"What is the significance of Hamlet's soliloquy at the beginning of act three?"

"Uh, what's a solilo-key?"

My father let out a sigh. The kind that said he wondered why he'd gone into high school education when he could have been a college professor or opted to do lab research with monkeys. Something with intelligent creatures. "Never mind." He turned to me. "Cooper?"

Every time he called on me in his cla.s.s, he ended my name with this little lilt of hope, as if this time, I'd have the answer. This time, I'd have done my homework. This time, I'd make him look good. This time, I'd be the one who would show everyone that the Warner professorial gene had been pa.s.sed along with a hefty dose of brains.

I glanced down at the play. We had been reading it aloud a few minutes earlier, with Joey playing Polonius, the fool. Mike had been the king, Megan had been the queen, and I had been suckered into reading Hamlet's parts while the rest of the cla.s.s had put their heads on their desks and slept. I squirmed in my seat, the words blurring on the page before me. I expected to struggle for an answer, to be lost for anything intelligent.

But for some reason, this time, I heard the entire thing again in my head. The whole "to be or not to be" paragraph replayed itself, as if someone else were shouting the words at me, as though Hamlet were sitting in the chair behind mine, yelling his little speech of indecision into my ear.

"I think he's scared of dying," I said. "But he's got to make this big decision about what to do. About who to kill. And, well, you know, it's not an easy thing to do. The, ah, killing thing."

I looked up. The room was silent. I rarely said more than five words in English cla.s.s if I could help it, and those were usually "Can I go to the bathroom?"

The entire cla.s.s stared at me. Joey was grinning. Mike had a little thumbs-up going my way. Megan looked surprised and wore that smile I really liked on her face. But my father- My father's jaw dropped. He swallowed, closed his mouth, then opened it again. "Go on, Cooper. Go on." He waved at me encouragingly. This big goofy grin was all over his face, and he kept pushing his gla.s.ses up on his nose.

"Well, I don't know." I shifted some more. Why had I said anything at all? Now my father would do this all the time, make me perform for the cla.s.s like some kind of circus lion. I started to say I didn't know anything else, but then I heard the soliloquy continue in my head- To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises ofgreatpith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

The words began to make some weird kind of sense. "Hamlet's tired, too. There's been this kind of burden on him for a while. He thinks these people are after him, you know? And he just wants it to be over. But he feels guilty for what he's thinking about doing. Because-"

I stopped talking. I realized why I knew Hamlet's thoughts. Why reading that soliloquy had seemed so familiar. It wasn't just because I'd happened to be wearing that "Hamlet Had Issues" T-shirt yesterday when my mother tricked me into searching for the lost dog, then caught me by my collar, hauled me across the woods, and threw me down the well, into the clutches of something a Something I didn't want to think about right now.

Wearing the T-shirt had been a weird karmic coincidence.

This, though, was called identifying with the guy.

Hamlet had someone, or something, after him and knew he had to do something drastic, like murder. He had the dual problem of not wanting to pull a Tony Soprano. The age-old debate-to kill or be killed. To be or not to be- Although mine was more to be or not to be eaten.

I slammed my book shut. Holy c.r.a.p. No way was I going to read any more.

"What else, Cooper?" My father moved forward, his white hair sticking up in places, his tweed jacket making him look like a really tall leprechaun who had discovered the lucky jackpot right in front of him-a freshman who was paying attention. "What else do you see?"

"Nothing." I lowered my head. Stared at the "Ken Luvs Lisa 4-Eva" carved into my desk.

"You're on the right track. Tell me more."

"I said nothing," I repeated, louder. I wouldn't look up. I traced the letters with my fingernail, trying to concentrate on something else, but then as I traced, the lines in the desk started to turn color under my nail, going from the pale tan of the desk to a deep, dark green slime.

My finger caught, held in a thick glue. I tried to pull it back, but it wouldn't move. Then the smell hit me. Rotten eggs. Dead pigs. Maggots. Putrid, decaying flesh.

The slime began to spread, reaching tentacles across my desk, leapfrogging one spiny piece over another, crazy green spiders spiraling out on the laminate. I slammed my other hand down, but the slime didn't stop-it railroaded right over my hand, the black-emerald death glue holding my hand in place.

The same green, the same slime. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

But it was.

Oh G.o.d, no, not here. I opened my mouth, then closed it.

It was here. The well. In this room.

My tongue had grown thick; my mouth filled with bile. My heart thundered so loudly in my chest, I couldn't hear anything around me. The well had found me, that creature had come after me, and now it had my hands, had me pinned.

It was going to eat me right here. In room 205 of Maple Valley High School, sitting behind a wood and steel desk.

Holy c.r.a.p. Holy c.r.a.p.

"Cooper."

