ACCOUNT OF JONAS KISSINGTON

32, NEW YORK STOCK BROKER

Listen, I'm from New York, OK? I come to London once a year with Karen and her sister, once a year to Paris, and once in Berlin. I never get time to myself, so I figure I'll go to London once with just me - no wife, no sister, no nothing. Just me. I booked the hotel outside London, cause it's just cheaper that way, and figured I'd take a train to the city. Not so bad, right? That's where you're wrong.

I don't like kids. They're all over the playgrounds in New York. They're all poor, dirty, whiny, annoying - I'm not having kids no matter how much Karen whines about it. She can whine herself into a divorce if she wants, but I'm never having kids. Bum kids are all over London, but I've never seen one on a train before. How much you wanna bet he didn't pay for that ticket? So I'm sitting in my seat, minding my own business, looking through work papers, eying the blonde woman in front of me when she's not paying attention, and here comes this kid. I think he's kind of small, you know, kind of puny to be all by himself. He takes a look around the car with big eyes; you'd have thought he's never been on a train before or something. There are a few empty seats on the other side of the car, thank God, and he takes one right across from me. Of course he had to take the seat right across from me, the guy who hates kids. He looks right at me with his green eyes (too green, I think) and wipes the snot from his nose with the sleeve of his shirt, which looks like it was used as a circus tent. I'm thinking this kid's got problems, cause all he does is stare at me like an idiot. The train stops in London, and I go to leave, thinking this little kid will stay behind. He looks like he's staying behind.

It's when I get to the station that I feel it. This kid is holding my hand. My hand. My wife doesn't even hold my hand. What do I do? I pull off and start to walk away. Maybe if I ignore him he'll take a hike. No such luck. The kid's stuck on me like with superglue or something, his nasty, snotty little hand in mine as we walk out. I want to know where this kid's parents are, but he's not looking at me and I'm not about to say anything to him. When we get into the city it's like he's disappeared. One minute I can feel this tiny hand and the next minute I look down, he's smiling like he's won the lottery, and then I blink and he's gone. I'll tell you one thing. This kid ought to be in the Russian circus or something. Houdini's got nothing on him.

I'll tell you one more thing. Karen's having twins, and all of a sudden it doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

9, MAIN CHARACTER

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge and Mrs Henley and all of the grown-ups I know say that grown-ups are never wrong, because they know loads more than little kids do, which means that little kids can never win against a grown-up in a row or trick a grown-up when they’re doing something naughty like sneaking onto a train or running away from home.

Now I know that Uncle Vernon is definitely wrong, because I’ve tricked the baby lady, and to tell you the truth, it wasn’t very difficult.

“Stop, don’t close the door! Stop!” She runs like Dudley, all big feet and waddles like a duck. Now that she’s stood up I can see that her stomach is big and round, as if there was a football inside of it. It makes me cry a little bit more, because she’s already got one baby to deal with, and she looks a bit poor and lonely to have to take care of two of them. What if she gives the old one away to her sister whose already got a little fat baby that she likes better than this new one? He’ll have to live in the cupboard under the stairs, because that’s what aunt and uncles do when they don’t want the new babies what get dumped on their doorsteps. I hope this lady doesn’t give her old baby away. He’s got blond hair and he smiles funny, and I think it’d be a bit of a waste if he had to spend the rest of his life in a cupboard. You’ve got to be brave for stuff like that.

“What seems to be the problem, miss?”

“The boy, he’s lost his mother and she’s on this train!”

“Where is she? Do you know what she looks like?”

They both turn to me. Now, I feel a little bit lost and a little bit stupid. Not half stupid, either, because I haven’t really got a mother with a ticket to come and take me with her on the train, and once she knows this, the baby lady won’t want to help me anymore.

“Er….”

At least I’m still crying. That’s got to count for something.

“Come on, lad; the train’s waiting. Where is she, then?”

“There!” Just behind the first window, with massive specs and red hair like a fire engine. I like it when people have got red hair. I like fire engines, too. They’re exciting and everything, with the noise and the big hoses and the flashing lights.

“I’ll be back in just a moment,” says the trainman as he jumps up onto the car. Me and the baby lady watch him for a minute, and then she smiles at me and pats my head, only she doesn’t leave.

“You see?” she says, holding her fat stomach. “We’ve found your mummy for you. No need to be so upset.”

