The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet (3 page)

“Yo, Hamlet,” Ely said, nudging me and breaking my concentration. I dragged my gaze away from Carter.

“Huh?” I’d forgotten what we were saying.

“Seriously. She’s here?” he said. Ely spent every summer with his grandmother on Block Island, and hadn’t been home when my fate was sealed. And he hadn’t believed it when Ty and I both IM’ed him about it. Like I could ever come up with something so horrifying as a joke. Mr. Hoffstedder began discussing expectations for the term.

“Seriously.”

“Girl genius is rockin’ the HoHo art wing this year to ruin Ham’s life,” Ty summarized for me. Really, it was all that needed to be said.

“Ms. Kennedy,” the voice from the front of the room redirected my attention. “I think you’ll be particularly interested in our inter-disciplinary project this term.” Mr. Hoffstedder was giving me a wide smile that made my heart stop. There was only one reason why a teacher would single me out—

“We’ll be doing an eight-week co-taught segment on Elizabethan England and Shakespeare with Mrs. Wimple. If you look at your schedules, English and history are blocked this year, so you’ll be in class with the same students for both. This will allow Mrs. Wimple and me to give complementary assignments . . .”

I stopped listening, trying to get my heart beating again. The only thing worse than having Dezzie follow me around eighth grade was spending the term studying the Bard, as my parents called him. Shakespeare is for high school and college students—not eighth-grade public school English and social studies! I dropped my head to my desk.

I’d worked really hard during sixth and seventh grade to be average on the social scene—not noticable, not dorky enough to be worth teasing. HoHo was my refuge from my parents, their over-the-top Elizabethan home life, and my sister’s smartness. All I wanted to do was keep flying under the radar, but Dezzie—and now this Shakespeare assignment—would put me in everyone’s crosshairs

“At least you’ll get A’s in this stuff,” Ely whispered, trying to make me feel better.

That was the problem. If I got A’s in Shakespeare, I’d stick out at school. If I got B’s in Shakespeare, I’d stick out at home.

For the first time, my parents would not only know about what I was doing in school, they’d
care
. Like, scarily much. Like, maybe as much as they cared about the work that Dezzie did. Getting really into a hobby just wasn’t my thing.

I’d tried to find something I was good at, or cared about as much as the stuff my parents and sister loved:

I tried softball, but was too afraid to swing the bat. Especially after I hit the catcher with it.

Ballet was out—picture a duck on land.
And
I hated standing on my toes.

And let’s just say that the mother/daughter Weaving & Dyeing camp my mom brought me to after fifth grade in an effort to “develop joint interests” wasn’t a good fit. Mom made a nice sweater, though.

I was over trying new things—or “searching for my passion,” as my dad put it. Done. There wasn’t anything special about me—no gift, no talent, no super-smarts. Once I realized that, I embraced my averageness with relief. It meant no nutty Kennedy-family obsession, no bizarre activities, and my family left me alone.

Until now.

iv

And it goes on and on: Me, with about as much to offer as an empty plate, and them—and her—eating one another up.

 

Lost in my nightmares, I didn’t hear a word Mr. Hoffstedder said during the rest of class. When the bell rang, Ty turned around in his seat, his face set and serious. “It’s beginning, isn’t it?”

“What?” I stuffed my textbook and papers in my book bag.

“The Reign of Desdemona.” He was trying to be funny, but the truth really wasn’t.

“Pretty much,” I replied. I zippered the pocket closed. “Speaking of her, I need to get downstairs and bring her to our next class. See you in English?” He and Ely waved good-bye and I made my second building-length sprint of the day.

Dezzie was alone in the music hall when I arrived.

“How’d it go?” I asked, pointing her in the direction of Stairwell A and the art room.

She shrugged. “Satisfactorily. She played several different types of music on the piano and explained identifying elements of each. It will be an easy class for me. Oh, and I met some girls. We had to work in a group and I was paired with them.”

We’d reached the door.

“Who were they?” I asked.

