Page 124 of What You Wish For

“Kempner’s,” Kent Buckley said, already impatient.

This couldn’t be real—but it couldn’t be a joke, either. Kent Buckley didn’t know how to joke.

Plus, one look at Duncan’s stricken face made it clear: this was real.

“We’re remodeling the school?” Mrs. Kline asked.

“No,” Kent Buckley said. “We’re building a new one.”

Murmurs all around—and not happy ones—as people tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Kent Buckley, never the most perceptive guy, went on talking like we were all gearing up to throw him a parade.

“Genius, right? I’ve gotta give a lot of credit to this guy”—he gestured at Duncan with his thumbs—“because when I was grilling him last fall on upping our security game, he did a pretty thorough assessment and finally came back and said, ‘You’d be better off building a brand-new school.’ So I said, ‘Hold my beer,’ and the next thing we knew, we had a potential buyer for this broken-down old place and a very promising pad site in an office park down on West Beach.”

When Kent Buckley stopped talking, it was dead quiet.

“You want to sell this place,” Carlos said then, “and build… the Death Star?”

Kent Buckley laughed and said, “You know, it’s funny—that’s exactly what we’ve been calling it.”

“It doesn’t have any windows,” Emily called out. “Just little slits.”

“It doesn’t have any plants,” Anton said.

“It’s in an industrial park,” Carlos said.

“Very observant,” Kent Buckley said, flashing a thumbs-up. “That’s all for visibility.”

“There’s no outdoor space,” Coach Gordo said.

“True,” Kent Buckley said. “Not a problem if you’ve got a wimpy kid like I do. But I’m working on arranging off-site sports facilities we can bus the jocks to after school.”

My head was swimming. What was happening?

“You’ve already had plans drawn up?” Lena asked.

“Not yet,” Kent Buckley said. “This image is from the website of the company we’ll hire. They used to be a defense contractor, but now they build schools. And great news: I’m an investor, so I can get them for cheap.”

“Has this—been approved by the board?” Carlos asked.

But Kent Buckley shook his head. “The board is excited. I’ve got all the board approval I need. We will be a go.”

That’s when I stood up.

Just… stood.

Kent Buckley turned in my direction. “Librarian,” he said, pointing at me. “Question.”

But my question was not for Kent Buckley. I turned and scanned for Babette.

She was at the back of the room.

“Babette,” I said. “Can you do me a favor and shut this guy up?”

There were gasps around the room.

Babette met my eyes, but she didn’t move.

I took a few steps closer. “I mean, don’t you feel like we’ve all had to put up with enough bullshit this year?” I looked around at the room. “Is there anybody in this room who wants to hear this dude waste any more of our time? I mean, there’s no way we’re doing this. We’re not selling our beautiful, historic building so that we can move to a sensory deprivation chamber.” I looked around. “None of this is happening. Why let him keep talking?”

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