Geek Drama

There’s also quite a fun moment where a sharp voice announces from the audience:

  “Is that my wedding dress, Natalie Grey?”

  Followed by a sigh and: “Oh, well. It wasn’t that lucky first time round either, poor girl.”

  (Nat’s dad ran off with the checkout girl from Sainsbury’s.)

  By the time my best friend has fluffed up her hair and laid down on the floor with her face pointing awkwardly towards the audience, I think everyone is really starting to enjoy themselves.

  You can tell, because the audience has started loudly supporting their favourite characters as if it’s a football match.

  “You go, Hamlet!” one shouts.

  “Horatio, I love you!”

  “Where’s the ghost gone? He’s super hot.”

  Toby remains completely impervious to the attention he’s getting. I guess there are some benefits to being socially oblivious, after all.

  “Alas,” he says calmly, kneeling on the floor and prodding Nat’s face. “Poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio.”

  Nat abruptly jumps up, and I wince and put my hands over my eyes.

  Sugar cookies.

  “Yes,” she says loudly. “But I’ve been dead in the cold, cold ground for many years now, and I will never see the warm light of the sun again. I’m so cold. So very, very cold. It’s so sad. Remember me. Remember meeeee.”

  And – as I peek through my fingers – Nat does a little bow and lies calmly back down in her grave again.

  “Yeeeahhh!” Dad yells out. “Go Yorick! You rock, girl!”

  I relax with relief. OK: that’s nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. The hamster is safe, after all.

  From behind the curtains, Hannah, Noah and I give each other a nod and then start hauling Raya back on to the stage, while Hamlet and Laertes yell at each other about who is most upset about her death.

  Then we place her in the middle of the stage and stand respectfully to the side while she’s buried.

  Or, you know. Is supposed to be.

  “I loved Ophelia!” Toby says stiffly, bending down and touching Raya’s hand. “Forty thousand brothers could not have—”

  Raya’s eyes snap open. “No, you didn’t.”

  There’s a pause. “Sorry?”

  “You didn’t love me at all.” She sits up with her hair sticking out vertically and her eyelids swollen and pink like thick bits of ham. “You said you did, but you didn’t. It was all rubbish.”

  “But I did love you,” Toby says in consternation. “It says so in the script.”

  “No,” Ophelia snaps, her voice getting louder and louder. “You just like saying it. It doesn’t mean anything to you. You go on and on about your feelings because it makes you feel like a hero, but that’s not real love. Love is, like, not killing somebody’s dad, for starters.”

  “I’m terribly sorry about that,” Toby admits. “It was a pretty big error of judgement.”

  “And love is not dumping someone and then trying to send them to a nunnery so they can’t meet anyone else.”

  “Agreed,” Toby says. “That is very true.”

  “And love is not asking out that dimwit in your art class who I asked you time and time again if you liked and you said no and you were obviously lying because I saw the text on your phone!”

  “Umm.” Toby looks completely startled. “Yes, well. Indeed.”

  There’s a muscle twitching in the corner of Raya’s mouth, and her eyes are shining. “So stop thinking about yourself all the time,” she snaps angrily, “and show me some respect.”

  She lies back down again with her hands crossed neatly over her front like a vampire and closes her eyes.

  There’s a hushed silence.

  Then somebody in the audience yells: “Do something, Hammers!”

  “Don’t be such a douchebag, Hamlet!”

  “Girl power, Ophelia!” somebody cries from behind the curtains, and it sounds suspiciously like Miss Hammond.

  Toby frowns and looks round the stage. We’re all watching him anxiously.

  “You’ve made a series of very valid points, Ophelia,” he says after a thoughtful pause. “So, as you’re clearly alive, shall we get married and forget about this revenge business?”

  Ophelia sits up and wipes her eyes. “Yeah, go on then.”

  “Does this mean I don’t die?” Laertes checks.

  “Or me?” says Claudius.

