he was pretty mad all the way home—said something about my actions being "needlessly violent"—oh dear, and it's all that Longbottom fellow's fault. Ugh! Damn, why do all these people insist on making life difficult for me?
But anyway, by the time we got home, dad wasn't that miffed anymore (wouldn't have made a difference though, he went back to work soon after) and told me that he had been thinking about my "inefficiency in the English language" and then he
a) gave me a big hug and said it was all right.
b) gave me a big hug and said it was all right and even said he was proud of me for being an individual.
c) gave me a "Big Book of the Best English Poems—Commentary by &
Over-Qualified Professor".
Okay, give me the answer.
No.
No.
Nnnnn….YES!!! Finally you've got it, it's C!!!! (well, yeah, I made up the last bit about the guy's name.
My dad said to "ask Rabindranath for assistance if you need help", and then he was off. I was supposed to start on the thing pronto but I had to clean my room first. I nearly died then, after six days non-stop dusting and wiping and filing and cleaning at school, I had to clean my room too, of nine months dirt, all in a day. In the end the whole dust allergy thing got to me again—terrible, I sneezed so loudly that my brother said the whole flat shook (no, he's not very empathetic but I love him anyway). I think I will have to leave the room half cleaned and sleep in the living-room on the mouldy old couch instead.
S. Sundarya
8th July 2004
Dear Diary,
I didn't get a wink of sleep last night, I'd forgotten how bad that couch really is, the padding's collapsed and the springs underneath were all jangly and rusted and they kept pressing into my back. The musty, rough upholstery didn't help either and I spent the whole time lying awake with the springs pressing into my back, watching the street outside. I wonder what it's like out there at night.
Besides that, I didn't manage to convince dad to clean my room for me, he said he was too busy, so I ended up going down to the drugstore and buying surgical masks to keep the dust out of my nose (closest thing I could get to gas masks) and cleaning the darn place myself (dad said "Well, it's either you clean your room or sleep on the sofa for the whole summer." Arrgh."). Fat lot of help they were though, I'm still sneezing like anything, but I've gotten the cleaning done.
Now I've got another awful thing ahead of me though, I've got to read that book dad gave me (the guy sure knows how to ruin a holiday). Actually, I was trying to read it, until I got to the poem bit, the first one was Canterbury Tales, it was meant to be a funny poem but it's hard to find anything you don't understand funny. I tried asking my brother like dad told me, but he was reading one of those ultra-blobby-boring moral novels—Middlemarch—and they're even worse if such a thing can be possible, he said he couldn't help me and needed to "give this brilliant book full attention if I am to absorb all of it." Bloody blast, looks like I'm stuck now. I don't understand how Geoffrey Chaucer got through it although this great professor says it's wonderful, I'm not the type of person who just agrees on things without knowing them just because someone high and mighty says so. Arrgh, I wish dad weren't so gung-ho about such things, it's not doing me any good. Right now, I'm cursing so badly that I don't think I should write it down—oh, never mind, whatever $#()) (((& $ &&& &(&!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
S.Sundarya
9th July 2004
Dear Diary,
Nothing much happened today excepting the fact that I got an invite to a party, Hermione Granger's hosting. It's going to be a great big pool party extravaganza and then the usual boy-girl waltzing and cocktail-drinking social gig. She invited the whole school (she says), even the Slytherins, I expect she wants me to go on another rampage again. Fat chance, I'm not going, I'm so not going.
S. Sundarya
10th July 2004
Dear Diary,
I shall kick myself for my carelessness in disposing of trash forever and ever. I just chucked Hermione's fancy party invite into my book-end and dad found it, he's insisting I go, he says it's "only polite" and so there. He's also insisting we go shopping for dress robes since I didn't get any in Fourth Year, which resulted in my being banned from the Yule Ball (I was wearing homemade robes that were just an old school robe decked out with sequins and roses stuck on with a rather careless Sticking-On Charm), so we're going shopping tomorrow.
S. Sundarya
11th July 2004
Dear Diary,
We went to Diagon Alley to get those stupid robes today, all of us since dad said he "couldn't trust Rabindranath to stay at home alone and keep himself alive". So we had to stand in a wet bus-stop for two hours because the bus was late. The bus-stop was only four rods with a sheet of red spray-painted corrugated zinc balanced on it, so, needless to say, we all got wet. Dad swore, I swore, my brother swore (but I bet he only did it because dad and I did).
When we finally got to London after being tossed and rolled about in the bus (driven by this crazy guy whose eyeballs were popping out like he was reading Playboy or something), we got lost again because of this map I picked up at the tourist information stand that used only symbols so that it took three hours of hiking up and down town before we realized we were reading it upside down. It took a pretty long time before we finally found the wall that led to Diagon Alley.
My brother couldn't keep himself from peering at the goblins with an expression of extreme scientific interest and horrible fascination, he also kept asking questions and managed to infuriate the staff without meaning to. So it also took ages to get our money converted at the wizard bank—surly goblins make tardy bank-tellers.
After a long, long while, we finally got down to getting the robes. We went to Madam Malkin's, it was the only place I knew that didn't look too weird. Although with school robes she's alright enough, she's quite another thing when it comes to dress robes. When she saw me, she was immediately like "Ah! I know just what would look fabulous on you!" And then she went clattering off to the back of her shop, dug out this great big bolt of lilac silk and gold ribbons and then started measuring me. She made all sorts of remarks, here's the one that pleased me most: "My, you're very tall and thin dear, I think you'll look wonderful in your robes once I'm done with them." But then she asked me what they were for, and from that point on, things went completely downhill. Dad and Madam Malkin started talking about how "difficult it is to get teenagers to listen these days" and "how kids in the old days were much more mature and obedient". Even my brother rolled his eyes when I looked his way. As a result of their getting so wrapped up in their conversation, it was nearly eleven at night by the time we were finished.
When we got home, dad insisted on my wearing the robes and parading about to show them off, so it's one in the morning and I'm just getting off to bed.
S. Sundarya
12th July 2004
Dear Diary,
I didn't wake up until it was terribly late. Felt so stale that I didn't do anything but stay in my room and crack my brains on that poetry, I've gotten a little past the first three pages of the poem. I'm nervous about the party too, it's only two days away.
S. Sundarya
13th July 2004
Dear Diary,
I took out my swimsuit today to see what I looked like in it, it's this grey one-piece suit that I haven't worn in at least a year. When I tried it on , I found out two things, one bad, one good.
Good: It fits.
Bad: The colour's rather faded so I look very dead in it—greyer than I'm supposed to, and I've found a huge hole in the stomach area (I vaguely remember that last summer, the neighbour's kid came over to our place, hid in my closet and left holding a circle of grey material in her hand).
Fortunately, I managed to dig up another swimsuit, it's another old one—but intact—and it's a hot-pink one-piece with lacy black straps. I'd do something about it, just that I'm terrible at sewing and we're not allowed to use magic over the summer.
S. Sundarya
14th July 2004