The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet (21 page)

The bell buzzed, breaking me out of my trance.

“Will you show us the way to your class, m’lady?” Dad said, making a sweeping bow.

I gave him a robot nod and turned my back to them. My face jumped and twitched as I fought against tears. Inhaling as deeply as I could to regain some control, I put one foot in front of the other and made my way to English while staring at the tips of my shoes. Behind me, the soft rustle of heavy fabric rose above the noise of kids going to class, slamming lockers, and scuffing sneakers on the linoleum floor.

But nothing was louder than the snickers and whispers that floated after us. I was sure my parents were oblivious. Gritting my teeth, I walked faster. At the door to Mrs. Wimple’s classroom, I stopped short. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go in.

“Hamlet? Is this the room?” Mom stepped next to me, and the sight of her cloak and cap made me cringe. I dropped my eyes to the floor and nodded.

“Doctors Kennedy!” Mrs. Wimple appeared at the door, all smiles and English class exuberance. “Come in! We are so happy to have you!”

I crept in behind them, hoping the flowing fabric would mask me from the rest of the kids. No such luck.

Every action in the classroom changed. Instead of the loud pre-class talking, fooling around, organizing, primping, and standing, there were quiet whispers and murmurs, nudges and pointing. Grins crept across faces, and their eyes danced back and forth from my parents to me.

I slunk into my seat and hoped an earthquake would hit the East Coast.

“Whoa,” Ty whispered to me across the aisle. “They went all out for us, huh?”

I could barely nod, but still felt stupidly flustered at his use of “us.”

“Take your seats everyone,” Mrs. Wimple called, using a louder voice than was necessary. I kept my eyes glued to my desktop. If I couldn’t be invisible, I could play the “you can’t see me if I don’t look at you” game.

Sweat beaded on my neck like condensation on a window. I dropped my hands to my lap, clenching and unclenching fists.

“I would like to introduce you to the doctors Kennedy. They are here today to help us with our reading of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. I hope you will give them the same courtesy that you give me and each other.” Mrs. Wimple finished her introduction and I still didn’t look up. I held on to a shred of hope that they wouldn’t do anything—

“Lords and ladies, we are pleased to make your acquaintance,” Dad said.

—overly weird or Shakespearean.

“How do,” Mom said.

How do
I get out of this? I wondered. I took deep breaths, trying not to panic, knowing my secret would be let loose soon. Should I try to fake and stumble my way through the reading? Mrs. Wimple wouldn’t let me get away with that, I was sure. For distraction, I played mental connect the dots with the faint pencil marks on the surface of the desk.

“We are going to undertake an exploration of the Bard’s poetic structure and language,” Mom went on.

“How about the structure of that outfit,” came a snide whisper to my left. I sank lower in my seat.

“As I was saying,” my mother continued, “we are going to talk about the poetic structure and the language of the Bard.” While she was speaking, my father took a pile of papers out of a bag I hadn’t noticed he was carrying. He passed them out to the first person in each row.

When Julie Kennelly turned around to pass me mine, she grinned. “I totally understand how you got your name,” she said. I mumbled something in reply and snatched the handouts from her.

“Reading and Reciting the Bard,” was printed at the top. And, underneath it: “You Can’t Recite the Bard, So Don’t Even Try.”

“Shakespeare,” my father said, “is meant to be
lived
.”

“Is that why you’re dressed like that?” came a voice from the opposite side of the room. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was Mark Sloughman. My brain and body battled out my desire to flee.

“Actually, yes,” said my mother. Then she glared at him over her glasses. “And
you
are impudent and shameless.”

Her remark—one that she used a lot at home—broke some of the tension in the room, and everyone laughed. Well, nearly everyone. I was still hoping for a fire drill.

Dad went on to explain how, in order for us to be able to act out the elements in the play, we had to understand what was being said before we said the words. Then we’d be able to put the right emphasis on the syllables. So he and Mom wanted to talk about the play, first.

