“I saw your house in the paper this morning,” Victoria Cole spits at the back of my head later on the very same day. “I guess you saw it, too.”
I try to pretend that I didn’t really hear her. When Ms. Byron starts our science lesson, I sit up straight and proud, chin jutted out.
“Can anyone tell me what happens to a plant when its light source is blocked—say, by a fence?” Ms. Byron asks.
I throw my hand right up in the air. “It’ll grow to the light,” I say, tossing a glare at Victoria. “You can’t cut a plant off from the light. It’ll always grow right toward it.”
Can’t cut Auggie Jones off from the light, either, I think.
“Sure, sure. Everything’s all fine and good until the neighbor chops the plant’s head off because it’s climbed the fence and is in his yard now,” Victoria growls.
Lexie tries to shoot a “Shhhh” at Victoria.
“Besides,” Victoria says, ignoring Lexie as she leans close to me, and whispers, too quietly for Ms. Byron to hear, “some flowers deserve to be leveled. Like, say, the flowers you’ve got on your roof. You go on, though, Auggie. You just keep on building up heaps of junk around your house. Like I said, it won’t do you any good. Before you know it, that whole street will belong to the city.”
“What are you talking about? You can’t do that,” I shout, too angry to care who hears. “You can’t take our house. It’s not something you could ever steal. It’s not—a bike or a coat. It’s a house.”
Victoria narrows her eyes at me, starts to open her mouth.
“Girls,” Ms. Byron snaps, popping a stomach pill into her mouth. “After school. My desk.”