Second Story (Second Chance School #3)

Chapter 1

ISAAC

Once upon a time, a librarian saved my future.

No word of a lie, Mrs. Obasi got between me and the dealer hassling me to make his deliveries, and she broke a library rule to save me from him. Fuck being quiet like the sign over her desk demanded. She roared at him to back off, swearing that I had a bright future and it didn’t include getting hooked on his drugs in knife crime central.

I never forgot her fierceness. Could do with some more of it right now, only this time to save me from Luke Lawson.

I’m not saying he’s some south London roadman, offering a free snort of coke from his door key. Luke Lawson runs a posh boarding school in deepest Cornwall, hundreds of miles from where I grew up. He does hold the one key I still need, but now that I’m at the end of a two-day interview process to make his school library all mine, he snatches that bright future from me.

“I’m sorry, Isaac.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes. I’m extremely sorry I don’t have better news for you.” He frowns across a table while children play in a courtyard outside. Their laughter carries through an open window, carefree and easy, as if there are no needles littering their playground or rival gangs who settle their scores with knife fights. His decision slices through their laughter. “But even though I’m sorry, I can’t offer you the school librarian position. Or another role I was considering as our early years storyteller.”

My heart stops.

Waves of panic follow, and it shouldn’t be possible to drown inside a library. They’ve always been my safe spaces, were long before Mrs. Obasi roared for me. I’ve loved them since Mum sat with me on squishy beanbag seats to read story after story when I was a shrimp like my little brother, and it’s Lenny I need to keep afloat by scoring a spot here.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. No roar. Not even a whimper. I’m as voiceless as Lenny has become lately, speechless, just like when that dealer tried to recruit me. He was too late. I was already an addict, only Narnia was my gateway drug when I was still young enough for bedtime stories. Twenty-odd years later, I still mainline fantasy whenever I get the chance to read. I’m hooked on Tarot lords and their companions, and I crave dragons, especially if their riders are big, brooding, and protective.

Across the table from me, Luke Lawson could give any of them a run for their brooding money. His forehead furrows, and if I wasn’t fighting for my life, this much concern could be added to the list of what keeps me turning pages. Broad-shouldered and brave usually does it for me. So does strong and solid, which Luke Lawson outwardly isn’t. He’s lean like me, and tall, like I am now my shrimpy days are over, but I can’t hold my breath for any kind of happy ending when he shakes his head firmly.

The last time someone did that while looking this creased with caring, they walked away to leave me as a stand-in single parent.

Don’t think about Joe da Silva.

Falling for my brother’s first school welfare worker is old news—a one-sided situation that was over before it even started. I’ve got more urgent issues right now, like needing this job. What I can’t find are the words to say so to the man with the power to hire me. All I can do is listen to Luke Lawson’s verdict.

“I appreciate the thought you put into the story you told my interview panel. And that you delivered it with so much gusto. Creating it yourself was a nice touch.” His brow furrows again. “But you see, I can’t hire someone who won’t be honest with me.”

Forget drowning. My mouth turns Sahara dry in an instant.

“Honest with you?”

The last time I felt this cornered, a librarian didn’t only roar. She gave nine-year-old me lessons on how to look and sound brave, even if I didn’t feel it. “You Webbers are all the same,” she told me. “You’re as softhearted as your mother.” Replicating what Mrs. Obasi demonstrated and then made me practise is still instinctive. Today my chin rises, eyes narrowing, and I growl like the lion she promised lived deep inside me.

“What do you mean I haven’t been honest? I’m no liar.”

What I am is desperate.

Since Joe walked away, I’m all Lenny has left. It’s me or nothing, and perhaps Luke Lawson sees my simmering panic.

He tilts his head, and I’ve been judged by plenty of people since dropping out of uni, but this close observation comes with a question. “Why Glynn Harber, Isaac?”

“W-why Glynn Harber?” What a stupid time to stutter or to sound as if I’ve never heard the name of this school. I lift my chin even higher and summon my inner Aslan. “I’m here for me. This is what I’ve always wanted. A library of my own.”

“So why did you go to university years late and then leave prior to completing your first semester?” Luke Lawson waits a beat before filling my silence. “You’re the only applicant without a degree in Library Science. Without any kind of pre- or post-grad vocational qualification, or with?—”

Where I’m from, guns aren’t as common as blades. This still shoots from me, bullet-fast and frantic. “I’ve got experience. That’s worth more than any piece of paper.”

His head tilts again. “So you said.” He stands, and there’s no arguing with his silent instruction that I follow him to a wall full of photos beside the window. He points at one. “And your application mentioned that our school counsellor could confirm your work experience.” Sand dunes are a backdrop in this image of a man carrying a child on his broad shoulders.

Like Joe used to carry Lenny to make him feel on top of the world instead of defeated.

I have to look away from this reminder of someone who bailed on us both.

The headmaster of this school makes me take a second look by tapping that photo and asking, “Did you think our counsellor would recommend you? He couldn’t tell me much beyond you booking a meeting room for him once in a London library. Couldn’t vouch for anything else about you, so I’ll ask you one last time. Why Glynn Harber? What are you really here for?”

I have to be careful. The complete truth will set him running. I can’t spill what happened after the police battered down the door to my family home, then sealed it off with tape like a crime scene. I settle for repeating the one truth I can share with him. “I’m here for me.”

“I wish I could believe that.” He sighs next to another photo featuring a tall dune. This bank of sand towers over tiny children it could smother in an instant. I’m just as crushed when he says, “I can’t let myself take your word for it. Not when trauma has led so many of our students to Glynn Harber. Do you know what the name of the school means?”

I do. Even if I don’t have the right certification, a librarian’s urge to read and research runs bone-deep through me. “It’s Cornish for a woodland safe haven.”

