Sighing, she turned to see her reflection in the mirror. Thin, of average height for her ten years old and eleven months, she had long black hair, a pale complexion and bright-green eyes. She did not know which of her parents had given her these traits, but it was the eyes she preferred. By contrast, her hair had a tendency to be unruly and difficult to tame. Alas, Alexandra had not the money to buy hair products. She had only to look at her clothes to know she had far more urgent monetary needs to solve.
With her uncle and aunt only giving her Dudley's old clothes, the only things which could be qualified as average in her personal wardrobe were the things she stole, or the things she bought with the money she had stolen from her so-called family. So were the sheets and the pillow on her bed. So was the money dissimulated under a secret compartment under her bed. She didn't like breaking the law, no matter the daily shouts of her uncle that she was soon going to be sent to some centre of correction for young criminals or another (not that he had any proof of her illegal activities). But with her uncle intent on starving her before her eleventh birthday, stealing was not a choice for her. It was a matter of survival.
Alexandra's only advantage in this fight for her life was that her uncle had no clue how much his ideas about her "freakishness" were in fact not a product of his ugly imagination but well-anchored in reality. So far, she had managed to make some objects levitate, change the colour of her hair, change the colour of her eyes, change the colour of someone else's hair, and teleport herself to the other side of the town.
The last power had been very useful in forging herself quite solid alibis when she was under suspicion for having stolen something or some mischief that befell Dudley Dursley and his band of brutes. Too bad Uncle Vernon never believed her. And because his job was director of Grunnings, a drill manufacturing company, he had enough leeway and influence in Little Whinging to make sure no one would believe her. When it wasn't enough, the Dursley family wasn't above bribing those who didn't believe them.
Like today. Usually, the day of June 23rd was one of the nicest days of her life, as the Dursley always went out with their spoiled son to a park or another attraction while leaving Alexandra in the care of a batty neighbour named Mrs Figg. As the woman was obsessed with her menagerie of cats, it was not hard to avoid her vigilance and escape, which meant this day was a free day where she didn't need to run to escape Dudley's gang and Vernon's beatings.
This illusion of a happy day had lasted until the phone call from a disgruntled Mrs Figg, who had seemingly broken her leg (no doubt marching on one of her numerous cats). Just after that, Dudley had proven how spoiled he was by almost toppling the table because he had ONLY thirty-six presents (he had had thirty-eight last year). Only the promise of three more gifts had been enough to calm him. As a consequence of this unfortunate development, she had been forced to accompany her cousin and his brute of a friend Piers Polkiss to the zoo. She had been forced to hear all the complaints her uncle made about how life was unjust to him (a fact she found extremely pleasant to believe in) criticizing people at work, the neighbours, the banks, the world in general, and of course, Alexandra herself. In these circumstances, it was best to be silent and try to forget the presence of the man altogether.
Once they arrived at the zoo, it had been Dudley's moment to shine, so to speak. Each time Dudley saw someone who had a bigger ice cream than him, a new ice cream had to be bought. Each time a new animal refused to do what Dudley thought "interesting", her cousin threw a tantrum. By lunch, she had a monumental headache, and she could not even go her own way in the crowd: she was under no illusion that the Dursleys would "forget" her at the exit if she was not with them. The reptile house had not helped. Dudley had whined "Move! Move!" to the snakes and lizards present there. Of course the snakes had refused to cooperate. Two hours later she snapped. While Piers was busy throwing rocks at a hippopotamus, Dudley thought the moment well-chosen to explain how her dead mother was like the animals in question.
Her rage had been so consuming in that instant that she had not controlled her abilities. One moment after his last insult, Dudley fell inexplicably and quite violently into the hippopotamus's pool. The Dursleys and the veterinary they were speaking with had stared half a minute open-mouthed. Too bad she hadn't had a camera with her. Too bad, also, that the reputation of the hippopotamus was way overrated.
The aforementioned animals had not even intervened against Dudley's intrusion in their pool. The biggest danger for her cousin had come from his awful performance in swimming. After that, she had fled as if Sauron's Nazguls had been in pursuit. Vernon's face had been a nice shade of purple and he was shouting almost incoherent insults into his moustache.
Alexandra wasn't stupid enough to stay in Vernon's presence when he was on a warpath like that. She had been forced to walk hours to go back home as she was too far to use teleportation with precision, but that was okay as she had the time to steal herself some food at the zoo before marching back to the Dursley's house. Taking the car would have been quicker, but would have also sent her into a cupboard with no sustenance until she managed to get out. Depending on Vernon and Petunia's vigilance, that could take days.