Ch 2. continue of the 2nd chapter

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 cabbage-smelling 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.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised

its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.

It winked.

Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was

watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised

its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:

"I get that all the time.

"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the

snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."

The snake nodded vigorously.

"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry

peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

"Was it nice there?"

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on:

This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see -- so you've never been to

Brazil?"

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of

them jump.

"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU

WON'T BELIEVE

WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by

surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened

so fast no one saw how it happened -- one second, Piers and Dudley were

leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with

howls of horror.

Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank

had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering

out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and

started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low,

hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come.... Thanksss, amigo."

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea

while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only

gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except

snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were

all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had

nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to

squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers

calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you,

Harry?"

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before

starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to

say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before he collapsed into a

chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He

didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were

asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen

for some food.

He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as

long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents

had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when

his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long

hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding

flash of green light and a burn- ing pain on his forehead. This, he

supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green

light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and

uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask

questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown

relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the

Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped)

that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers

they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once

while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry

furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the

shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in

green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long

purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and

then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these

people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.

At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated

that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and

nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.

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