The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet (24 page)

“Huzzah!” I cheered.

ACT III:

and Then We Came to the End

i

We need to teach them a lesson,” Dezzie declared. She was all business. She flopped onto my pillows, waking Iago, and rolled and unrolled the hem of her Scooby-Doo pajama pants. “They can’t cheat off me.”

“I agree,” I said. “I think I have a plan to make sure that they won’t ever do it again.” As I explained my idea, Dezzie listened carefully. The plan was simple: Make them sink themselves while we watched. But the longer I spoke, the deeper her eyebrows furrowed.

“Are you sure we can make it work without getting caught?”

“I’ll need your help,” I explained. “Otherwise, no. And there are a couple more things I need to figure out. Will you do it?”

She flipped onto her stomach, knees bent, feet in the air. The legs of her pajamas slipped down to reveal the trim of her E=mc
²
socks. She always wore them before a big test.

“It’s diabolical,” she said. “I’ve never done anything so devious.”

“But will you do it?” I asked. After what Saber and Mauri had put us through—everyone in my family, including my dad—I wanted nothing more than to create an end to this whole thing that would be, well, Shakespearean.

“Oh, I’ll do it,” said Dezzie. The furrows were gone, replaced by a smooth forehead and a wide smile. “And it will be epic.”

And so was the mountain of pre-algebra homework that I pulled out when she left. One week till the big test. I could only hope
that
ending would be as satisfactory as the one I was concocting.

 

At school, preparations were in full swing for our Salute to Shakespeare extravaganza. Mr. Hoffstedder reminded us to finish our Globe theaters.

“There’s a lot at stake, people,” he said. “Remember—your work will be judged!”

I really didn’t want to win any Shakespeare prizes.

Ty felt differently.

“We could totally win if your dad told us what to do,” he said to me at lunch after Mr. Hoffstedder’s announcement. “I could bring it back to your house.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

“It’d be great. He could check it out and we could go to the Spoon after.” Judith, who’d been deep in conversation with Ely over something that had happened in her French class the day before, gave me a pointed look. My heart locked up and my appetite shriveled.

“Uhhh, I don’t think so,” I said. “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Didn’t you just say that?” Ty asked. He knocked on my forehead. “Something in there stuck on repeat?”

I jerked back from his hand. “Nope. Everything’s fine,” I said, trying to calm my breathing. Where had that nice, relaxed feeling that I’d had with Ty gone? I plopped my backpack onto the table, digging through it for some imaginary piece of paper to avoid looking at Ty. “We’re basically done. And with the whole busted Globe thing, I think it might upset my dad.” The excuse sounded lame even to me. Ty turned away, hurt.

As I was trying to figure out what to do next, a piece of paper fluttered out of one of the pockets and into my lap. Another smiling origami pig. Number ten, made from Christmas wrapping paper. I smiled back at it. When I looked up at our group, Ty was scowling.

“What’s that?” he said.

“Nothing.” I stuffed the pig into the pocket of my jeans. “Just a pig.” Ty didn’t recognize it? Whew!

“I can only imagine who’d leave you paper swine,” muttered Ty. Judith raised an eyebrow at me.

I swept my half-eaten lunch into my bag and pushed my chair back. I had to get away from there.

“Where’re you going?” Ely asked.

“I left something in my locker,” I said, searching for an excuse. I didn’t look at Ty at all, just turned and left. The rest of lunch I lurked in the library, waiting for the bell, analyzing every second of the scene at the table over and over again. Worrying about his every word, being careful about what I said, was wearing on me: I was stressed out and it was ruining our friendship. Since avoiding wasn’t working, I was left with only one option: confrontation.

All through my afternoon classes, I couldn’t get the Ty situation out of my mind.

“What’s bothering you?” Judith asked when I met her after her French class. We started walking to science.

“Two guesses.”

“Hamlet, you
have
to talk to him!” she said. “Even if it’s just for my and Ely’s sake—it’s getting hard to be around the two of you.”

The two of them?! What about me?

