Freaks: Year Two

The Twisted Tree

"Hoo!!" they called in reply.

Harry laughed. "It is so cool you can do that."

"You mean not everyone can?" Francis asked.

Harry shook his head. "Nope, it is your special talent."

Francis hopped up, "Cool!!"

Ethan scoffed. "You know he is probably going to try to smuggle an owl at one point, right?"

Jasper looked over to Francis who smiled as innocently as he could. "I don't doubt it. I have my eye on you."

Francis stared at him. "Do you?"

"I do," Jasper said. "Don't you even think of stealing an owl."

Francis said, "I would never, ever, ever, ever steal an owl."

Jasper nodded slowly. "Alright..."

The floo started to rumble again, and they all turned to it. Out of the station came Toby. He slowly got to his feet and looked at the others, trying to adjust to his surroundings.

Jasper asked hurriedly, "Why didn't you let Edgar go first?" He was nervous that he was alone back there. What if he didn't know what to do? What if he tried to go home and got lost? Or what if he just went home?

Toby looked at him confused and said, "Edgar went after Francis."

"What?" asked Jasper starting to panic. "He never appeared."

Toby now looked worried. "He did say it a bit...wrong."

Jasper's eyes were wide. "Well, where would he have gone?"

Harry was watching how quickly panicked they were all becoming and he quickly said, "I think I know, but we need to hurry."

Jasper turned to Harry. "What? Why hurry? This place is safe right?" He kept thinking back to the bad run he had with those dark wizards near the Owl Post Office.

Harry nodded but he looked uneasy. "Diagon Alley is...Knockturn Alley isn't."

"Before we are off, let's go over some rules."

"Mother and Father already told me the rules," Alabaster said.

"Shut up!" Theodore snapped and Alabaster so wanted to sigh. They were two minutes in and he already was messing up. "Just...don't talk to anyone, and don't you dare embarrass me, or my sister."

Eve rolled her eyes, losing her patience. "Can we go?"

Theodore nodded. "We will, I just want to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"This is Alabaster," Eve stated. "What are you expecting!"

Alabaster stared at the two of them a bit hurt.

Theodore sighed. "I know," and he turned to Alabaster. "Just...behave. No talking."

"Why not?"

"What did I just say?" Theodore glared at him.

Alabaster closed his mouth and stayed silent. He looked around, still mesmerised that he was in Diagon Alley. He was ecstatic but he couldn't help but notice how loud it was. Children were talking loudly. Running around. Several owls were hooting. Footsteps. The wind. The bright sun. The one red bird chirping in that tree overhead. The whizzing of a mysterious object he didn't know the name of. Laughing, talking, footsteps, laughing, talking, footsteps, laughing, talking–

"Alabaster!" Theodore snapped and he shook out of it to see his cousins up ahead at a huge shop and he quickly followed. Once he was there, he peeked through the window. It was quite hard to see what was inside but it seemed close to empty.