The Visconti House Read Online Free PDF Page A

up,” said Isabella, catching hold of Laura and spinning her around. “We must look as though we belong in the room. But we won’t tell anyone. It will be a surprise.”
    At dinnertime, they made a spectacular entrance dressed in long skirts, with gleaming earrings dangling from their ears and Isabella’s theatrical makeup outlining their eyes. The candles were lit, and Isabella was singing. Laura looked at the table, laden with Harry’s delicious food and Isabella’s wonderful centerpiece, at the wineglasses sparkling in the candlelight, and at the faces of her parents and Harry, laughing in surprise. She imagined they had been transported to a faraway palace. They were no longer surrounded by the town. School was a million miles away. Outside the walls a wonderful, pine-scented forest had sprung up, and in the night sky her dragons were circling, wild and free. Their fiery breath sent showers of red falling through the darkness. It was an enchanted place. She wished she could stay there forever.

After the excitement of the banquet and the long, lazy day that followed it, Tuesday morning arrived with awful finality. Laura stumbled into the kitchen, grumpy and miserable. Even when Samson, trying to catch a moth, leaped into the air and landed in a pile of baskets, she couldn’t raise a smile.
    “Why the long face?” asked Isabella, who was the only other person up.
    “I hate school.” Laura collapsed onto the nearest chair and reached for the milk carton.
    “Why?”
    “Everyone stares at me.”
    “That’s good,” exclaimed Isabella. “I love it when people stare at me.” Her bracelets jangled as she swept her dark curls back from her face and rolled her eyes at Laura.
    “Please, Isabella, don’t start to sing,” begged Laura. “I’m not feeling very strong.”
    “But music makes you strong,” Isabella cried, and burst into an aria anyway.
    Laura gulped down her milk and escaped into her parents’ room. She sat on the edge of their four-poster bed, looking at the traces of murals on the walls, wishing she could disappear into them.
    “I don’t want to go to school,” she began.
    “You always say that.” Her mother smiled.
    “But today I
really
don’t want to go to school. Can’t I stay home? I promise I’ll go tomorrow.”
    “It won’t be any better tomorrow,” her father said, propping his head on his elbow to look across at her.
    “Then I could stay home tomorrow too, and the day after that. And the day after that.
Why
do I have to go to school?”
    “You know why you have to go to school,” replied her mother. “The reasons don’t change, just like your questions don’t change.”
    “But today is going to be really bad. Really, really bad. I can feel it.”
    “It will certainly be bad if you’re late,” said her father. “Now, off you go. You’re spoiling my beauty sleep. I was working until four o’clock to get my article finished.”
    Nobody understands,
thought Laura, sliding off the bed.
    “The day will be over before you know it,” said her mother, kissing her.
    “No, it won’t. It will go on forever. It will be bad forever.”
    Laura walked as slowly as she could and arrived at school just before the bell. She glared at the students milling around the locker room. Why couldn’t there be people like Isabella and Harry at school? When they were young, of course. Or like her parents. Or like her. Why did she have to be so different? She pulled her books irritably from her bag, and her lunch fell out. Her apple rolled across the floor, bruising.
    Kylie, Maddy, and Janie were ahead of her as she crossed the courtyard toward the art room. She ran to catch up with them.
    “Did you do anything over the long weekend?” asked Maddy.
    Laura gave her usual evasive reply: “Nothing much.” Then she added, “We had some friends visit.” That seemed safe enough. “What about you, Maddy?”
    “We went down to Lorne. It was awesome. We spent all day at the beach. There