The Dursley's adopted son

Chapter 26

Somehow we made it back just in time for warmups to start. I felt like a complete idiot standing in the middle of a crowded gym, wearing an orange and maroon wrestling singlet, but at least everyone on my team was wearing the same thing. Seriously though, wrestling singlets are so unflattering an uncomfortable. I was grateful, however, that I wasn't on the swim team. Their uniform was an orange speedo brief. That was infinitely worse than the wrestling uniform.

Warmups passed by pretty quickly. It was same warmup routine we did at the start of each practice, so we all had it memorized and were able to run through it efficiently. We moved onto stretches, which we also did during every practice, so it passed with similar ease.

We finished just in time for the next team to take the mat for their warm-ups, and headed back to our school's assigned area. I grabbed my sweatshirt and sweatpants and quickly pulled them on over my singlet. The gym was very hot, due to the sheer about of people in the space, but I wasn't about to walk around without something covering me. I saw that Dudley had had a similar idea, but had decided to forego the sweatshirt. I tried to think of anything I could do or say to delay meeting the Dursley's any longer, but my mind was blank. I took a deep breathe.

Okay, it would all be okay.

Logically, I knew that I was being unreasonable and overdramatic. Like, seriously, what does it matter if his parents don't like me? It's not like this is the first time I've ever been introduced to a friends parents. Or the first time I've had an actual friend outside of the orphanage.

Oh.

So maybe my overreaction made a bit of sense, but that didn't change the fact that I needed to pull myself together unless I wanted to cause problems. A small part of me was irrationally worried about blowing up another water fountain, even though anyone with any sense knew that the explosion couldn't have possibly been my fault.

I really couldn't put off this meeting any longer without being rude, and I might be overly sarcastic, but being straight-up rude was where I drew the line. Dudley looked over at me with an expectant stare, and raised his eyebrows when he saw me grimace slightly.

"Percy, I know the boys freaked out with the stories about my parents, but they are still my parents, you could try to look a little less like you're about to walk to your death."

I nodded sheepishly. I internally cursed the fact that Dudley had improved his ability to express his emotions using words since we first met. Well, not really, I was kinda proud of the kid, but the point is he was 100% right about the fact that I was being rather close-minded about this whole situation.

"And anyways," Dudley continued, "You definitely should get it over with before you compete, you know, to get it off your chest."

Yet another good point. I said so out loud, and Dudley rolled his eyes while a smile crept onto his face.

"Yeah yeah, come on, you scrawny git. Let's go."

I followed him as he lead the way through the crowded gymnasium, down a few hallways and finally back into the entrance hall, lightheartedly protesting the way he called me scrawny. We scanned the somewhat-smaller crowd for Piers, but he found us before we found him. We both jumped slightly when a voice from behind us shouted,

"Big D, Percy! Warmups are done?"

Dudley and I both nodded, and Piers grabbed each of our shoulders and forcefully pivoted all three of us around and marched us back down the hallway we had just come from, past the open gym doors and further down the opposite way..

"Your mom and dad and I have all been waiting over here. Your dad was asking all sorts of questions about Percy, I don't know what kind of answers he was looking for, but I think I answered him okay, because he doesn't seem as pissed off as he did when they first showed up." Piers was talking to Dudley, but I was listening intently too. I was about to interrupt and ask just how anger Dudley's father was at the current moment, but then we had reached the destination that Pier's was leading us to.