Duncan’s face was dead serious. “That’s not the protocol for training working animals.”
“If you say so,” I said. I actually liked the idea of having a dog on campus. I’d just read an article about how dogs had a soothing impact on humans. I could hear my voice softening as I looked at Chuck Norris. “He’s going to keep us safe, huh?”
“He’s not the only thing, but yes.”
That got my attention. “He’s not the only thing?”
Duncan stood up a little straighter. “I’m looking at enacting many new safety protocols, from improving visibility issues, to training teachers, to making use of new technologies. I’m eyeballing some very high-tech, very top-of-the-line changes. It’ll be expensive, but so worth it.”
I’m telling you: this guy—this guy—once broke his wrist at Andrews during a skateboarding race through the school hallways.
But then a question occurred to me. “Where’s the money coming from?”
Duncan blinked. “There’s room in the budget.”
I didn’t know that much about the budget, but I knew enough. “Not sure there is,” I said.
Duncan looked away. “You can always find room in a budget, if you’re creative.”
What an amazing nonanswer answer. I stepped closer to peer at him. His face was a mixture of determination, defiance, and just a hint of guilt. Taking it in, I just knew.
“Please tell me we’re not talking about the empty lot.”
He stepped closer to his desktop and fixed his eyes on it. “What empty lot?”
But my body knew the answer before the rest of me did. I stood up straighter. My muscles tightened. “The empty lot for the playground.”
“What playground?” Duncan asked then.
Was it possible that he really didn’t know? Building that playground was all set to be the main attraction—the defining feature—of the coming school year. We had plans and a contractor lined up already. It was on the schedule.
But he’d just gotten here. Things lately had been rushed, to say the least. Maybe he hadn’t been updated. I stepped closer to his desk and, never letting him out of my sight, I leaned down over his phone, pressed the intercom button like I’d done so many times with Max when we were goofing around, and in a careful, cautious voice said, “Mrs. Kline, could you please bring in the plans for the playground?”
Two seconds later, she appeared, efficient as ever, with a stack of file folders—rubber-banded together, stuffed and overflowing with brochures, sketches, plans, notes, Post-its, doodles, ideas and suggestions—and set the stack on Duncan’s desk with a whomp.
“Meet the Adventure Garden,” I said to Duncan, as Mrs. Kline swished back out. “Two years ago, we bought the lot next door from the city. One year ago, we started a capital campaign that raised a hundred thousand dollars to build the coolest, most creative, joyful, surprising, and multisensory playground in the history of the world. And, this year, at last, in the face of everything, we’re going to build it.”
Duncan blinked at me for a second, and I got the feeling he was sizing up what kind of an adversary I was going to make. Then, in a tone of voice that let me know exactly what he’d decided, he said, “Yeah. That’s all canceled.”
I felt like I couldn’t get enough air in to make the word. “Canceled?” It came out like a gasp.
“Yep,” Duncan said, all matter-of-fact, smacking his hand down on the top of the files. “We’re going to need that money for other things.”
I pulled the files closer to me, protectively. “Other things? What kind of other things?”
“Well, I’m not at liberty to get into details just yet, but there’s a lot going on.”
“You can’t cancel the Adventure Garden!”
“Why not?”
“Because it was Max’s idea.”
“Max isn’t here, though, is he?”
“But…” What was happening? I shook my head. “You can’t.”
“Sure, I can,” Duncan said pleasantly, walking to his office door and putting his hand on the knob, like we were done here. “You should read my contract. I can do anything, pretty much. I could serve hot-fudge sundaes for every meal. I could declare that the school uniform was Halloween costumes. I could fire the entire faculty and hire a troupe of circus clowns.”
“The board would never let you do that stuff,” I said.
“The board is a complicated place,” Duncan said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I can rearrange the budget in whatever way I deem necessary for the good of the school.”
What the hell was happening? We’d spent a year planning this place. We’d had committees, done research, read