The Visconti House (5 page)

“Yes, Miss Grisham.”

“Now come back inside.”

“Yes, Miss Grisham.”

Laura followed her into the classroom and sat down, aware of the battery of eyes still on her. Would she ever live this down? This was the sort of thing
people remembered forever. She would always be the girl who tore up a piece of paper in front of Miss Grisham. She felt a lump in her throat. Could things get any worse?

As soon as the class was over, Laura bolted for the gate, abandoning all thoughts of picking up her bag. Any homework would just have to wait. If she went to the locker room, she would face a barrage of questions. She set off at a fast pace but was only halfway down the hill when Leon appeared beside her.

“So what was on the paper?” he asked, a hint of laughter in his voice.

“Something.”

Leon watched her for a moment, then said, “You and I are alike, you know.”

“We are not!” Laura flashed, turning an outraged face toward him.

“We both have secrets.”

“Everyone has secrets.” She started to walk faster.

“Not like ours.”

Laura shot him a furious look. “I don’t have secrets. I just didn’t want everyone to see. I didn’t want Miss Grisham to see.”

“We have secrets because we’re forced to.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Laura tossed her head. “I don’t have secrets. Not the sort you mean. And I don’t want to talk about it. Go away.”

Leon continued to walk beside her, his step in time with hers. “You live in that house on the hill, don’t you?” he asked after a while.

Laura glared at him. “There are lots of houses on lots of hills.”

“Not like yours.”

Those words again.
Not like yours.
Laura felt something snap inside her. Everything was always not like hers. Her house was different. Her parents were different. Their friends were different. No one else at school was writing a book about dragons, and no one else would have torn up part of it if they had been. They wouldn’t have cared. And now Leon Murphy, who didn’t talk to anyone, was talking to her. She must be terribly, terribly different.

Tears welled in her eyes. “Go away,” she shouted. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Just leave me alone.”

“OK.” Leon thrust his hands into his pockets and strode off. Laura could see him ahead of her, growing smaller, his large shorts flapping as he walked. She watched him until he turned in to Mrs. Murphy’s garden and disappeared around the side of the house.

How dare he suggest that they were alike, she seethed, quickening her pace now that he had gone. How dare he say that she had secrets like his! Then she stopped abruptly, struck by what he had actually said.

Just what
were
Leon Murphy’s secrets?

Samson emerged from the bushes as she came through the gates. She scooped him up, hugging him fiercely. He leaped out of her arms in protest and ran toward the kitchen, Laura close behind.

It felt strange arriving home with no bag weighing her down. She wondered if anyone would notice, but no one did. They were all busy with their own projects. Her mother was in the studio working on a
sculpture for a neighboring town. Her father had an article to finish. Harry was cooking, and Isabella was chopping vegetables.

“Hello, kiddo,” Isabella called out. “How was the big wide world?”

“Bad,” said Laura.

Isabella broke into a high-pitched lament.

“Not now, Isabella,” grumbled Harry. “I have to concentrate.” He turned to Laura. “We are cooking a farewell feast. We have to go.”

Now they were leaving, too.
More misery,
she thought, and continued through to the studio. Pushing open the door, she found her mother frowning in concentration over a piece of stone.

“Hello, honey bear,” she said without looking up. “How was your day?”

“Bad,” replied Laura.

“There’s some cake in the cupboard.”

“I don’t want any cake.”

“All right. Can you close the door? I don’t want this dust to get everywhere.”

Laura closed the door and went to her room. She climbed onto the bed and pulled her knees up under her chin. She didn’t want to work on her dragon book anymore; it was tainted now. Every time she looked
at it, she would think of Miss Grisham. But she felt terribly lonely without it. She stared out the window at the dark magnolia. What would she do now?

Harry and Isabella’s dinner was not a success. Laura’s mother was preoccupied, her father was irritable, and Laura was wretched. Even Isabella didn’t feel like singing. They chomped their way through
canard à l’orange
followed by salad and chocolate mousse as though they were eating baked beans on toast.

At the end, Harry rose and raised his glass. “Farewell,” he said. “We are already all somewhere else, and it is good to go when the time is right. Thank you for your hospitality. Let us drink to friendship.”

They all drank, Laura filling her glass with water from the jug on the table. But when she put her glass back down, she felt more miserable than ever. It seemed dreadful to be drinking to something that she did not have. Friends. Real friends, her own age, doing their own thing.

She slipped off her chair and crept away to bed. Lying there, listening to the wind outside and the branch of the magnolia tree tapping against her window, she thought of Leon. It occurred to Laura that perhaps their strange conversation on the way home had been an attempt at friendship on Leon’s behalf.

But she didn’t want him as a friend. No one was friends with Leon.

She pulled the blankets up over her head and cried herself to sleep.

When morning came, Laura refused to get up. When her father quoted more Longfellow at her —“‘Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime’”— she did not say, as she usually did, “What about the women?” Instead, she burst into tears. And when her mother arrived, pulling on the knitted coat she used as a bathrobe, Laura huddled under the comforter and would not come out.

“What’s the matter, honey bear?” asked her mother, trying to hug her through the covers.

“Go away.”

“Are you not feeling well?”

Laura dug deeper into the bed, clutching the comforter tightly around her. “No, I feel sick.” It was true; her stomach churned every time she thought about having to go back to school.

“Let me feel your forehead.”

Laura did not move.

“Why don’t you come out and we can talk about it?”

Laura wriggled down until she was just a small hump at the end of the bed. She could hardly breathe.

“Running away won’t help.” This was her father. “Why don’t you tell us what the problem is?”

“I’ve told you,” came the muffled reply. “I hate school.”

