The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet (2 page)

“Lovely idea!” chirped Mrs. Pearl. My mother beamed.

Where was that serious (but not life-threatening) illness when you needed it?

ii

I don’t remember if Mrs. Pearl said anything more, or if Mom did anything else weird or Renaissance-y in the office. Once Dezzie’s schedule was set, my situation sunk in. My fingertips went cold and my stomach fizzed. Eighth grade was supposed to be me scoring a good lunch table with my friends, working on whatever the class project would be, and not getting picked on by older kids. It was supposed to be us showing the sixth graders where their classes were—and sometimes pointing them in the wrong direction—not me towing around a child brainiac.

Mom led us from the office as though it was the final stretch of the parade. After seeing the backlog of kids who had been waiting behind us, that’s what it felt like too. The late bell had buzzed; the halls were empty.

“Huzzah!” Mom exclaimed—it’s like a Renaissance cheerleader word. “It is your first day of school. I am so proud.” She bent down to Dezzie’s level to give her a kiss, then she turned to me.

This was nothing to cheer about. I pulled away as she swooped in, getting a tassel across the nose but no mom-smooch. Even though everyone was in class, and no one was around to see me, being wrapped in her purple velvet drapery in the middle of school? No way. She straightened and sighed. Then she peered over her glasses at me.

“We’re late already,” I pointed out, feeling a twinge of guilt at my evasive maneuver.

Mom’s eyes darkened. “Hamlet, you know how I feel about the use of contractions.”

“Commoner’s speech,” I muttered. Mom nodded.

Another peck on Dezzie’s cheek, and she spun to leave, cloak flowing, bells chiming.

I forced my feet to move in the opposite direction, toward Mr. Symphony’s homeroom and the disaster that was going to be this school year. Dezzie’s quick steps tapped behind me.

“I am intrigued by the type of sociological observation I will have the opportunity to interpret while here,” Dezzie said as we made our way to the second level. “I know I am in need of social development, but I am not sure how to behave as part of such a large group of pre-adolescents.”

“Is this your way of saying that you’re nervous?” I asked, surprised. It never occurred to me that always-together Dezzie would be nervous about anything. We’d reached the landing.

“A little,” Dezzie admitted. “And slightly excited. It is, after all, my first day of school. Have you any suggestions as to how I should approach my days here?”

Her words jolted me from my own worries. She stood, new backpack that was nearly as large as she was slung over her shoulder, wearing a purple trapeze shirt and black leggings. Dark curly hair fluffed around her round face and big gray eyes. Mom and Dad said my eyes were the same color as hers when I was a baby, but they’d settled into a dark blue. We have the same curls, though, and Mom’s wide smile—there’s no denying we’re related. Dezzie seemed ready for second grade, not eighth. And definitely not college. What could I possibly tell her? After all,
she
was the one who helped
me
decipher word problems when I was in fifth grade and she was four.

But then it occurred to me:

Living in my family, I understand there’s a lot that I
don’t
know. And I’m okay with that, mostly. Dezzie’s major educational moments take place outside of my “interaction sphere” with the family, to quote my mom. But this, this was different. Maybe this was the way to save my last year of junior high. Or at least try to.

“Try to fit in,” I offered, and continued up the stairs. “Don’t yell huzzah, or use Shakespeare quotes when you talk to people. And don’t talk about school unless someone asks you a specific question about it.”

She nodded. “I can do that. Can you do me a favor?”

Besides the one I was doing already? But I didn’t say that out loud. I nodded, instead. “Sure.”

“Please don’t tell anyone how old I am. I don’t want to make people uncomfortable.”

I hated to break it to her, but it was obvious that she fit in here about as well as a chicken in a post office.

“Okay. Sure,” I responded. We’d arrived at homeroom.

The door to room 251 was closed. I faked a smile for Dezzie—and myself—took a deep breath, and pushed it open. Eighteen pairs of eyes turned in our direction.

Mr. Symphony, wearing the same tweed blazer he’d worn every day for the two years I’d been at HoHo, stood at the front of the room holding his attendance list. Had his comb-over moved closer to his left ear since last spring? Possibly.

“Ms. Kennedy,” he said. “Not an auspicious start to the year.” Someone in the back of the room snickered. I wanted to melt into the floor.

“Sorry, Mr. S.,” I responded, trying to be casual. “I have a pass.” I held it out to him. He took it from me and barely glanced at it.

“And your friend?”

Dezzie curtsied. “Desdemona Kennedy, sir. Newly matriculated.”

Yep. She curtsied.

A wave of laughter crashed in my ears. I guess I should have been more specific with my “try to fit in” instructions.

Mr. S. raised an eyebrow. The laughter stopped. Somehow, that made it worse. Dezzie just stood there, completely unbothered. I wanted a trapdoor to fall through—exit stage, Hamlet!

“She’s my sister.” My dry throat rasped against the words. Everyone was still staring. I tried hard to focus on Mr. Symphony’s face and not the expressions of my classmates. A murmur went through the room.

Mr. S. turned to Dezzie. “I heard you might be joining us this term. We’re glad to have you here.” Back to me. “You and your sister may take your seats now. See that you aren’t late again.”

Of course our desks were in the middle of the room. I forced myself to pass Nirmal Grover’s and Mark Sloughman’s front-row grins and hoped Dezzie wouldn’t make any other classic Renaissance moves. I wished one of my good friends was in my homeroom, then immediately changed my mind—with no friend-witnesses, it’d be easier to forget that this ever happened.