  “And I don’t have to lie on the floor?” Gertrude asks. “Because frankly it’s totally filthy.”

  “Nobody dies at all!” Toby says jubilantly. “It’s all going to be OK!”

  “Apart from me,” the ghost of Hamlet’s father points out gloomily. “I’m still dead, right?”

  “And me,” Polonius points out. “Figures.”

  Everybody grins at each other.

  This is definitely the way Hamlet should have gone. I mean, it worked for Much Ado About Nothing, didn’t it? And Romeo and Juliet would have been a lot more cheerful if Juliet had sat up on her deathbed and yelled at Romeo for being an idiot just ten minutes earlier.

  “Right,” Toby says cheerfully, holding out what appears to be a yellow jelly sweet ring. “It’s a good thing I keep these in my pocket.”

  And as Ophelia jumps up, sorts out her dress and the funeral vicar conducts a hurried and totally ad-libbed marriage service, the crowd stands up and starts cheering.

  Maybe a happy ending is what everyone is really looking for, after all.

  y the time we’ve taken our seventh group bow of the evening and various parents start congratulating Mr Bott on an “inspirational interpretation that really questions genre, doesn’t it?” I’m so flushed with success I’ve almost forgotten what I have to do now.

  Almost, but not quite.

  As the curtain closes for the final time, I hold on to Nat’s hand for just a bit longer than I have to.

  Her face is glowing, and she’s glancing up and down the row of cast members with a distracted, critical eye. “Should have given Mia the flat cap,” she murmurs to herself. “And Raya’s shoes needed to have softer soles. Maybe a ballet pump, or a low-heeled Mary-Jane, or—”

  “Nat,” I say quickly, squeezing her hand. It’s so clear now, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.

  Except – as with the stilton – maybe we don’t notice what’s right under our noses.

  “You should still go into fashion. But as a designer or a stylist or something. You’d be perfect at it.”

  Nat frowns.

  “But it’s really competitive, Harriet,” she says doubtfully, “and I’m not sure I—”

  “It doesn’t matter. You love it and you’re incredibly talented. Think about it?”

  Nat nods and blinks a few times, and I squeeze her hand and jump off the stage.

  Toby is calmly explaining his T-shirt to a group of parents clustered enthusiastically around him.

  “It’s red now,” he’s saying, pulling at his own sleeve, “but if I was to run very fast it would compress the frequency of the light waves and therefore become blue. It’s called the Doppler effect.”

  He starts running around in a circle a few times to demonstrate.

  “Sadly, though,” he adds, “I would have to move at approximately 340 million miles an hour, and, given my current PE grades, that seems unlikely.”

  I tap him on the shoulder.

  “Umm,” I say anxiously, clearing my throat, “Toby, I think you saved the play.”

  “Probably,” Toby agrees, sticking his finger in his ear, digging around for a few seconds and then wiping it on his trousers. “I was just relieved I didn’t have to step in as Ophelia.”

  I laugh. That would have been a very postmodern interpretation of Hamlet. Miss Hammond would have been delighted.

  “Well,” I say. “Thank you.”

  And – before I can stop myself – I throw my arms loosely around his skinny chest and give him a tentative hug.

  “Does this mean we’re going out no
w?” he checks.

  I grin and start heading backstage again. The heart is situated just to the left of the breastbone, and you can say what you like about Toby, but his is definitely in the right place.

  “Nope,” I call over my shoulder. “But maybe next time you’re at my house, knock on the door instead of hiding in the bushes.”

  Finally, I reach the darkest corner of backstage and stop.

  I take a deep breath.

  I take another one, because I think I’m going to need it.

  Then, like Lucy about to confront the White Witch of Narnia, I cautiously take a step forward.

  And open the door of the cupboard.

  pparently, fewer than four people a year are killed by sharks. Statistically, they are less dangerous than lightning, cows, coconuts and foods with high saturated fat contents.

  I still know which one I wouldn’t go swimming with, though.