“I know,” I said, deciding not to respond to her comment. “But every time I say something, I’m worried that it’s the wrong thing or that it won’t come out right or he’ll think it means something different than what it actually does. And it doesn’t.” We’d reached the science room.

“Dude, you can’t hide from it forever,” Judith said.

“Wise words, Judith.” I sighed.

 

That week, in language arts, Mrs. Wimple had us practicing our parts and staging the scenes we were going to perform. All the reading and rereading my classmates were doing was helping their pronunciation, but I would still sound like a native Elizabethan speaker compared to them—that is, if I didn’t fall off the stage or freak out when I saw the audience. Just because I could perform in class didn’t mean I could perform onstage. But I’d finally realized that there really wasn’t anything I could—or should—do about that, so I memorized the lines for Puck and waited for the inevitable. Some of them, I was surprised to find, were fun to say . . . especially the end:

“If we shadows have offended,/Think but this and all is mended./That you have but slumber’d here/while these visions did appear./And this weak and idle theme,/ No more yielding but a dream.”

“You are going to shine,” Mrs. Wimple said one day as I sat backstage, muttering the lines to myself.

Nirmal Grover, nearby, nodded. “You’re so good at this, Hamlet.”

His praise surprised me. Soon I’d be another Kennedy who stood out from the crowd. But, I reminded myself, it worked for my mom, dad, and Dezzie. Maybe it would for me too?

 

Dezzie kept up the façade of friendship with Mauri and Saber better than I expected. Since they’d had “such insight” into
Midsummer
, Mrs. Wimple picked them to give an overview of Shakespeare’s life at the beginning of the play. They quizzed Dezzie about his biography every day in art. She answered all of their questions in great detail, and even helped them edit their introduction one day at lunch. Based on the slight smile at the corners of her mouth, she enjoyed the switch from being child genius to child evil genius. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen in her eyes.

“You’re so good at this,” Mauri gushed one day in art class. “I don’t know how you remember all this stuff.”

Dezzie shrugged. “Some things come easy for me, I guess,” she answered. Even her frustration with art seemed to have lessened. She’d actually enjoyed the surrealist dream-journal assignment. Recently, Ms. Finch-Bean gave us the assignment of doing pop art replicas, and Dezzie was working on a series of prints of hydrogen molecules in neon colors.

“Yeah,” Saber continued. “It’s been so great having you help us.”

“I’m just glad to do it,” Dezzie said. She snuck a glance at me around her paper. “Anything to help a friend.”

We both smiled at that one.

ii

The night before the Salute to Shakespeare, my mother came into my room while I was running over my lines one last time. I knew them by heart, but once I was done reviewing them I needed to study for the pre-algebra test. Both options were about as appealing as Mom’s poume d’oranges dinner.

“Need some help?” she asked, glancing at the script scattered across my bed.

“I think I have it,” I said. I yawned and made room for her to join me. She perched on the edge. “It’s a pretty easy scene.”

“Not for Puck,” she said. Ever since the discussion in my room, Mom and Dad had been much better about asking what I was doing in classes, instead of just focusing on Dezzie. Although it was a little annoying at times—like every night at dessert when they asked me what I’d discussed in my courses that day—I had to admit I liked it . . . even if I didn’t tell them about everything. Like the pre-al test that was waiting for me tomorrow. I didn’t need them stressing me out even more.

“I guess. It
is
a lot of lines.”

“He’s a trickster, you know, and one of my favorite characters. Always skirting Oberon to get what he wants and cause trouble.”

I nodded. “It seems like he wants to mess stuff up on purpose.”

“He thinks that’s funny,” Mom went on. She smoothed an invisible wrinkle on my comforter. “Some people thrive on others’ anxiety.”

“I guess so.” I thought about the anxiety that eighth grade had caused me so far. Did I thrive on it? Nope. I definitely wasn’t the Puck type.

“You’ve had your fair share of anxious moments recently, I’d wager,” Mom said. “This has been a challenging year for all of us.”

“Some of us more than others,” I said.

“I know, honey. But your dad said it best—we chose to follow our passions. And for the pain that’s caused you, I am truly sorry.” She patted my knee. “We don’t want you to feel badly, or be embarrassed by us. But this is who we are.”

