Excerpt from How to Build a Heart by Maria Padian, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Cool," I say. "I love pasta. But couldn't we have swung home first so I could change?"

Roz pulls her eyes from the road for one moment so she can strafe the length of my school uniform — white cotton blouse, green and navy pleated skirt, navy knee socks — with a withering glance. "You know, that getup is so retro it's practically in," she comments.

"Vintage," I agree. "I think my mother wore something just like it when she was in high school."

"It screams 'Future Nun.' Does it come with a chastity belt?"

"No, but they do require matching underwear."

Roz's eyes widen.

"Green and navy thongs with the St. Veronica Catholic School seal on the back," I deadpan.

There's a long moment before Roz gets the joke. When she does, she releases one hand from the steering wheel to flick my knee. The polish on her blunt nails is blue-black and chipped.

''I'll bet at your school it's a sin to say 'thong,' never mind wear one," she says.

"You got that right."

"We're not invited, Izzy."

"Duh."

"But I know how we can see what's going on," she adds. "Why does that make me nervous?" I say, glancing out the passenger-side window. We're passing the hilly, horsey part of Clayton, officially known as Clayton County, with fields that extend for miles, crisscrossed by white fences. A few massive brick houses are scattered in the distance, ringed with trees. I know from past excursions that Hot Sam lives in the more woodsy, less horsey part. Where each home is hidden at the end of a street-long driveway... except there's no street sign. Only mailboxes with a single number.

"You're nervous because you're a dork," Roz tells me.

"Really?" I say. Not about my dorkiness: we both agree that I am the complete dork inverse to Roz's total badassedness. "I think I'm nervous because you haven't let me in on the plan. Is there a plan?''

Upward curl of the mouth corner again. "Oh yeah," she says. That's all.

We reach the section of road where Hot Sam lives; Roz always points it out when we drive past. About a quarter mile before his driveway, however, she turns off, onto a packed dirt entrance. It extends unevenly into the woods, and we bounce in the suspension-challenged car. Tree stumps, freshly hacked, line the way, and it smells like wet pine.

This dirtway eventually opens into a construction site and the skeleton of a half-built McMansion. A porta potty and a carpenter's trailer are the dead giveaways that this is a work in progress. But it's long after hours, so no one's here.

Except us.

Roz pulls alongside the porta potty and cuts the engine. "Well. This is fun," I say.

She swivels in her seat so I can see her face-on . The thin wire ring that loops through her left nostril. The blue highlights in her not-quite-blond hair, verging on purple in the dusk. "A few hundred yards through the woods, that way," she says, tilting her head in the intended direction, "is Sam's backyard." An unpleasant chill begins at the base of my skull and runs down the length of my spine. "There's a little pool house and a rock wall, close to the back deck. From there you can see right in. They have a huge flat screen on one wall. I could pretty much watch a whole movie on Netflix the other night. Without the sound, of course."

I feel my heart pick up the pace. "Wait, you spy on his house? Geez, Roz, I was kidding about the stalker thing!" I don't know what else to say. This is creepy. And a little sad.

And okay, I'll admit it: kind of badass.

She waves her hand, batting away my shock like it's an annoying mosquito. "Please. It's not like I'm taking photos or anything... Just observing The Douche in his native habitat." I can't help it: I laugh. Only Roz could blur the lines between a scientist studying primates and a nosy teen spying.

Excerpted from How to Build a Heart by Maria Padian. Copyright © 2020 by Maria Padian. Excerpted by permission of Algonquin Young Readers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.