be nothing to stop them. It was the best way I knew to turn them into readers: to catch those little sparks when they happened and turn them into flames.
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-mâché. 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