The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet (14 page)

There were four or five other kids who would be going to TLC. We bunched around Mr. Symphony’s desk. I didn’t speak or look at anyone else. There was no shame in needing extra help, I knew that, but being forced into a group for tutoring
was
embarrassing. Especially when Carter needed it too.

“Now then,” Mr. S. said, “I’ll keep this brief, as I have another class due. You are all here because, even though your grades on your tests weren’t above passing, the papers showed promise. This means I think you can catch up before the next exam. You’ll go to TLC beginning tomorrow.”

We grunted and shuffled our feet. No one wanted to ask a question, even though I’m sure everyone had as many as me—what did he mean by “showed promise”? If we were being sent away because we could catch up, what did that mean about the rest of the class? But I’m sure the other thing that I was thinking of wasn’t on anyone else’s mind—how could I have a newly discovered brilliance in English, but not even break a sixty on a math test?

Mr. S. dismissed us. I caught Carter’s eye on the way out the door. He offered me an encouraging smile. Or was it directed at Chrissy Li, behind me? Hard to tell. I nearly melted in my shoes. Maybe being in TLC with him wouldn’t be so bad after all. We could be study partners. Away from Saber and Mauri, I might actually be able to talk to him (although, if my pounding heart and sweaty hands were any indication, I’d probably just squeak stupidly).

I took a deep breath, determined to get this over with and approach him.

“Hi Hamlet,” chirped a voice at my elbow. “See any peacocks today?” I nearly tripped.

“Hey, you scared me.” I smiled down at Dezzie, thoughts of Carter blocking any lingering frustration from the previous night’s talk in her bedroom. “What are you doing all the way over here?”

She held up a pile of papers. “I’m bringing tutoring sign-up forms to Mr. Symphony. He is sending several students in for extra help.”

“Guess so,” I said through suddenly dry lips.

“He needs to fill them out and I’ll bring them back, and then go meet Mom,” she said, taking another step. I hadn’t noticed that we’d stopped walking.

“Uh, sure.” I moved in a random direction, not thinking about where I needed to go. I was hit by a realization tsunami.

Dezzie spent this class period in TLC each day. Half of my math class would be in there with her. Including me. Add that to her track record of telling my parents everything that went on in the halls of HoHo . . .

My appetite might never come back.

 

After dinner that night, I tried to get Dezzie to help me with pre-al. My hope was that between her tutoring and begging Mr. Symphony not to send me for extra help, I’d be able to catch up enough to avoid this round of TLC. She was busy with calculus, though, and was determined to do some extra reading on the surrealists before bedtime. Although carrying the brains of a retired rocket scientist, she still needed the same amount of sleep as a regular seven-year-old, so she usually went to bed before me.

“If you’re coming in to TLC, I don’t see why you need me to work with you now,” she said, tapping her pencil against her math book. Iago was curled up on her bed, which lately had been meeting his “freshness standards” more than mine.

“I don’t want to come in for the help,” I explained. “It was just one bad test.” Sitting in TLC and being tutored with kids in my grade—while my seven-year-old sister watched—made my stomach pucker tighter than my mother’s drawstring purse.

“Well, I can’t do it now,” Dezzie said. This was the third time I’d asked, and she was getting irritable. “You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow, like everyone else.”

“Fine.” I closed her door harder than necessary on my way out.

I reopened it, causing the dog to jump. He hopped off the bed and left the room, rolling his eyes at me as he passed. Disturbing him twice in two nights? He’d be on his way to find some of my shoes to chew, I was sure.

“Look, don’t tell Mom and Dad—even by accident,” I said. “I really don’t want them to know about this.”

“I won’t,” she replied, eyes on her book, back to me.

“Seriously, Dezzie. Promise.”

“I
won’t
,” she said again. “I have to do my work. Don’t you have some lines to practice or something?”

Grrr. I closed the door again.

In my own room, I spread the math book, test papers, and homework assignment across the bed and stared at them for a half hour. Dezzie was right. There was no way I’d be able to learn pre-algebra on my own in one night to the point where I wouldn’t need to go to TLC the next day. The attempt would be as useless as trying to wear the shredded sneaker I caught sight of, sticking out from under my bed.

