2.
Iolanthe stood beside Dudley in front of the school building on their first day of school. Whenever Iolanthe thought of school, she thought of old-fashioned red brick buildings with bell towers, but St Grogory's was just a block concrete mass.
"Frank Lloyd Wright would have a field day," Aunt Petunia muttered.
Uncle Vernon chuckled. "What were you expecting, a French castle?" he muttered, leaning over.
"What does that mean?" Dudley, who was quite angry and teary, demanded.
"Well, Duddykins, it means -" Aunt Petunia began.
"It means St Grogory's looks boring and unsophisticated," said Iolanthe matter of factly.
All three of them stared at her. "How do you know that?" Aunt Petunia wondered, bewildered.
"You said French. Aunt Petunia likes sophisticated French things, like their perfume and jewelry and classical music," said Iolanthe, as if this was obvious.
"She's going to be good at this! Mummy, can't she go for me?" Dudley whined, turning back to his mother.
"Oh, Duddy!" Aunt Petunia sobbed, wrapping him in a tight hug.
"That means no," Uncle Vernon told his son. Dudley scowled, his hope fading.
"Don't worry, Dudley. Just do what I do," said Iolanthe helpfully. "I've been to classes with other people before."
"Yes, and protect your sister." Aunt Petunia moved back to look Dudley in the eye, more serious. "Remember."
"Yes, Mummy."
Aunt Petunia looked Iolanthe over. "You look fine," she said. She'd dressed Iolanthe herself. "I expect good grades."
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," said Iolanthe shyly.
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia walked Dudley and Iolanthe up the front steps, through the double doors, and up to the classroom door inside the long linoleum hallway. Dudley and Iolanthe, however, walked through the blue painted classroom door alone, rather closer together than usual.
And from there, school began. One moment stood out to Iolanthe in that day very clearly. They'd made it to lunch time, and everyone had swarmed out onto the playground. At St Grogory's, children were allowed to eat their packed lunches outside.
Iolanthe grabbed her lunch bag and looked around in bright interest, seeing all the children eating lunch together and giggling, or playing on the colorful playground equipment. Two girls approached her excitedly - and then Dudley got between them, big and hulking, scowling and intimidating.
"No one talks to my cousin," he growled.
"Oh, but we only wanted to -"
"No one. Talks. To my cousin," he repeated threateningly, his great face reddening. Surrounding children were staring. The girls backed up nervously, throwing a fearful glance at Iolanthe over Dudley's shoulder, and they hurried away.
Dudley turned to Iolanthe expectantly. "I'm going to go play," he said, and ran off to play with a group of other boys. Iolanthe nodded glumly, sullen and expressionless, staring after him. At last, she sat down on the steps with her lunch, eating in silence and alone.
She gazed out over the playground. Dudley and his friends were shoving kids to make them cry, kicking over sandcastles. Several girls were playing and giggling with makeup underneath the jungle gym. Some boys were playing football.
Iolanthe watched it all from a distance, the girl in the corner, repressed and alone. This was how it became every lunchtime. Whenever a child approached her, Dudley would charge over, his face thunderous, and scare them away. Soon, no one approached her, and that became her school life.
She found solace by throwing herself into her artistic hobbies - into fashion, gardening and cooking, into ballet and figure skating - and also in books. School taught them to read, the great key that allowed them access into any story they wanted. Iolanthe would get a book from the school library and sit out on the front steps with her lunch, reading and munching in the quiet. She remembered that she was not allowed fantasy, science fiction, or fairy tales, but that didn't stop her from reading children's books, teen literature, common fiction, or nonfiction.
Aunt Petunia watched approvingly as Iolanthe became a bookworm, even while she was furious with Iolanthe over other things.
Iolanthe did not start out doing well in school. "It's not that you're stupid!" Uncle Vernon spat at her in countless fights over the dinner table. "What is the problem?"
"You're making us look bad!" said Aunt Petunia passionately. Here, her aunt and uncle were united, in their twin glares.