“But why?”

Why? Because nobody understands. Because I’m lonely. Because I’m different. Because everything I do leads to trouble.
The answers drummed in her head, but Laura didn’t reply.

“I’m going to make some coffee,” said her father. “Then we can talk.”

Laura heard her parents leave the room and came up for air.

When they returned, her father was carrying Samson. “Here’s a bit of furry comfort I found skulking around the kitchen.”

Laura gave a watery smile and reached for the cat, burying her face in his fur.

“Now, how are you feeling sick?” asked her mother. “Is it your head or your stomach?”

“It’s . . . everything.”

Her mother felt the part of her forehead not covered by Samson’s fur. “You don’t feel hot,” she said.

“Let me feel.” Her father smiled down at her as he, too, felt her forehead. “Ah, you’re right. She doesn’t feel hot — she feels miserable. That’s my diagnosis. Misery. Am I right?”

“Maybe,” muttered Laura.

“So the question is, what are we going to do about it?”

“Should we go up to the school to discuss it with your teachers?” suggested her mother.

Laura sat up immediately, almost dropping Samson in horror. “No!”

“But, honey bear, if there is a problem, we need to sort it out.”

“You can’t sort out hating school, except by not going,” shouted Laura. All the same, she climbed out of bed. The thought of her parents going to the school was too dreadful to contemplate. They would understand about her tearing up the paper, and they would try to explain it to Miss Grisham, but this would not resolve the problem. Her parents could not resolve the problem because
they
were the problem, and she couldn’t tell them that. Despite everything, she didn’t want them to change; she loved them as they were.
As she headed for the bathroom, she cried tears of frustration. Everything was too complicated — it was the world she wanted to change, and it wouldn’t.

It had been strange arriving home without her schoolbag; it was even stranger walking to school without it. All the way she imagined what people would be saying about her, and by the time she reached the gate, her stomach was in knots. Crossing the courtyard was torture. She felt as though everyone was staring at her, as though everyone was talking about her.

She soon found out that she was right; they were. It had not taken long for news about the confrontation with Miss Grisham to begin circulating. Almost everyone in Year Eight had heard some version of it, and rumors were spreading like wildfire. As soon as she entered the locker room, a group of girls pounced on her.

“What was in the note?”

“Was it a love letter?”

Laughter.

“Who was it from?”

“Was it something rude?”

More laughter.

“Come on, tell us. We promise not to tell.”

Laura brushed past them and headed for the classroom. Her heart plunging, she saw Kylie and Maddy hovering by the door, waiting for her.

“What was on the paper, Laura?” said Kylie, rushing up. “It must have been really important.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was nothing.” Laura struggled to keep her voice steady.

“You wouldn’t have torn it up if it was nothing,” said Maddy.

“We’ll find out anyway, you know.” Kylie pushed her face uncomfortably close to Laura’s. “I told you I’d make a good detective. You may as well just tell us.”

Fortunately, Mr. Parker arrived at that moment. “Move away,” he said, flapping papers at them. “You should be in your seats.”

Laura ducked past Kylie and sat down. She hoped the worst was now over. She worked away in class, trying to ignore the whispering around her, and slipped off to the library at recess.

As she was organizing her books after the last class before lunch, however, Kylie, Maddy, and Janie swooped on her again. They were nudging one another and giggling.

“Come on, Laura. Tell us what was on the paper,” coaxed Kylie. She twisted the chain around her neck
and smiled encouragingly. “We’re your friends. We won’t tell.”

“It was nothing,” repeated Laura, stuffing her pens into her pencil case. “I have to go.”

“No, you don’t. It’s lunchtime. You don’t have to go anywhere.”

Laura looked around. Everyone was packing up to leave. She tried to push past Kylie, but Maddy and Janie blocked her way.

“It must have been a love letter,” pressed Kylie. “That’s why you won’t tell.” She raised her voice. “Laura Horton’s writing love letters.”

The room went quiet as everyone turned toward them.

“Shoosh,” Laura hissed. “It wasn’t a love letter.”

“Laura Horton’s writing love letters,” chanted Janie and Maddy. “Laura Horton’s writing love letters.” Maddy snatched Laura’s notebook and began flipping through the pages, looking for notes.

“Stop it,” cried Laura, making a grab for the notebook and missing. “Stop it.”

“Laura Horton’s writing love letters,” sang out Kylie again, her voice louder than before. Laura felt as though the whole school must be able to hear by now.

“I’m not. I’m not. Stop it. Why won’t you stop it?” Laura was pleading, her voice cracking.

Kylie smirked. She leaned forward, her face almost touching Laura’s. “Who was it to?”

Laura gulped back tears. Her ears were drumming, and her stomach lurched. All she could think of was getting away. She made another grab for her notebook and it tore as she wrenched it out of Maddy’s hand. She gathered up her books in one sweep and started toward the door, but she did not see the bag on the floor. As she fell, her books and pens scattered everywhere. There was a burst of laughter before a voice from the other side of the room said, “Leave her alone.” She scrambled to pick up her things, surprised that anyone would stand up for her.

It wasn’t until she had reached the door that she realized it was Leon Murphy.

Once she was out of the classroom, Laura began to run. She ran past the hall, across the courtyard, up the stairs, and along the corridor. She did not stop running until she reached the library, the only place she could think of where she would be safe.

To her disappointment, she discovered it was closed, but there was a bench outside, so she sat down, huddled up, and waited. Why hadn’t she just shown
Miss Grisham the drawing? Why had it seemed so important? It was all so much worse now, and there was no way back, no way out. She stared at the window and bit her lip to stop the tears from starting again.