We entered the room just as the late bell rang. Of course. At first, every seat appeared full. Then I spotted waving arms at a tall table in the far corner.

“Hey! Over here!”

The arm-wavers were Saber Greene and Mauri Lee—witnesses to my morning humiliation, queens of annoyance, and the girls I tried to avoid at all cost.

“Them,” Dezzie said, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward their table.

I was too shocked to yank my hand from hers. Dezzie’d spent one class period at HoHo and my life was already shuffled like a deck of cards. I’d spent nearly two years staying far away from Saber and Mauri, and now would sit face-to-face with them for the whole term.

When we were in sixth grade, Saber had seen me with my parents working at the county Renaissance Faire. In Ye Olde Costume Boothe. Going to a Renaissance Faire itself isn’t necessarily embarrassing, but working at one, outfitted in the standard “Children’s Tunic and Head-covering,” is. Especially when you’re eleven, and your father, who is wearing tights, drags someone you just met in junior high into the “Merry Maypole” dance. And makes her wear a “proper biggin”—a glorified handkerchief pinned to her head—because she’d ignored the “no bare heads” rule of the Faire. And several of your new classmates happen to be there for someone’s birthday party and witness the whole thing. Saber and I hadn’t spoken since . . . unless you count her repeated renditions of “Hamlet’s Daddy Dresses Like a Lady” at lunch that year.

Now I was the one getting dragged across the room to something I didn’t want to do. Dezzie finally dropped my hand. We stowed our bags on the shelf under the table and perched on the stools, Dezzie climbing up on hers. My heart pounded and I gave Saber and Mauri a smile so tight I was sure my face would crack with the effort. They returned it with wide, sickly sweet grins. Wolf grins. At the front of the room, a young teacher with hair the color of an almost-ripe tomato stood up.

“Welcome back. I’m Ms. Finch-Bean, and I’ll be teaching art this year.”

“What happened to Mrs. Higgins?” someone—it sounded like Mark Sloughman—called. Mrs. Higgins was old and let us do just about anything we wanted, as long as it involved construction paper and washable markers. Art was a blowoff class.

“She broke her hip over the summer. She might be back in January, but maybe not.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that you had such a cute little sister, Hamlet?” Saber asked, her voice low. Clearly, she’d had enough of Ms. Finch-Bean’s introduction. She twirled the end of her French braid around one finger.

“She’s adorable,” Mauri said. She gave a toothy smile—all the better to eat me with. Both Saber and Mauri were wearing miniskirts and tees, and the minis made it hard for them to sit on the round art stools. They kept fidgeting and tugging at their hems. Dezzie also noticed.

“Wearing a longer dress or skirt would allow you to be more comfortable,” she pointed out.

“Like you?” Mauri asked. Her voice sounded innocent, but it was a sneer in disguise. Dezzie glanced down at her trapeze shirt and leggings, which was a cute outfit for a seven-year-old. Unfortunately for Dezzie, the “dignified” clothes that she wanted weren’t available in kids’ sizes. I counted my blessings that she hadn’t chosen to wear breeches, or the replica Chinese Red Army uniform that she designed when she was working on her Communism immersion project. You just never knew with her.

But right after that thought came a flash of annoyance. As weird as Dezzie was, and as hard as this day had been so far, I didn’t want anyone to make fun of her, least of all these two. I opened my mouth to tell Mauri where to go, but Dezzie beat me to it.

“Well, I see that fashion wears out more apparel than the man,” Dezzie added, a twinge of sarcasm in her voice. One of Mom’s favorite Shakespeare quotes.

Saber and Mauri glanced at each other, clearly confused. I fought against a giggle.

“Whatever,” Saber finally muttered. She tugged at the hem of her skirt again.

Even though I told Dezzie not to use any Shakespeare, their reaction was worth it.

Her limit for pre-class chatting reached, Dezzie turned her back to them and faced the front of the room. Her posture reminded me of the way she sat in homeroom, which made me think of that note again. Who’d written it? Why was it bugging me so much?

