A week later Harry was sitting alone under a tree at recess, but he was pretty used to that. When Harry wasn't being chased by Dudley's gang or hiding from them he was alone. He turned the page of the book he was reading and continued to sit, totally engrossed. He didn't notice the boys chasing each other around the jungle gym or the girls playing jump rope and hopscotch. Veronica and her friend Anna were busy turning the rope for their newest friend Elena. Elena had just transferred in that year from a different school and she and the other girls had hit it off immediately. Elena looked over at Harry and accidentally tripped over the rope. Her friends stopped spinning it.
Hey Anna," She said straightening up. "Who's that kid over there?"
"Who Harry?" Anna asked.
"I don't know, the one reading under the tree."
"That's Harry. He's always alone."
"Why?" Elena asked although she could guess why. Since her father was in the military she had been the new kid enough times to know why some kids fit in and others didn't. Anna laughed.
"Just look at him," she said. "His clothes don't fit, he looks like he hasn't brushed his hair ever, and his glasses are taped together."
"So?" Elena asked. He seemed nice enough. At her new schools there had always been kids that would be nice to her no matter what and it had stopped her life from being miserable. She would be willing to overlook Harry's appearance to be that nice kid to him.
"Well, it's not just what he wears. Actually I don't care much about that. It's his cousin Dudley."
"You mean that fat kid that sits in the back and makes farting noises with his friends?"
"That's the one."
"What about him?"
"Well, Dudley and his gang hate Harry and no one wants to get on their bad side if you know what I mean." Elena nodded. She had watched Gordon threaten to punch a kid in the face for not giving him his lunch money. She certainly wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that. Anna looked over at Harry."
"I do kinda feel bad for him," she said. "He doesn't have any friends and he has to live with his Aunt and Uncle because his parents died in a car crash or something." Elena frowned.
"That's really sad.""Yeah," Veronica shrugged. "He doesn't seem sad though. I don't know; he doesn't talk much. Dudley says he's weird at home too, and he gets in trouble a lot." Anna, who had been twirling her hair around her finger this whole time, suddenly looked up and giggled.
"Elena if you want to talk about boys let's talk about Seth Gulden," she said. "Who is Seth Gulden?" Elena asked. "See that super cute guy with the blonde hair and the blue sweater?" "Yeah" "That's him." Anna lowered her voice to a whisper. "I heard he had a girlfriend last year and they lasted like a whole month." "Whoa, that's a long time." Elena looked impressed. "I've never had a boyfriend." "Neither have I," said Veronica sighing. "Mum says I shouldn't worry about it till I'm older anyway." Anna giggled again. "What does she know?" she asked. "Look, I'm just saying that when we pick history project partners I'm going to have my fingers crossed that I get Seth." The other girls nodded in agreement and spent the rest of recess teasing each other about who would get Seth as a partner and who would get stuck working with Dudley or any of his other friends. When the bell rang they grabbed their jump rope and went inside. *** Back inside, Miss Anderson smiled at the class as they came in. When they were all seated again she said, "Okay class, if you remember I said that I would be announcing the partner pairs for the castle project after lunch. When you find out who your partner is we'll go to the library and the two of you together will pick a castle to research, find out the history on it, and write a report. Next week we will present these reports in front of the class. Remember, you get extra credit if you think of a creative way to present." While she was explaining she passed out a packet of information to the class explaining the finer details of the project and the grading rubric."The partners are as follows: Dennis Clarke and Eva Hall, Gordon Cooper and Piers Polkeiss, Malcom Harris and Dudley Dursely, Veronica Brox and Emily Wood, Anna Richards and Rebecca Bell, Harry Potter and Elena Dawson, and Seth Gulden and Sophie Kemp. Alright everyone, find your partner and get to work." Elena smiled shyly at Harry.
"Harry," he said and smiled back. Neither of them said anything for a minute and then Harry asked,
"So, any idea what castle we should do?" She looked thoughtful for a minute then said,
"Um, I know when we lived in Scotland we visited a few. They were all pretty interesting. I really love visiting castle ruins actually." She looked a little bit embarrassed. Harry didn't think that was anything to be embarrassed about. He was sure that if he was ever allowed to visit a castle he would love it too.
"That sounds like a good idea." He said. "Do you remember any of the names?"
The next day at lunch Elena, Veronica, and Anna were all sitting together.
"Miss Anderson has to be the nicest teacher in the whole entire world," Anna declared suddenly. The other two nodded in agreement.
"She's nice to everyone," Veronica added. "Like yesterday I did really badly on my spelling test and she told me that I could retake it if I needed to."
"Yeah!" Anna exclaimed. "And that one time Sophie was late she didn't even yell at her, she just told her to try and be on time. I don't know any other teacher at this school that would do that. They're all so strict."
"I wish she had yelled at her," Veronica said menacingly. "I hate Sophie." Elena looked up from her sandwich, surprised.
"Why?" She asked. "She seems really nice."
"Oh she seems nice alright, till she's stabbing you in the back. Stupid Sophie with her shiny blonde hair and perfect clothes, she's such a goody two shoes I can't stand her!" Veronica glared at Sophie from behind and stabbed her spoon into her fruit harder than she needed to. Anna looked at her sympathetically.
"They used to be best friends," She explained. "But it turns out Sophie's only nice to you when she needs something from you. Which is I guess why she's being so nice to Seth. No doubt he's going to write the entire report for her."
"Why does she get to work with him?" Veronica pouted. "I would be a much better partner." Anna nodded in support and Elena, who didn't really care, merely shrugged.
"I suppose I shouldn't complain," Veronica said. "At least I don't have to work with Harry." She looked up at Elena who looked surprised again.
"Why wouldn't you want to work with him?" She asked. "He's really nice and he works really hard. He did most of the research, a lot of the writing, and he has a lot of really great ideas on how to do the presentation."
"Yeah but he's so weird," Anna protested. "Like this one time two years ago he turned our teacher's wig blue. He'll deny it but he totally did. No one really knows how he did it."
"And he's got that funny scar on his forehead," Veronica said. "I mean who has a scar shaped like a lightning bolt?" Elena sighed.
"Well I don't care." She said. "I think he's nice and he just seems incredibly lonely to me. You know he told me that his Aunt and Uncle never even celebrate his birthday or give him presents or anything?" The other two looked shocked.
"No presents?" Veronica asked incredulously. Elena shook her head.