I stared at the ceiling in the car.
Some old 60ths song played on the radio while Petunias screeching voice sang.
I could hear Piers and Dudley laugh beside me and stole a quick glance at them.
Dudley was digging for gold while Piers whispered something in his ear and they both gave into laughing fits.
Idiots!
A motorcycle drove past us and got Uncle Vernon to almost crash the car.
Personally I coulden`t blame the guy, Vernons wunas driving as fast as a snail...
The biker gave our direction the middle finger as Uncle Vernon blew the car horn.
I stiffled a laugh as Aunt Petunia shrieked and Uncle Vernon became red. Piers and Dudley snickered into their hands as Vernon began to complain.
He liked to complain about things, Jamille, Pepole at work, Jamille, The council, Jamille, The bank and Jamille were just a few of his favorite subjects.
"...roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlumsm", He ranted.
I rolled my eyes, I loved motercycles! I had these dreams/memorys about flying on a motercycle... not that I was going to tell the Dursleys - Especially after the talk with Uncle Vernon about any `Funny business`. If I did I would surely get a beating...
...
It was a very sunny and hot day - I did not like sunny days... The sun always blinded me as it got in her glasses...
I liked cold, foggy, rainy days.
That way I could blend in the shadows and hide from the world.
The zoo was crowded with families.
The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate and strawberry ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked me what icecream I wanted before they could get me away, they reluctantly bought me a cheap lemon ice pop.
It wasn`t bad, either.
I licked it as I watched a big gorilla scratching its bum. It
looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.
After the Dursleys and Piers had eaten lunch (I had already got a toast for breakfast, and freaks didn`t get more then 2 meals a day, if lucky - note the sarcasm) we went to the reptile house.
It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone, other lingering in small water puddles.
Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons.
Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place.
It could have wrapped its body thrice around Uncle Vernon and that was not an small accomplishment — but at the moment it didn't look like it was in the mood.
In fact, it was fast asleep.
Dudley had his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the big, yellow snake.
"Make it move," he comanded his father.
Uncle Vernon tapped hard at the glass, but the snake didn't budge.
"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.
"This is boring," Dudley moaned and walked away.
I stood in front of the tank and looked intently at the poor snake.
I wouldn`t have been surprised if it died of boredom — no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long.
It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least I got to visit the rest of the house when I did my chores and sometimes I was even allowed to go to the little forest.
The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with mine.
It winked.
Weird, I thought that snakes didn`t have eyelids...
I stared at the snake before quickly checking if the Dursleys were around to see me doing something `Freakish`. They weren't. I looked back at the snake and winked to it, feeling quite stupid - I was winking at a snake, for the gods sake!.
The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling.
The look said quite plainly:
"I get that all the time"
"I know", I told the snake, thought I wasn`t sure the snake could acually hear me...
"It must be realy annoying, all the pepole staring and pointing - It`s like that for me too, at school pepole will stare, whisper and point at me, or they will try to beat me up...",
The snake nodded and looked at me with understanding. If a snake could...
"Where do you come from, anyway?", I asked the snake.
It pointed with its tail at a little sign at the glass window.
I read out loud:
"Boa Constrictor, Brazil. This specimen was bred in the zoo.", I looked back at the snake, "So you have never been to Brazil?", It shoke its head and stuck out its tounge.
"I was with my parents when I was a baby, but they died when I was a year old. So I`m almost as you", I told the snake, who nodded.
A deafening shout behind me made both of us jump. "DUDLEY! MR. AND MRS. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"
Dudley came waddling toward us as fast as he could, which was rather slow...
"Get out of the way, Freak!", He said and pounched me in my ribs.
I nearly fell, due to surprise, but were able to get up before I hit the floor.
I glared at Dudley and whispred "Son of a bitch!", it was something I had heard the older kids at the School say, and after looking it up in my Dictionary (Which every pupil at the School gets in first grade), I found out it was a good insult for Diddikins...
What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, ogling at the snake, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.
I felt my jaw go slack.
The glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screaming bloody murder, running for the exits.
But stayed long enough to snap at Dudley and Piers feet.
As the snake slid swiftly past me it said in a low, hissing voice, "Good luck in life… Thanksss, amigo."
The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.
"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"
The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber.
The snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death.
But worst of all, for me at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Jamille was talking to it, weren't you, Jamie?"
I gave him a glare and lied, "No, I`m afraid of snakes, but there was a girl with dark brown hair who looked at the snake, maybe you saw wrong?", I asked innocently.
Piers rat-like face got a pained look as he tried to remember, "Now that your saying it, the girl had Brown hair and was taller than you", He said after a while.
I fought to keep the grin of my face as we drove Piers home.
Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on me.
He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go — cupboard — stay — no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy, I was just happy I didn`t get a beating...
When I thougt about it, Uncle Vernon had not beaten me since before the summer...
I knew the Dursleys thought that there was another girl who talked to the snake, but they still blamed me, the bastards.
As I laid in my dark cupboard much later that night I wished I had a watch.
I had no idea what time it was and wasn't sure if my relatives were asleep yet.
I couldn't risk them catch sneaking out to the kitchen just for some food...
I had lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, almost as long as I could remember, ever since I had been a baby and my parents had died in that `car crash`, `Been killed by green light`, `Overdose of Drugs` or whatever reason they died...
I couldn't remember much of my parents at all, except my dreams.
My `lovely` aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and I was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house. Who dosn`t have a Picture of their dead sister and Brother in Law?
And the Dursleys call themself normal!
When I was younger, I always dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation, Padfoot or Moony coming to take me away, but it never happened; the Dursleys were my only livng Family, if you can even call them that...
Sometimes strangers in the street seemed to know me.
Very, very strange strangers they were, too.
A tiny man in a violet top hat once bowed to me once when I was out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley.
Aunt Petunia asked me furiously if I knew the man, when I answerd `No`, she had rushed us out of the shop without buying anything.
A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green waved merrily at me on a bus when I was seven years old.
A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken my hand in the street last week and then walked away without saying a word.
The weirdest thing about those people was that they always vanish the second I tried to get a closer look.
At school, I had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that `Odd, Freak Jamille Potter` with baggy old clothes and round, broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.
Cause fat, dumb eleve years old, is so scary!
Especially those who was five big, fat kids against one tiny, little girl!.
What I didn`t understand was why the elder kids seemed to do as Diddikins said...
