The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet (10 page)

“Not
that
school,” she said. “HoHo.”

“You hate HoHo?”

I was confused. What was there to hate about HoHo? Besides all the usual stuff—teachers, homework, annoying people—it was just
school
. No one
loved
it, but it’s what you had to do. It was normal.

Normal, I guess, if you’d been going for eight years.

That’s when I realized I’d been in school longer than Dezzie had been alive. Even with the “lessons” I’d given her, she had no idea what to do there. And even with her brains, she was still only seven. I hadn’t realized how hard it would be for her. I put my hand on her shoulder to try and comfort her.

“I hate it,” she repeated. Her face was turning back to its regular color. It seemed like the crying was gone for now. I relaxed.

“What do you hate?” I removed my hand, crossed my legs on the bed and faced her.

“I can’t
do
it,” said Dezzie.

“Do what? I know that the desks and lockers are tall, but I thought they took care of that in—”

She shook her head, cutting me off. “It’s not the desks. I can’t do the work. Art, to be more specific. And they are going to hang the Pollock paintings for everyone to see.” She stared straight at the floor when she said this.

“You hate school because you can’t paint?”

That was it? I guess my voice sounded more incredulous than it should have. I mean, I was worried that she was stressing over all these changes, and she was upset because she couldn’t do
art
? It was almost funny—I was worried because I was performing too well, she was upset because she couldn’t stand out the way she was used to. She flopped backward onto the pillow and hid her face again.

“Just go,” she said. “I knew you couldn’t understand.”

Now, if she had said any other word but “couldn’t,” I probably
would
have gotten up and left. But after everything I’d been going through recently, there was no way I was going to let her suggest that I didn’t understand why she was upset because I wasn’t smart enough. I stood up, boiling. There was no stopping what came next.

“Just because you’re the brains around here doesn’t mean other people are too stupid to understand stuff,” I sputtered. “Too bad that you can’t do everything perfect on the first try. Welcome to life.
Average
life.” I picked up my pre-algebra book and notebook and stormed out, slamming the door behind me.

Right before it closed, I saw Dezzie’s tear-streaked face, eyes the size of saucers, shocked that I could say something so mean.

So was I.

 

Eighth grade, thus far:

If these are the highlights, I’m in big trouble.

ACT II:

the Low Point(s)

i

The next few mornings followed the same uncomfortable routine: Dezzie and I ate breakfast in silence, then suffered through Mom’s wild rides to school without a word. Mom doesn’t like cars—excuse me,
does not
—and as a result, is a terrible driver.

“Driving does not allow me to do anything
else
,” she explained to Ty’s mother once. “I need that time to think and read and grade.” Therefore, she drives like she
is
somewhere else—slamming on the brakes at stop signs, jerking into traffic to make turns. It’s terrifying. Even Dezzie can’t read in the car when Mom is behind the wheel, and Mom had been insisting that she bring us to school “until Desdemona gets acclimated to her surroundings.” Thankfully, HoHo is only four streets away from our house. But, seriously, we’d all be better off if she could ride around in a horse and carriage, a la 1599.

Because of our fight, I’d stopped escorting Dezzie around the building. We still had to sit at the same table in art, but she only spoke to Mauri and Saber. They didn’t seem to notice our silence—or if they did, they didn’t say anything about it in front of me.

It was probably because they were too busy being Dezzie’s new best friends. The change in how they treated her was so gradual, I almost didn’t notice it. Then one day, it was as vibrant as Mauri’s purple nail polish—and the matching purple origami pig in my locker, the origins of which were still unknown. Judith wanted to “stake out” my locker to see who was leaving them, but since they didn’t appear with any consistency, we decided it’d be a waste of our time. Her other suggestion—leaving the folding fiend a note—made me too nervous. What would I write?
Are thine intentions true? Reveal thyself, oh villain of my heart!
Uh, no. I decided to just wait and let the mystery unfold while the misery of eighth grade steamrolled on.

It was nauseating.

 

Everything she did or said, they thought was the most wonderful, funniest, smartest . . .
whatever
. Dezzie ate it up. She giggled at their jokes and started tossing her hair like them, staring at me when she did. She was trying to get to me.

I had to remind myself that I gave her the stupid rules about blending in in the first place. Saber and Mauri even stopped making those weird side glances to each other whenever Dezzie went off on one of her educational tangents. In fact, they were encouraging her to talk about school even
more
by talking about it themselves.

“What’s up with Hermia and Helena in the play?” Saber asked one day as we were finishing our Pollock paintings. She dabbed more lime green on her canvas. I splattered some gray on mine to look like I was working, but my mind was on the ever-growing collection of pigs in my locker. There were four in there now. Soon I’d have a full-fledged sounder (a fancy word for a collection of pigs. Dezzie taught me that one years ago, when she went on a “collective nouns” memorizing binge). But I was nowhere closer to finding out who was sneaking them into the vent.

“What do you mean?” Dezzie said. She scowled at her piece. She’d basically stopped painting over the past few classes; just dabbed a color here and there to seem busy.

I was still holding a shred of hope that Carter might be my crafty locker stalker, but it was a small shred. The boy paid more attention to his collection of sneakers than to me—most of them color-coordinated to match his shirts.

“Well, they’re friends, right?” Dezzie nodded. Saber went on, “But when Dmitri and Lysol—”

“Demetrius and Lysander,” Dezzie corrected.

“Whatever. When they both start liking Helena, Hermia gets mad at
her
. And they get in this huge fight. It’s not Helena’s fault that they like her.”