“Puck is a trickster,” Mom said. “He loves to get everything confused and gives people the wrong information for his amusement. Let us look at an example. In act two, scene two, Puck sprinkles his dust into the wrong person’s eyes. Who is playing Puck in this production?”

I held my breath. There was no way I was going to volunteer any information.

“You mean you don’t
know
?” Mrs. Wimple gasped.

“I am afraid I do not,” Mom said. “Who is it?”

Everyone in the room was staring at me. Even though my head was down, I knew it.

“Come, come,” my father said. “We are short on time.”

“It’s Hamlet,” Mrs. Wimple said.

“Hamlet?” my mother said, incredulous.

“Of course. I assumed you knew. Hamlet, please read your part.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. My parents exchanged confused expressions while they waited.

I tried again. The words were a whisper: “Churl, upon thy eyes I throw/All the power this charm doth owe. When thou wakest, let love forbid/Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.”

In spite of my mortification, the words flowed just like they had in my room when I practiced. My parents stood straight and stock-still in their ridiculous attire. If they were punctuation, they would have been exclamation points.

“Lovely work, Hamlet, as usual,” Mrs. Wimple said. My mother gave a stiff nod.

“Fascinating,” my father murmured. “We had no idea.”

I’d hoped it would stay that way. Although now that it was out in the open—strangely!—I felt better. Not great—my parents were still living history in front of my classmates—but better. Whoa.

Mrs. Wimple politely cleared her throat. “Our class time,” she began, “is short—”

“Of course. Of course. That is how the Bard is to be expressed,” my mother said, recovering. Her eyes slid to me every so often. She went on, talking about the different characters—all the stuff I’d heard in class, and growing up, and from Dezzie when talking to Saber and Mauri. I started to relax. It was like a regular English class—except for the fact that my parents were leading it and my father was wearing tights. Now that my secret was out, I almost started to breathe again.

“Now that we are clear on the meaning of the words, we need to understand how they are supposed to be said,” Dad said. “That is where iambic pentameter comes in. The richness of the language is magnified by the syllabic structure. I would like everyone to clap the following rhythm with me.” He held up his hands. No one moved. Probably because my mother was holding a tambourine.

“This is how we shall illustrate the stressed and unstressed syllables,” my mother said. She shook her tambourine for emphasis and the bells tinkled. “They are as follows: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM . . .” And she went on, whacking the tambourine with every DUM. Evidently, the lack of interest was not to her liking.

“Stand up!” she ordered. “You wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness!” At her curt tone, everyone—me and Mrs. Wimple included—sprang to our feet.

Mom sure could command a room, I thought, feeling a tiny bit of pride. But it was just a tiny, tiny bit.

“Now,” Mom said, her cloak flowing about her in a crimson wave, “you shall feel the words in your marrow.”

In spite of my thoughts the moment before, the only thing my marrow was feeling was deadly mortification. I was pretty sure this type of parental involvement torture was illegal in several states—or should be.

“Together, we will march and repeat the lines from act two: Weaving spiders, come not here;/Hence, you long- legg’d spinners, hence!/Beetles black, approach not near;/ Worm nor snail, do no offence.” She and my dad said they’d show us an example.

“We need a volunteer from the audience.” No one raised their hands.

“You, good sir. Would you be so kind as to offer your services to my wife and me?” A titter danced around the room. I didn’t want to see who they were accosting, but like driving past a car accident, I had to look.

The expression on his face was one of pure horror.

“Uhh, actually . . .” he said.

“You will participate,” Mrs. Wimple snapped. She moved next to his chair and he stepped forward. I wanted to crawl under a rock.

The three of them marched around the room saying the lines, Mom banging on the tambourine in rhythm to the words: Wea-VING [clang!] spi-DERS [clang!] come NOT [clang!] . . . The bells on Mom’s cloak providing a lightly tinkling accompaniment, Carter dragging his feet as much as he could, face as red as my mom’s costume.

You get the idea.

I dared to sneak a peek at Ty. He looked as horrified as I felt, knowing that we’d be next. Ely wore a smirk, like he wouldn’t participate unless someone physically made him. Mrs. Wimple was nearly weeping with joy, she was so excited. She hustled us into a line—giving Ely an extra nudge or two to get him moving—while Mom wrote the verse on the board in her precise handwriting.

