That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Rose in her cupboard.
''Where's my letter?'' said Rose the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. ''Who's writing to me?''
''No one. It was addressed to you by mistake,'' said Uncle Vernon shortly. ''I have burned it.''
''It was not a mistake,'' said Rose angrily, ''it had my cupboard on it.''
''SILENCE!'' yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.
''Er- yes, Rose- about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... You're really getting a bit big for it... We think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom.
''Why?'' said Rose.
''Don't ask questions!'' snapped her uncle. ''Take this stuff upstairs, now.''
The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors, one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom.
It only took Rose one trip upstairs to move everything she owned form the cupboard to this room. She sat down on the bed and stared around her. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bend because Dudley sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. Those were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.
From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, ''I don't want her in there... I need that room.. Make her get out..''
Rose sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday she'd have given anything to be up here. Today she'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.
Next morning, at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet, Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and still didn't have his room back.
Rose was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing she'd opened the letter in the hall.
Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.
When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Rose, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging on things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted. ''There's another one! 'Miss R. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Pivet Drive-''
With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Rose right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact Rose had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Rose's letter clutched in his hand.
''Go to your cupboard- I mean, your bedroom,'' he wheezes to Rose. ''Dudley- go- just go.''
One day, after the letters kept coming and coming, Uncle Vernon, who had had enough, didn't go to work that day. He stayed home and nailed up the mail slot. ''See,'' he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, ''If they can't deliver them, then they'll just give up!''
''I'm not sure that's work, Vernon.''
''Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me,'' said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.
On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Rose. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.
Uncle Vernon stayed home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up all the cracks around the front and back doors so one could go out.
On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty- four letters to Rose found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying yo find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letter in her food processor.
''Who on earth wants to talk to you that badly?'' Dudley asked Rose in amazement.
On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down happily at the breakfast table, ''No post on Sundays,'' he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, ''no damn letters today-''
Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply in the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Rose leapt into the air trying to catch one.
''OUT! OUT!'' Uncle Vernon seized Rose around the waist and threw her in the hall. Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut after Aunt Petunia and Dudley got out. They could still hear the letter streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.
''That does it,'' said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmy but pulling great tuffs out of his mustache at the same time. ''I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away, just pack some clothes. No arguments!''
He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared to argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded- up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway.
They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.
They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. HE was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien in his computer.
''Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?'' Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late the next day. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared. It had started to rain. ''It's Monday,'' he told his mother. ''The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with television.''
Monday. This reminded Rose of something. If it was Monday- and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television- then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Rose's eleventh birthday.
Of course, her birthdays were never exactly fun- last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day.
Uncle Vernon was pack and he was smiling. ''Found the perfect place!'' he said. ''Come on! Everyone out!''
It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.
As night fell, a storm blew up around them. Spray f waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows.
Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door and Rose was left to find the softest bit of floor she could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.
The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the soda on his wrist, told Rose she'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. She lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.
Five minutes to go. Rose heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although she might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Pivet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that she'd be able to steal one somehow.
Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?
One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... Twenty... ten... nine- maybe she'd wake Dudley up just to annoy him- three.. two.. one...
BOOM