Bonus points if you recognize the spell she uses.

***



Day 1, Part 3

It starts to drizzle again, so I head back to Rose Cottage.

Mom is making lunch. Let me tell you something important about my mother: she funnels all of her creative and artistic instincts into minor culinary disasters in the kitchen. Some people paint, some people write poetry. My mom creates masterpieces with mint jam and bok choy. Sometimes they’re epic, like the ginger chicken or her alfredo pizza. Sometimes, I think she’s trying to poison me.

“You will not believe who I just met,” I announce. Dad and Brad share the tiny pink couch and stare at the fuzzy television screen. Fancy British static.

“The Queen of England?” Mom guesses. She’s attempting to saw slices off that towel bread, and I start to worry about lunch.

“What would she be doing here?” I scoff. “No, Mum. Listen. I saw HARRY POTTER.”

She sets down her knife as Brad looks over with interest. “Should have guessed that one, I guess,” she finally mutters. Brad snorts.

Maybe he has one of those disgusting summer colds, because surely he isn’t laughing at ME.

“It IS problematic,” I say as I pull myself up on the stool at the kitchen counter. “He wasn’t wearing glasses. Harry can’t see without his glasses.”

Brad opens his mouth.

“But,” I hurry up to add, “the bigger problem is that Harry Potter was born in 1980. He’s like 30 years old now. This kid was my age.”

“Really. That’s the part you’re having trouble with?” Brad turns completely around to regard me. “You’re worried that the fictional character you’ve spotted on the beach is too old? I’d worry more about the fact that he’s FICTIONAL, Ug. That means he doesn’t exist.”

“I’m aware of what fictional means, Arm Pit.”

“I’m not sure.”

Mom keeps us from arguing by setting a plate of food in front of me. WTH, MOM? It looks like a pile of mashed potatoes with sliced hot dogs on top, covered in some goopy gray sauce. I feel my stomach implode in protest.

“What is this?” Give me towel bread, because I will NOT eat that mess.

“Bangers and mash,” Mom says. Who knew they even SOLD hot dogs in England?

“Mom. No,” I shove the plate away, where it is snagged up by Brad. He has no issue with the toxic-waste-that-is-lunch, but Brad would eat rabbit poop if he was hungry enough. “That is a crime against humanity.”

“Then don’t eat it,” Mom sinks onto the other stool with a magazine and makes a big point out of ignoring me. As if that’s something new and different. I am CLEARLY neglected. Much like Harry Potter with the Dursleys.

As if he is reading my mind, Brad asks, “Remember the time you got into the storage room under the stairs because you wanted to see what it was like to be Harry Potter?” He abandons lunch as the mess it is and flops back down on the sofa, jarring Dad awake for a moment. With one foot, Brad reaches out and adjusts one of the bunny ears with a toe-nudge.

It still shows static.

“And you locked me in there?” Rude, Arm Pit. There were Hagrid-sized spider/wooly mammoth crossbreeds in there.

Brad nods. “Best five hours of my life.”

“What?” Mom glances up from her magazine. She is going to give Brad HECK for locking me up. Finally, a little retribution for all the abuse I suffer at his hands. “Is that how all my Christmas wrapping paper got flattened?”

Un-flipping-believable. I spend five hours in the dark, and she’s worried about out of season WRAPPING PAPER???

“Mother!” I say. “I am your only daughter. You only get 18 years to raise and love me before I enter the cruel real world. Do you really want me to spend years in therapy because of WRAPPING PAPER?” Not to mention the ginormous spiders.

She just looks at me over the top of her magazine before raising it again. “Brad. Try not to put your sister into therapy, kay? It’s expensive.”

“Not my fault. She always rises to the bait,” he grunts and kicks out at the TV again.

Wordlessly, I shake with rage. And then… “HEADICUS EXPLODICUS!”

Nothing happens, so I stomp out of the room.

“Awww. Wait,” Brad calls after me. See? Sometimes a really excellent temper tantrum gets good results. Brad is going to apologize and offer to take me across the lake for ice cream.

He points at a spot beside the TV. “Stand right there. Yup.” With yet another of his eloquent grunts, Brad flops back on the small pink sofa. “Dad! Look! Ally is finally good for something – an antenna. Soccer on the TV.”

“Football on the telly,” I mutter.

“Shh, Ally. Let’s have quiet time.”