I loved my job, is what I’m saying.

The second floor was like a magical land. We kept reference books, how-tos, and nonfiction downstairs—but upstairs was all fiction. From picture books to chapter books, that floor was all about getting lost in imaginary worlds. We had reading nooks tucked around every corner, beanbag chairs all around, and even a big reading “nest” that the kids could climb into like baby birds, fashioned out of wood and papier-maché. We had a tunnel made out of books. We had a loft by the window where the kids could climb up and read next to a view of the Gulf.

It was bright. It was whimsical. It was special. And it was mine.

I didn’t want Duncan telling me it was a fire hazard.

But I went in with him anyway. What choice did I have?

The first thing he saw as we stepped in were the book-spine stairs.

“Cool stairs,” he said, seeming to forget his no-praise policy.

It was the first nice thing he’d said all afternoon. “Thank you,” I said. “Babette and I painted them.”

That got his attention. He met my eyes for the first time all day. “You painted them?”

“Babette did the hard stuff. I just filled in the colors.”

“They really look like book spines,” he said then, studying them, the wonder in his voice softening it and making him sound the tiniest bit like the old Duncan.

“She figured out the shading to make them look three-D.”

Duncan read the spines out loud. “Charlotte’s Web. James and the Giant Peach. How to Train Your Dragon. Harriet the Spy. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

Was he going to read them all? “We let the kids vote on their favorites.”

“Of course.”

It was the first—the only—moment all day that had felt anything like a normal, pleasant conversation and it confirmed what I’d always believed about whimsy—that it found a way past people’s defenses.

At the top of the stairs, we found Clay Buckley lying on the reading-circle rug surrounded by stacks of Archie comics.

“Hey, Clay,” I said.

He rotated, chin on his hand. “Hey.”

“Doing some reading?”

“I’m not allowed to read these at home.”

“Gotcha,” I said with a wink, just as Duncan said, “Shouldn’t you be in after-care?”

“I’m waiting for my dad,” Clay said.

But Duncan didn’t seem to get who his dad was. “Still. You shouldn’t just be roaming around campus like a—”

“Like a labradoodle?” I offered.

“My grandmother lets me come to the library,” Clay said, like that settled the issue.

Duncan looked at me, like Who’s his grandmother?

“His grandmother is Babette,” I said. Then I added, “Kempner.”

“So,” Duncan said, piecing it together. “If Babette is his grandmother then that must make him…”

“Kent Buckley’s son,” I said with a nod.

And that seemed to settle it. This kid could read all the Archie comics he liked.

The tour was almost over. I was ready to be done. The stress of being around someone who looked like Duncan Carpenter but acted like the opposite of him was wearing me out.

As I walked him toward the exit, past the circulation desk, he noticed the disassembled mobile spread out all over it. “What’s this?” he asked.

“It’s a hanging butterfly sculpture made of old bicycle parts I got this summer. I thought it would be great right there.” I pointed at a spot on the ceiling. “But when I opened it and saw all the pieces, I panicked.”

At that, Duncan actually smiled—not at me, but down at all the pieces. I saw his cheek move and the side of his eye wrinkle … but then, he dropped it, almost as if smiling by accident had startled him, and when he looked up again, his face had returned to blank.

“You’re not going to put it together?” he asked.

I gave a little head shake. “Not today.”

“When, then?”

I’d ordered that thing in the summer—a whole lifetime ago. “I don’t know,” I said. Then I shrugged. “How about never?”

nine

That first month of school was such an onslaught that I almost forgot about Duncan Carpenter. All my voracious readers were all over me—wanting to know what was new, wanting to check out ten books each, or the biggest books they could find, or looking for book three in whatever series they were hooked on. It was like a circus in there.

A book circus.

I was glad for it. Glad for an escape from those strange, heartbreaking final weeks of summer. Glad for the rhythm of the school year to pull me along. Glad for the library full of readers.

I loved the energy of their little bodies, and sounds of their voices, even when they got too loud. I was not a librarian who went around shushing kids—but I did try to help them remember that the library was supposed to be a calming space, a special space, one that left room for the imagination.

Duncan made changes, yes—but incrementally enough that, one by one, they didn’t provoke rebellion.

He instituted assigned seating for the kids at lunch, for example. Which actually turned out to have some advantages.

The kids hated it, but that was okay. Kids hated lots of things.

Duncan also started requiring the teachers to take attendance in every class—not just first thing in the morning. His reasoning was that we needed to monitor where the kids were throughout the school day. What if one of them went missing? How would we know?

This change had fewer advantages. The teachers hated this one.

Um. How would we know? We would just—you know—notice that someone was missing. The implication that taking attendance was the only way to keep our kids from going AWOL was, frankly, pretty insulting. But Duncan wanted a record—an accounting of where every single kid was during the school day. And it wasn’t the biggest imposition in the world. Seriously, once we’d seen him hold up that gun, something like taking attendance in class seemed like small potatoes.

In theory, at least.

In practice? Taking attendance is just about the most boring possible way to start a class.

Other little changes that Duncan worked into the schedule bit by bit without ever causing a riot: Shortening lunch by ten minutes. Shortening recess, too. Decreeing that faculty could not cover each other’s classes. Decreeing that faculty could not leave campus during the school day.

Not to mention, adding locks and keypads to every gate that let you in or out of school grounds—except for the front entrance, which was guarded by security at all times.

The keypads themselves weren’t all that onerous, but what did turn into a serious drag was that they changed the security codes every two weeks.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, if you had nothing else to think about.

But teachers always have everything else to think about.

It was the worst for people who drove—which was everybody except me—because the parking lot was on the far side of the school’s entrance. If you forgot the code, you had to walk all the way around to the front. It made me glad, in a way, that I didn’t drive anymore—not since the seizures came back. Partly because I didn’t want to be on medication, which was required for a license. But also, if I’m honest, after that first, spectacular reintroduction to my adult epilepsy, I wasn’t too eager to get back behind the wheel.

It was fine. There were upsides.

It was a slower pace of life.

Most mornings I just rode my yellow bike—with my supplies tucked into the handlebar basket that Babette and I had hot-glued fake flowers all over—and Chuck Norris would come bounding out of the gates and lick my ankles while I locked it up out front.

Remember how Duncan told us not to pet him?

Yeah … I would pet the hell out of that dog.

It was good for both of us.

In fact, I did my best to ignore most of Duncan’s changes.

But the one that hit me the hardest was car-pool duty.

He completely overhauled car pool the third week of school—deciding that it wasn’t safe for kids to sit outside the building while they waited to go home.

“They’re literally sitting ducks,” he’d said to Alice.

“Well,” she had famously said, “not literally.”

By royal decree, the kids now had to sit inside in the courtyard for car pool. It took twice as long and required a relay system.

It required twice as many teachers, too.

I got conscripted into it—against my will. Everybody did. So once a week, at the end of a long, draining workday, I got to stand out in the hundred degree heat for more than an hour, breathing carbon monoxide and fielding angry parents who’d roll down their car windows and shout, “I’ve been in this line for over an hour!”

“At least you have AC,” I’d say, taking a swig from my water bottle.

It got so bad, Alice suggested we stick ice cubes in our bras—which I did not go for, though it was tempting. Instead, I found a giant pink parasol at one of the beach shops and used it to create my own personal patch of shade.

Which helped a little. But not enough.

* * *