Read The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet for Free Online Page B

identifying the ingredients in potage of mutton.
     
    In my room later, Dezzie apologized.
    “I am sorry I told, Hamlet,” Dezzie said. She was wearing her Finding Nemo pajamas—the ones with fish on the pants and a picture of the turtles on the top—and her long hair was still damp from her bath.
    And I could tell that she truly was. Not that it made me feel any better. I kept her age secret at school; the least she could have done was keep my coursework off Mom and Dad’s radar screen. I stretched out across my bed and knocked my math book onto the floor with my foot.
    “Are you mad at me?” She stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, big-eyed and quiet-voiced.
    It’s hard to be mad at someone who is barely four feet tall and wearing Nemo pants.
    “No, Dez, I’m not mad at you,” I said, feeling like a jerk for being upset.
    She straightened and eyed me like a TV cop evaluating a criminal. “It’s all right if you are. From now on, I will try and do my best not to share excess information.”
    Having a brainiac little sister is tough enough, but when she’s not only smart, but you kind of like her, that makes it even worse.
    “It’s fine,” I said, taking a deep breath and finding some genuine forgiveness. I sat up, and she joined me on the bed, sitting cross-legged across from me.
    Dezzie sighed. “I know I need the social development and the art credit,” she said, changing the subject. “I just don’t think Howard Hoffer is the best environment for me. I wish Mom and Dad would let me just do art and music at SMARTS over the summer.”
    SMARTS is the camp for gifted kids that Dezzie goes to each year. It’s a way for children with high IQs to spend time with other kids like them, so they won’t feel alone in their genius. Most of the kids that go are between nine and thirteen, but there are a couple who are Dezzie’s age. They take classes (of course), but there’s also a lot of encouragement to do camp-type stuff: arts and crafts, swimming, Topographic Beach Exploration . . . you know, the usual.
    For the past three years, we’ve attended SMARTS Family Day—when the “campers” present mini-lectures on their coursework and the moms and dads ooh and ahh. The first year we were there, my parents made me go to a class called Siblings of Gifted Scholars. We had a group leader—an older brother to one of the former campers, who is now in medical school at fifteen. The leader guy was twenty, and he would try to encourage us to talk about our “feelings of jealousy, inadequacy, or rage” toward our brilliant sisters and brothers.
    The Scene: A classroom at SMARTS camp. Eight or ten kids of various ages sit at desks pushed into a circle and wear bored expressions.
    Group leader: I always wished that my parents paid more attention to me. Do you ever feel this way?
    No one responds. Girl with pink hair nods.
    Group leader: These thoughts are perfectly normal. You are special too, you know.
    Pink-hair girl looks like she’s about to speak. A guy, who’d been leaning back in his chair, clicks all four feet to the ground.
    Chair guy: Are you a psych major in college or something? ’Cause you’ve got some major issues. The only thing that sucks about my brother being a whiz is this lame camp that my parents bring us to every year. The rest of the time they leave me alone.
    Pink-hair girl watches the floor. Everyone else nods.
    Girl in dark denim dress: Yeah, it’s sweet. They’re so busy worrying about Jules that I can do whatever I want.
    Group leader (sweat beading on forehead): Aren’t you looking for some attention? Don’t you want your parents to be involved with you ?
    Pink-hair girl leans forward in her chair, as though to talk.
    Me (surprised that I’m speaking): No way. The less involved, the better.
    Pink-hair girl slumps in her seat.
    First guy: Can we go now? ’Cause I don’t think any of us really need to be here.
    Group leader (swallows a few times): Urm, well, I