on, or do you want to rejoin that snake?”
Having no wish to return, Box followed his cousin, slipping quietly out of the reptile house, away from his parents.
“Here, eat this,” said Harry, offering Box an ice cream cone that she had purchased from one of the small kiosks scattered about the zoo grounds.
Making faces, Box licked the ice cream, wondering if it were poisoned.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, I just bought it,” she said, “You can swap it with mine if you’re that worried.” Harry offered him her ice cream.
“No, no, it’s all right,” he said, taking another, more relaxed lick from his cone. “Thanks.”
This was the second time (and in the same day) that his cousin had shown him some kindness; Box was confused.
As they wandered away from the shop, to a quiet part of the zoo grounds where many tall trees and bushes were growing, Harry began speaking, she said, “Box, cousin, you are handy with electrical items and so forth, are you not?”
He nodded, wondering where the conversation was heading. “Unfortunately, I have no knowledge of, and even less interest in such things…”
Box nodded again, though for politeness this time.
“I want you to make me something – electrical…”
He was interested; Box loved working with electronics, and he asked, “What do you want me to make?”
Carefully considering her words, choosing enough to tell him what she wanted him to do, but not enough to give him any idea of what she had planned, Harry said, “See this?” Removing her wand from her pocket, Harry showed it to him.
Seeing it, the wand, Box was gob smacked, and he shouted, “A wand! It was a wand! I knew it! Like the one dad sometimes talks about!”
“Tell everyone, why don’t you?” Harry hissed, annoyed that she needed the services of so stupid a Muddle.
“Sorry.”
Reaching out, Box asked, “Can I touch it?”
“No, you cannot.”
His face falling, Box was devastated.
“You can touch it, later,” Harry promised. “For now, it’s best that you only look.”
Box stared lovingly at the brown wooden stick – the wand, “I can hardly believe that I am really looking at a magical wand,” he mused.
“Now that you have had a good look,” said Harry, returning the wand to the safety of her pocket, “can we get back to my request?”
Coughing excitedly, Box said, “Yes, yes, please go on.”
“So you see, Box,” said Harry, after she had finished explaining what she wanted him to do, “I want you to make me a wand, a wand that combines all of the magical qualities of my own...but with the added benefit of the Muddles’ electrical wisdom. God, I so hate using that word ‘wisdom’ in the same sentence as Muddle.” Studying his face, his expression, Harry tried to sense Box’s mood, his thoughts on his chances of pulling it off.
Box remained silent for many minutes, ruminating over the pros and cons of such an undertaking. From the electrical point of view, creating something akin to a wand would be a relatively simple matter, for a person such as him. It was the magical qualities that caused him the most worry, and how he might ever hope to combine the two, even more…
Box offered Harry his answer; speaking slowly, as slowly and carefully as Harry had so recently done, he said, “I think I can do it…”
Relieved, Harry smiled, and she was so pretty when she did this.
Box continued, “Having said that, I feel that I must tell you that it will not be an easy matter, by any stretch of the imagination…”
“But you can do it?” she said, still smiling radiantly.
“Yes, but…”
“You can,” said Harry, again. “That’s all that matters.” Then quite uncharacteristically, she grabbed hold of Box and gave him a peck on the cheek.
Embarrassed, Box mumbled something about finding his mum and dad. Harry agreed, for having heard what she had wanted to hear, she now wanted to get on with it.
Secrecy, at any Cost
Next morning, Harry, knocking softly on Box’s bedroom door, whispered, “Box, are you awake?”
“Hmm, what is it?” he mumbled sleepily.
“I said, are you awake?”
“What time is it?” Box asked, rubbing his eyes.
“It’s half past six.”
“Half past six, are you sure?” Box asked, unwilling to believe that even she would consider awakening him at so early an hour. Reaching for his glasses on the bedside locker, and then grabbing hold of his watch, Box gazed sleepily onto its face, to see if he had heard her correctly. Staring at the dial, he saw that it was indeed six thirty.
“Yes, I am sure of it,” said Harry, louder this time. “Now are you getting up or do I have to send off for that snake?”