“I know.” I paused, letting her words sink in. “But what about who I am? Don’t you care that I’m not as smart or special as Dezzie?”

My mom’s expression turned to one of shock.

“Honey, you are just as special as she is, in our eyes,” she answered. “And I’m so sorry that you ever felt any differently.”

Her words wrapped around me like a warm blanket. I was quiet for a moment, and then it occurred to me. “What happened to ‘commoner’s speech’?” I asked, noticing all her contractions.

“I’ve decided that it’s okay to be common sometimes,” Mom admitted. “I don’t have to be all Shakespeare all the time. I’ll try to be a little more ‘with it’ from now on. Okay? And you have permission to tell me if I’m not.”

Finally! Although they’d never be normal parents, maybe they’d try a little harder to be less bizarre. Was that a flicker of hope that I felt?

“But back to Puck, Miss Player,” Mom said, shifting gears from our mother-daughter moment. “There’s no other character quite like Puck in any Shakespeare play. He messes around with the other players, confusing everyone and getting all of the couples mixed up. His playfulness and lighthearted attitude make him unique, especially in the context of the story.”

“Sometimes being unique isn’t so great,” I said before I could call the words back.

Now it was Mom’s turn to be quiet for a minute.

“It’s hard to be your own person,” she agreed, “especially when those around you are very distinctive. The important thing is for you to carve out your own space in the world. Maybe not as distinctively as Puck, but you can still be unique.”

I chewed on that for a few minutes. I’d spent so much time avoiding being unique that I didn’t know where to begin. “Can you maybe help me with that?” I asked, shyness taking over. Even though I’d been given help this year, asking for it—especially from my mom—was hard and foreign.

“Of course!” She brought her fists to her chest in her trademark gesture of excitement. “Let’s run through some lines.”

Together, we went through my scene. She gave me some pointers on how to tell when Puck was making a sneaky joke, or how to identify when he was trying to act responsible to Oberon. Even though I had no problem
saying
the words, with her help I really understood why I was saying them. Puck was coming to life. Through
me
!

“I brought you something for tomorrow,” she said when we were done, gesturing to the wrapped bundle at the foot of the bed. “Maybe it will make you feel more Puck-like.”

We were supposed to bring in a costume element that would help us “illustrate our character.” Visions of brocade and wide collars spun through my head, weakening the bond we’d just forged.

“You didn’t have to,” I began, wondering how I could say no without hurting her feelings. She was making an effort, after all.

She handed me the package. The bundle chimed when I lifted it, was soft and not too heavy, wrapped in purple tissue and tied with a silver thread. I took a deep breath, then slid the thread off and unfolded the paper.

Inside was a sheer purple scarf edged with bells. They tinkled lightly, not in an obnoxious way, and it was so delicate it looked as though fairies themselves had made it.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. And it was—not over-the-top Elizabethan scary, not lame dug-out-of-Grandma’s-closet desperate.

“You like it?” Mom asked. Her forehead was creased in a tense line of worry. “I was afraid you’d think it was too distinctive.”

“It’s perfect,” I said. “It’s . . . me.” I wrapped my arms around her in a big hug.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” she said, and squeezed me back.

 

The next morning, I waited for Ty and his mom outside the main entrance to HoHo. He had the job of transporting our Globe Theatre to school—new promises aside, it probably wouldn’t have survived my mother’s driving. Around me, other eighth graders were navigating the crowds, carrying all permutations of the theater to the caf, which doubled as an auditorium. Some were made from Popsicle sticks, some from cardboard and construction paper, and even one made from what appeared to be an old hatbox. Ty’s mom’s car pulled up, and she got out, waving.

“Hi honey,” she said.

“Hi, Mrs. Spencer.” She knows better than to try to kiss or hug her kid’s friends in front of the school . . . a lesson that my mom finally seemed to be learning. Instead, she gave me a big smile. I smiled back.

Together, we slid our balsa wood creation from the backseat. Ty had done a great job painting the seats and backdrop; all we had left to do was set the stage for our scene. I had the characters cut and mounted from Dad’s old book in my bag.