“You’re not here by mistake, is what I mean,” like he was offering me an out.
I guess I could have taken it. But I didn’t. “We’re not here by mistake.”
“You knew this field trip was canceled, but you came here anyway?”
“Correct.”
Duncan looked me over. “Did you think I just wouldn’t notice that the entire third grade was missing?”
“I hoped you wouldn’t,” I said, with a shrug. “If you weren’t taking attendance.”
Duncan turned to the teachers. “Start packing up. We’re going back.”
But I motioned to Duncan to come the rest of the way down the steps. “Can I talk to you please?”
When Duncan stepped onto the sand, after taking a second to adjust to the cognitive dissonance of a man in a gray suit, in recently polished black oxfords, standing on the beach, I added, “Privately?”
I started marching away from where the kids were, and Duncan, to my relief, followed.
When we were out of earshot, I said, “Don’t do this. Let us finish what we’re doing.”
He shrugged. “You broke the rules.”
“Well, they’re bad rules.”
“I disagree.”
“We’re fine,” I said, gesturing to the kids. “It’s been a lovely day. The kids have learned things and cheered for each other. We’ve been building toward this day for weeks—the moment when the kids get to do something to help out the ocean. It’s been very inspiring for them.”
“Irrelevant,” Duncan said. “They can’t be here.”
“Why not?”
“Because field trips have been canceled.”
“So uncancel them.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“You can cancel them, but you can’t uncancel them?”
“Not when people break the rules.”
I pointed at the kids. “Look how happy they are. Why not just let them stay?”
“I can’t protect them out here.”
“You’re not the Secret Service. They’re just kids on a field trip.”
“Not anymore.”
He took a step like he was about to go back and round them up.
“Wait!” I said, putting my hand on his arm to stop him.
He looked down at my hand.
“Listen to what you’re doing,” I said, counting off of my fingers. “You’re putting gates on everything and bars on the windows. You’re painting everything gray. You’re putting the kids—and the teachers, by the way—in gray uniforms. You’re hiring a whole new flock of security guards. And you fired poor Raymond—”
“He was asleep all the time!”
“He has sleep apnea!”
We glared at each other for a second.
Then I said, “Can’t you see what you’re doing?”
He blinked at me.
“Bars? Gray walls? Gates? Guards? You’re turning our school into a prison. An actual, literal prison.”
It was my zinger. Meant to get some kind of reaction—prompt even some tiny new awareness. Maybe even spark an epiphany and make him realize how astonishingly wrong he’d been all along. Wouldn’t that have been nice?
But what’s the opposite of an epiphany? A shrug? Duncan said, “It’s necessary.”
“Says who?”
“I’ve consulted extensively with security experts.”
“How do you know they know what they’re talking about?”
“Um. Because they’re experts.”
“So? Experts are wrong all the time.”
“That’s fine. But it’s my job to keep these kids—and the faculty, by the way—safe.”
“That’s not your only job.”
“That’s my number one job.”
“They can’t learn if they’re miserable!”
“They can’t learn if they’re dead!”
At that, we both fell silent.
The wind was flicking at his hair, and his oxfords were now brushed with sand, but despite how ridiculously out of place he looked on this beach in that suit, he still managed to ooze authority. Duncan Carpenter, of all people, oozing authority. He should have been flying a kite! He should have been doing handstands in Hawaiian-print board shorts. He should have been helping.
The wrongness of the whole situation helped fuel an indignant courage in me. Me, in my straw hat, and heart-shaped sunglasses, and a T-shirt with a drawing of an octopus with all its arms stretched wide that said FREE HUGS.
I refused to back down.
And that was the moment—right there—when my need to understand what the hell had happened finally outweighed my need to protect myself. Before he could turn and walk back to the group and round everybody up before they were even finished, I found myself asking the question that had been following me like a ghost net ever since he’d arrived.
“How is it possible that you don’t remember me?” I said then, taking a step closer.
Duncan just stared at me.
“I used to work at Andrews Prep in California. We”—I gestured between the two of us, feeling a flash of irritation that I had to explain this—“worked together for two years. I was quieter then, and a lot less … colorful. Maybe