When the red-hair lady comes out with the trainman she looks confused, and I know why.

“I haven’t done anything wrong! Why am I being taken from the train? I’ve somewhere to be by three o’clock, sir. Three o’clock.”

And the trainman says, “Nothing wrong, indeed, madam! It’s a wonder they let people like you have children at all!”

The red-hair lady looks furious at this. She is round and jiggly like Aunt Marge. She gets the lemon lips like Aunt Petunia and the pink face that looks terrible with her hair and she shouts at him, “I beg your pardon! I’m not pregnant I’m fat! Now,” she pats down her hair, like Piers Polkiss’s mum, who uses spraying glue to keep hers sticking up like a balloon, and carries on, “I’ve got somewhere to be by three o’clock!”

“Oho!” says the trainman, very pale. The baby lady puts an arm round my neck and holds it there, but she doesn’t look at me, just hangs her arm and plays with the collar of my shirt. “You’d leave this boy wailing for you on the platform to get to wherever it is you’re going on time! Some mother you are,” his face is bright green as he looks at her stomach, “extra podge and all.”

By the time they’re really at it I’ve already ducked under the baby lady’s arms and onto the car behind the trainman. They shout so loud they don’t even feel me slipping by, or hear the train whistle and start to leave, or see the baby lady waving goodbye to me and smiling like she’s just solved the mystery of the universe. All I can think about is I hope nobody asks me for a ticket and that the lady keeps her old baby even when she has a new one and that she never gets into a car crash and has to send either baby to live with an aunt and uncle who don’t want them.

Trains are a lot bigger than I’d ever thought they were. But I’ve only seen them in books, so what do I know? There’re rows of seats like on a bus, only prettier seats, not plastic ones. There are loads of people, as well. Too many people, I think, to be in one place all at one time. There are loads of cars too. Cars with food and tables and people laughing, cars with people smoking, cars with people reading or shouting into mobiles. It takes me a long time to find the car I want to sit in. All of this time I’m so excited at being like a secret agent and sneaking onto a train that I’ve nearly forgot my new friend, the snake, until he peaks out of my pocket and says, That was good work, what you did in the station.

I don’t want to walk round looking for seats anymore. My legs are tired. I want to talk to my snake. So, I pick a car with no mummies and little kids, no old people, and no fat ladies with red hair who have got to be somewhere by three o’clock. This car has hardly no people at all, just some big men in black suits and a blond lady that isn’t half as pretty as Jo is.

We must not talk, hisses the snake. We’re stuck staring out of the window, which is a bit boring, and staring at the other people in the car, which is more boring, until the snake falls asleep in my pocket and I lean down to do the same thing. My nose is still runny from crying and my eyes are itchy and heavy, as I haven’t slept very well since I met Jo. It’s difficult to sleep when all you can think about is how much you’d like someone to be your mum. Or your wife.

Don’t let me fall asleep here, where the seats feel better than my camp bed in the cupboard ever did and nobody bothers with me or makes me clean up their mess. Don’t let me close my eyes with the rest of England flying past my window and the little snake in my pocket. If I fall asleep I might wake up. I might realise this is only a dream, and I haven’t run away at all. There might be no snake and no train and no exciting adventure. I might be just Harry, and that’s no way to be at all.

I don’t go to sleep after all, on account of the bump bump bump of the train and the thinking that fills up my head. I wonder if Uncle Vernon will be angry with me or pleased that I’ve run away, if Jo will miss me now that I’m gone, if I’m ever going back to Privet Drive again, if I am going anywhere at all.

The train begins to slow at the same time that my stomach begins to grumble. I want a hot dog, or some cereal, or even one of Aunt Petunia’s cheese sandwiches. No money. I’ve no money to buy any sort of food with, no grown-ups to get anything for me – and no one to come with me off of the train, so that I don’t look odd being by myself. That’s very important when you’ve run away, not looking like you’ve done it. When the train finally stops everyone moves so quickly I can’t hardly keep up. Too tall, too busy, they rush right past me without even bothering to say sorry for slamming bags and newspapers and all sorts into my face.

Hurry up! warns the snake. Move, move.

Move, move. Moving in the wrong direction, past all of the giant people in suits, I make my way to the man that has been sitting in front of me this whole time, the one that has not looked at me once except for when I first came to sit by him. I don’t think he even notices when I take his hand, everything is so busy. We’re pulled by the millions and thousands of people leaving the train and out onto a platform, but I still don’t let go. It’s like being squeezed through a massive tunnel, with giants everywhere, everyone bigger than me or else being squeezed just like I am until we’re off and onto the platform, and the man has let go of my hand. But I still need him.

