LITMIR.BIZ

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says in an even sharper voice. “You always have a thought to share with us. In fact, it’s usually difficult to stop you from sharing it with us.”

      “I’ve no thoughts,” I tell him in a meek voice.

      “Good to know. That’s what I like to see: a student approaching her exams with nothing at all in her head.”

      Alexa looks up from where she’s been texting somebody under the desk and snorts with laughter.

      Oh, yes, Alexa’s in the top sets too. Unfortunately, she’s both mean and smart. I have at least another three years left of her to look forward to, and then she’ll probably follow me to university. Although, given the amount of time she spends on her phone in our classes, I can only assume she’s really, really good at last-minute cramming.

      “Alexa?” Mr Bott snaps, whipping round to face her. “Is something funny?”

      Alexa looks over to me and raises an eyebrow. “No,” she says in a meaningful voice. “Quite the opposite. Mostly sad, I’d say.”

      Nice. She’s managed to insult me in front of the teacher and he hasn’t even noticed.

      “Well,” Mr Bott says, but he doesn’t look happy either. In fairness, he rarely looks happy. I don’t think he teaches because it fills him with a deep inner light. “How about Little Miss Shouter and Little Miss Giggles both come up to the front here and give us your perspectives on a little question I have.”

      Alexa’s face goes suddenly pale, and as we walk to the front, she’s throwing metaphorical daggers in my direction.

      “Now,” Mr Bott says, “turn and face the whole class, please.”

      My cheeks are getting hotter and hotter. I turn so that my body is in the right direction, but try to focus on the floor.

      “So, Alexa Roberts and Harriet Manners.” Mr Bott sits down and gestures gracefully to the board. “As you are both clearly fascinated by this text, would you like to explain the significance of Laertes in Hamlet?” He looks at Alexa. “Please go first, Miss Roberts.”

      “Well…” Alexa says hesitantly. “He’s Ophelia’s brother, right?”

      “I didn’t ask for his family tree, Alexa. I want to know his literary significance as a fictional character.”

      Alexa looks uncomfortable. “Well then, his literary significance is in being Ophelia’s brother, isn’t it? So she has someone to hang out with.”

      “How very kind of Shakespeare to give fictional Ophelia a fictional playmate so that she doesn’t get fictionally bored. Your analytical skills astound me, Alexa. Perhaps I should send you to Set Seven with Mrs White and you can spend the rest of the lesson studying Thomas the Tank Engine. I believe he has lots of buddies too.”

      Alexa’s face suddenly goes bright red and she looks utterly humiliated. I feel really sorry for her, actually.

      Mr Bott then turns to me. “It’s your go, Miss Manners. Anything to add?”

      I stare at the floor for a few seconds. Answering interesting intellectual questions correctly in public is possibly my single greatest weakness. Every time I do it, I make myself even less popular. But I can’t help myself.

      “Well,” I say slowly, and even though I know I should say in my most stupid voice, No idea, sorry, I say: “Laertes is a literary mirror for Hamlet. The play is ostensibly about Hamlet avenging the murder of his father, but actually, it’s about Hamlet procrastinating instead. Laertes is a sort of alternative universe Hamlet, because when Hamlet murders his father, Laertes takes immediate revenge and pushes the play to its conclusion straight away. So as a literary construct, I think he’s there to show what would have happened if Hamlet had been somebody else instead. It’s sort of Shakespeare’s way of saying that our stories are driven by who we are and what we do, and not by the events that happen to us.”

      I take a deep breath. Toby starts clapping, but I shoot a look that stops him.

      “Very good, Harriet,” Mr Bott says, nodding. “Excellent in fact. Possibly even a degree-level answer, although a distinctly second-class one.” He looks at Alexa coldly. “Alexa, English literature doesn’t have any right answers. But it has a hell of a lot of wrong ones. And your cracker was one of them.”

      “Sir!” Alexa exclaims indignantly. “This isn’t fair! We haven’t got to the end of the play yet! Harriet cheated!”

      “It’s not called cheating,” Mr Bott says tiredly, putting his hand over his eyes. “It’s called having a vague interest in the storyline.” Then he puts his fingers briefly on the bridge of his nose and breathes out.

      “But—” Alexa says, cheeks even redder.

      “I can see my time here is well spent,” Mr Bott interrupts. “And on that encouraging note, I am going to go and collect some more textbooks from the staffroom. At least three members of this class appear to be reading Romeo and Juliet, hoping I won’t notice the difference.” He sweeps a look of total disdain round the classroom. “Entertain yourselves for five minutes. If you can.”

      And then he leaves. Like a circus master who has just bashed an angry tiger on the nose and then locked it in a cage with his assistant.

      I turn slowly to face Alexa, and somewhere in the distance – outside of the terrified buzzing that has just started in my head – I can hear the sound of thirty fifteen-year-olds sucking in their breath at the same time.

      “Well,” Alexa says eventually, turning to look at me, and I swear she sort of growls. “I guess now it’s just you and me, Harriet.”

      ou know in romantic films, there’s always that moment where the love interest just can’t hold back how they feel any more and has a sudden need to declare themselves in public?

      It’s always totally predictable, and always totally expected, yet the heroine is always shocked and surprised, as if it’s out of the blue. I’ve never understood that. I mean, how dense is she? Couldn’t she see it coming a mile off? Couldn’t she feel the gradual build-up of tension, like everyone else?

      Now it all makes a little bit more sense. You don’t see things happening to you. Only when they’re happening to somebody else. Alexa’s passionate, inexplicable hatred for me has nowhere else to go. It has come to a big pulsing head and now it’s going to come bursting out.

      I look at the door desperately. Should I try to escape? Or keep my head down and try to get through it? We’re at school. Just how bad could it be? And you know the scary bit? There’s still a part of me that’s about to correct her grammar. “You and I,” I’m tempted to reply. “Not you and me. Now it’s just you and I, Alexa.”

      “Well,” Alexa says again and I can tell the whole class is still holding its breath. “Harriet Manners.”

      I swallow and take one step towards my seat.

      “Oh, no. No, no. You’re not going anywhere.” She grabs the back of my school jumper and pulls me to the front of the class. It’s not a violent tug; it’s gentle, almost like a mother trying to stop her child from walking across the road when a car is coming. I stop and stare at the floor, making myself as small as possible.

      “Could you have made me look any more stupid?” Alexa asks, almost conversationally. “I mean, ostensibly? Did you actually use the word ostensibly?”

      “It means ‘apparently’,” I explain in a whisper. “Or ‘supposedly’.”

      Why didn’t I use ‘supposedly’?

      This seems

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