Page 53 of What You Wish For

“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, likeWho’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 theArchiecomics 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. Theteachershated 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.

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