feeling his arms, she said, “Have you been eating? You look terribly thin.”
“We’ve, err, been out exploring,” Box replied (thinking it better to say that).
“Laurel, did you hear that?” she said. “They’ve been out exploring! Our son is growing up; he’s actually growing up! What on earth will he be doing next?”
“Doing away with madmen intent on taking over the world, maybe?” Harry whispered.
“And Harry! Our favourite niece,” Mrs Privet continued, turning her attention to Harry. “It’s so good to see you again, Harry.” On hearing this Box almost choked with laughter.
“Now, let’s all go inside and have a nice cup of tea, where you can both tell me all about your adventure. What was it again that you said you were doing?”
“Exploring,” Harry chipped in, “we were off exploring.”
“Yes, yes, that was it,” she replied like she hadn’t got a care in the world. Ducking beneath the same low-slung branch the two adventurers had avoided, she made her way across to the house.
Coughing uncomfortably, Mr Privet called out, “Holly, have you forgotten something?”
Holly, however, having already reached the back door of the house never heard him, she was far too excited by the return of her son to be listening to her husband’s banal conversation.
Confused by their strange behaviour, Box turned his attention to his father, and he said, “What were you doing under here, anyway?”
“Oh, nothing much,” his father replied, shuffling to one side like he was trying to hide something. “Did you see that?” he asked.
“See what?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled, wondering why he had said it, “nothing at all.” Then wrapping an arm around his son’s shoulders, he began leading him out from under the tree.
Tapping her foot on the dusty ground, her fist resting beneath her chin, Harry asked, “Have you forgotten something?”
Feeling a pocket with his free hand, Mr Privet said, “No, I don’t think so, Harry, but thank you for asking, it was a kind gesture, most kind indeed.”
“A kind gesture, sweet talking – what on earth is going on here?” Harry barked, in her growing frustration with the Privets.
“Harry, what are you doing?” said Box, trying to calm her. But Harry, having none of it, and she said, “Well? Are you going to tell me what’s going on around here?”
Replying in the same happy tone, Mr Privet said, “Nothing, Harry, absolutely nothing. Then thinking a bit about it, he stooped down and picked something up from the ground, something that looked incredibly like Harry’s magical carpet. “It wouldn’t be this,” he asked, “that has you so concerned?”
Then he saw it, Box saw the magical carpet, and filled with curiosity, he said, “Dad, what are you doing with THAT?”
Plonking his hands into his trouser pockets, his father mumbled, “I found it…underneath this tree…”
Recalling the beared men who had been after her, Harry remembered their magical carpets – and the one that had landed beneath the tree. “I think it’s my fault,” she admitted contritely, “I should have ‘tidied up’ better before we left…”
Another smile erupting across his thin face, Mr Privet said, “I don’t know where it came from, or what it was doing there, and for a while I thought it no more than a mere rug, but it’s far more than that, Harry, far more. Would you like to see what I can do with this carpet-thingamajig?”
“No, no, it’s okay,” she replied, fearing where the conversation was heading.
But Mr Privet was hearing none of it; and dashing out from under the tree, carelessly knocking his bald head on the same low branch that Harry, Box and his mother had managed to avoid, he unrolled the carpet on the lawn, and sitting cross-legged upon it, he said, “Come on, Harry, you won’t believe what I can do with this!”
“You think so?” she replied, eyeing both him and the carpet with concern.
Beckoning for her to get on, he said, “Come on, Harry, or do you want Box to have all the fun?”
“Yeh,” she replied dryly. “That’s an idea; in fact it’s a great idea. Let Box have all the fun…”
Laughing at her reticence, Box coaxed Harry up to the carpet. “Go on,” he said. “And see what dad can do with it!”
Giving him a look that would have curdled margarine let alone butter, Harry tentatively stepped onto the carpet. “Buckle up,” Mr Privet laughed, and with that the carpet shot high into the air.
Holding on for dear life, Harry, the girl mystic, the troublesome, bothersome girl mystic had finally met her match, as laughing with glee, for the sheer fun of it, Mr Privet aimed the carpet ever higher. “Well?” he shouted above the roar of the wind in their ears, “How do you like it?” Without giving her the chance to reply, he said, “I bet you’ve never seen anything like this before, huh?”