I stood between Ty and Ely. A combination of pity for me and embarrassment for themselves radiated off them. I stared at the back of Ty’s neck, determined not to look anywhere else. A small glimmer of hope surfaced: After all these years, maybe he’d finally be so embarrassed by my family that he’d stop liking me? Maybe?

“And we are ready!” Dad said, voice at the front of the line brimming with cheer. “Weaving spiders, come not here . . .” We stepped forward and snaked around the room, winding through the rows of desks, muttering the lines. Mom’s clanging tambourine and bells attempted to keep us on beat.

By the third lap, we were in sync. The marching, chanting, and ringing bells put me in a state of horrified hypnosis. It was like a Greek myth, where I was doomed to do the same thing over and over again forever—time, I was sure, had stopped.

“Huzzah!” my mother cheered after two more laps. “Success!” We stopped, and I almost crashed into Ty. My near-stumble caused my attention to shift to the rest of the room. The other kids also seemed dazed, but Mrs. Wimple wore a wide smile.

“Did you feel the precision of the words?” Mom said, peering over her glasses at Nirmal. He nodded, clearly afraid that if he said no my mom would take him to the stocks.

“I felt it!” Mrs. Wimple said. Excitement shot off her in beams.

“Do we have time for another exercise, then?” Dad said. Sweat beaded on his forehead. I guess clapping and walking and chanting was more of a workout than he was used to.

“Sadly, no,” Mrs. Wimple said. “It’s just about time for the bell—” And it buzzed.

I didn’t want to face anyone—my parents, Ty, Ely, or Mrs. Wimple—and have to talk about what had just gone on. Without looking, without waiting, I bolted from my place in line, snagged my book bag off the floor, and ran out of the room.

xi

I raced through the halls, trying to get as far away from English as possible. I thought about hiding in yet another girls’ room, but with the passing period, they’d all be filled.

I found myself at the front of the school, outside of James’s office door. I dug in my bag for the pile of Go Cards he’d given me, and wrote my name on all of them. If this wasn’t an outright parental emergency, I didn’t know what was.

I was just about to slip the stack under his door when it opened.

“Hamlet?” James asked. He had a lunch bag in his hand. I was about to make an excuse, but when I opened my mouth, I just burst into tears.

He pulled me into the room, where I collapsed into one of the big green chairs. This time, letting myself sink into it, I felt comforted. For a few minutes, I just cried—completely embarrassed, but unable to stop. James sat across from me, quiet, handing me tissue after tissue.

When I finally slowed down and started to breathe normally, he asked me what was wrong.

And the tears came back.

A few minutes later, we tried again. I told him about everything—the iambic disaster, the unfairness surrounding Dezzie, the mac and cheese—all of it. Okay, all of it except for Ty, the locker mystery, and Carter. I couldn’t go there. He just sat there and listened.

When I was all talked out, I flopped back into the chair.

“Feel better?” James asked. I nodded.

“Good. You killed my box of tissues.” He held it up, empty, for me to inspect. I gave him a weak smile. “Ham let, you do realize that you are not crazy, right? That you have every right to feel embarrassed by this stuff?”

I gaped at him. I did?

He smiled. “It doesn’t make your parents terrible people,” he said. “They just seem a little clueless. They don’t see things the way you do. You need to talk to them and explain how you feel, and why you feel that way. That’s the only way they can understand you.”

“But it’s hard,” I said. “They don’t
hear
me.”

“I know,” James said. “But I can give you some strategies to use that might help. Do you want to me to do that?”

“Yes, please.”

He told me a few things—like using the phrase “I feel angry/upset/embarrassed when you bang tambourines in my English class” and giving specific examples instead of just saying how unfair they were. I let him prattle on, but I knew his tools would
never
work. Not with my parents.

“And, I have to tell you, you should let yourself feel proud of how you read Shakespeare. Not a lot of people can do that,” he said.