The other thing Dezzie was right about? I had lines to review. I opened my copy of
Midsummer
to the first act, where Puck has been instructed to put fairy dust in the eyes of Demetrius, but he gets confused and puts the love potion on Lysander’s instead. I whispered the words out loud, afraid Mom or Dad would hear me and ask way more questions than I had answers for.

“Pretty soul! she durst not lie/Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy./Churl, upon thy eyes I throw/All the power this charm doth owe.” The words slid like satin from my mouth. I didn’t know what “churl” meant, exactly, but I knew it wasn’t a compliment.

Shakespeare had it right, I thought. If fairies were the ones messing with me—putting pigs in my locker and making my best friend want more than friendship—perhaps, like in the play, their king would order everything to go back to normal at the end.

I tossed the book aside and flopped onto my pillows, relishing the notion of a world where I wouldn’t have to do anything except worry about math.

vi

When I arrived in art the next day, Saber, Mauri, and Dezzie were in their usual spots at the table, already talking.

“I had the best dream last night,” Mauri chirped.

Dezzie, jotting stuff in her notebook, forehead creased (like any seven-year-old, she still has trouble holding a pen or pencil for too long), put her pencil down and gave Mauri a patient smile—but not before I saw annoyance flash across her face.

“What was it about?” she asked.

“I got this new cell phone—it was pink and sparkly—and anyone I wanted to call would just, like, pop out of it when I called them. I didn’t even have to dial their number, just say their name and they’d be there.”

“Cool,” Saber said, at the same time Dezzie asked, “You dream about magic cell phones?”

Saber dropped her pencil and quizzed Mauri on who she tried to call. Then the two of them speculated about who they would call if they had a
real
cell phone that did that.

“Theo Christmas, definitely,” Mauri said.

“And Parker McKenzie,” Saber responded. They giggled.

“Who would
you
call, Dezzie?” They asked the question at nearly the same time. It was as though they’d planned it.

“Stephen Hawking, of course,” she said, without thinking. He’s a physicist whose work she really admires. Saber and Mauri wore identical confused expressions. Clearly, they were expecting another musician or actor.

“Who’s
he
?” Saber asked, before Dezzie could add more mathematicians or scientists to her list.

“He’s, ummm . . .” She bit her lip and glanced at me for help.

“This really cool punk singer,” I said. They looked like they weren’t buying it. “From the seventies. Dezzie’s into old music.” Dezzie nodded her head.

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him,” she said with an airy tone to her voice.

Saber and Mauri shifted on their stools, clearly uncomfortable.

“I think my cousin likes him,” Mauri said. “His name sounds familiar.” Saber was quick to agree.

I dropped my pencil on the floor so they wouldn’t see me stifling a laugh. I didn’t know why Dezzie wouldn’t tell the truth about who Hawking was—he had discovered that some particles can escape black holes, which was pretty cool, but it was way better to see Saber and Mauri pretending like they knew he was a singer all along. I went to the sink to wash my hands before the late bell.

When I returned, the conversation had taken a turn.

“So you really like the scene when Hermia tells Demetrius to follow her into the wood, so he can see Lysander and Helena escape,” Saber said as I approached.

“It epitomizes the themes of the play,” Dezzie said. “Hamlet. We were just—”

“What do you think we’ll be covering next?” Mauri asked, cutting Dezzie off. Like I didn’t know what they were up to. Ms. Finch-Bean collected our expressionist paintings and we were set to begin a new unit.

“Surrealism,” both Dezzie and Ms. Finch-Bean said at the same time. The bell rang.

For the rest of class, we watched slides of those same melting clocks and distorted people that I’d been looking at with Dezzie. Lots of kids thought they were cool, especially the boys.

“That Salvador guy must have been on a lot of drugs to paint that,” Nirmal Grover said. The image was of three ladies with no arms, with these shadowy figures and unconnected images around them. And, of course, flies. Lots of flies. If you looked hard enough, you were supposed to be able to see a bullfighter. Thanks to the creepy bugs, I wasn’t looking hard at all.