  Let’s just say: some endings are scarier than others.

  “You,” Alexa hisses coldly, narrowing her eyes. “You.”

  I nod. “Me,” I agree.

  Miss Hammond appears from around the corner. Her necklaces are jangling so hard she sounds like an approaching sleigh pulled by a team of hyperactive reindeer.

  “Alexa,” she says loudly, “I want to see you in my office right now.”

  She doesn’t have an office – she’s a drama teacher – but that’s not a clarification I’m going to make.

  Alexa rolls her eyes and then glares at me.

  “I’m going to make you pay for locking me in a cupboard,” she snarls under her breath. “Believe me, Harriet. You’ve just made your life five trillion times harder. This isn’t over.”

  “Obviously,” I say, watching as she’s marched out of the room with Miss Hammond behind her.

  The doors swing shut just as my bottom starts vibrating. For a second, I’m so distracted I think I might have turned into a bumblebee.

  Then I remember I popped my phone into my back trouser pocket in the last scene, just in case of emergencies.

  Or – you know.

  So Australian boys can call me.

  “Hey,” a warm voice says. “Is it done? Was it great? Did you smash it?” Then there’s a laugh. “Actually, you might literally have smashed it. You didn’t destroy the entire set, did you?”

  The heart might normally be red, but mine is suddenly beating so fast there’s a really good chance it’s now bright blue.

  I smile and stand behind the curtains so I can watch the happy chaos unfold.

  The entire room is bright and full of noise.

  Raya is pink cheeked and talking to a good-looking boy in Year 12; Max and Ben are fencing each other with two stolen mops; Hannah is playing Rock-Paper-Scissors with Rob. Kira is being reluctantly hugged by two teary-eyed adults, and Christopher is regaling everyone with anecdotes about his dramatic process.

  Mia and Noah are sitting with their fingertips touching.

  Even Mr Bott has his arms unfolded, possibly for the first time in known history.

  Everyone looks so proud. So excited. So happy.

  “It was brilliant,” I say in surprise as Dad starts trying to film the pizza box and Annabel tries to stop him. “Kind of … fun, actually.”

  I can’t promise I’ll ever be in a play again – unless I’m cast as a silent potato, or maybe a piece of watermelon – but I think I was wrong.

  Maybe drama can be quite cathartic after all.

  “So I’ll pop over tomorrow and watch the full, unedited video with you?”

  I think about the dogs barking, the cats meowing, the cockerels crowing. I think about the rainbow lights and disco music; my apparent smelliness. My inexplicable offering of biscuits to a hundred total strangers.

  My total, public humiliation.

  “Sure,” I smile. If Nick’s going to hang out with me, he might as well know what he’s getting himself into. “See you tomorrow.”

  Then I put down the phone and look at Nat.

  She’s in the corner of the room, animatedly showing her mum the yellow buttons she sewed on to Rob’s velvet jacket. Her cheeks are pink, her eyes are shining and her hands are moving at a mile a minute, which is what happens when she’s really, really excited about something.

  They say there’s an invisible tie between you and the people you love. For just a few seconds I can feel it running from me to my best friend and back again.

  Nat must be able to feel it too.

  Because, in the middle of a sentence, she stops, looks up and winks at me.

  I wink back.

  And it suddenly doesn’t matter what Alexa has in store for me. It doesn’t matter how bad it’s going to get.

  There’s always somebody holding my hand.

  So I won’t have to face it alone.

  Read more from Geek Girl …

  Click on the covers to read more.

  Harriet Manners knows a lot of things:

  Cats have 32 muscles in each ear.

  Bluebirds can’t see the colour blue.

  The average person laughs 15 times per day.

  Peanuts are an ingredient of dynamite.

  But she doesn’t know why nobody at school seems to like her.

  So when she’s offered the chance to reinvent herself, Harriet grabs it. Can she transform from geek to chic?

