CHAPTER THREE
“Let me see it!” demanded Dudley.
“OUT!” roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and
Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the
hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley
promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at
the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one
ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and
floor.
“Vernon,” Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, “look at
the address — how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You
don’t think they’re watching the house?”
“Watching — spying — might be following us,” muttered Un-
cle Vernon wildly.
“But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell
them we don’t want —”
Harry could see Uncle Vernon’s shiny black shoes pacing up and
down the kitchen.
“No,” he said finally. “No, we’ll ignore it. If they don’t get an an-
swer. . . . Yes, that’s best . . . we won’t do anything. . . .”
“But —”
“I’m not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn’t we swear when
we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense?”
That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did
something he’d never done before; he visited Harry in his cup-
board.
“Where’s my letter?” said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had
squeezed through the door. “Who’s writing to me?”
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