tema 5

small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all
he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley’s, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he
was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round
glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him
on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his
forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember,
and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.
“In the car crash when your parents died,” she had said. “And don’t ask questions.”
Don’t ask questions— that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.
Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.
“Comb your hair!” he barked, by way of a morning greeting.

About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that

Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class
put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way — all over the place.
Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley
looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue
eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that
Dudley looked like a baby angel — Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.
Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn’t much
room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.
“Thirty-six,” he said, looking up at his mother and father. “That’s two less than last year.”
“Darling, you haven’t counted Auntie Marge’s present, see, it’s here under this big one from
Mummy and Daddy.”
“All right, thirty-seven then,” said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a
huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case
Dudley turned the table over.
Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, “And we’ll buy you
another two presents while we’re out today. How’s that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all
right”
Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, “So I’ll have
thirty...thirty...”
“Thirty-nine, sweetums,” said Aunt Petunia.
“Oh.” Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. “All right then.”
Uncle Vernon chuckled.
“Little tyke wants his money’s worth, just like his father. ’Atta boy, Dudley!” He ruffled
Dudley’s hair.
At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and
Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control
airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold
wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.
“Bad news, Vernon,” she said. “Mrs. Figg’s broken her leg. She can’t take him.” She jerked
her head in Harry’s direction.
Dudley’s mouth fell open in horror, but Harry’s heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley’s
birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger
restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who
lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg
made him look at photographs of all the cats she’d ever owned.
“Now what?” said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he’d planned this.
Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn’t easy when he
reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws,
and Tufty again.
“We could phone Marge,” Uncle Vernon suggested.
“Don’t be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy.”
The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn’t there — or rather, as
though he was something very nasty that couldn’t understand them, like a slug.
“What about what’s-her-name, your friend — Yvonne?”
“On vacation in Majorca,” snapped Aunt Petunia.
“You could just leave me here,” Harry put in hopefully (he’d be able to watch what he
wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley’s computer).
Aunt Petunia looked as though she’d just swallowed a lemon.
“And come back and find the house in ruins?” she snarled.
“I won’t blow up the house,” said Harry, but they weren’t listening.
“I suppose we could take him to the zoo,” said Aunt Petunia slowly, “…and leave him in the
car.…”
“That car’s new, he’s not sitting in it alone.…”
Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn’t really crying — it had been years since he’d
really cried — but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him
anything he wanted.
“Dinky Duddydums, don’t cry, Mummy won’t let him spoil your special day!” she cried,
flinging her arms around him.
“I…don’t…want…him…t-t-to come!” Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. “He
always sp-spoils everything!” He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother’s arms.
Just then, the doorbell rang — “Oh, good Lord, they’re here!” said Aunt Petunia frantically
— and a moment later, Dudley’s best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was
a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people’s arms behind their
backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.
Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn’t believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the
Dursleys’ car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt
and uncle hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they’d left, Uncle
Vernon had taken Harry aside.
“I’m warning you,” he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry’s, “I’m
warning you now, boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you’ll be in that cupboard
from now until Christmas.”
“I’m not going to do anything,” said Harry, “honestly…”
But Uncle Vernon didn’t believe him. No one ever did.
The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling
the Dursleys he didn’t make them happen.
Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he
hadn’t been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost
bald except for his bangs, which she left “to hide that horrible scar.” Dudley had laughed himself
silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already
laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to
find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off He had been given a
week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn’t explain how it
had grown back so quickly.
Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of
Dudley’s (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller
it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn’t fit
Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry
wasn’t punished.
On the other hand, he’d gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school
kitchens. Dudley’s gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry’s surprise as
anyone else’s, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter
from Harry’s headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he’d
tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump
behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have
caught him in mid-jump.
But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to
be spending the day somewhere that wasn’t school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg’s cabbagesmelling
living room.
While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about
things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his
favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.
“…roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums,” he said, as a motorcycle overtook
them.
“I had a dream about a motorcycle,” said Harry, remembering suddenly. “It was flying.”
Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and
yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: “MOTORCYCLES DON’T FLY!”
Dudley and Piers sniggered.
“I know they don’t,” said Harry. “It was only a dream.”
But he wished he hadn’t said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more
than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn’t, no
matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon — they seemed to think he might get dangerous
ideas.
It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought
Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in
the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a
cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn’t bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla
scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn’t blond.
Harry had the best morning he’d had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart
from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by
lunchtime, wouldn’t fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo
restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn’t have enough
ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the
first.
Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.
After lunch they 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. 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 twice around Uncle Vernon’s car and crushed it into a trash can — but at the
moment it didn’t look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.
Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.
“Make it move,” he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on 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. He shuffled away.
Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn’t have been
surprised if it had died of boredom itself — 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 he got to visit the rest of the house.