Chapter 4

Mr Peterson taught the year one class at St Andrew’s Primary School. He was tall and overly skinny with a droopy moustache and his trousers never seemed to quite reach his ankles always being half an inch too short. Most the children considered him to be a push over, more inclined to let the class play than actually teach them. Harry was the exception. After a year of Mrs Christian’s constant pushing for his expulsion, tales of Harry’s supposedly wild behaviour had made their way through the teacher’s gossip mill and even Mr Peterson was harsh to this apparent demon child.

Harry felt silly for holding onto hope that this year would be different but it wasn’t. He was scolded for not doing the work and accused of cheating when he did. The other children lead by Dudley quickly realised that Harry could be made the scapegoat for any of their mishaps and he spent many a lunch time alone in the classroom for their miscellaneous mistakes. He had no friends, other children were scared of being tarred with the same brush as him and he was lonely, so Hart began to leave the cupboard under the stairs and attend school wrapped around his skinny middle under last year’s raggedy jumper. It wasn’t like he had grown out of it so Aunt Petunia had refused to buy him another; well not refused, more declared, Harry would have had to be stupid enough to ask to give her the opportunity to refuse.

It was a Tuesday in February and Harry was hissing quietly to Hart, reciting a book he had read the previous week to him. The classroom was loud and noisy, paint and PVA glue being splattered on the floor and children’s uniforms. Mr Peterson leant back in his chair shaking out his newspaper and ignoring the carnage. Harry ducked out of the way of a flying paint bottle that then bounced off the wall behind him. Looking over at the oblivious Mr Peterson he scoffed in disgust; the man didn’t notice any of the carnage in his classroom.

Harry’s eyes widened in realisation; he didn’t notice anything. Right outside the open classroom window were thick gorse bushes, taller than Harry and Aunt Petunia had decided that this year her precious Dudley was capable of walking home which meant Harry walked home, ran actually to escape Dudley and his little gang most of the time as they practised their new favourite game of Harry Hunting. Harry no longer had a book bag, he carried his broken pencils to and from school in his pocket so he carefully slipped them in and cast a surreptitious glance around the classroom. Mr Peterson’s eyeline was still blocked by his massive newspaper and his classmates were playing raucously taking no notice of Harry. He slipped quietly from his seat and snuck towards the open window.