Chapter 15 - The Gym Has Only One Door
The plumbing issue was mundane: an old sink supply line had leaked into the library ceiling, and the custodian had found damp tiles before children arrived. The district maintenance team could repair it, but not before Friday.
Ms. Patel held a meeting after school with Ms. Bell, Meredith, Nate, Tessa, and Mrs. Ortiz. No one pretended the news was good.
"The gym holds everybody," Meredith said, "but we can't have loud book sales while the children read."
"Use the cafeteria for the sale," Nate suggested.
"The cafeteria's being cleaned after dinner service," Mrs. Ortiz replied. "And we do not have staff to open it again."
Nate crossed out the suggestion. "Then we run a silent book browsing period while the class performs?"
"Kids browsing books silently?" Tessa raised an eyebrow. "You haven't met my sons."
They laughed, and the laughter helped.
They settled on two shorter reading blocks in the gym with a fifteen-minute gap, then moved the used-book tables into the entry hall once performers finished. The school would provide one microphone and two staff members; volunteers would handle everything else. It was smaller than the original plan. It might actually work.
After the meeting, Meredith approached Nate beside the folding chairs.
"I could have fought you harder on that schedule," she said.
"You could have."
"I was about to. Mrs. Ortiz looked at me and I heard myself sounding like my mother."
"That's terrifying for most people."
"You have no idea."
They stacked chairs together until the custodian sent them home.
At rehearsal on Thursday, Josie stopped halfway through her poem. Her voice got thin, and she stared at the folding chairs where a dozen parents were pretending not to watch. Nate waited at the back near the door, resisting the urge to mouth every word for her.
Ms. Bell crouched beside the microphone. "Want a minute?"
Josie nodded. Then she tried again, this time speaking toward a spot on the wall instead of the crowd.
In the car, she told Nate she was scared of forgetting the last line.
"We can practice at home," he said.
"Don't whisper it from your seat. That makes me think I forgot."
"Deal."
Friday afternoon, Martin called with an urgent supplier problem. It was the sort of call Nate used to answer before checking where he was. This time he was standing in the kitchen holding Josie's poem.
"Can this wait until eight?" he asked.
Martin said it could, though not happily.
May you like
Nate went back to the poem. Then a storm warning appeared on his phone. Heavy rain would hit the school an hour before the doors opened, right when volunteers were supposed to unload the borrowed books.