I slid into my seat, still hearing the echo of laughter in my ears, and saw the next problem: The desks were way too tall for Dezzie. Her feet didn’t touch the floor and the top was too high for her to rest her arms on it. Thankfully, instead of saying anything, she just folded her hands in her lap and sat as straight as a ruler. It didn’t stop the stares and whispers that floated around us. But that’s her thing—most of the time Dezzie’s like a mini adult. She calls it “taking the long view” in life—she says “small inconveniences” don’t really matter in the big picture. Clearly, my picture’s a lot smaller than hers.

Finally, Mr. Symphony went back to the morning announcements and standard homeroom lecture. I tuned him out, reactivated my breathing, and scanned the class. Tense and edgy, I felt more like I had on my first day of sixth grade than I should have on my first day of eighth.

Something—the top of a pencil?—poked between my shoulder blades. I ignored it. It poked again. I tried to remember who was behind me . . . Julie Kennelly? Not your typical pencil-poker. I hunched forward; another tap. This time it was followed by a hiss.

“
Here
.”

A note.

I stretched my arms behind me, my eyes on the back of Dezzie’s head and a neutral expression on my face. The folded slip of paper slid into my palm.

I brought my hands to the top of the desk and faked an itch on my leg to unfold the note off Mr. S.’s radar. It read:

Oink you glad to be back at school? I’m sure glad you are!
Below the words was a smiling inked pig face wearing a bow with an “oink” balloon coming out of its mouth.

My hands went cold and my neck prickled. That hadn’t taken long.

Not like the nicknames and pig jokes were anything new. See, Mom and Dad are Shakespeare scholars (that purple cloak gave it away, right?). Mom’s into the tragedies and histories, Dad teaches the sonnets and comedies. Together, they’re a collection of “if thous, then thees.”

When they had me,
Hamlet
was the play they both liked the best . . . and they thought naming me Ophelia, after Hamlet’s suicidal girlfriend, would be too morbid. So I ended up with not just any boy’s name, but the name of a tragic Denmarkian prince who spoke to skulls and had a thing for his mother. So I’m a little touchy about it. Unsurprisingly, Dezzie thinks her name is cool. It’s from another play,
Othello
. She’s named for Othello’s wife, who is killed in a jealous rage . . . yet
that
wasn’t too weird for my parents. Go figure.

I struggled against the urge to scan the room to see if the note writer would give him- or herself away. I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing my irritation. Or fear. This was the first anonymous note I’d ever received, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I focused on Dezzie’s thick mop of curls and pretended that this wasn’t happening.

The bell rang, signaling the end of homeroom and the switch to first period. Dezzie had music appreciation. I hadn’t even glanced at my own schedule.

History, Mr. Hoffstedder, room 306. Dezzie’s class would be in the music hall on the opposite side of the building, down a floor. I’d have to add super speed to my wish list today if I was going to make it to my class in time.

“Let’s go,” I said to her. She’d slid out of her seat and was checking out the posters of mathematicians on Mr. Symphony’s walls. “I’ll take you to your classes for a few days, so you know where to go. Once you learn where they are, you can go by yourself.”

We hoisted our backpacks and left the classroom. Kids rushed by and called to one another; sixth graders clutched maps and schedules, trying to keep an eye on room numbers as they wandered. It was barely controlled chaos. I’d long since gotten used to it, but seeing it through Dezzie’s eyes, it seemed noisy and scary. And even when she learned where those classes were, I doubted I could let her walk the halls alone. She was just too small. Her head came up to most of the other kids’ shoulders, and a couple of them bumped into her because they were busy looking for friends and classrooms instead of extra-short students. I glanced down. My sister’s eyebrows were knitted together in a tight line.

“Are you okay?” I raised my voice above slamming lockers and hoots and yells. She nodded.

“It is louder than I thought,” was all she said.

We made it to the music hall just as the first bell rang, and I introduced her to Ms. Applebaum, the choir director. No curtsy this time—I’d warned Dezzie on our walk.

As I bolted up to the third floor, the words of the note came back to me:

Pigs-a-tively not.

iii

I slid into Mr. Hoffstedder’s room just as the tardy bell buzzed.

My best friend, Ty, and our other friend Ely—who’d followed through on his promise to start dreadlocks over the summer and had sprouted little nubs all over his head—saved me a seat close to the door. I plopped into it, trying to catch my breath.

Ty and I had been best friends almost from birth. His mother took my mother’s
Othello
adult education class when we were babies, and they became friends. For a few summers, when Chestnut College was on vacation, my parents even watched Ty when his mom was at work. At the front of the room, Mr. Hoffstedder began taking attendance.

“How’s it going with Short and Smart?” Ty whispered. I shrugged. He and I had spent the two weeks before school started trying to figure out what would happen once Dezzie was at HoHo.

At the time, I knew he was kidding. But I couldn’t help but wonder if his words would end up coming true. Having Mom at school this morning was bad enough . . . but for the rest of the year?

“Teegan, Carter?” Mr. Hoffstedder called. I perked up. I hadn’t seen Carter when I came in, but he was in the back of the room, on the opposite side from the door. His sun-streaked hair always smelled of coconut shampoo, and his green eyes scrambled my insides.

I’d had a crush on Carter since we started HoHo: He was cute, quiet, and fit in. There was nothing outstanding about him except for those green eyes—even his personality was kind of muted: not a class clown, not a jock, just . . . a guy. But even though we had classes together he acted like he never saw me. For a moment, I wondered if the “oink” note in homeroom
wasn’t
meant to be mean. Maybe Carter sent it as a way to get my attention? We could laugh at how doll-like Dezzie looked sitting in the big desk, or maybe he’d help me escort her all over the building. . . . Too bad he wasn’t
in
my homeroom. I wondered what he’d done over the summer, and if maybe this was the year I’d finally get up the nerve to talk to him. And too bad that with Dezzie on the scene, there was no way I’d even try. Hello, embarrassing!