Away from the platform, through a station bigger than the one in Surrey, with me clutching the man’s hand and the snake in my pocket, we go. I wouldn’t ever tell anyone else about this, because they’d take the piss for it for sure, but it’s a bit scary going places you’ve never been, with loads of people you don’t know. It feels sort of nice, as well, holding someone’s hand when everything else is big and rushes past. I’m holding on tighter than before now, as we’re leaving the station, and above me are people talking and signs with words on them that I can’t read because we’re walking too fast.

LONDON.

That’s where we are. I catch it on a sign as we walk past, and now I can’t hardly breathe for the excitement. I’m going to London, like Dudley with the zoo! There’s no use holding hands with anyone once we’re out of the station, so I let go and smile at the man, because it’s too noisy to say thanks and I dunno if he even knows that he helped me. Either way he’s lost once we get out into the street, where it’s just me and my snake and a million other people. Nobody even looks at me. It’s like being invisible, only not “can’t be seen invisible”. It’s like Dursley invisible and Privet Drive invisible and school invisible. They could all see me if they wanted to, but they look the other way, because it’s easier not to look at skinny boys with big specs and green eyes and messy hair, especially when they haven’t got parents and are always doing thingsabnormally. I don’t care. It’s easier to run away when no one sees you.

“Why did you bring me here?”

Dark alleyway, cardboard boxes, bins bigger than the ones behind the cafeteria at school. Now I know why Uncle Vernon used to tell me he would leave me in London one day when he was angry and had been in the sherry with Aunt Marge. But I need to talk to the snake, and I need to be in private, even if private is a grotty dark alley in a city I don’t really know.

You brought yourself here.

This is too confusing, London and trains and snakes that talk. Snakes don’t talk. Uncle Vernon says so. Uncle Vernon says loads of things, like my mum was the rotten apple in Aunt Petunia’s family and my dad was a drunk and I never really deserved to be with the Dursleys anyway, having parents like that. But that’s not important anyways. I’m never going back to the Dursleys ever again. Not even for breakfast, no matter how much my stomach grumbles.

“How come I can talk to you?” I want to know. The snake is sat on my wrist, with his little tongue poking out and his black eyes all dark and glittery. “How come I know what you’re saying?”

I don’t know, he says slowly. You are the first I have come across with this power.

I’m beginning to think that maybe I could be a superhero like Superman, who didn’t have any real parents either. And Spiderman. And Batman. Now that I’m thinking about it no superheroes have got proper parents. None of them live in cupboards either, but that’s only a small problem, because I don’t live in a cupboard anymore. I don’t live anywhere.

“D’you think maybe I’m like you? Maybe I’m a snake?”

Perhaps, he says. I think he sounds clever when he says that. At any rate it is early, you are young and need to sleep, and then we must find something to eat. He slithers back into my pocket, me with my head spinning as though I’ve been on the roundabout too many times. I don’t want to sleep in an alley with boxes and bins and the feeks all over them. But I’m very tired. Tired enough to lie down on an old box with no blankets or anything and to put my hands under my head for a pillow. Tired enough not to care if the police take me away to prison for running away and sleeping in the streets, or if giant rats eat me up for breakfast, or if homeless people steal my shoes. That’s OK if they want to have them. I’m a superhero now; superheroes give their shoes to homeless people all the time.

x x x

The problem with London is that it’s too noisy. Too many cars beep and too many people talk and too many doors are opening and closing at one time. That’s also a good thing, because no one even notices me and my snake talking or that I’m alone or anything. Now that I’m not sleepy anymore I feel hungrier than ever. Everything in London costs money, too, even for little boys. There are funny people here, too. Some of them are tiny and shake my hand. Some of them are excited. One of them comes out of a fish shop and slaps my back so hard I almost fall over, only I don’t because he pulls me up again and walks away smiling. There are three of them by the time I find a McDonald’s.

