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"'Sup, Mad Max," said Mr. Gordon, unflapped as only adults who could unashamedly use the word 'sup' could be. "I dunno, Maxie; it's Mardi Gras, hon, you want something, but far as I can tell you haven't shown me a thing. Of what you know about Hamlet, I mean," he said brightly, and hopped back onto his desk, where he crossed his legs. "Actually, you haven't been doing much showing in general." He picked up his folder and flicked it open with a smack. "Mostly of the 'up' variety. You got anything to say for these absences?"

Silence.

"I was afraid of that," said their teacher, heaving a theatrical, Lemony Snicket-esque sigh. "This is some deafening silence I'm hearing. Looks like I know which class I won't be recruiting Sweeney Todd from this year."

He threw a string of green beads in the air and caught them. He was generally gifted at that sort of thing. "Thanks for volunteering, Tate. If you say your lines in the next fifteen seconds I might not make you get up here and act them out," he said, placid.

No one said Mr. Gordon was easy to please.

Ugh. Maybe she should just learn to drink a hot cup of shut the ******** up every morning instead of hot chocolate. Deafening silence was preferable to actually having to pay attention and read. Hamlet in script form, anyway, she could read the manga adaptation for hours and hours and hours, except. Well, English wasn't exactly all about reading the manga adaptations of Shakespeare, it was about reading the original text.

She stared at him for ten seconds, looked at the string of kitschy gold beads around her neck for two, and then, in sepulchral tones, read off from her book (underneath her desk, of course, where she'd had it the whole time): "And liegemen to the Dane."

And then she looked to Azzo. That was a flashy copy of Hamlet, thought Tate as she put her rather worn, school-assigned copy on the desk, open to the page. The fact that it was not, as yet, falling apart was a testimony to her scholarly aspirations--or lack of them, as it were.

Waiting for Marcellus to come up again, she examined the beads again. Probably it would break before she asphyxiated. This meant she was stuck, and that was a shame.

If there was one thing that made the return to Meadowview remotely bearable, it was the amusement that stemmed from Mr. Gordon's English class. Math was laughable, Audrey ran that teacher in circles chasing his own tail. Almost, she regretted killing the old one. Almost. Also, you were more likely to find an amazing motley crew at this high school, whereas Barren Pines was chock full of stuffy intellectuals.

Much like one Miss Janice Fitzpatrick, come to think of it, who was currently clicking her pen like the annoying she-demon she was. It was causing Audrey to consequently tone out the rest of the class, and let her thoughts wander.

And if Hamlet was simply ok, Macbeth was better, and she yearned for the day they could think about that one. Audrey, of course, had absolutely no thoughts of regicide. Not a single one! Really. The arrival of Madison Heller jolted the bluenette back to attentiveness, and she couldn't help but roll her eyes slightly at the pile of beads. English wasn't her best subject, but really. Is that what it took to motivate people?

Obviously.

Janice was about to relay an answer over to Vera, but that was stopped short in favor of shooting a completely disgusted look at the two people who had the nerve to walk in late. One of them had the nerve to bring in a Shakespeare book that had more flourishes to it than any book she had ever seen, and the other -- well, the other was Madison Heller. She preferred Madison Heller more when she wasn't doing the showing of the up variety in any of her classes.

She had quickly decided that all of the non-AP students that had been crammed into this classroom were more of numbwits than half of the AP students she normally had to sit with.


Nora was unphased by the late arrivals, instead giving them friendly waves and "I'm-so-happy-you-showed-up!" smiles before she turned attentively back to listening to Tate give her lines. Even though she was no more than a foot and a half away from Janice she seemed completely and entirely unphased by the pen-clicking emanating from next to her.

Genevieve was not late for class. Genevieve was never, ever late for Ray Gordon's class.

Ever.

She also was not sitting front and center, as such a position was less than ideal for the activity that occupied a great deal of the period. Her time with Mr. Gordon was soon to reach its end, and the proximity of graduation breathed down the back of her neck like some kind of monster in pursuit. While other students glanced longingly at the numbers on a clock, Genevieve stared solemnly at those on the calendar on the inside cover of her Lisa Frank notebook. Suppressing a sigh, she dragged the pink, felt-tipped Sharpie across the date. It obliterated the number with a soft squeak.

The flexible, neon-rainbow cover of the notebook flapped closed as Charys Murphy bantered back and forth with Mr. Gordon. It was almost ritual, and one which Genevieve envied greatly. Why did she get so much attention? Even if it was negative, it was infuriating to thrust her hair into the air time after time after time only to get run over by Mystery Slacker Theatre 3000. Genevieve cast the girl a sour look, tore the cap off of her black Sharpie with her teeth, and continued writing on the cover of her notebook:

"Because," said Mr. Gordon, "I have never smoked a bowl of ice that had that effect on me. If you do please come and inform me for extra credit. Proof required. Is that all, Charys?"

