Hello its me again! Well, duh, of course its me. OMG SOMEONE ELSE TOOK OVER MY STORY AAAAARRRG! Yea, rite. Anyway, here is chapter 2 of my story. Lets see how little Harold Plodder is doing after ten years of misery...(as if we dont already know, lol). Disclaimers: I do not own the cabinet above the refridgerator, 100 birthday presents (I wish, tho), the Zookeeper's Delight, the Brazilian boa constrictor, or Harold's longest ever punishment. Enjoy!

Chapter 2: The Reptile Exhibit

Almost ten years later, Pickle Drive was still the same as always. Sunlight reflected off of the silver number seven on the Durskeys' house. Inside, pictures hung all over the walls, featuring a fat boy riding his first skateboard, sharing a giant ice cream sundae with his mother, playing videogames with his father. There was absolutely no evidence that another boy lived in the house, too.

Yet Harold Plodder was there, sleeping, but not for long, for he was about to be woken (once again) by his dear Aunt Pansy.

"Get up! Get up! NOW!"

Harold sat up so fast he smacked his head on the low ceiling. Eyes streaming, he swore.

"What was that?" screeched Aunt Pansy.

Harold swore more loudly, grinning in spite of himself. But the grin quickly evaporated as the cabinet door flew open and he found himself face-to-face with his aunt, her face bulging with fury.

"You stop this nonsense right now, do you hear me? I don't want any of your 'funny stuff' for Spuddy's birthday. Now hurry up and get dressed!"

And with that, she slammed the cabinet door shut.

Harold reached under his pillow and pulled out a change of clothes. Spudley's birthday…today was going to be impossible. He put on his socks, pausing to pull a cockroach off one of them. Harold used to hate cockroaches, but now he was pretty comfortable around them, because the cabinet above the refrigerator was full of them, and that was where he slept.

When he was dressed he pushed the cabinet door open and crawled out onto the refrigerator. Peering over the edge to judge how far he'd have to fall, he swung his legs over the side and slipped off onto the floor. It was easy to do, after almost ten years of practice.

"When you've quite finished showing off," hissed Aunt Pansy, "you can make Spuddy's omelet."

She handed him a frying pan, two eggs, cheese, ham, and a spatula, and Harold set to work, promising himself he would spit in the omelet when no one was looking.

Harold was small and skinny for his age, and he suspected it was because he spent so much of his life in a cabinet. He had short black hair that stuck up all over the place no matter what he did to it. His eyes were bright green, and he wore round glasses that had to be held together with Duct tape from all the times Spudley had broken them. The only thing Harold liked about his appearance was the star-shaped scar on his forehead. He had had it forever, and as soon as he knew how to ask questions, he asked Aunt Pansy how he had gotten it.

"In the plane crash when your parents died," she had snapped. "And don't ask questions."

As Harold got older, he realized that there was something funny about his aunt's explanation. If the plane crashed, surely everyone on it would have died? Why was he the only one who survived?

Uncle Herman entered the kitchen as Harold was adding cheese to Spudley's omelet. He sat down at the table and glared at Harold. Harold was used to this kind of treatment, and just ignored him.

He was just about to fold the omelet when Spudley waddled into the kitchen with his mother following in his wake. His brown hair was plastered to his head underneath a birthday hat, which looked tiny in comparison to his fat head and body.

While everyone was distracted, Harold quickly spit into the omelet and folded it in half. Quite sure no one had seen (since his head was still attached to his body), he smiled to himself.

"Where's my breakfast?" said Spudley, as he settled his fat bottom into a chair.

"Right here, Spuddykins," said Aunt Pansy, taking the frying pan from Harold, sliding the omelet onto a plate, and handing it to her son. Meanwhile, Spudley was counting his presents.

"Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven…" his face fell.

"Sweetie, you've forgotten Aunt Marcie's present," said Aunt Pansy.

"Okay, ninety-eight then," mumbled Spudley, his face red. Harold shoved his bacon in his mouth as fast as he could in case Spudley threw a tantrum, but Aunt Pansy came to the rescue.

"How about we buy you two more presents today, hmm? Then you'll have one hundred presents! How about that, Spuddy?"

