The Forgotten Twin

Chapter 2

"You could just leave us here," Harry put in hopefully (they'd be able to watch what they 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.

"We won't blow up the house," said Delilah, but they weren't listening.

"I suppose we could take them to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... and leave them in the car...."

"That car's new, they're 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 them spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.

"I... don't... want... them... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "they always sp- spoil everything!" He shot Harry and Delilah 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, Delilah, who couldn't believe their luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car squished with Harry, Piers, and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in her 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 and Delilah aside.

"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry and Delilah's, "I'm warning you now, any funny business, anything at all — and you'll be locked in that room from now until Christmas."

"We're not going to do anything," said Delilah. Harry nodded.

But Uncle Vernon didn't believe them, no one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and Delilah and it was just no good telling the Dursleys they didn't make them happen, especially since Delilah didn't believe the excuses she and Harry came up with.

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 the 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 Delilah into a revolting old sweater (brown with orange puff balls) — The harder she tried to pull it over Delilah's head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Delilah. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Delilah wasn't punished.

Harry had once gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from the headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all Harry had tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Delilah stayed quiet when she sneaked him some food that night. Harry told her that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump. She didn't correct him.