Whoa. Saber’s questions sounded like the homework assignment Mrs. Wimple gave us on character relationships in the play. A
lot
like the assignment. Now it was me who only pretended to paint.

“Helena thinks that they’re playing a mean joke on her,” Dezzie said.

Wait, I thought, concentration derailed by Dezzie’s comment, were my pigs a joke too? Did someone think it was funny? It was a possibility I didn’t want to consider. Lately, those pigs were the only part of school I looked forward to.

Dezzie seemed happy to put her brush down and talk about
Midsummer
. Mauri put her brush down too. I couldn’t see what she was doing behind her easel, but you didn’t need a genius IQ to figure it out once the sound of rustling papers reached our ears.

“She thinks that the boys are pretending to like her because Hermia told them to, especially because they changed their minds about her so fast.” Dezzie went on for a few more minutes, explaining stuff about perception and reality. Saber and Mauri listened to every word, not interrupting her at all. I started painting again, but paid attention the entire time. Their conversation gave me a tight feeling in the pit of my stomach. Mauri and Saber were using Dezzie for her brains.

“Hey Dezzie,” said Mauri at the end of class—that was another thing I didn’t like. Up until she’d started HoHo, I was the only one who called her Dezzie. “Can you stay for lunch one day? Saber and I think you should totally sit at our table with us. It’d be fun.”

The cup of brushes I’d rinsed slipped out of my hand and clattered to the floor, spraying pale beads of red, blue, and gray water all over the easel and table and, I was sad to see, my white capris. I almost didn’t care, though. After milking her for the homework, had Saber and Mauri just invited my sister to sit at their lunch table?

“I could ask,” Dezzie answered, a pleased little smile dancing at the corner of her lips. Grrrr.

“Hey, bacon fingers,” Saber said, “make sure you don’t miss any spots when you clean up.”

“Absolutely, Your Highness,” I muttered.

Clenching my teeth so I wouldn’t say anything else that could get me in trouble, I bent over the mess and stuffed the spilled brushes back into the cup. A familiar giggle tinkled down to me. Dezzie. Laughing at Saber’s comment! I chomped on the inside of my cheek to keep from throwing the cup at her.

My genius sister had turned into an idiot.

 

I stomped up to English, seething.

“Perfect timing, Ms. Kennedy,” Mrs. Wimple said as I entered. “I was just about to tell the class about our Salute to Shakespeare performance.”

I slid into my seat, more annoyed now than when I’d left art. Ty raised an eyebrow at me, and I gave him a quick shake of my head. I’d explain my scowl later.

“We will be performing select scenes from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
in front of an audience,” Mrs. Wimple continued. She brought her hands to her chest in two excited fists—the same gesture my mom made when talking about the Bard. I nearly groaned out loud. “I have prepared a master cast list,” she went on, “and shall now reveal your parts.” She began reading from a sheet of paper.

“KC Rails, set design,” she announced. KC gave a wicked grin.

“Tyler Spencer, Theseus.” Across the aisle, I saw his face go pale.

“Hamlet Kennedy, Puck,” she said.

I knew it.

She went on, going through the whole class, and I stopped listening. Thankfully, she didn’t assign me a part to read today, so I just sat and stewed, fretting over the latest blow to my eighth-grade year.

Finally, the bell rang.

“A word, Ms. Kennedy.” Mrs. Wimple’s sharp tone cut through the clatter.

Ty glanced at me. “Good luck,” he mouthed, and scooted off to his next class.

I dragged my feet up to the teacher’s desk, where she was shuffling through our homework.

“Mrs. Wimple, I shouldn’t be late—” She cut me off with a wave.

“Despite your obvious reluctance, you will play the part of Puck in our performance. And play it well.” She knew I was going to complain about her selection. She lifted her hand, gesturing toward the door. The she sat back in her chair and pulled a stack of papers toward her. She didn’t look at me again.

Struggling between shame and anger, I stood there for a second or two—it felt like fifteen years—not knowing what to do. She coughed, which broke me from my shocked trance. I bolted from the room.

I’d have to
perform
. In front of people. That thought, plus everything that had happened in art, put me over the edge.

This time, I didn’t even make it to the bathroom.

Only a few feet from the classroom, someone swapped lead for my legs and I had to stop and lean against a wall. Tears burned my eyes, and the posters and signs promoting the afternoon’s soccer match and band concert blurred like a tie-dyed shirt.

It was getting harder and harder to hold back the flood building in my eyes. I rubbed my face with my hands, and forced myself in the direction of the nearest girls’ room. Not even one month into school, and I’d already broken down more times than I had in the previous two years. Some cold water helped, but it didn’t wash away the feeling of dread that had settled in my chest.

 

When I walked into Mr. Symphony’s room, one of the student messengers from the front office was standing next to his desk, delivering an office call slip. On his way out he gave me a “you’re heading to the office” look.

“Miss Kennedy, I’d like to speak with you for a moment,” Mr. S. began, the green call slip pinched between his fingers. “The rest of you, please study the beginning of chapter three. We will get started momentarily.”

Fear bounced through my body. Had I done anything wrong? Ely glanced at me and I gave him a half shrug. I had no idea what this was about.

Mouth dry, I stood at Mr. Symphony’s desk.

“Dr. Lafevre would like to see you,” he said, handing me the slip. “You may take your belongings with you, but if this consultation ends before the period I expect you back here immediately. We are doing a review session for our first test.”