Uncle Herman grumbled to himself. Harold knew that he loved Spudley, but hated throwing money out the window.

"Okay," Spudley agreed. He began to wolf down his omelet, and Harold had to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

The phone rang. Aunt Pansy went to answer it while Uncle Herman and Harold watched Spudley open a Nintendo Wii, three skateboards, a pair of boxing gloves, twenty-one videogames, and a model rocket. He was just unwrapping a box full of baseball cards when Aunt Pansy came back, looking angry.

"Mrs. Pea's broken her leg. She can't take him," she snapped, pointing at Harold. "Now what are we supposed to do?"

"What?" cried Spudley.

"YIPPEE!" yelled Harold. Uncle Herman smacked him with his rolled up newspaper, but he didn't care. He hated going to Mrs. Pea's house. It smelled like boiled eggplant, and the only thing he ever did there was look at the countless photos of Mrs. Pea's many generations of guinea pigs.

"We could call Marcie…" Uncle Herman suggested.

"Don't be stupid, she hates him!"

"You could just leave me here," said Harold.

Aunt Pansy looked like she had just swallowed an entire bag of Sour Patch Kids.

"Only to come back and find the house in ruins?" she hissed.

"How the heck am I going to blow up the house if I don't have a bomb?" said Harold indignantly, but no one listened.

"I guess we could take him with us…" Aunt Pansy began, but at that moment, Spudley started to fake-cry.

"I D-DON'T WANT H-HIM TO C-COME!" he wailed.

"Well too bad, Spuddykins! They have to bring me!" Harold whispered to himself. And he was right. The Durskeys could find no alternative but to bring him along.

As Spudley was getting into the car with his best friend, Patrick Smolkiss, Uncle Herman pulled Harold aside.

"Now you listen to me," he growled, "any of your 'funny stuff', anything at all, and I'll lock you in that cabinet until the end of time!"

"I'm not going to do anything," said Harold, exasperated. "Really…"

But Uncle Herman didn't believe him. No one ever did.

One time, Aunt Pansy had gotten tired of looking at Harold's messy hair, so she cut it off herself. Harold had spent that night agonizing over how the kids in school would laugh at him the next day, only to find out that it had all grown back overnight. Another time, she had been trying to force him into a disgusting pair of Spudley's old jeans, but the more she tried to shove them on, the smaller they became, until they were small enough to fit one of Spudley's action figures. And at school, Spudley and his gang were chasing Harold around the building, and Harold had only tried to jump behind the mailbox to hide, but found himself stuck up a tree instead. He had no idea how any of these weird things happened, but they were certainly not going to happen today if he could help it.

During the car ride, Uncle Herman was complaining to Aunt Pansy. Some of his favorite things to complain about were Harold, taxes, Harold, shampoo prices, Harold, and the government. Today, it was scooters.

"…kids riding those things like they're motorcycles, those scooters are just as bad, in my opinion…"

"I had a dream about a scooter once," said Harold conversationally. "It was flying."

Aunt Pansy screamed and Uncle Herman swerved to avoid hitting a fire hydrant. Purple in the face, he turned around in his seat to face Harold and bellowed, "SCOOTERS DON'T FLY!"

Spudley and Patrick snorted.

"I know they don't fly," snapped Harold. "It was just a dream, for God's sake."

Uncle Herman growled like an angry hippopotamus, but kept driving.

When they finally reached the zoo, Uncle Herman bought Spudley and Patrick each an ice cream sundae, and because the woman asked what Harold would like before they could leave, bought him a cherry popsicle.

Harold had the best morning he'd ever had in a long time. After watching the gorillas scratch their behinds and realizing that they looked a lot like Spudley, they went to get some lunch. At the food court, Spudley threw a tantrum because his "Zookeeper's Delight" didn't have enough hot fudge. Uncle Herman bought him another one and Harold was allowed to finish the first.

He should have known it was all too good to last.

Spudley and Patrick were getting bored with the mammals in the zoo, so Uncle Herman led the group towards the reptile exhibit. It was nice and cool after the hot sun outside, and there were lizards and snakes as far as the eye could see. Spudley soon found what looked like the biggest snake in the zoo, but it was fast asleep.

