The apartment building came into view, and Lily climbed the stairs to the third floor. Inside, a note from her father sat on the small kitchen table.
Working late tonight. Dinner in the fridge. Love you, sweetheart.
Lily heated up the leftovers and ate quietly, doing her homework at the table. And if her fingers occasionally tapped out silent melodies on the tabletop while she worked, well, nobody was there to notice.
Back at school, in the now-empty music room, Mrs. Patterson sat at her desk making notes about the spring concert. She wrote down names, assigning pieces and planning the program. When she was done, she looked up at the piano and remembered the way that new girl had stared at it.
The teacher’s lips curved into a cold smile.
She had an idea. An idea that would remind everyone in her class exactly who belonged and who didn’t. An idea that would put that quiet little girl in her place once and for all.
She had no way of knowing that her cruel plan was about to backfire in the most spectacular way possible.
Two weeks passed, and Lily became part of the furniture in Mrs. Patterson’s music class. She was just there, like the posters on the wall or the metronome on the shelf. Nobody really noticed her anymore. The other kids had stopped whispering about the new girl and gone back to their own lives.
Mrs. Patterson continued teaching as if Lily didn’t exist at all.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, Lily sat in her back corner seat and watched. She watched Timothy show off his violin skills. She watched Rachel play piano with her perfectly straight back and precisely curved fingers. She watched David make his trumpet sing. And she stayed silent, her hands folded on her desk, her eyes carefully neutral.
But something was happening that Lily didn’t realize. Mrs. Patterson was watching her, too.