The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet (18 page)

Ms. Grafton sat between KC and Julie. By the way her mouth was pulled into a tight line, it was clear that she was having a hard time with one of them. Guess who?

Dezzie was on the far side of the room. Carter, Chrissy, and Davy were staring at her with these amazed expressions on their faces, like she was the most interesting person they’d ever met. Dezzie’s hands were flitting in front of her face, butterfly-like, and she’d stop and point back to the book every so often.

I stood in the doorway and watched for a minute or two. Carter smiled and nodded, then smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand in an “I can’t believe I didn’t realize that” gesture. His brilliant grin made my heart pound harder. Dezzie laughed. It was obvious that they were learning stuff from her, but it also seemed like they were having fun.

How had my sister, who hadn’t followed any of my crucial-to-middle-school rules, become
popular
? Because this attention wasn’t the sneaky Saber/Mauri interest, this was genuine. These kids
liked
her.
Carter
liked her.

“Hamlet?” Ms. Grafton’s voice cut into my thoughts. I snapped my head in her direction. Everyone else in the room snapped their heads in mine. I swore I could feel Carter’s eyes on my face like clover-colored lasers. I’m sure all he was thinking about was the mac ’n’ cheese fiasco. I wanted to apologize again, but I felt about as capable of doing that as I did juggling knives—but considering my recent track record with odd talents, who knows?

“You may join us,” she said. “No need to wait for an invitation.”

“Yeah, Ham ’n’ Cheese,” KC called, “come on down!” Blushing and furious, I crossed the space and put my stuff down next to Julie, across from KC—which was as far away as I could get. Without saying anything, I slid the late pass across the table to Ms. Grafton.

There was barely enough time left in the period for me to get a fast overview of the day’s assignment and do a couple of practice homework problems. Of course, the whole time Ms. Grafton was helping me, KC kicked me under the table and doodled. I tucked my legs up on the seat so they’d be out of reach, but he just switched to thumping the bottom of my chair. I didn’t want to tell Ms. Grafton, so I just gritted my teeth and tried to concentrate on the math work. At least it took my mind off Dezzie’s skyrocketing social status a few seats away.

When the bell buzzed, I pushed back from the table and gave KC the dirtiest look I could. He smiled like a freckle-covered angel, and I felt my death stare soften a little. Ugh!
Why?!

Ms. Grafton tousled his hair.

“You made me earn my keep today,” she said, smiling back at him. Moment of softness over, I wanted to throw up in the potted plant in the corner. However, seeing if Dezzie’s mysterious ability held up through the whole class period was more important. She’d totally blown off my rules, but, in spite of it, was she actually blending in?

KC bumped against me as he was leaving and slipped something into my hand. When I opened my palm, there was a scrap of paper bearing a teeny drawing of a top-hat-wearing, dancing ham (the actual meat, not me). Against my better judgment, I grinned.

From behind me, I heard Dezzie saying good-bye. I stashed the picture in my backpack, and when I turned around, Carter was lingering at her table. I shifted from foot to foot, not wanting to embarrass myself even more by breaking into their conversation. They finished, Carter slung his backpack over one shoulder, and headed for the door. He passed so close to me I could smell coconuts.

I wanted to bury my head in the sand. “About the other day . . .”

“Oh. Yeah. Whatever. She’s amazing,” he said, giving his head a shake. I finally got up the nerve to say
something
to Carter Teegan, even though it was another apology—and right away he has to mention my
sister
. I tried not to be annoyed, focusing instead on his overall cuteness. “I get this stuff now,” he sighed as happily as my mother after a Maypole dance.

I nodded and made an “uh-huh” noise, breathing in his tropical smell—a big improvement over the cafeteria cheddar.

Dezzie was packing up her books, sliding them into her bag, when I reached her.

“Hey,” she said, glancing at me.

“Hey.” Now that I had her attention, I didn’t know how to approach her. It was hard to come out and say “Now do you see the difference between this group and the Mooch Twins?” Her books stowed away, she hitched her bag on her shoulder, staring at me all the while.

“Did you want to ask me something?” she wondered.

“Uh, not really,” I said, chickening out. I searched for something else to say. “How’s tutoring going?” We were walking in step from the classroom.

“Satisfactorily. Carter and Davy are picking things up very quickly. Chrissy is too. I am using your instructions on how to fit in socially.”

“That’s good,” I responded, pleased in spite of myself that Dezzie might be employing some of my advice after all. I fiddled with the strap on my book bag.

“Why were you late?” she asked.

Everything that happened in English flashed through my mind: the forced reading, the moment when I found myself enjoying the play, Mrs. Wimple’s comments, the fact that Mom and Dad would be coming to school . . . a wave of overwhelming stress crashed over me. Would she even get it? Definitely not the part about Mom and Dad. But I could ask her what she thought of being different . . . if it was hard for her to be so smart around people that were her own age—or, in her case—older? If standing out from the crowd was something she liked, or had just gotten used to?

