"I think her name's Hermione."
"What kind of name is that?"
"Probably some weird foreign name."
"Wouldn't doubt it. Look at that hair! Looks like a ball of black yarn."
"Does she even wash it?"
"I heard she keeps rats in there for science projects!"
Laughter, rippling through unfriendly crowds. Eyes swung like pendulums, from each other then to the girl who sat in the corner of the yard, buried too far in a book to care. Or to show that she cared. Her feet lolled out before her, toe over toe, lightly tapping to some unheard tune.
A group shuffled past, ignoring her. Another passed, this time not being so kind. Shadows crisscrossed over her. Hermione sighed, closing her book and setting it on her lap. She looked up, expecting to see the crew of girls named Tina or Mary or something, but instead she was met with a new face. Hermione gave this new girl a weak smile.
The girl sat down next to her. "Those lame bitches."
The word escaped her, sharp, and Hermione burst into giggles. She wasn't used to dirty mouths (her parents were dentists, after all), and this girl had unabashedly displayed a mark of friendship, too.
"I guess they have nothing better to do." Hermione said.
"I would have beaten them up."
Hermione looked the girl over. She was thin and lanky, looking a little like an insect with large glasses perched on her nose, making her eyes bigger than they should be. Her black bangs stopped just before her eyebrows, hanging like a neat curtain. The rest was clipped back with a pink ribbon. Looking from a distance, Hermione expected to see her as a doll - a perfect child.
But, you can't judge people like that…
"I used to get flustered." Hermione said. She was ten, with a good vocabulary.
"Yeah." The girl paused. "What's your name? Hermione?"
Hermione nodded.
"I'm Lucy." She held out a hand. Hermione took it, giving it a light shake.
At that moment, Hermione had a strange feeling like a big fish flopping around in her belly. It was wet and quick and flashing. This was her new friend. They would get through school together. Maybe Lucy was especially "gifted" too. Then they could get into the same universities. Then remain friends throughout their life.
It was only a few months until her eleventh birthday.
"You know," Lucy said, waking Hermione from her reverie.
"Hmm?"
"The bullies here aren't too bad."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. My sister grew up in Japan and she would tell me about how it was like there. Now it's still hard since her English still is accented and people can't always understand her. Anyway, she was telling me about how the bullies there, ijime, can be really, really bad. Life there is different. They'd do stuff like burn you with cigarettes they found or steal your clothes, which people do here too, I suppose. Sometimes they get the entire school to ignore you. Just like that, one day you exist, the other you're a shadow. You're not even a human or a living thing. Just another tile or splinter.
"My sister, she once got in a fight while in the bathrooms. A girl waited outside of the stall until she finished and walked out. She caught her by the rests and pushed her back against the door. 'What's that smell?' she said, or something like that, and then 'oh just you!' and would pinch my sister. She even showed me the scars.
"I'm not saying all people there are bad. People everywhere are or can be bad."
Hermione looked at her arms. No one had done that yet, to her. Usually she wasn't physically picked on. It came in waves. The girls would target her and mock her ruthlessly until a teacher intervened or they got bored. Hermione took the blows, rolling with the punches. Mostly because she didn't know what else to do, and knew that if she fought back she would get in trouble too.
Once, however, she was pushed aside. This was in public. She was with her mother at a pastry shop. She stood near the displays, wanting desperately to buy one of the twisted, flaky croissants.
An older kid brushed past her, knocking her over. Her mother rushed over and helped her up, chastising the boy. The boy shrugged and walked away. Hermione got very angry, then. She stared at the glass display on top of the table. Inside it were pretty cupcakes, designed with ladybugs and flowers. It began to tremble. The boy was meeting up with his mother, his hands in his pockets, looking dejected. As if this was the worst possible thing anyone could have done to him.
The display began to rattle. The bottom rocked against the table. The clicking grew louder. Heads swerved to look at it. Hermione, flushed pink, tightened her fists. She didn't know why, but it made sense what was happening.
The glass popped, like cracking an egg, and the cupcakes flew off the plate and splattered the boy and his mother. The woman yelled, suddenly turning on her boy and admonishing him for this. The boy stumbled back, insisting it wasn't his fault. His mother had none of it. She offered to pay for the cupcakes, but the woman at the cashier was too stunned to accept.
Hermione and her mother walked home like nothing had happened, since her mother decided that place was a waste of time.
Hermione stopped, realising she was remembering aloud. She met Lucy's eyes.
"You probably think I'm silly now." Hermione laughed, turning away.
Lucy shook her head.
"Sounds like the universe decided to help you."
Hermione felt the fish in her belly flop a little.
"What?"
"You know," Lucy waved her hands, indicting the entire universe. "The universe decided to help you, it twisted a little. Think of the universe like a fabric, right, and so you can pull at it to bring a needle on the other end closer. And if you fold it or twist it, it won't break. Not like wood."
It was time to head back to class. Hermione stood, tucking her book under her arm, and listened as Lucy tried to explain her pseudo metaphysics.
"It felt your injustice, judged the boy as cruel, and then it moved. Just like that. Kind of like a ghost."
"Huh." Hermione managed to say.
"Hey, it helps to have an explanation." Lucy smiled.
. . .
During the summer, Lucy called Hermione.
"Hey." Lucy sounded breathless.
Hermione stood by the phone, fingering its cord. "Hi." She had seen Lucy the other day. Did she want to visit again?
"Did you hear about the zoo?"
"What zoo?"
"The zoo where they keep animals."
Hermione wished Lucy could see her roll her eyes.
"Well, what about it?"
"The glass vanished."
"The what…?"
"The glass. It vanished. One second it was there, the next it wasn't."
"What glass?"
"The glass with the snake inside."