“Hmm,” she replied holding on tightly to the frayed woven threads, “in all truth I can say that I have never before endured anything remotely similar to this experience.”
On a roll, Mr Privet pushed the front of the carpet hard down. “Let’s see what this little baby can really do!” he said, and with that the carpet and its two occupants hurtled alarmingly fast towards the ground. “Yippee!” Mr Privet shouted in wild excitement. “No tyres or batteries to worry about of this little beauty, YIPPEE!”
She was so petrified by the crazy mad antics of the Privet Muddle, Box’s father, Harry, forgetting about her newfound powers, including her ability to defy gravity, shut her eyes tight and prayed for a miracle, She thought, she believed that her time had come, that she would soon be meeting her maker in The Summerland. To say that it was a nice surprise when this did not actually happen, when the carpet, instead of smashing hard into the ground, as Harry feared, came to a gentle stop an inch above it, would be an enormous understatement. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Harry rolled off the carpet and crumpled in a heap on the safer, much safer aspect of old mother earth.
“I’m thinking of getting shut of the car altogether,” said Mr Privet, smiling and stroking the moth-eaten old carpet like it was the family pet. “There’s no road tax or insurance to pay… and little or no maintenance costs, apart from some yarn to patch over these threadbare bits…” With that he poked a finger through one of the many holes.
“STOP IT! STOP IT!” Harry yelled at the crazy Muddle. “You’re mad!” she cried out. “As nutty as a fruitcake!” There, she had said it; Harry had told Box’s father that he was still really and truly mad. And it was true; although he had regained his nerve, Mr Privet was without a shadow of a doubt definitely, most certainly MAD.
His face dropping, he asked, “Was it something I said? Or are you feeling airsick, Harry?”
“STOP IT, STOP IT!” Harry yelled yet again. “Box! BOX! – Where are you, Box?” she shouted, looking for her cousin, but he was nowhere to be seen. “BOX!”
“Here you are, Harry, some tea,” said Mrs Privet, handing her a cup. “Do you like the cup?” she asked, “It’s from my best set of hand-painted fine bone china. I could only find the one, though. I have no idea what happened to the rest of them.”
Taking a polite sip from her tea from the cup, Harry nodded that she did, thinking, no, believing that Mrs Privet was most surely as mad as her loopy husband.
Taking a bite from a biscuit (a fig roll) Mr Privet raised his cup to his lips and, reminiscent of Box, took a huge mouthful of tea, them returning the cup to its saucer, he said, “Harry…”
“Yes?”
“Harry…I have been thinking about that radio of yours…” he said, taking another bite from his biscuit.
“Radio? What radio?” she asked, having forgotten about her little deception, earlier.
“The one that you and Box made, upstairs,” he explained, pointing to the ceiling with a finger.
“Oh, that one,” she replied nonchalantly. “What about it?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, err, spot of bother I had,
while I was trying to operate it… And I have come to the conclusion that it must have been some sort of atmospheric disturbance that stopped me from getting the hang of it.”
Going along with the crazy Muddle (thinking it better that way), Harry replied, “I suppose it could have had an influ…”
Interrupting, Mr Privet, said, “I’m glad that you agree, Harry.”
“You are?”
“Yes,” he continued, “because I have been looking forward to giving it another go.”
Raising her cup, taking another sip of the drink she so despised, Harry played for time, trying to think of a reason – any reason why Mr Privet should not have, could not have another go of her ‘radio’.
“Would you like some more, to freshen it up?” Mrs Privet asked, offering Harry the teapot.
Placing a hand over her cup, she replied, “No, thank you, I have had more than enough.” Leaning down to her shoulder bag that she had hung from the chair, Harry carefully opened it, and withdrawing her new wand, she said, “Is this what you are looking for?”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Mr Privet, his hands stretching towards the ‘radio’. “I’d recognise it anywhere. There aren’t many radios like that one!”
“No, there certainly are not.” Harry agreed.
Mr Privet made a grab for the ‘radio’. Pulling it away, out of reach, Harry said, “Before I give it to you, I must first show you how to use it… Is that okay?”
“Yes, yes, that’s fine,” he replied. “Just tell me which of those little switches,” he