Florence O'Brian and the Boy Who Lived

It was a sunny day on Privet Drive. Florence O'Brian skeptically eyed what was to be her new home at number six. The house seemed stable enough, small, and blended in perfectly with the rest of the suburban houses surrounding it. All Florence could think about was how dreadfully boring it all looked, a suburban nightmare.

Letting out a sigh and scrunching her nose at the sound of some far off lawnmower, Florence subconsciously reached down to scratch her scabby left knee.

"Oh, honey stop picking." Florence's mother was, truthfully, a bit young to be a mother. At only thirty-two she looked remarkably nothing at all like Florence, in fact neither of her parents looked like her at all, though this thought had only crossed Florence's mind once or twice.

"When are we going home?" Florence asked, not bothering to help her parents or move out of the way of the movers as they maneuvered the O'Brians' living room set around the young girl. "I don't like it here, everyone talks funny."

Florence's father, a man of only thirty-five, juggling a lamp and a picture frame which was to hold a map of the world in his office, managed to pant, "Flo, don't be rude." before disappearing into the house. Rolling her eyes, Florence checked her pockets and found a piece of chewed up gum wrapped up in a piece of magazine paper, an old coin which she'd found in the street at the airport, and two dollars, nothing she could find any use for at the moment except of course for the gum which she casually peeled from the paper and popped back into her mouth before going off to explore the backyard.

Unsurprisingly, the backyard wasn't much different from the front apart from a white, picket fence which enclosed it. There was no swing set like in her last backyard, or patch of dirt in which she could bury random treasures. Florence walked to the very center of the little yard and sat down in the grass, she had barely pulled a handful of grass from the moist soil, when there was a sudden thud and a clearly audible "Ouch!" from her neighbors backyard.

Abandoning the recently vandalized patch of yard in which she was sitting, Florence hurried over to the fence and climbed onto a medium sized rock nearby to catch a glimpse of scene which was going a little something as follows: A very large, pink faced, blond boy was chasing a much smaller boy, who in fact looked even smaller than he probably was because his clothes were much too big for him, with a remote control airplane. The plane crashed into the boys forehead, bounced away a few feet, and circled around back at him as he ran for his life around the backyard. Of course, he probably could have ran in the house had the fat boy not been blocking the back door.

Not being able to stand the sight, Florence spoke up.

"Hey!" Both boys stopped to look over at her, of course the little one was still running as he did so. "Leave him alone." The fat boy scoffed, rolled his eyes, and went on with tormenting the other boy.

Now, there are a few things you should know about Florence O'Brian. First, she never was much into baby dolls and playing dress up. Florence would much rather spend her time outside, exploring which had resulted in a more than a few scraped limbs and once a broken elbow. Secondly, Florence was never subtle. When Florence O'Brian said something, she meant exactly that, which had landed her being grounded more times than she could count. Thirdly, Florence had more courage than what was deemed safe for an eleven year old girl. Few things scared Florence, and she was not afraid to stand up to someone. Lastly, and probably the most important thing about Florence O'Brian, was that she hated bullies. The way Florence saw it, no one was any better than anyone else. These last two facts, were the very reason Florence hopped down from her rock, ran back to the front yard, climbed into the car her parents had driven her to Privet Drive in, and snatched her sling shot from the backseat. On her way back, Florence grabbed the old coin from her pocket, loaded her sling shot, climbed back onto the rock against the fence, and shot her rusty coin right into the ear of the fat boy.

The loud Pop! was followed by about a two second silence in which the skinny boy's mouth dropped, and the fat boy stood stunned until the coin slid from the side of his pudgy face and onto the ground, leaving behind a medium sized red dot. The boy let out a loud cry, dropped his controller, and turned to run inside, abandoning the other boy and the remote control airplane.

"Are you okay?" The other boy nodded, continuing to stare at the backdoor in which the fat boy had just disappeared behind.

"You shouldn't have done that." He whispered, just as a fat man came back outside with the crying fat boy who was being pampered by a very thin woman who was also in tears. The fat boy pointed straight at Florence and wailed something along the lines of, "It was her mummy!", his face just as red as the mans, who could have only been the boy's father.

"Delinquent!" Yelled the fat man. "You little brat!" Florence raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over the fence, giving the man and his wife a clear view of her slingshot. "I'll have you taken away for this-"

"What gives you the right-" Shrieked the woman, escorting the teary eyed boy back into the house.

"You!" The fat man turned on the other boy, "Straight to your clos-room!" The man was so furious, it looked as though he was having difficulty speaking. "I'll deal with you later." He snapped.

"It wasn't his fault! That little pig boy was attacking him with that plane!" Florence went to defend the boy, but the man had gone to the front of the house, no doubt to find Florence's parents. She could feel her ears growing more hot by the second. How was it fair that that mean, pig faced, cry baby could get away with tormenting that other boy and yet Florence and the smaller boy were going to be the ones to get in trouble?

"Florence Marie O'Brian!" Florence sighed, hiding her slingshot behind the rock for it's own good and trudging into the house. She could hear the neighbors before she could see them. Her father's face was red with fury and embarrassment and her mother was frantically apologizing, the two movers were outside.

"Florence! Did you hit their son with a rock?" Florence looked appalled.

"I would never hit someone with a rock, mother." She said as sweetly as possible. The neighbor man looked as though he was about to explode.

"She's lying!" He shouted, shooting a pudgy finger towards her. "My Dudley had a welt the size of my fist on his ear!"

"I am not lying! It was a coin, not a rock, and he deserved it!" Florence's father looked outraged. Her mother hid her face behind her hand and continued muttering apologies. "Dad, he was picking on another boy that wasn't even a tenth his size!"

"Even so, that is none of your business, Florence! Now you will go to bed without dinner tonight and don't even think of leaving your room for the next month!" Florence felt her mouth fall open, though the neighbor man didn't seem to think it was punishment enough.

"And you will march straight over there and apologize to that poor boy." Her mother added. Florence, however, had no plans of doing such.

"Ground me for the next five years, I am not apologizing. Mom, he's awful."

"Not enough discipline!" The neighbor man commented.

"And you're one to talk!" Florence shot back. Her father's hand shot towards the stairs, he didn't even look at her when he told her to go straight to her room, right this instant.