I jerked back in my chair, trying to tug my hands off my desk, but they stuck, the green slime as sticky as SpiderMan's web, as strong and interlaced as the vines that held the grapes in the vineyard. And still it continued its fast multiplication across my desk, down the legs, wrapping around, grabbing my jeans, strapping me in- We're going for a ride, Cooper. A ride right back to the bottom. You liked it there, didn't you?

I opened my mouth to scream, to beg for help, but nothing came out.

"Cooper!"

I looked up. My father was standing in front of me.

"Are you listening to me?" he said.

I blinked, waiting for him to notice I was being attacked by this crazy ravenous monster, but no, my father just looked at me like he did every single day in English. The roaring of my pulse began to slow; other noises filtered in.

Someone snickering behind me. A cough. A crinkle of paper. Joey laughing behind his hand. "Uh a yeah?" I said.

I glanced down, half expecting to see myself still imprisoned by green. But no, all I saw below me was the constellation of chalk dust on my father's black dress shoes. They were scuffed on the toes, worn in some places. My father had no fashion sense, only bought new clothes when he was forced to because he had to go to a wedding or a funeral, and he wore his shoes until they fell apart. His shoelaces were fraying, the plastic caps long gone. I stared hard at those everyday shoes, part of the everyday world, because they were real. They were here.

I am not in that well. I am in my desk. In a cla.s.sroom. Not in that well. Not in that well.

"Are you all right?" my father asked.

No slime. No green. My hands were my own-no prison.

But in my head, I heard the whisper of laughter. A shiver chased down my back.

"Yeah." It was still the only word I could manage.

The bell rang, and the cla.s.s popped out of their seats with screeches of chairs and sneakers, one ma.s.s exodus toward the hall. I moved to go, but my father's hand on my shoulder stopped me. "Stay here. I want to talk to you."

The cla.s.s emptied out fast. I watched Joey Deluca try to cozy up to Maria in the hall, but she shouted something about dumping her sister and took off down the life-skills corridor. Mike laughed his b.u.t.t off and slapped Joey on the back. Megan stood in the hall waiting for me, toe-tapping the score to Rent.

"Dad, I have to get to cla.s.s."

"I'll write you a note." My father took a seat behind his desk and gestured to the chair beside his. "Sit down."

I sent Megan a go-on-without-me wave. She gave me a frustrated headshake. My next cla.s.s was PE, the only one I hated more than English because we were doing gymnastics. When you're a guy, the pommel horse and the balance beam are about the scariest things on the planet. They represent permanent damage to the most important things in life. Best to avoid them. And my father was giving me the don't-argue glare. So I sat.

Besides, I wasn't ready to face anything right now. My whole world still felt really, really weird. I glanced back at my desk. It looked just like everyone else's. I must have nodded off. Had some kind of freakish daydream.

Only, part of me knew it hadn't been a daydream.

My father took his gla.s.ses off, laid them carefully on his desk, then pinched the bridge of his nose. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing."

"Something's wrong. Your face and arms are all scratched up; you're not yourself. You zoned out on me for a while back then. Are you sleeping all right? Your mother said you didn't come home last night."

"I spent the night at Joey's."

My father toyed with his gla.s.ses, flipping the arms back and forth and tap-tapping at the felt pad on his desk. "That's funny. Because I overheard Joey say he just came back from a weekend in Michigan with his folks."

Busted. "I, ah, went over after he got home."

My father looked as if he'd sucked down a lemon. "Tell me the truth, Cooper. I'm not an idiot."

The truth. Yeah, sure he wanted that. My father was too old, too stuck in the world of Shakespeare and Twain to believe anything like this. I didn't think he'd seen a sci-fi movie in his life. He was, as he told me often, a realist. Which meant he thought everything I did fed into my chances of getting into college.

What he wouldn't get was that right now, I was more worried about surviving to the end of the week.

"Just some stuff going on with Mom and a" I let my voice trail off. Let my dad fill in the blanks. He was good at that. It was why he did the crossword puzzle every day in ink.

"And your stepfather?"

I studied the chalk-dust pile on the floor beneath the board. It looked like snow. How could one man have accu mulated so much chalk dust in such a short period of time? "Yeah, something like that."

"You should have come to me." My father leaned forward, his chair creaking. He tipped my chin up, as though I were still a little kid, until I looked at him. "You could have stayed at my house."

"And done what, Dad? Extra a.n.a.lyses of Hamlet?" I popped out of the chair and crossed away from him. "No thank you. Whenever I come over to your house, you don't listen to me-you just keep throwing more homework in my lap. Whoa, there's a good time, Dad."

"I'm trying to prepare you for your future, Cooper. College-"

"I don't care about college right now! I have bigger things to think about." I glanced again at my desk. Ken still luved Lisa 4-Eva. The world of room 205 was still normal.