Charys was pretending to sleep again.

"That's fortunate," he said, cheerfully, and unfortunately for Jenny-V Gordon-Prideux and Cherry Valance both, "because I was thinking how nice it was you'd just volunteered yourself for something. Because some students, like Jenny-V over here," he motioned to the smitten girl, "are a little too shy to volunteer. Why don't you both get up here and make good examples of yourselves for the class?"

Silence from Charys, bug-eyed wonder from Genevieve.

Ray put his fingers in his mouth and let out a shrill, eardrum-piercing, sleeper-waking whistle. Charys blinked. "Up you gets," he said, still cheerful.

Once they did he gave the fatal sentence to them both: "Time for some LARPing, ain't that right, Maxie? Cherry, you're the ghost of Hamlet the First. Jenny, you're one of the poor suckers that has to meet him. I've got a message for Cherry on this paper," and he handed said strip to Charys, "and she's got to charade it to you, and the class gets to guess what on earth is going on in this impromptu seance. That all make sense?"

Contrary to everyone else in the class, Tallulah was actually quite upset by all the interruptions and the sudden stripping of her role of Horatio. Then again, Tallulah was a freak of nature and everyone at Meadowview knew it but her, so no one really cared when she started to sulk, very quietly and unobtrusively, in the front row.

Since when was it fashionable to arrive half an hour late and interrupt class? Since when was it okay to wake up from a midmorning nap to accuse Horatio of being on drugs? (He was arguably the sanest person in the whole play, if she could have her say. Which she couldn't.) Tallulah knew better than that, so she sulked. Even if all the top literary critics said Shakespeare had to be seen to be understood, this was just getting idiotic.

As Charys and Genevieve took the stage (so to speak), Tallulah took a long sip from her coffee cup and stared pointedly at them, as if to accuse them of wasting her (and everyone else, for that matter's) time.

Mr. Gordon was a good English teacher, that was to be sure, but she wished he was a stricter disciplinarian.

"It will definitely be on the test, Pridoof," said Charys kindly to the younger girl, muttering underneath her breath. Mr. Gordon tolerantly watched them swapping maidenly secrets, and she added: "You should ask Mr. Gordon to smoke a bowl with you sometime. Bring him a bowl. Ask him to smoke it with you. One of those paper ones, not shitting. It's an ancient Indian ritual, he's one-sixteenth Cherokee."

Jenny looked dubious. Ray handed Charys the strip.

Charys groaned like an antique door on reading, but the class' attention was becoming focused again: Genevieve looked as though she had been picked out as Vanna White to roll Ray's Wheel of Fortune, and was wearing the same look of horrified excitement as seen on the face of beauty pageant winners. Charys scratched the stud at the side of her nose, staring vacantly off into space. Then she held out her hands --

"Five words," guessed one of the boys in the middle row, "first word -- "

"Uh-uh, silencio," said Mr. Gordon. "I said charade, not Charades. I want to see your dubious acting chops." The other girl was still distractedly looking at the English teacher, not actually at Charys, and did not look 1. scared 2. awed. The ghost of Hamlet the First tapped her sneakered foot impatiently on the floor, thinking.

"You have to answer with a line from the book," said the teacher tolerantly. "Act One, stick to the ghost speeches. Cherry, a star's waiting to be born here."

She blinked her brown eyes solemnly, half-asleep. Then Charys flew into action: she stabbed her finger forward at Genevieve, who looked a little horrified. Jenny was smaller and sweeter than Murphy, and also had Lisa Frank notebooks and rhinestone earrings shaped like Tinkerbell, and she got a finger stabbed towards her until some of the students hesitantly called out --

"You?"

"You -- "

More finger stabbing.

"Your -- ?"

The ghost of Hamlet I motored around to Jenny, moved behind her and curled her arms around her own so that Genevieve was doing the age-old position of rocking a baby. Someone said, "Dykes," and Mr. Gordon said: "It is Denmark, but no cigar. Gay jokes must all be fabulous in my class. F-."

The ghost of Hamlet I rocked more significantly. Genevieve looked confused. People were now calling out, "Baby," until Charys pointed at Jenny, upon which there were more doubting calls of, "Baby?" until someone -- Tallulah? -- had squinched up her nose and said, "Mom." Hamlet I detached, and Genevieve kept on rocking the baby until she realised that she was no longer required to. Hamlet I looked at Ray, jingling with beads, went over to Ray, and gently spun him around so that he was facing the other wall.

Then she went back up in front of the class and made the ancient, complex motion of "d**k sucking." She got stared at pretty blankly, along with a lot of sniggers, until someone with an iota of creativity who'd been following with the text open yelled in triumph:

"So to seduce won to his shameful lust the will of my most seeming-virtuous queen!"

"'Your mom is a whore,'" confirmed Hamlet I. "Ten points to Gryffindor."