Chapter 2: An Unwanted Crush

It was almost 5:00pm when Ellie was walking alone down Magnolia Rd. towards the driveway that lead up to her house. She pushed open the door, which was never locked at this time of day, and almost tripped over a pair of size eleven Nike running shoes that had been carelessly left in the entranceway. She then glanced down and saw that there were four other pairs of running shoes, only one of them belonging to Dennis. Ellie let out a low groan. Dennis's friends were visiting.

Ellie carefully took off her winter coat, placed it on the hook by the door and quietly crept to the staircase. She prayed that she could make it to her room without being noticed, but....

"Hey smelly Ellie, aren't you even going to say hello?"

....it was too late.

Ellie hadn't even touched the second step when she suddenly felt a large hand grab her shoulder and pull her back into a very tight one arm hug against a vastly huge body.

"Dudley Dursley, get your filthy hands off me!" Ellie said in outrage.

"Dennis, I think you need to teach your sister some manners, she doesn't even say 'hello' to your guest." Dudley said, still holding Ellie.

Dennis, and his other friends Malcolm, Piers, and Gordon just stood there, laughing at Ellie's futile attempts to break free of Dudley's grip.

In the old days, Ellie would poke Dudley in the gut with all her might, and he would let go in an instant. But ever since Dudley had taken up boxing, Ellie didn't want to risk the chance of making him angry.

"You know, lately when I ask a girl to go out with me and she turns me down, which is very rare I might add, I just ignore them and move on to the next girl." Dudley spoke very close to Ellie's ear.

"If only I could be so lucky." Ellie mumbled lowly to herself.

"But for you I'm going to make an exception. So what 'da say?"

"Dudley," Ellie spoke very slowly in hope that he would be able to comprehend every word she was about to tell him, "I will never go out with you as long as I'm alive. The very sight of you repulses me, and the foul odor protruding from you body is making me nauseous."

Dennis and the other goons continued to laugh, but abruptly stopped when Dudley shot them an evil glare.

"Come on, you don't really mean that, do you?" Dudley asked lightly, squeezing Ellie even tighter.

"I mean every single word of it, and I meant every word when I turned you down the other fifty million times you've asked me out." Ellie replied firmly, however she was beginning to feel light headed from the lack of blood flowing to her brain.

Dudley finally released his grip, and Ellie ran up the stairs as fast as she could.

"Just wait! One of these days you'll have to say yes! You can't say no forever!" Dudley shouted in a threatening manner.

Ellie sharply turned around at the top of the staircase.

"Just watch me!" She snapped back, and ran into her room, slamming the door behind her.

Ellie released a deep sigh of relief, as she leaned back against the firmly closed door.

"Why me?" She moaned to herself.

Ellie was one of those people who always had a very good memory. She could remember every single insignificant detail of anything that had ever happened in her life. This ability was very handy when it came to school, but was a unwanted curse when it came to an event that she never wanted to remember, for instance, the first time Dudley had asked her out.

It was at Dennis's 15th birthday party, and naturally all of his moronic friends were invited. It had been a very dull party in Ellie's opinion. All the boys wanted to do was play the new video game that Dennis had received from his parents, and eat to their hearts content. Ellie vividly remembered Dudley eating half of the entire birthday cake alone, and that was after he had finished off four hamburgers, five hot dogs, four finger sandwiches, two heaping piles of coleslaw and macaroni salad (each), five cup cakes, and seven cans of cola. Ellie had never seen a human being eat so much at once, and was very appalled by the sight of it. It was later on when Dudley approached Ellie and said "Hey you're not ugly, wanna be my girlfriend?"

Ellie had never been so caught of guard by such a question in her life. When she finally gained her composure she politely replied "No, I'm not interested in having a boyfriend right now."

From that moment on, Dudley would constantly ask Ellie on a date every time he saw her, and Ellie would promptly turn him down. It seemed that no matter what insults Ellie threw at Dudley, they would just bounce off him. Two years of Dudley Dursley asking you out would be enough to drive anyone mad, but somehow Ellie had kept her sanity.

She quickly tried to push the horrid memory out of her mind, and threw herself face down on her double bed. Her long light brown hair cascaded down her face as she tried to push all of her tensions and frustrations in to a dark corner in the pit of her stomach.

After a few minutes of laying peacefully on her soft bed, Ellie sat up. Her bedroom had always been her sanctuary, a place where she could be alone, and her imagination would take flight.

The walls were painted a light purple colour with little decoration. Only two pictures hung on her walls. One of her family, which was taken when she was three, and the other was a large poster of a gorgeous unicorn. A tall but narrow bookshelf covered the wall at the foot of Ellie's bed. Half of the shelves were filled with novels, mostly fantasy and mystery. The remaining shelves were covered with unicorn figurines of all different styles and shapes. Next to Ellie's bed was a wide writing desk which her alarm clock sat on, along with twenty-five other unicorn figurines.

Needless to say, Ellie loved unicorns. She had been collecting them since she was four years old when her grandmother gave her a tiny glass unicorn for her birthday. It was the unicorn's beauty, purity, mystery and innocents that attracted Ellie to them so much.

Just a few months ago, on Ellie's 15th birthday, her parents commented that she was too old to have such a childish collection, and suggested that she get rid of them. Naturally Ellie was outraged, and told her parents to stay out of her life and to mind their own business. So the unicorn collection stayed put, and her parents didn't dare bring up the subject again.

After gazing at the twenty-five figurines on her desk, Ellie suddenly hear her mother's voice coming from the bottom of the staircase, announcing that dinner was ready. Feeling quite famished, Ellie jumped of her bed and headed down stairs.