Book #1 |
willowsevern@yahoo.com |
"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.
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.
The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever
punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer
holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his new video camera,
crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike,
knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.
One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings
uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn 't as bad as usual.
It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she
didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television
and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it
for several years.