  And get your geek on with Harriet Manners as she jets off to Tokyo and New York …

  Coming soon …

  Turn the page for an exciting

  geek sneak preview of All That Glitters …

  My name is Harriet Manners, and I am a genius.

  I know I’m a genius because I’ve just looked up the symptoms on the internet and I have almost all of them.

  Sociological studies have shown that the hallmarks of extraordinary intelligence include enjoying pointless pursuits, an unusual memory for things nobody else finds interesting and total social ineptitude.

  I don’t want to sound big-headed, but last night I alphabetised every soup can in the kitchen, taught myself to pick up pencils with my toes and learnt that chickens can see daylight 45 minutes before humans can.

  And people don’t tend to like me very much at all.

  So frankly I’ve pretty much nailed this.

  Other symptoms of genius I recognise include:

  Difficulty sleeping

  Random temper tantrums for no reason at all

  Messiness

  General strangeness

  “I’m confused,” my father said, when I triumphantly showed him my ticked-off list. “Aren’t they also the symptoms of being a sixteen-year-old girl?”

  “Or a baby,” my stepmother added, peering over to look at it. “Your sister appears to fit the profile too.”

  Which just goes to show why so many of the intellectual elite are misunderstood. Even our own parents don’t recognise our brilliance.

  Anyway, as the biggest sign of a high IQ is asking lots of questions and I got to the page by Googling:

  Am I a genius?

  I’m feeling pretty optimistic.

  Which is good, because this morning is my first day back at school so I’m going to need all the extra brain power I can get.

  That’s right, I am now an official Sixth Former.

  By my calculations I have spent exactly eleven years of my life at school so far: 2,145 taught days, or approximately 17,160 hours (not including homework or the free tests I downloaded to take on holiday).

  In short, I have invested over a million minutes in education in preparation for this precise moment. The day when all my carefully-collected knowledge will be valued and appreciated, instead of just irritating other people.

  Finally, school is getting serious.

  Gone are the homework-haters and eye-rollers, and – thanks to an influx of brand new students from other schools – in their place are people who really want to learn. People desperate to know that gerbils can smell adrenaline and a caterpillar has twelve eyes, or that th
ere’s enough carbon in your body to make 9,000 pencils.

  People just like me.

  And I couldn’t be more excited.

  As of today, I have five A-Levels to study, two universities to introduce myself to early and a bright career in palaeontology to begin pursuing in earnest. I have statistics to analyse, frogs to dissect and thigh exercises to start so I don’t get cramp when I’m brushing soil away from dinosaur fossils in the not-so-distant future.

  I have brand new, like-minded friends to make.

  For the first time in my life, I am exactly where I’m supposed to be – in my natural habitat, like a polar bear in the Arctic or a Nopoli goby fish, perfectly adapted to climbing waterfall rocks with its mouth.

  Except hopefully in a much more scholarly and much less sucky kind of way.

  And it might be the same school with a lot of the same people, but things are about to change. After eleven years of scraping insults off my belongings and retrieving my shoes from the cisterns of toilets, this is my chance to start all over again. A new beginning.

  A chance to shine.

  This time, everything will be different.

  Luckily, another symptom of genius is an inbuilt ability to multi-task.

  So this morning I decide to make the most of it.

  I learn that there are forty different muscles in a bird wing while I’m getting out of bed.

  I discover that a sea urchin walks on its teeth while I’m combing my hair, and that parasites count for 0.01 per cent of our body weight while I’m brushing my teeth.

  Clothes, socks and shoes are all picked out and donned as I fully absorb the fact that a snake smells with its tongue and hears with its jaw. I study the names of British kings and queens as I run down the stairs, and by the time I reach the kitchen I’m on to Secret Service code names (Prince Charles is “Unicorn”, which is a shame because I was hoping one day they’d use that one for me).

  “Did you know,” I say as I lean down to kiss Tabitha on her little round cheek, “that the average person will eat five hundred chickens and thirteen thousand eggs in a lifetime?”