The Visconti House Read Online Free PDF

was even some sun. Look at my tan.” Maddy lifted her skirt to show off her legs.
    “You’re so lucky,” grumbled Kylie. “I wish we’d gone away. We never go anywhere. It’s so not fair.”
    “I think I saw your friends.” Janie turned to Laura. “They were shopping on the main street. Do they wear strange clothes?”
    Here we go again,
thought Laura. “Sometimes.”
    “They looked really weird. Are they weird?”
    “No!” Laura dug her fingernails into her palms. “They’re just — they’re just a bit different.”
    “You can say that again!” Janie grinned at the others. “Spooky, I’d say. Really
spooky.
” Kylie and Maddy giggled and nudged Laura.
    Laura tried to smile, but the thought of Harry and Isabella being laughed at made her feel horrible. She just knew today was going to be bad. She sighed and headed into class.
    Finally, she reached the last class of the day, English. This should have been one of her favorite subjects but Miss Grisham’s classes were so dry and repetitive that Laura always had trouble concentrating in them.She fit her chin into her hands and lifted her gaze to that patch of blue through the window that was her escape. Her thoughts wandered to her dragon book. She would be home soon and able to work on it. She conjured up a number of her favorite species and reviewed their habitats and characteristics.
    Suddenly, an idea for a new dragon flew into her mind. She saw the dragon clearly in that blue sky, its wings a translucent silver, its eyes full of reflections. A terrible, urgent need to capture the image before it flew away seized her. Hardly daring to breathe, she reached into her desk and drew out a piece of paper. Then, shielded by Jamie Robertson’s back, Laura started sketching.
    She was almost finished when she realized that Miss Grisham’s eyes were fixed on her. She dropped her pen and covered the image with her arm — but too late.
    “You feel no need to join us in this exercise, Laura Horton?” inquired Miss Grisham.
    “No, Miss Grisham . . . I mean, yes. I was just writing something down.”
    “What?”
    Laura went cold. “Nothing. Nothing important.”
    “Let me see.”
    “It’s nothing, Miss Grisham. Please, I’ll put it away.”
    “Bring it here.”
    Laura looked down at the paper she was shielding. The tiny dragon’s face peeped out from under her arm. She couldn’t give it to Miss Grisham. She just couldn’t. This was her own private world; it would be like laying her soul bare.
    She gulped. “No.”
    Everyone gasped, even Miss Grisham.
    “Laura, this is the last time I will ask you.
Bring
the paper here.”
    A blackness descended over Laura. She could not see the classroom, the desks, or the students. She could only see Miss Grisham. Her heart was throbbing so powerfully, it felt as though it had taken over her whole body. There was nothing but the
thump, thump, thump
of its beat. Laura picked up the paper and deliberately, desperately, tore the tiny dragon in half. She continued to tear it over and over again until the pieces lay scattered like blossoms over her desk.
    “Outside, Laura,” ordered Miss Grisham in the iciest voice Laura had ever heard.
    Laura swept the pieces into her hand and clenched them in her fist. Then she walked to the door, darkness surrounding her. She felt as though she was walkingthrough a tunnel, but the tunnel had eyes that gazed at her with fascination, horror, fear.
    She stared straight ahead. Only as she reached the door did she glance sideways and glimpse Leon watching her with a mixture of surprise and amusement. She wrenched the door open and stepped outside.
    The hallway was long and cold. Empty. Laura stood hesitating, wondering what she should do; she had never been in this position before.
    Her eyes fixed on a poster flapping in the breeze. READ MORE BOOKS , it said. COME TO THE LIBRARY . If only she could. She would be able to hide there among the books. But that was not possible now: Miss