Jumping out of bed, putting on his dressing gown and slippers, Box unbolted the door. Bang, bang, bang, the bolts slid back from their nighttime position. The door, creaking open, revealed the sleepy face of Box, Harry’s tall and whimpishly thin cousin. “What’s the problem,” he asked, yawning and scratching his head.
“There’s no problem,” she replied casually. “We have to get started.”
“But it’s Sunday,” he protested, “and I always have a lie in on Sundays.”
“Not anymore, you don’t,” she said. “Not until our work has been done.”
“But we have to buy supplies,” he protested again, “and the electrical shop isn’t open until tomorrow…” But it was useless complaining, Box was simply wasting his time trying to put Harry off, she wanted to get started and nothing would dissuade her from it, absolutely nothing. And he thought, ‘she might really have that snake stashed somewhere nearby, mightn’t she?’ Agreeing, he said, “All right, I’ll get up, but I want some breakfast, first.”
“Okay, I’ll see you downstairs,” Harry replied, and with that she dashed down the stairs at full pelt.
Scratching his head, Box wondered what he had done to deserve a cousin such as Harry.
“Here you are,” said Harry, pointing to a plate on the table, when Box entered the kitchen.
“What’s that?” he asked, sitting down and inspecting the plate with some interest.
“A fry-up, of course,” she replied, pushing it closer. “That’ll keep you going…”
Even though he was puzzled – for there was no smell of cooking – Box said nothing; he knew better than to ask her such ‘Muddling’ questions.
“And keep the noise down,” Harry warned. “We don’t want to be waking the old cronies.”
Old cronies? Oh, you mean mum and dad,” he said with a laugh. “Y’know, I used to call them that, a while back.”
“You did?”
“Yep, it’s a funny old world, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” Harry replied, thinking about how many other silly Muddles were living in Dorsley Drive.
When he had finished eating his breakfast, and it was a surprisingly good fry-up, Box asked Harry what was first on the agenda.
“Secrecy,” she replied, again in a whisper.
“Pardon?”
“I said secrecy is the first thing on the agenda,” she insisted. “You must keep everything that we do a secret from your parents!”
Box gulped. “Everything?” You see, up until then he had no secrets hidden from them.
“Yes, everything,” she insisted. “And not just them, but everyone you know. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, I suppose so – but it won’t be easy.”
Harry ignored this comment.
“Where are we going?” Box asked, following Harry out from the house.
“Somewhere private…”
Harry walked, Box followed.
After buying a pen and a notepad from the local newsagents, Harry led the short distance to the park. After climbing over the locked gates, Harry chose a spot on the grass where they could sit. “Sit down,” she ordered.
“Here
?”
Yes.”
It might be damp…”
“SIT!”
Obeying her, Box sat upon the grass, and then he watched as his troublesome cousin scribbled her thoughts down onto the notepad. It took her a while, to do this, a good while. Bored, waiting for her to finish, Box nonchalantly watched the sparrows scurrying ever closer, hoping for a handout of some food scraps they might have.
When Harry had finally finished recording her thoughts onto the notepad, she handed it to Box, saying, “Take a look, and then tell me what you think.”
Box studied the notes with some interest – all two pages of them. Then turning to a new page, and without saying a word, he asked for the pen. Harry gave it to him. Writing feverously, Box recorded his own thoughts and ideas into the little notepad, filling page after page with ever more complex ideas. Every now and again he would pause for a moment to refer back to his cousin’s scribbles, and then he would start off again, working his way through to the final design. When he was finished, Box had filled fifteen pages with notes, and another two with a list of the materials required for the task.
“Here,” he said, returning the notepad to Harry. “Now you take as look…”
Harry studied the plans. When she had seen enough, she said, “It might as well be in double-dutch for all that it means to me, but I trust you, cousin, so lets gets on with it.”
Box grinned; he loved a challenge and this was most certainly a challenge. The grin disappearing from his face, Box looked terribly worried.
“What’s wrong?” said Harry, confused by his change of emotions.
“Money!” he replied.
“Money, what about money?” Harry asked.
“We need some – loads of it,” Box groaned. “That lot will cost us a bomb.”
“Leave the matter of