First up is my new English class. I show up early so I can talk to Mr. White and find out where I should sit. He's sitting at his desk, reading a newspaper and sipping from a gigantic, steaming cup of coffee. He swings his crossed leg, jiggling his foot, and I check out his Converse shoes.
That's mostly what people talk about when Mr. White comes up in conversation—his huge collection of Converse shoes. It's like he's got a pair in every color. This pair in particular has Batman on the right and Joker on the left. When he sees me, he folds the paper into thirds and slides it into a drawer. "You must be Liliana," Mr. Cooper says, uncrossing his leg and lowering Joker to the floor.
"That's me," I say, trying to sound lighthearted and not stare at his shoes too much.
He gets up and offers his hand to me. I reach out and grasp his with my right, and he shakes it. "Good to have you," he says. "You can sit here." He walks down an aisle of desk and points to one decorated with some inappropriate drawings of male genitalia. Embarrassed, I cover it with my notebook. Mr. White seems oblivious.
"We're a little bit behind the other class, so you might be bored for a couple of days. We're discussing the end of Hamlet today. Do you remember what happens?" I must look pretty clueless because he quickly continues. "Don't worry about it. You can just kind of sit back for the next few days, take it easy."
The door opens, and a couple of people walk in, one of them being Abbott. He does a double take when he sees me sitting in the corner, and I give him a little wave. He strolls over to me and puts his books on the desk beside mine.
"Hey, you get lost or something?" he asks.
"I switched," I reply, hoping he won't ask any more questions. I don't really want to explain how I had a panic attack, just thinking about going into Mrs. Edwards's room yesterday.
Abbott nods. "White is cool. You'll like it in here."
We both look to the front of the room, where Mr. White is arranging a couple of Star Wars figurines. He angles Yoda so it is perfectly aligned with Princess Leia and Han Solo. It's enough to bring a smile to my face. I turn back to Abbott and say, "Is he always so conscientious about his nerd paraphernalia?"
With a straight face, Abbott replies, "Always."
The bell rings.
Students pour into the room and scatter to various desks. Abbott leans over me and says softly, "Glad you're here." I'm not sure what he means by that, but Mr. White is clapping his hands to get everyone's attention. The kids around me quiet down and look toward the front of the room.
"Okay, get out your notebooks," Mr. White instructs. He then turns toward the white board, picks up an orange dry erase marker, and scribbles these words: Is Ophelia a tragic heroine? When finished, he spins around to face us, a hopeful expression on his face. "We're going to start with a quickwrite. You have five minutes to answer this question. Then we'll discuss."
The girl next to me rustles through her bag to find a notebook and pen. I follow her lead and open my own notebook to a clean page. Chewing on my pen, I consider my words. My reaction to Ophelia was an intense one—partly because I could relate to her situation so strongly. She grew up without a mother. The one person she depended upon—Hamlet—ended up rejecting her. When her father died, it was the last straw. I totally got where she was coming from.
It seems everyone else is bent over their notebooks, scribbling, and I'm just sitting like an idiot. Mr. White walks around the room, peering over people's shoulders. When he sees me staring, he glances at the board and says, "According to Aristotle, a tragic hero—or, in this case, a heroine—is one who brings about her own demise based on her character flaws and choices." I nod and lean over my notebook. He strolls away.
In my opinion, I begin, Ophelia is a tragic character. I think her flaw is that she loved too much, wanted too much. And when her world ends up crumbling around her, she just can't deal with it. The way she dies, clutching a handful of flowers, and just letting the water claim her, is kind of the basic definition of tragic.
Mr. White is at the front of the room again. "Circle up!" He exclaims gleefully, grabbing an empty desk and flipping it around so it faces the middle of the room. I'm not sure what "circle up" means, but when everyone starts turning their desks inward, I get it. There's no way, however, with my bad arm, to really move my desk.
After maneuvering his own desk into position, Abbott handles mine. I stand back and watch him, slightly embarrassed. "Thanks," I tell him when he's finished.
We both sit down and look at Mr. White, who is clutching a worn copy of Hamlet. He leans forward and flips through a few pages, looking for something. "Someone summarize what happens in Act IV of Hamlet." He looks up from the book and scans the room. People shift in their chairs, not wanting to be called on. "Jason," Mr. White says, directing his attention toward a boy wearing a red and gold football jersey. I know his face, maybe we've had a few classes together. "Refresh our memories."
Jason thumbs through his own copy of Hamlet. "Well, the queen tells the king about Hamlet killing Polonius, and then they decide to send Hamlet to England."
"Okay..." says Mr. White. "What else? How does Ophelia act after her father's death?"
Jason looks uncomfortably. "Uh, crazy?"
"How so?" Mr. White prods.
"Well, she's wandering around with a bunch of flowers and singing weird songs. That's not something a sane person would do."
"So she's mad with grief. What else is she grappling with?"
A girl with a french braid half-raises her hand, and Mr. White nods at her.
"Well, Hamlet pretty much dumped her," she says.
"Okay," Mr. White replies. "So she's lost almost everyone important in her life—parents, her first love. And how does she deal with these obstacles?"
Jason jumps in. "She drowns."
"She kills herself," the braided girl corrects, shooting Jason a disparaging look. "Which you'd know if you read Act IV." She continues in sort of a know-it-all tone of voice. "The gravediggers are talking about whether they should bury her in the churchyard because suicide was considered a sin."
"That's so pathetic," Jason says, face red. It's clear he didn't enjoy being corrected by the girl. "She was a doormat. She just let people push her around the whole time. Her father, her brother, Hamlet. Only losers give up."
I catch Abbott rolling his eyes.
But maybe giving up was her way of exerting control, I think to myself.
"Let's hold that thought," Mr. White says. "I want to talk about the big battle scene now." He goes off on a tangent, but I'm no longer listening.
I spend the rest of the period watching everyone else—the guys in the corner who spend more time drawing obscene pictures on their desks than participating in discussion; the girl who corrected Jason, diligently taking notes; and Abbott, who keeps looking over at me but snatching his eyes away when I catch him.
I wonder what the worst thing Abbott ever did in his life was. Did he pour salt on snails when she was younger? No, of course not. He was the one who refused to dissect that cat fetus in biology. I can't imagine Abbott ever doing anything really bad.
Scanning the classroom, I play this game with each person, wondering if anyone has me beat. And every time, the worst thing I can imagine them doing doesn't even compare with what I have done.
Stole a pack of cigarettes from the corner store?
Yeah, I killed my English teacher.
My eyes rest on Mr. White, who's leading the discussion, making sure to draw each student out, everyone except for me. I wonder what the worst thing he's ever done is. Try as I might, I can only picture him sitting on a couch, drinking beer and munching potato chips while watching Saturday Night Live.
And who is that hurting, exactly?
No one.
Compared to me, he's a saint.
They all are.
I tap my pen against my notebook, thinking about Ophelia, her last moments, what she was thinking. Was she truly mad? Did she even know what she was doing? Or was that moment, right before she sank below the water, her last true moment of sanity? Maybe she was in so much pain that escape was the only answer.