The questions simmered on the surface of my brain like bubbling spaghetti sauce, but there was no way I was going to ask them out loud. Doing that meant that I believed that I had a Shakespeare-spouting gift, and a.) I still didn’t want to believe it, and b.) even if I did believe it, I didn’t want to admit it. Not even to Dezzie.

ix

That Friday night, my mom cornered me after dinner.

“Hamlet, what are your plans for the weekend?” She picked some lint off her giant fuzzy sweater.

I needed to work on my English and history, plus study pre-al and answer some science questions—nothing that I wanted to do. But there was a fine line: Admit to a lot of homework and be stuck in my room all weekend, or say that I didn’t have much going on and open myself up to the horrors that lurked as “family time” with my parents. And I’d be getting enough of that next week. In class.

“I have
some
homework,” I answered, hoping that a middle-of-the-road response would get me out of whatever she had planned.

“I see. Well, your sister would like to go to the mall this weekend, and I was hoping you could go with her.”

“Desdemona wants to go to the mall?”

It seemed that Saber and Mauri had invited Dezzie after all. I wondered if they’d be in for another classic Kennedy mall moment?

Dezzie hadn’t set foot in any shopping center since the Christmas she was three, when we went as a family to pick out a new sewing machine for Gram. A woman dressed as an elf outside of Santa’s Village bent over and asked if “the itty-bitty pwetty girl wanted to sit on Santa’s lap and ask for ‘pwesents.’ ”

“I do not sit on the laps of strangers and beg for inconsequential toys, you cretin,” Dezzie had responded. She hadn’t yet learned appropriate language boundaries. The memory of the expression on the elf’s face at Dezzie’s teensy pipsqueaky tell-off still cracked me up.

Of course, during that same trip, Dad got lost in the women’s coat section of a department store and we had to have him paged.

“I don’t—do not—want to bring her,” I said, hoping my mother would tell Dezzie that the plan was off, still irritated that she’d ignored my warning about what Saber and Mauri were up to.

She sighed and picked at more wool. “That is unfortunate. I believe this marks an important social step for your sister, and without your involvement I shall be obliged to chaperone.”

I made it nearly all the way to my room before the impact of what my mother said hit me. If I didn’t go to the mall with Saber and Mauri, she would.
My mother.

I took the stairs two at a time and raced back to Mom’s study.

“I appreciate your willingness to support her in this endeavor,” my mother said.

How could anyone mistake fear and resentment for willingness?

Luckily, I managed to convince Mom that I needed some social time with my friends too. Judith met me at the Chilly Spoon when we got back.

“How’d it go?” she asked. She nibbled at her black raspberry cone.

I dropped my head into my hands and groaned. “Annoying. Lame. Ridiculous. They treated her like a pet.”

We dissected the whole excursion, down to the nail polish color they picked out, and ultimately agreed that it was just one more way for Saber and Mauri to stay on Dezzie’s good side until the project was done. Why couldn’t she see the truth? It hurt my head.

“Speaking of projects, have you and Ely finished your Globe?”

Judith shook her head. “Dude, our second level collapsed last weekend.
Some
one didn’t think we needed supports under the balcony.” We munched our cones in silence for a minute.

“So . . .” Judith said. She tore the remaining wrapper off her cone and bit the bottom. I watched as she drained it of any bits of ice cream. “Not to change the subject, but . . .” She raised an eyebrow.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.” I squirmed in my chair. “It’s just so
weird
, Judith. You don’t get it. He’s like my brother. I don’t even know how to bring it up with him.”

“Well, you’d better do it soon,” she said. “He’s been really upset lately.”

The mango sorbet I’d eaten churned in my stomach. “Yeah. Well, I’m upset too,” I snapped.

Judith shrugged. “I know. But I’m so just the messenger,” she said. “I didn’t
make
him like you. It’s not like I have fairy dust in my pocket or anything. I’m just telling you what he said.”

“What, exactly, did he say again?” We’d been through it a thousand times already, but I had to make sure I knew exactly what happened.

Judith sighed. “I told you before: We were IM’ing. He asked me if you liked anyone. I said I didn’t know. He asked if I was sure. I said yes. I asked him why—did he know if someone liked you. He didn’t respond. Then he said, ‘Don’t tell Hamlet. She’ll freak out.’ ”

I was definitely freaking out.

“And dude, what’s up with you and KC?”

“Me and KC?” I gasped, and a piece of cone shot down my throat and felt like it lodged in my lung. Judith waited through my coughing fit. “There is no ‘me and KC.’ ”

“Um, yeah. Sure,” she said, while I wiped my streaming eyes. “He is so into you.”

“Whatever,” I said, waving her words away and fighting a bloom of warmth at my cheeks. “Carter isn’t.”

“Carter Teegan is a vapid pretty boy,” Judith said, voice sharp. “He’s not interesting at all, just nice to look at—like . . .” She leaned way over the table toward me. “Like . . . like
meringue
.”

I burst out laughing. “Meringue. Really?”

“Really, dude. Fluffy, pretty, but no substance.”

When my giggles quieted, I opened my mouth to argue, but was surprised to find I had nothing to say. He really was kind of a meringue—and I didn’t even
like
meringue.