The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet Read Online Free PDF

package of cookies, turkey on wheat . . . and the Shakespeare Quote of the Day, firmly taped to my sandwich bag. I’d told my dad not to do that this year.
    “To sleep, perchance to dream,” KC read it aloud before I could stuff it back into the bag. The Wolf Queens snickered.
    “Wish I could dream instead of being here all day,” Carter muttered.
    “I know who I’d dream about,” KC said, nudging him. Then he winked at me.
    Ew! I wished this were a dream. Where was Ty? But I was afraid that if I took my eyes off the table to search for him, I’d end up as lunch for this group.
    “So . . . your sister,” Saber continued. “Where is she? What’s up with her in the afternoons?”
    Why was she so interested? My sandwich bread was dry in my throat. I swallowed hard before answering, taking time to choose my words. “She takes other classes in the afternoon.”
    KC and Mark were staring straight at me. Carter was working his way through the bag of chips, munching loudly.
    “Where does she go?” Saber prodded.
    The warning bell buzzed, signaling five minutes to the end of the period. I balled up my bag, sandwich barely touched, apple heavy at the bottom, probably smashing my cookies.
    “Gotta go,” I said, springing from the chair like a jack-in-the-box. From the corner of my eye, I’d spotted a hurt-looking Ty slinking toward the door. I bolted from the table to catch up, but lost him in the crush of kids.

    The good thing: In the afternoon I didn’t have to run all over the building, so that sizzly fried-egg feeling started to go away.
    Ty and I had agreed to meet at the flagpole and go home together, and part of me was afraid he wouldn’t be there when I showed up. The quad was nearly empty by the time I arrived, and I spotted him right away: baggy jeans, green T-shirt, sitting on a wall fiddling with a wheel on his skateboard. He hated leaving it locked in the front office all day. It was his love.
    “Hey,” I said, wanting to sound normal.
    “Hey.” He didn’t look up.
    My stomach dipped.
    “I wanted to find you at lunch today,” I tried.
    He spun a wheel.
    I waited.
    The wheel buzzed its circle. He finally peeked up at me from under his bangs.
    “You found people to sit with pretty quick,” he said. I cringed. His Saber issue had started in the fourth grade, when she’d showed a note he wrote to her asking if she knew if Mauri liked him to all the girls in our class.
    “It’s not like that,” I said. I explained what had happened in art, and how they quizzed me about Dezzie. As I spoke, Ty nodded and watched me, laying his skateboard to one side. My stomach evened out. We were okay.
    “So,” I finished, “I think that’s why they waved me over at lunch. I just assumed it was you.” We were walking now, passing out of the school gates and heading home. Finally.
    Ty was quiet. His thinking face was on—mouth turned down at the corners, eyes squinty. “Why do you think they’re so interested in your sister?” he asked after a minute or so.
    “I have no idea. Because she’s new? And little?”
    “Maybe,” Ty agreed. “But there’s gotta be more reasons why. Saber and Mauri aren’t just nice to people because they’re new. And you’re not new.”
    I didn’t know how to answer Ty’s question. There was no reason for Saber and Mauri to be interested in me or Dezzie. They were a pair—a snarky, sparkly matched set. And they had no use for average people who’d dull their shine.
    I was about to mention that to Ty, but then it hit me: Dezzie, of course, was anything but average.
    Yikes.

vi
    That night after dinner, as I crossed the kitchen on my way upstairs to finish some annoying first-day homework, I heard, “Now, Desdemona, let’s try it again,” from the den. I crept closer to the door, wanting to keep out of sight. Something in my dad’s tone was different from the usual “lecture voice” that he used when working with my sister.
    “Hi, new student. That’s a nice