"Sounds dangerous." Hermione said, still confused. Her head throbbed with the effort her mother had made at braiding her hair. The puffy mane had refused to go down and insisted on standing up. So they resorted to tying it in a bun, with her scalp still stinging.
Lucy made a hum of agreement. "Sure, yes, but isn't that strange? The glass had to go somewhere."
"It could have broken."
"It was nowhere to be found! Remember Justine?"
"Yes." Justine was a mutual friend of theirs. Hermione had really spoken to her much.
"Well, she was there. She heard the women screaming. And apparently the person responsible for it was a girl, but she and her family hurried away before they could get them."
"A mystery, then!" Hermione said, excited.
"Well, no, because there is no real reason." Lucy paused. "Except that the universe does as it must."
Hermione laughed.
"I have to go. Talk later." Lucy hung up just as Hermione mustered up a quick good-bye. Hermione set the phone down and returned to her mother.
"Can we flatten it?" Hermione asked restlessly.
Her mother turned to her, touching her hair. "We can try. It might take until next year."
Hermione grunted and turned away, wounded.
. . . .
"YOU ROTTEN GIRL!""
"WHY DID I EVEN TRUST YOU?!"
"I SHOULD HAVE LET YOU STAY HERE!"
"LESS DAMAGE!"
"GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE!"
A sound kind of like a hiccup and a yelp escaped Amira, shortly following the snake incident. Really, she was in the right here. The entire trip was with Dudley and his weaselly friend poking her cheeks, pinching her arms, and tugging at her hair. They made a few insensitive comments, they laughed at her face, and then they had the audacity to pick on a poor snake. All it wanted was to go off and explore.
Speaking of, how did she understand what it wanted?
But that was not the right question to ask just then. She had currently to focus on not: rolling her eyes, crossing her eyes, saying a curse word, yelling, fighting back, and/or accusing Vernon of bad parenting.
She sat in the chair, taking several deep breaths. Vernon paced before her, his face an alarming shade of bruised apple. Petunia stood behind him, standing guard (as if Amira would run away), and Dudley was busying himself with ice-cream and television. Although he was not so secretly trying to listen in.
Vernon stopped and stood before Amira, throwing his mouth open, letting some spit fly, and continued to berate her.
"THAT IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOUR."
Normal behaviour. Amira held back sarcasm like it was fire ready to leap out of her veins and burn that flabby flesh off of Vernon's jowls.
Vernon and Petunia never really had much trouble proclaiming that Amira was not theirs. She looked different enough, with her gently sloping nose, dark hair, brown skin, and strange, glistening eyes. They could easily explain that they were taking care of Petunia's deceased sister's daughter.
Diversity. Outside Petunia bragged about it. Inside Petunia loathed every second. It was unnatural.
But that wasn't why they hated Amira, she had come to know. It was for all the weird things that followed her. From sitting on rooftops somehow, to her hair growing back too fast. Amira couldn't help it. Once, Petunia took her to have it shorn off. It was short, shorter than most boys' haircuts. Amira was ready to cry that night, curled up in bed with her poor hair gone. Even the hairdresser looked ashamed.
It grew back overnight, to the length it was before. Petunia grew so infuriated Amira was afraid she would grow wings and flutter off like an angry goose. Petunia decided to shave it off herself. The event happened again until Amira was certain Petunia would let her grow it out as long as she wanted (which wasn't "proper" length for a schoolgirl like her).
"We keep you in this house to protect you." Petunia said.
Amira stared at her. Petunia's lips were twisted in the ugly way again.
"You could be cleaning someone's floor, or cooking in a restaurant filled with rats, or worse yet: husband to some fifty year old."
Amira wanted to tell her that this was an unlikely event in England, and in the country where she could draw her bloodlines to. And it was not a joking matter. She clamped her lips shut, taking the insults like a good girl.
"Maybe we should let her do that." Vernon suggested.
"Give her a taste of what that life could be." Petunia agreed.
Amira froze. She imagined being sold off, to live with some man who looked like Dudley, but older, grosser, and fatter. She imagined having to dress nicely for him, to pretend to be happy so he wouldn't beat her, to obey every whim. Even if that meant standing by a stove while the heat threatened to melt her hands off, cooking endlessly for a man who was never full.
Her imagination swept her up in waves.
What if he was never full?
What if the imaginary husband didn't like her cooking? What if the sausages, which she would refuse to try, were always too dry or too chewy? What if the toast was always burnt? What if she couldn't do any of those things?
And so he decided he had his fill. Then he would invite her to the kitchen, talking nicely at first, beckoning her over. She would go over wordlessly. He would stare at her, his blond hair sticking to his damp forehead. "I'm hungry, woman."
"I made you food!" She would cry out. She would wish her mysterious powers would rise up and help her combat. Maybe make a broom whip out from the closet and thwack him on the head.
"Not enough."
And he would stick the fork right in her, and eat her!
She would be a pile of bones, set in a cupboard where other women's bones were.
Amira met Vernon's eyes, ready to ask him if he would eat Petunia. Not that she had much meat, but he could maybe make some broth out of her. (Why was this even in her mind?).
"That's completely stereotypical!" Amira blurted out instead. "Really, I know you're all worth rubbish, but at least have some form of human decency."
"To your cupboard." The reply was so fast she didn't think Petunia had heard her. She began to speak again but Petunia, who was flushed, stepped to the side and jabbed a finger towards her musty old cupboard. "Go. Now."
"Fine." Amira said, standing up in defeat, but refusing to give up quite yet.
She marched towards the cupboard and slammed the door hard enough to wake the innocent spiders. She plumped down on the bed and sighed, wishing deeply that something would come and help her. Maybe not save her, but just give her a little nudge in the right direction.