“Actually, Dalí was famous for
not
drinking alcohol or using drugs of any kind,” Ms. Finch-Bean replied. “As a matter of fact, he once said, ‘I don’t do drugs, I am drugs.’ ”

“Then some drugs might have made him normal,” KC said. Everyone laughed.

By the time class ended, I’d had my fill of flies and Dalí’s strange world—which, come to think of it, seemed more and more like my own: completely surreal. However, I’d have happily stayed for two more periods if it meant avoiding my trip to TLC later that morning.

“See you soon,” I said to Dezzie as we were leaving. Saber and Mauri shot glances at each other. Uh-oh.

“Staying for lunch again, Dezzie?” Saber asked. Her face was a mask of innocence.

“No. I have other work to do this afternoon.” We’d stopped in the middle of the hall. Kids streamed around us, trying to get to their next classes. I frantically tried to come up with something to distract them and save the situation, but my mind, like on a pre-al test, was a big fat blank.

“So when will you see Hamlet?” This time it was Mauri who did the asking. “Maybe next period?” She said that last part with a sly smile.

“We’re going to be late,” I said as the warning bell buzzed. Although I made a point of her not telling our parents, I’d forgotten to tell Dezzie not to mention me going to TLC to Saber or Mauri.

Saber looked nervous. “We can’t be late for history again,” she muttered to Mauri. “Let’s go.”

“See you later,” Mauri called as Saber tugged her down the hall. I was also going to be late to English if I didn’t hurry, but . . .

“Did you tell them anything?” I stopped walking and put my hands on my hips.

Dezzie shifted from side to side. “In our previous class, Saber and Mauri inquired after my pursuits during my Learning Center period. I informed them that I typically read and speak with the parent volunteers, but that today some students were coming in for math help and I’d welcome the change.”

“And you didn’t mention that I would be there?”

Dezzie shook her head. “Although I believe they inferred that based upon your comment.”

Great. This was my own fault—of course. Frustration swept through me.

I muttered good-bye, left her in the hall, and jogged to Mrs. Wimple’s class, thumping into my seat just as the bell rang.

“Ms. Kennedy, I’d like you to read the part of Pyramus,” Mrs. Wimple said from the front of the room. Although listening to the excruciating stumbles of my classmates was torture, it was much better than the caged animal feeling that came over me whenever she spoke the words I dreaded.

“Uh,” I started, trying to stall. “I thought I was Puck?” And he wasn’t in this scene.

“During class time you have the opportunity to read a variety of roles,” she said crisply.

“And Mr. Spencer will read Thisbe,” she said, moving on to the next in line for the scene. Obviously, she thought that ignoring my protests would be the only way this would happen. Ty groaned.

At least we were nearing the end of the play. Bottom and the other players were performing for the couples before the wedding ceremony. I skimmed the pages as Mrs. Wimple assigned the other readers.

When I realized what lines we’d be reading, I wanted to dive under my desk. Pyramus and Thisbe were “lovers.” Lovers separated by a wall. The irony—that “love” (or something like it; something that made me want to yurk) was building a wall through the friendship Ty and I shared—didn’t escape me. Ha-ha. Thanks, Shakespeare, I thought bitterly.

Nirmal, reading Theseus, began. I barely listened to his lines. I was concentrating so hard on looking at the page in front of me that he could have been reciting nursery rhymes instead of Shakespeare and I wouldn’t have noticed. My heart thudded in my chest and my head buzzed.

My turn. And I’d make sure Mrs. Wimple didn’t assign me any more parts.

I kept my eyes on the book and slid a finger under each word as I read it.

“O ... grim ... looked ...” The forced slowness made me hyper-aware of everyone in the class listening, and I was sure Mrs. Wimple was staring at me the whole time.

When I finished that first line, my hands were sweating.

A few sections later Ty came in, saying, “My love thou art, my love I think.”

My mouth went dry. Think again, Ty. I muttered back, “Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace.”

A few lines later, it got even worse:

“O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!” I nearly choked on the line, but refused to look up from my book.

Ty, across the aisle from me, decided to ham it up. He leaned
waay
out from his desk, toward me, for his next line. Then he whispered: “I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.” And he laid a big air-smooch near my face.