He nods at me, then at those tiny children. “Some of our students are refugees, here to heal ahead of the next stage in their onward journey. Imagine not feeling safe or secure, Isaac. Being made unwelcome everywhere you turn, your last home gone and no idea where your new one will be.”

I don’t have to imagine.

I’ve watched my brother live that vagrant lifestyle. Heard his voice fade into the same silence Luke Lawson now waits for me to break. When I don’t, he resumes his questioning.

“You’re from south London, yes? Parts of that area are prestigious, but I noticed an address in Wintergreen on your paperwork. Other students here are from the same neck of the woods. They describe it as a huge housing estate with a high crime rate. That link is what caught my eye in your application. They’re refugees too, in a way. Can’t go home because of past issues. Can’t move on until they heal. Their scars are different. Often hidden. Sometimes still raw and bleeding. Every single one of them deserves support from honest professionals.”

“I have been hon?—”

“Can you honestly tell me that you have experience with trauma? With those hidden scars I just mentioned?”

Do I have experience with scars?

The one good thing Joe ever did was give Lenny a storybook all about them. I’ve read it every night since. Know it inside out and backwards. Got a few scars of my own that he left me.

Stop thinking about him.

I give Luke Lawson a sliver of the honesty he asked for. “I do have a perfect book to help with trauma, and I could learn?—”

He shakes his head. “You’ve had over a year since leaving university to do that. Did you use any of that time to seek additional trauma training?”

Right now, I feel like I could run advanced courses. I have to shake my head instead as a school bell rings.

“What would you do if you were me?” He’s brutal, all while his voice is gentle. “Would you hire a candidate with none of the credentials a school librarian needs and who names a contact who met him so briefly he probably couldn’t pick you out from a police lineup?”

I swallow hard, as voiceless as my brother lately. Maybe it’s just as well I’m silent. His next comment leaves me speechless.

“I invited you here out of curiosity, but you made it through to this final interview because you wowed every single teacher during the early stages.” He points outside at a bearded giant of a teacher. “Hayden said you brought his nature lesson to life with a story you made up on the fly. That you included some quite challenging children and extended their learning so naturally that they thought they were playing.”

He moves closer to the glass and points to someone else who observed me on my first visit. “And Rowan told me how you improvised the moment you saw his drumsticks. Said you asked him to play and got a whole classroom of children moving to his beat. That you opened the classroom doors and marched your story outside.” He shakes his head, forehead creasing again, although his next words sound helpless instead of condemning. “That’s when I heard you laugh.”

“Me?”

“Yes, Isaac. You. I heard you laugh and then I watched you weave a story in my playground that you didn’t need a book to tell. And do you know what else I witnessed from my study window?”

His answer slays me.

“I saw so much potential.”

He searches my face, and I’m hot all over at scrutiny that holds a surprising hint of desperation and none of the judgement I more than half expected. Who knows why that pokes at the lion inside me, but here I go growling again.

“Then give me a second chance.”

He smiles then. I didn’t expect it and couldn’t have predicted how all his stern lines would soften. Fuck me, he’s so human it’s hard to deal with. I also can’t handle this switchblade shift from interrogator to someone who wants to be persuaded. Because that is what he begs for—Luke Lawson wants me to convince him so much that I can both see and hear it.

“Tell me one more story, Isaac. Not today.” He gestures at a crowd gathering outside. “I’m late for a whole-school event. Come back at the same time next week with an honest story. One that proves you’re sensitive to the scars left by trauma. Dig deep for me.” He points at the children. “For them . Do that, and I’ll find the time to listen before I make my final decision. You won’t even have to do it in front of a panel of students, like today. I value their opinions the most, but if it helps you to get honest, we can meet again without them.”

He leads me out of the library to the front door of the school.

I stand on a threshold made from mosaic floor tile spelling out Welcome to Glynn Harber that he taps with the toe of a shiny black shoe. “I want to do this, Isaac. I so want to make you welcome.” He’s quiet but serious. “I’ve asked for your honesty today, so now I’ll be honest with you. I know you already passed the enhanced clearance checks to work with children like ours. However, I’ll still have a very hard time employing you without hearing from someone else who can vouch for you. Think of someone who has seen you in action around children. Your university tutor, maybe?”

That won’t work. I had to leave to take care of Lenny before she ever had a chance to visit me in placement.

“Or someone who has supervised you recently in the workplace.” He squints. “Your application mentions a mobile library service, yes? Ask your boss there. If you can tell me one more story convincing me you understand the impact of childhood trauma and connect me with someone credible who can promise that you’re a safe pair of hands in practice as well as on paper...”

He once more taps that mosaic tiling, and then makes a promise.

“...I’ll make you welcome in a heartbeat.”

Almost a week later, I come back to Cornwall a day earlier than Luke Lawson wanted. Or a night earlier to be truthful, and I don’t travel alone.

I wish I could say I’d brought someone to vouch for me on this midnight journey. My brother can’t do that, but Lenny is the closest I’ve got to a trauma expert. I’m still pretty sure Glynn Harber’s headmaster won’t take a barely seven-year-old’s word as proof to hire me, but at least I’ve got the perfect second story to score me the job—that book Lenny’s first welfare worker gave him is on the bench seat between us, and the moon lights its title.

Every Scar Tells a Story.

I also have another incentive for scoring this job. My brother reminds me of that when he stirs in his sleep and whimpers like when I arrived at school to collect him earlier today and found him scared shitless by a school-gate knife fight.

Thank fuck he’s safe.

That doesn’t stop me from having a silent panic under a full moon and a star-filled sky so different from London’s light pollution.

What if he hadn’t been?