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Chapter 2: The Boy Under the Stairs

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Nearly ten years had passed since Senora Garcia awoke to find her nephew on her doorstep. The Garcia family had not changed very much.

Senor Garcia continued to spend Mondays through Fridays in the factory and free time insulting his American neighbors. Senora Garcia still lived on a steady diet of tacos and gossip. Javier Garcia, their son, had grown from a young and thoroughly spoiled baby into a slightly larger and thoroughly spoiled eleven year old.

To the people around them, there were no significant changes to speak of. Then again, to the people around them, there was no sign that another boy was living with the Garcia family.

Yet Alfred F. Jones was still there, asleep and dreaming of robots at the moment, but not for very long; his Aunt Maria was already awake and Alfred never slept long after she was up.

"¡Despiértate!"

And there it was - his Aunt Maria's loud, shrill voice. The same thing that ripped him from his dreams every morning. Accompanied by a lovely pounding on his door like usual.

Alfred sighed, rolled over, squirmed for a moment, and proceeded to fall back asleep at once. He was allowed three more minutes of blissful silence before the pounding started up again.

"I said up! ¡Ahora, niño!"

Alfred groaned and lifted himself from the bed. He blinked a few times at the blurry world around him, before reaching over to the small table beside his bed and feeling around for his glasses. Just as he found them, the door flew open and he was greeted with the sight of his very blurry aunt.

"You're not up yet?" she asked, frowning at him in distaste. Or at least he thought she was frowning - he still couldn't really see her.

"I'm comin'," Alfred grumbled, pulling himself from his warm covers. He put his glasses on and at once the world burst into clarity around him. (Excluding where the scratches on the lens, courtesy of Javier, were, of course.) And oh, imagine that; his aunt wasfrowning at him.

"¡Vamanos! I want you to cook the bacon; don't let it burn," she ordered, before slamming the door shut on him again.

Alfred debated the consequences of going back to bed before sighing - very loudly and overdramatically - and searching for a pair of socks. He found one quite easily, but the second turned out to be a challenge, and it wasn't until he searched under his bed that he found it.

And then screamed. Loudly.

But you couldn't really blame him; it had a spider on it.

The next few minutes were spent wildly waving the sock through the air and jumping up and down, screaming at the spider to get off.

Alfred really should have been used to spiders, considering the closet under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept. However, the little monsters continued to terrify him; in fact, the only things that scared him more than spiders were ghosts and a world shortage of hamburgers.

After finally dislodging the spider, Alfred placed the gloriously-spider-free sock on his foot and left the closet. (Literally, mind you.)

Now a few words on Alfred F. Jones - he was rather short and skinny, though he swore that he would one day tower above Senor Garcia and have large muscles to match. His eyes were bright blue - much like the sky - though covered with scratched and broken glasses that had to be held together with a lot of scotch tape. (Alfred, you see, was Javier's favorite punching bag, and the glasses often got in the way of that.) His hair was blond and messy, with one stubborn cowlick that absolutely refused to lay flat, no matter what it was put through. (And yes, that had been put to the test after Senora Garcia had attacked him with a bottle of hair gel and the stubborn piece of hair still managed to defy gravity.)

Now, Alfred did not necessarily hate his appearance. Or dislike it at all, really. (He did have a rather unfortunate streak of egotism, despite living with a family such as the Garcias.) But his favorite thing about his appearance was a strange little scar on his forehead that was shaped like a star; it was so perfectly shaped that it was rather hard to believe it was only an accident.

A car crash, his aunt had answered when he asked how he had gotten it. A rather unfortunate one that had also caused the death of his parents and left him with his aunt and uncle. When he had tried to ask more about it, his aunt had merely said, "Don't ask questions," and walked away. (That was one of the most important rules when living with the Garcias - don't ask questions.)

But one of the strangest things about Alfred - beyond his oddly shaped scar - was his habit of attracting the odd and the unexplained. It seemed that wherever the boy went, strange events were sure to follow.

Once, after yet another battle with Alfred's cowlick, Aunt Maria had grabbed a pair of scissors and sniped the hair off - unfortunately for Alfred, she had taken off quite a bit of hair in the process and the poor boy was left with a rather embarrassing bald spot on the top of his head.

He had gone to sleep, mourning the loss of his good looks and dreading what the other kids at school would think; in the morning, he had awoken to find that all the hair had grown back overnight, and there was the little cowlick - standing as tall and stubborn as ever.

Another time, after arguing with his Uncle, his toy solider had been taken away. (The toy soldier was one of the only toys Alfred actually owned; it had originally been a birthday present for Javier, but when he didn't want it, it had been given to Alfred.) However, in the morning, he found not one but ten wooden soldiers in his closet while the original remained in the trash; and no matter how much Uncle Miguel questioned him, he could not explain where they had come from.

