Free The Vanishing Violin by Michael D. Beil

asks. I cower behind her skirt. “Don’t tell me. He struck again. What was it this time?”
    Too stunned to speak, she motions for us to follow her into the fourth-floor library.
    Oh my gosh. This place has been transformed into something out of a Jane Austen novel. The cracked, peeling drab green walls have been expertly covered with a pale blue striped wallpaper, all the wood trim around the windows and doors has been repainted in a tasteful soft cream, and here and there on the walls are wallpaper decorations that look like sculptures andpaintings. There’s even a nice-size matching rug in the center of the room. It’s all really quite stunning. And we’re stunned.
    “Wow,” I finally manage to say. “This is beautiful.”
    Sister Bernadette, she harrumphs.
    “No way one person did this in one night,” Margaret says, examining the workmanship. “Look at it. It’s perfect.”
    And then she sees it. There’s a new bookcase against the wall near the door, filled with the Harvard Classics—salvaged from our moldy basement. For a second, I think Margaret is going to … cry? She was heartbroken back in September when Mrs. Overmeyer, the librarian, told her those books were in storage. Slowly, lovingly, she runs her hand over the spines of the books, stopping only when she gets to a gap near the end of the fiction volumes.
    “Volume eighteen is missing.” She thinks for a moment. “Dostoyevsky.
Crime and Punishment
.”
    I knew that. Of course. Really. You dare to doubt me?
    “Girls, I want answers!” Sister Bernadette says, and storms out.
    A few minutes later, Mr. Eliot stands before his podium and utters the two words that strike a note of dread into our hearts: “group project.” Teachers love them; we hate them. Yes, I know, I know: there are going to be times in life when I’m going to have to work with other people, and I’m going to have to be collaborative and flexibleand learn to delegate responsibility, yadda, yadda, yadda.
    Mr. E. loves to use open-heart surgery as an example of a group working together toward a common goal—you know, everyone is responsible for some part of the procedure, and if somebody screws up, the patient kicks it. Well, my argument is, if the anesthesiologist (let’s call her Bridget O’Malley) decides the night before surgery that she absolutely must spend six hours online instead of preparing for the operation, it’s not the patient who suffers. It’s me.
    Though Mr. Eliot is unmoved by our howls of protest, he’s at least letting us choose our own groups. Rebecca’s not in our section of English, so Margaret, Leigh Ann, and I quickly size up the rest of the class, looking for our fourth. Miss O’Malley, thank God, has found three other unfortunate victims, and strangely enough, everyone seems to be already in groups of four. Fine by us. We are more than happy to divide the work three ways; the extra 8⅓ percent of the labor each is fine by us.
    Our joy is short-lived, however, as Mr. Eliot reminds us that there is one girl absent. Olivia “Livvy” Klack. He declares himself to be certain we will be thrilled to have her as our fourth. Here’s everything you need to know about Livvy:
    Before Leigh Ann showed up, she was the prettiest girl in our grade. Ergo, she hates Leigh Ann.
    She hates Margaret with a deep and irrational passion.
    She would sell her soul to the devil to be at one of those real Upper East Side private schools instead of having to slum it with us nonrich, unfabulous peons at St. Veronica’s.
    I open my mouth to protest, but Mr. E. cuts me off. “Don’t waste your energy, Miss St. Pierre. Ah, speaking of which …”
    Livvy strolls into the room and hands a late pass to him with a dramatic flourish. “I couldn’t get a cab. It’s raining, you know.”
    We all roll our eyes at each other. A cab. She lives, like, three blocks from the school, for crying out loud.
    “Well, I just assigned a little project for next week, and you are