RHarry leapt into the air – he’d trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat – something alive!
Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realised that the big squashy something had been his uncle’s face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn’t do exactly what he’d been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miser¬ably off into the kitchen, and by the time he got back, the post had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon’s lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.
‘I want –’ he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.
Uncle Vernon didn’t go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the letter-box.
‘See,’ he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, ‘if they can’t deliver them they’ll just give up.’
‘I’m not sure that’ll 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 fruit cake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.
*
On Friday, no fewer than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn’t go through the letter-box they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs toilet.
Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips’ as he worked, and jumped at small noises.
*
On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milk¬man had handed Aunt Petunia through the living-room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food mixer.
‘Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?’ Dudley asked Harry in amazement.
*
On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.