It’s like being with the Dursleys again, but not. I’ve got to be sneaky. No one can see me standing round the bins or digging through rubbish to pull out a half-empty carton of chips or a hamburger with only three bites taken out of it. Someone bins an entire cup of Coca Cola, which is lucky for me. A feast is what I’ve got. A feast for a king, or a superhero. I go to the toilet to wash my hand and eat everything inside the stall for people with wheelchairs. My chips are cold and soggy. My Coca Cola doesn’t last too long, so I fill up the cup with water from the sink. The hamburger has got pickles and they taste funny. I tell myself that this is all part of my adventure. At least I’ve got food; at least no one caught me by the bins. My stomach is filled up well good. That’s the most important thing.

Snakes don’t like McDonald’s, because my snake won’t have any. He says he’s not hungry, anyways. He had a lizard on the train. Snakes like lizards a lot.

After we’ve eaten we can do anything we want, the snake says so. We’re by London Bridge and the big river we learnt about in school, but I don’t care much about bridges or rivers. Today is not for fun. We’ve got to find somewhere to stay for the night, and then tomorrow we can have a look round the city and go somewhere else. It’s not good to stay in one place when you’re a runaway. So, we go outside. We go to a shop full of books and one full of toys. We go to the behind of a restaurant where I put scraps in my pockets for tonight’s dinner. We bring the cup with us and fill it up at all of the water fountains and sinks in toilets that we can find. We look round people’s porches and inside alleys like the one from earlier. Finally, we find a place that says it stays open for twenty-four hours a day, even Sundays, and we know this will be a good place to sleep.

I’ve been to one of these before, back in Surrey with Aunt Petunia. She was always going to the Tesco for dinner things. This one’s got a petrol station, just like the one at home. It’s too early to go to sleep here and too risky to stick around enough for someone to spot me. We’re in Monck. That’s a street, I think.

“Snake,” I whisper, so that only he can hear me, “remember Monck Street, so we’re not lost.” He promises me that he will. Away from out Tesco, just round the corner and through the opening in a brick wall, is a lovely place with trees and bushes and flowers that must be someone’s garden. For once in my life I’m well chuffed to be small. It’s loads easier to hide in bushes when you’re the shortest kid in your class at school and especially small for your age group, which is what the nurse says about me every time she does the looking over.

My snake crawls from my pocket and onto the grass just in front of the bush I’m hiding in. He says he needs sun, which is OK by me, because I need more sleep in a place that’s not a cardboard box in an alley. We sit in the hidden place by the Tesco for a long time after that. I’ve got my food left over from nicking things out of bins behind restaurants, and not all of it is half bad. There’s a bit of a steak and some potatoes in a polystyrene box. I wonder if Superman ever had potatoes in a polystyrene box. He probably did, but they never would have put that in a comic book. It’s not cool when superheroes eat out of bins, only if they do it in private and don’t tell anyone, because maybe it’s against the law to take things from restaurant bins. Even superheroes break the law sometimes.

It makes sense that I’m a superhero. The more I think about it the more sense it makes, until I believe in it like I’ve been doing it for my whole life. Everything fits. My mum and dad never really died in a car crash, because car crashes don’t kill superheroes. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia only tell me they were drunks because they’re afraid I’ll try to be a superhero too, and then I’d be dead like my mum and dad. That means they’re not really as horrible as I thought they were. They’re only trying to keep me alive. Because I’m a superhero I can talk to snakes and appear on the top of school buildings and make my hair grow back after Aunt Petunia cuts it short. They’re all my superpowers. I’m supposed to do funny things.

Taking a bite of steak, I flip over onto my stomach and start to think about what I’ll do next. Because I know I’m a superhero I can never go back to my normal life at Privet Drive. I’m not that thick. I’ll never be able to fit in there anymore what with my powers and everything. No, I’ve got to keep moving. I’ll stay in London a few days for training, and because I sort of thing it’s cool, with all of the massive buildings and the people everywhere. Next week or tomorrow or Saturday I can go somewhere else. Somewhere far away, like Ireland or Wales or Africa. They always need help in places like that.

By the time it’s getting dark my food and my water are gone. I’m done thinking about superheroes tonight – me and the snake have got to get back to the Tesco to sleep. He tells me Monck Street, which I already know because we’re only round the corner. Inside the Tesco is cool, nobody looks at me. I’m small enough that if I curl up my feet and don’t move at all I can fit on the baby table that pops down from the wall in the toilet. It’s a good thing, I think as my eyes close with sleep, that the Dursleys don’t feed me. I’d never have fit on here if was as big as someone like Dudley.