The next time she thinks she can get away with it she'll go hunting in the garden for the snake.

...might be tricky. Once the news gets out that the zoo did not recapture the snake, Uncle Vernon forbid her from leaving the cupboard for anything other than school.

Well she hopes that the snake will be okay without her then.

She's not allowed out until the summer holidays roll out, but the neighbourhood has had markedly fewer incidents with rodents and other small pests.

Well that sounds like the snake is doing alright. She goes looking for it.

It comes out of its carefully hidden hole when she does.

"Hi there, have you been enjoying yourself?"

"Yess and no. Bigger prey, harder to catch."

"I guess nothing is perfect. Do you have a name?"

Headshake.

"Do you want one?"

Nod.

"I think I'll call you Emery if that's alright."

Another nod. "A fine name."

"Do you need anything you don't have?"

"No."

"Mkay, can I pet you?"

"Yess."

And so she pets Emery gently for a while. "I should get going, I'm glad you're doing well Emery."

It bobs its head up and down and slithers away again.

She'll go back to tending the garden. When she's done with that she'll go back inside.

Dudley has 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.

The biggest problem with summer holidays is, of course, that Dudley's gang visits every day: Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon, each bigger and stupider than the last, and Dudley, being the biggest and stupidest of the lot, is of course their leader. They mostly give Sarah a wide berth, but when she's around they make loud remarks about the smell and wonder if something died around there. They seem to find this joke hilarious no matter how many times they've made it.

As long as they're confining themselves to words she ignores them, she knows in her strange way that they don't think they're telling the truth.

In September, though, they're all going to secondary school. Dudley and Piers have been accepted to Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings, but Sarah's going to Stonewall High, the local state high school. Dudley finds this hilarious.

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he tells Sarah. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

"I don't think I'd like putting someone's head in the toilet but thank you for asking." She says softly as she walks out to the garden.