"Dad, make it do something," he whined.

Uncle Herman knocked on the glass. The snake didn't move.

"Do it again!" Spudley ordered. Uncle Herman banged the glass with both fists. The snake finally looked up, surveyed Spudley, and deliberately turned around so its back was facing the group.

"Hey!" yelled Spudley. "You look at me RIGHT NOW!"

"Spudley, honey, there's a giant alligator over here," called Aunt Pansy from across the exhibit. Spudley immediately abandoned the snake and waddled over to his mother. Patrick and Uncle Herman followed.

Harold stayed by the snake, feeling sorry for it. His sympathy turned to shock as the snack turned around, stared at Spudley, who was banging on the alligator's habitat, and turned to look at Harold. And then…

It winked.

Harold stood frozen for a moment, and then, checking to make sure no one was looking, he winked back.

The snake pointed its tail at Uncle Herman and Spudley and rolled its eyes, giving Harold a look that plainly said, That happens all the time.

"You must hate that," murmured Harold. "I know I would if it were me."

The snake nodded its head enthusiastically.

"So…where do you come from, anyway?" asked Harold, wondering why he was talking to a snake.

The snake pointed its tail at a sign on the glass. Harold looked at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil

"Oh, wow! Brazil! Is it nice there? I'll bet its nicer than here," he added mutinously.

The snake rolled its eyes again, pointing more forcefully at the sign, and Harold read on; the snake was bred in the zoo.

"Oh, you've never been there," he said. "Sorry about that."

The snake blinked and nodded. Suddenly it looked up, startled, as Patrick shouted, "SPUDLEY! MR. DURSKEY! LOOK AT THE SNAKE! ITS MOVING!"

Spudley raced back across the exhibit and knocked Harold to the floor, staring greedily at the snake, Patrick joining him. One second, they were both pressing their grubby hands on the glass, the next second, leaping backwards in terror. Spudley actually tripped over his feet and fell on the ground.

The glass to the snake's habitat seemed to have disappeared. The snake was slithering across the floor, hissing quietly and snapping playfully at Spudley's heels. When it passed Harold, he could've sworn he heard a voice hissing, "Brazil, here I come…thanksss, Harold."

Uncle Herman and Aunt Pansy rushed Spudley and Patrick out of the reptile exhibit, promising they would make up for what happened somehow, and Harold, who was trailing behind, heard Patrick suddenly say, "I saw Harold talking to it! You were talking to that snake, weren't you, Harold?"

Uncle Herman turned around and gave Harold the look of death, while Aunt Pansy gasped and clutched at her heart. Spudley smirked, all terror forgotten.

Once they got home, Uncle Herman snarled, "Go…cabinet…stay…no meals…" while collapsing into a chair, and Aunt Pansy ran to get him a beer.

Harold lay in his cabinet much later, staring up at a family of cockroaches on the ceiling. He had lived with the Durskeys for nearly ten years, ever since his parents had died in that plane crash. He thought harder than he ever thought in his life, trying to remember…a flash of green light, a high, cold laugh, and a burning pain in his forehead…was that the crash? If it was, where did the green light come from, and who was laughing? Who in their right mind would be laughing while a plane was crashing? He couldn't ask the Durskeys anything, since he had been forbidden to ask questions, and they were the only people who seemed to know what happened.

Sometimes, if he ever had to go with Aunt Pansy while she ran errands, complete strangers seemed to recognize him. A man in a top hat had ran up and hugged him in a shop, and then scurried away before Harold could react. A tiny old woman dressed in bright green waved to him while on a bus. Even a little girl had pointed at him while shopping at her mother. But try as he might, Harold could never get a good look at any of these people. They seemed to just disappear.

At school, Harold had no friends at all. Everyone knew that Spudley hated that Harold Plodder kid with the baggy clothes and Duct taped glasses, and no one liked to disagree with Spudley and his gang.

Haha ya like? I do! I am quite proud of myself. Please review or face my wrath! My virtual wrath! Poor Harold Plodder needs to be reassured that people are actually interested in his life so he doesnt fall into the pit of depression and get beaten up by Spudley. :D