Page 14 of What You Wish For

So many questions. I didn’t know where to start. “Do you meantheDuncan Carpenter?”

Kent Buckley frowned. “Is there more than one?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

The whole room was watching. Was this a conversation that needed to happen right now?

Um, yes.

“Tall and lanky?” I asked Kent Buckley then, lifting my hand way above my head. “Sandy hair? Super goofy?”

Kent Buckley’s voice was clipped. “No. Not ‘super goofy.’”

Maybe we had different definitions of that phrase. I tried to clarify. “Like, wearing crazy golf pants?” I went on. “Or a tie with rubber duckies on it?”

I was on borrowed time. “Just a normal suit,” Kent Buckley said.

I paused.A normal suit. Huh.

The whole room could tell I was having a moment. I don’t know a word, or even a category, for what I felt at the sound of that name, but it was more like a cocktail of emotions than any simple substance. Equal parts horror and ecstasy, with a twist of panic, and a little zest of disbelief—all poured over the cold ice of comprehension about what Kent Buckley’s announcement meant for my immediate future.

It wasn’t good.

The clock was ticking on everybody’s patience—Kent Buckley’s the most. Before I could ask another question, he pointed decisively at my seat, likeWe’re done here.

I sat. More out of stupefaction than obedience. Then I stayed still, trying to will the adrenaline out of my system.

Could there be more than one Duncan Carpenter in the world? I guessed it was possible. The world was a big place. But… more than one Duncan Carpenter in the world of independent elementary education?

Less likely.

The reality of the odds hit me.

Duncan Carpenter was coming here. To my sleepy little town on Galveston Island. To replace my beloved principal and run my beloved school.

TheDuncan Carpenter.

“He’s a stellar candidate,” Kent Buckley continued to the room at last, glad to have his rightful stage back. “An assistant principal that took a nightmare of a school and pulled it together in the course of one year. They counteroffered several times to keep him, but he needed achange of location for personal reasons, and he’s ours now. He’s going to get in here and shake things up. Give this place the kick in the pants it’s needed for so long.”

Did our sweet little utopia of a school need a kick in the pants?

No. Not at all.

Of course, we would need somebody to be in charge. But why wasn’t it Babette? I guarantee every single teacher in that room would have voted for Babette.

But this was Kent Buckley. He wasn’t asking us to vote.

As far as he was concerned, his vote was the only vote that mattered.

Are you wondering how it’s possible that Kent Buckley was the chairman of the board even though absolutely nobody liked him? Because, seriously: nobody liked him. Nobody liked his scheming, or his striving, or his ill-informed opinions on “what you people need.”

But when I say nobody, I really mean the faculty and the staff.

Let’s just say, we weren’t charmed by his BMW.

He campaigned hard to get voted chairman, and while Max was alive, it wasn’t that much of a job. Max made all the decisions, anyway—and this school was as much a cult of personality as anything else.

Max had known that Kent Buckley’s values were not in line with the school’s. But he just wasn’t too worried about it. “Just let him be the chairman. He wants it so bad.”

---