Iolanthe didn't know what the problem was. She found school boring. "It's just sitting and memorizing a bunch of pointless things!" she snapped.
"Well I'm sorry!" said Uncle Vernon. "But that's life! Sometimes it's boring!"
But Iolanthe didn't want that to be life. She wanted more. Aunt Petunia, determined to prove her niece was not bad at school, would stand over her and make sure she completed her homework. Iolanthe never got any of it right, and this made her feel very cross and idiotic indeed.
Every time she got back a bad grade on another assignment, it stung. Here came another lecture.
"Dudley doesn't have to go through all this. He's doing just as bad as I am," Iolanthe muttered once, rebelliously.
"Dudley isn't - Dudley isn't the point here!" Aunt Petunia snapped, slamming her hand on the table, frustrated on a deeply personal level.
But the thought remained, hanging in the air between them. For Uncle Vernon, good grades in his niece was a status symbol. For Aunt Petunia, it was something else.
It was just a stupid throwaway comment. It shouldn't have been anything.
"Hey! Weird quiet girl! Why are you always sitting by yourself?!" a dark haired boy jeered at her from a distance one day at recess, and his friends laughed. Iolanthe looked up from her book to glare at him, a flash of hot anger running through her.
Dudley could smell Iolanthe trouble a mile away, and charged over to go take care of the problem -
But before he could, the boy shrieked as some invisible force lifted him into the air by his hair, turned him over, and dunked him headfirst into the nearest bin.
There were both screams and shrieks of laughter, but no one could be entirely certain what to make of it.
Dudley was ranting and raving about it to his parents on the way home from school in the car, very excited and impressed, and both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon froze up, giving each other dark looks.
The minute they got home, Uncle Vernon grabbed Iolanthe by the arm and she was strong armed, struggling and shrieking, toward the cupboard under the stairs. "I don't know how you did it, but there will be consequences!" he growled.
"But the thing with the boy? I didn't do it!" Iolanthe shrieked. "I didn't do it!" Nobody believed her.
"How could you betray me like this?!" Aunt Petunia snapped heatedly, glaring at her from a distance. There were tears in her eyes and her arms were folded, upset.
"Aunt Petunia! Aunt Petunia, help me!"
But no help was to be had. Iolanthe tried to grab onto the side of the cupboard door, but she was pushed inside the cupboard under the stairs and the door was slammed shut.
"NO! NO! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME IN HERE! NO!"
Iolanthe struggled and shoved herself against the door, but it stayed locked.
"I will not tolerate such behavior in this house!" Uncle Vernon snapped.
"But I didn't do anything!" Iolanthe shrieked, even as the slot was slammed shut and she was left in the dark.
She began screaming and shrieking as she felt spiders crawling all over her, down her spine and into her hair. She struggled and screamed, brushing against the cleaning supplies, for many hours, until she fell into an exhausted, tearful, and terrified silence. She was not let out, not even to pee, until the following evening.
Iolanthe was starting to come to an important realization: Her aunt and uncle weren't perfect. They demanded unreasonable things, and they blamed her for things that weren't her fault, they controlled her and locked her into cupboards. She still assumed all families were that way.
But it ate at her, when she was let back out. "Have you learned your lesson?" asked Aunt Petunia expectantly.
That experience would either make or break a young child. It made Iolanthe.
"Yes," she said as she was expected to, but she didn't mean it. She hadn't learned her lesson at all. And the resentment festered.
It festered when she was not allowed friends at school.
It festered when she was lectured for bad grades and Dudley wasn't.
It festered when she felt those critical eyes on her every moment of creative practice.
It festered when she felt the books she was allowed to read controlled.
It festered when Aunt Petunia continued to pick out everything in her room for her, have final say in all clothes and food, and dress her every morning.
She assumed all families were that way. But she was starting to feel maybe they shouldn't be. And besides... why were those fantasy books made if no one was allowed to read them?