The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne Read Free Book Online

suppose. Although it’s best not to let these issues go untreated.
    He calls out the last part as the group files from the room.
    Every so often I wonder what that girl wanted to talk about. Some days, I think I know—that it’s hard, that nothing is normal, that being constantly behind someone else is tiring, especially if they are younger than you. And it may have been nice to hear it out loud.
     
    So until now, Mom and Dad had always been so busy making sure Dezzie grew into her intelligence, I’d had free rein. I didn’t have to worry about them showing up to events wearing their Elizabethan collars, or picking me up from school in cloaks. Even if I did get a little lonely sometimes.
    Right now, lonely was looking better and better.

viii
    The next week went basically the same as the first: I ran all over the school in the morning, making sure Dezzie was on time for her classes, but barely getting to my own. I suppose I could have said something to my teachers about why I was nearly late every day, but why bother? It’d only draw more attention to the oddity that was my life.
    I did have time to keep an eye out for more notes or pigs, but none appeared. I hadn’t said anything to Ty about it, because he’d probably get all boy-ish and say it didn’t mean anything. And he’d definitely shoot down my idea that it was Carter. Maybe I’d tell Judith. In the meantime, the first one lived in a small pocket of my backpack, providing a little mystery to my day.
    Carter was not a mystery, however: He continued to look through me like I was a nonthreatening ghost. Who else could it be ?
    In English, Mrs. Wimple explained our major project. We were supposed to pick any scene from Act I of A Midsummer Night’s Dream , then set it up in a replica of the theater we’d be building for history class. That meant we had to figure out what the characters looked like, place them on the stage, and be able to explain what scene we chose and why. Everyone complained because we hadn’t even started reading the play yet, but Mrs. Wimple said that we’d have plenty of time.
    “We’ll get started right now. This is the story of four people who get lost in a forest one night,” she explained. “Two of the men are in love with the same woman, but thanks to a fairy with a sense of humor, both end up in love with the other girl. Oh, and there’s a jackass in the story.” When she said that everyone gasped, then giggled.
    “Yes,” she continued, “I said jackass . Someone gets turned into one. You’ll see what I mean.” She handed out copies of the play. From across the aisle, I heard KC mumble, “ Some people I know would make great jackasses.”
    He must have seen me smile in agreement—even though I didn’t know who he was talking about; I could make my own list—because he added, “And some should just mind their own business.”
    My cheeks burned. What was that about?
    “We’ll be reading aloud,” Mrs. Wimple continued. I turned my attention to her so I wouldn’t encourage KC to say anything else irritating. “So we can get a feel for Shakespeare’s language and characters. Who would like to volunteer? I need six of you for this scene.”
    Everyone’s eyes immediately dropped to their book covers. Reading out loud can be pretty awful, and the Bard doesn’t exactly make things easy on a contemporary reader—at least, that’s what my parents say. I also kept my head down. With a name like mine, why be singled out?
    “Uh-huh,” she said. “I guess I’m going to have to recruit my cast. Let’s see . . . Julie, you read Hippolyta. KC, you are now Theseus, ruler of Athens. Nirmal, please read Egeus.” She chose two other boys to be Lysander and Demetrius, and then proclaimed, “Tyler, you will read Hermia.”
    Ty’s ears turned red. “But Mrs. Wimple! That’s a girl’s part!”
    “A lot of the female characters were played by men in Shakespeare’s time,” I consoled, forgetting that I’d be better