"What, like girls?" My father's face took on this uncomfortable, screwed-up, tight look. Whenever he had to talk to me about girls, he got nervous, like from some movie out of the fifties. I wondered if he'd even dated again after he and my mother divorced.

"Yeah, whatever." Whatever it took to get him off my back.

"How are things with you and Megan?"

As if my dad really wanted to talk about my girlfriend with me. He never had before, and he wasn't about to start now.

"Dad, I have to get to PE. You know how Mr. Clayburn gets." The dude did freak when we were late. He was bald, and his entire Q -tip head turned into one big red bulb when someone came in late or moaned about a stomachache.

But that wasn't really why I wanted to leave. I couldn't quit looking at my desk, couldn't quit checking to make sure Ken still luved Lisa. If he quit luving her and the green web of slime took over again- I couldn't think about that.

My father pursed his lips. "Fine. Here's a note." He scribbled out a pa.s.s and handed it to me, but he didn't let go. "Promise me the next time things aren't going well at home, you'll come to me instead of running off to G.o.d knows where?"

"Yeah, sure, Dad." I took the pa.s.s, then headed to the door. I stopped and looked back. I don't know why. Maybe to see if my father was still watching me, still worrying. If he had been, maybe I would have talked to him. Maybe.

But he had his leather-bound Complete Collected Works of Shakespeare open and was already making notes for third period.

I'd been dismissed.

Faulkner caught up to me outside after school. "Come on, Sh.e.l.ley's going to give us a ride to Mickey D's. We're getting some drive-through rehab."

"Sh.e.l.ley? I'd rather walk. She drives like a third-grader on a sugar high." Though the thought of some fries and a burger wasn't a bad idea, being in a car with Faulkner's girlfriend could kill me faster than all the grease from every fast food joint put together.

"She's not that bad. And besides, she just got her license back."

"That's what's wrong right there, Faulkner. Just got her license back. Why'd they take it away in the first place?"

"Dude, that telephone pole wasn't there the week before, and who leaves trash cans in the middle of the street?" He shook his head. "You're harsh. Give her some slack."

I grabbed Faulkner's arm. "No way. My life is already in enough danger. I'm not tempting fate by getting into Sh.e.l.ley's car."

"Whatever. But a you will be home, right?" For a second, I could almost believe Faulkner cared. Then he punched me in the arm. "Because it's your turn to take out the garbage and I'm not doing your ch.o.r.es. j Comprende?"

"Yeah, I will." I felt like adding something smart, like "hide the knives," but I suddenly felt really tired. I had to go home at some point, though, right? I dropped onto the bottom step of the granite stairs, laid my backpack beside me, and let the human exit wave pa.s.s by.

Faulkner let out a breath. "Coop, don't worry so much. Things'll work out."

I didn't look up at him. "Yeah? How do you know?"

"I don't," Faulkner said, his gaze going to the parking lot, to the normal world that ran around us like some movie. "But they just have to."

Then he patted me on the shoulder and headed off toward Sh.e.l.ley's dented Mazda.

Megan.

When I thought of making the world all right, that was the first name that came to mind.

The problem?

She wasn't speaking to me.

Problem two?

I needed her anyway. And I really needed to make things right between us.

And I knew just where to find her. Back when I'd been on the football team-and therefore had a life-she'd been on the other side of the pompoms. A cliche, I know, but hey, we were freshmen. We were walking cliches. It was the only way to survive and not get pummeled by the uppercla.s.smen.

I cut across the football field, sending a wave to the team. Trying to pretend I didn't care that they were there and I wasn't. That they were going on with ordinary lives, in padding and helmets, fighting over a brown overgrown vinyl bullet, while I tried to figure out how to save myself from a monster.

Maybe I had imagined the whole thing yesterday. That's what I kept telling myself. The farther I got from the well, the more distance I put between myself and that pit, the feeling of a breath, of hunger on my shoulders, running down my spine, the more I could- No.

I couldn't fool myself. Not for long. The lie worked only for a few seconds. Like a Halloween mask. The neighbors would open the door, you'd say, "Trick or treat," and in a half second, they'd know it was Tommy from next door because he had his whiny sister beside him in her fairy princess costume. Or jenny from down the street because her four-eyed face was peeking out of the yellow felt M&M bubble.

The rah-rah of a dozen girls in blue and white carried on the air in a coordinated wave along with the punctuation marks of pompoms. I scanned the faces, the twirling bodies, looking for Megan.

But she wasn't in the group. Wasn't spelling out the school's letters with all the pa.s.sion of Fall Out Boy groupies. "You seen Megan?" I asked Rebecca Maxwell, whose heftier shoulders were holding up the enthusiasm pyramid.