The strangest time of all was on a family visit to the zoo when the glass surrounding the snake cage had very simply disappeared into thin air. (This particular event was so very strange, in fact, that a whole chapter could very easily be spent detailing it. However, this will not be the case, and you may use your imagination instead.)

The rest of the family entered the kitchen just as Alfred finished with the bacon. It was divided up among them (with only the blackest, most burnt pieces for Alfred, himself) and the four of them ate in silence.

After a while, Uncle Miguel glanced at his son and said, "Go get the mail, Javier."

Javier frowned, glancing at Alfred. "Why can't he get it?"

Uncle Miguel looked at Alfred and nodded. "Go get the mail," he told him.

Alfred frowned, and glared at Javier, who grinned. "Why can't he get it?" he whined, pointing a half-eaten piece of bacon in Javier's direction.

Uncle Miguel glared at him. "Don't argue."

Stuffing the rest of his bacon in his mouth, (and oh-so-maturely sticking his tongue out at Javier in on his way past) Alfred left the house and headed for the mailbox. He scooped up the stack of letters and the daily paper into his arms and stomped back to the house, grumbling all the while.

It was as he was calling Uncle Miguel all the nasty names he could think of in both English and Spanish (under his breath so no one would hear, of course) that he happened to look down into the pile and notice something quite odd: one of the letters was addressed to him.

Which was practically unheard of, as Alfred had never received a letter ever in his life. (And he didn't realize people even sent letters anymore, what with e-mail and texting being so much quicker and more convenient.) No one at school liked Alfred, he had no family outside of the Garcias, and he didn't really know anyone outside of his school.

Yet there could be no mistake, for there it was, clearly written in ink:

Alfred F. Jones
The Closet Under the Stairs
Chicago, IL
United States of America

Alfred eagerly pulled the letter from the pile, clutching it in his hands as he handed the rest of the stack to his Uncle. With a wide grin on his face, he began ripping it open quickly, eager to see what it said.

Of course, a wiser approach would have been to escape to his closet and open it in secrecy. But then again, Alfred never was one for thinking ahead.

"What's that?" Javier asked curiously, peeking over Alfred's shoulder to get a better look a the letter.

"None of your business," Alfred replied, holding the letter close to his chest so Javier couldn't see it. (It was hisletter after all, and he didn't want to share it with anyone - especially not Javier.)

Javier's question had attracted the attention of Uncle Miguel, unfortunately, and the large man grabbed the letter out of Alfred's hands. He unfolded it, scanning the contents quickly; Alfred watched as Uncle Miguel's went from brown to white to an interesting shade of purple as he read.

Uncle Miguel glared first at the letter in his hands and then at Alfred. And then back at the letter. And then back at Alfred, as if he couldn't decide which one he hated more. "Maria," he croaked, his usually loud and booming voice nothing but a whisper. Aunt Maria rushed to his side immediately and read the letter quickly.

And promptly paled as much as her husband. "¡Dios mío!" she gasped, looking quickly between the letter and Alfred.

"What is it?" Javier whined, attempting to see, but his parents quickly covered the letter and pushed him away.

"Let me see!" Alfred exclaimed, leaping forward to grab it. Uncle Miguel lifted it high above his head and far out of Alfred's reach. "It's mine!" he whined, jumping for it. "I WANT TO READ IT!"

Uncle Miguel pushed him back, and then, cursing heavily in Spanish (while Aunt Maria rushed forth and covered Javier's ears) he ripped the letter into shreds and threw the remains into the trashcan.

"Hey!" Alfred yelled, staring at the ripped shreds in shock. "THAT WAS MYLETTER! You can't just rip it up!"

Which, of course, was a bad move; at once, all of Uncle Miguel's anger was directed towards Alfred. "Closet. Now," he commanded. Alfred opened his mouth - no doubt to argue some more - but Uncle Miguel grabbed his wrist in his large hand and dragged him to the closet, Alfred screaming and hollering the entire way. He pushed the struggling boy inside and shut the door behind him.

(The second rule at the Garcia house was this - don't argue. It was also the rule that Alfred seemed unable to understand.)

Alfred pounded at the door. "That was my letter!" he screamed again, in case his Uncle hadn't heard the first time.

Javier Garcia - Panama! And I really don't know much about Panama, so he probably won't have much of a personality past what Dudley had in the books. Also, this will speed up! I promise! Once Alfred gets to Hogwarts!

translations: (and it's been a while since I took Spanish so I hope they're right)

Despiértate - Get up! (command)
Ahora, niño - Now, boy
Vamanos - let's go; hurry up
Dios mio - My God

Also, you may notice there's no street or house number on the letter address...I don't know any addresses in Chicago, so just make one up, yeah?