“So, Ham-let,” Mauri said, chopping the syllables of my name, “why haven’t we met Des-de-mo-na before?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that, or what Dezzie had told them in music appreciation. The glances and smiles they exchanged grated on my nerves.

“Ladies,” Ms. Finch-Bean said, saving me from responding, “I need your attention up here, please.” The three of us, copying Dezzie, sat straighter and faced forward.

Ms. Finch-Bean explained that we would be starting the year studying twentieth-century art movements and styles—abstract expressionism, surrealism, and pop art. Although the terms didn’t mean anything to me, I recognized some of them from book titles Dezzie had taken out of the library for a mini immersion project on life after World War II. Ms. Finch-Bean passed around some pictures of paintings that didn’t look like anything—just big splatters of red, black, white, and gray paint on a white canvas. Weird.

“These are in a museum somewhere?” said Saber. Her tone said she didn’t believe it.

“Jackson Pollock painted them,” Dezzie replied. “They’re pure emotion.” I could see what she meant—the painting looked angry in the middle, with all the colors together, but the splatters on the edges looked less mad. I thought of how when I get upset, it starts with a bunch of little things, then it all builds and builds to a big tangle of messy experiences. Like having Dezzie go to school with me. Or trying to be normal in a family of Bard Brains.

“They’re a pure
mess
,” Mauri said, and flipped her hair. “I think they’re dumb.”

“Really?” said Dezzie.

“Me too,” echoed Saber. Dezzie turned to me. I shrugged and was about to respond, when Ms. Finch-Bean cut me off by asking that we pass the photos forward.

“They are dumb only to the uninitiated,” Dezzie muttered, gray eyes as dark as rain clouds. I didn’t have time to relish in the shocked expressions on Saber’s and Mauri’s faces, however, because class was over and I had to bring Dezzie back to the music hall so I could sprint to English.

v

Mrs. Wimple announced the same interdis ciplinary Shakespeare extravaganza as Mr. Hoffstedder had in history. I guess my sigh was a little too loud, because it received a quizzical look from her, and a whispered “Did you think he was
lying
?” from Ty.

“We’ll be reading
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and discussing elements of the play as they relate to your history class,” Mrs. Wimple explained. A row of paperbacks waited for us on her bookshelf. “Mr. Hoffstedder and I will also be giving complementary assignments . . .” I tuned her out, stewing in Shakespeare’s shadow.

As a distraction, I reached into my pocket and ran my hands around the edge of the note.
Had
Carter written it, and given it to someone else to send to my homeroom? It was a possibility, but an unlikely one. Even so, I let myself imagine he
had
written it, and that after class he’d wait for me in the hall to ask if I’d traveled this summer, or what movies I’d seen. I’d smile and answer—lying because I didn’t think he’d be interested in the Shakespeare festival we went to in July—and then he’d offer to walk me to my next class—

And, thanks to Girl Genius, I’d have to say no.

 

After English, slightly annoyed that she’d prevented my imagination from enjoying a daydream, I raced to the music hall to get Dezzie, dropped her off at The Learning Center, then went back up to Mr. Symphony’s room for pre-algebra. I was irritated, frazzled, and exhausted, and the day wasn’t even half over.

I didn’t even have the chance to say hi to my friend Judith, whom I’d blown by in the hall, and barely beat the tardy bell. Judith and I met sixth grade, when we had lockers next to each other. She goes to music camp all summer, and I’d been looking forward to catching up with her.

However, I
was
in time to see Mr. S. get all excited explaining how letters substitute for numbers in algebra. Right away I knew I’d need Dezzie’s help for this class. From the expression on Ely’s face, he would too. It was one of the best and worst parts of having an encyclopedia for a sister—I’d had a built-in homework helper since she was five, but seeing her hunched over a textbook, explaining history or math or science to Ty or Ely made me feel lame and awkward, and not at all like the older sister.