Catherine Asaro - Nebula Awards Showcase 2013

“Just like summer,” he said. “Delilah’s using an aluminum sun reflector.”

“Ass,” Ms. Harrows said.

“Beg pardon?” Greg said.

“ASS, the Association of Summer Sunbathers objects to the line, ‘I am too much i’ the sun,’” Ms. Harrows said, and took a swig from the bottle of cough syrup.

We were only half-finished by the time school let out. The Nuns’ Network objected to the line, “Get thee too a nunnery,” Fat and Proud of It wanted the passage beginning, “Oh, that this too too solid flesh should melt,” removed, and we didn’t even get to Delilah’s list, which was eight pages long.

“What play are we going to do?” Wendy asked me on my way out.

“Hamlet,” I said.

“Hamlet?” she said. “Is that the one about the guy whose uncle murders the king and then the queen marries the uncle?”

“Not any more,” I said.

Delilah was waiting for me outside. “‘Many of them brought their books together and burned them,’” she quoted. “Acts 19:19.”

“‘Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me,’” I said.

It was overcast Wednesday but still warm. The Veterans for a Clean America and the Subliminal Seduction Sentinels were picnicking on the lawn. Delilah had on a halter top. “That thing you said yesterday about the sun turning people black, what was that from?”

“The Bible, ” I said. “Song of Solomon. Chapter one, verse six.”

“Oh,” she said, relieved. “That’s not in the Bible anymore. We threw that out.”

Ms. Harrows had left a note for me. She was at the doctor’s. I was supposed to meet with her third period.

“Do we get to start today?” Wendy asked.

“If everybody remembered to bring in their slips. I’m going to lecture on Shakespeare’s life,” I said. “You don’t know what the forecast for today is, do you?”

“Yeah, it’s supposed to be great.”

I had her collect the refusal slips while I went over my notes. Last year Delilah’s sister Jezebel had filed a grievance halfway through the lecture for “trying to preach promiscuity, birth control, and abortion by saying Anne Hathaway got pregnant before she got married.” Promiscuity, abortion, pregnant, and before had all been misspelled.

Everybody had remembered their slips. I sent the refusals to the library and started to lecture.

“Shakespeare—” I said. Paula’s corder clicked on. “William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon.”

Rick, who hadn’t raised his hand all year or even given any indication that he was sentient, raised his hand. “Do you intend to give equal time to the Baconian theory?” he said. “Bacon was not born on April 23, 1564. He was born on January 22, 1561.”

Ms. Harrows wasn’t back from the doctor’s by third period, so I started on Delilah’s list. She objected to forty-three references to spirits, ghosts, and related matters, twenty-one obscene words (obscene misspelled), and seventy-eight others that she thought might be, such as pajock and cockles.

Ms. Harrows came in as I was finishing the list and threw her briefcase down. “Stress-induced!” she said. “I have pneumonia, and he says my symptoms are stress-induced!”

“Is it still cloudy out?”

“It is seventy-two degrees out. Where are we?”

“Morticians International,” I said. “Again. ‘Death presented as universal and inevitable.’” I peered at the paper. “That doesn’t sound right.”

Ms. Harrows took the paper away from me. “That’s their ‘Thanatopsis’ protest. They had their national convention last week. They filed a whole set at once, and I haven’t had a chance to sort through them.” She rummaged around in her stack. “Here’s the one on Hamlet. ’Negative portrayal of interment preparation personnel—’”

“The gravedigger.”

“‘—And inaccurate representation of burial regulations. Neither a hermetically-sealed coffin nor a vault appear in the scene.’”

We worked until five o’clock. The Society for the Advancement of Philosophy considered the line, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” a slur on their profession. The Actor’s Guild challenged Hamlet’s hiring of non-union employees, and the Drapery Defense League objected to Polonius being stabbed while hiding behind a curtain. “The clear implication of the scene is that the arras is dangerous,” they had written in their brief. “Draperies don’t kill people. People kill people.”

Ms. Harrows put the paper down on top of the stack and took a swig of cough syrup. “And that’s it. Anything left?”

“I think so,” I said, punching reformat and scanning the screen. “Yes, a couple of things. How about, ‘There is a willow grows aslant a brook/That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.’”

“You’ll never get away with ‘hoar,’” Ms. Harrows said.

Thursday I got to school at seven-thirty to print out thirty copies of Hamlet for my class. It had turned colder and even cloudier in the night. Delilah was wearing a parka and mittens. Her face was a deep scarlet, and her nose had begun to peel.

“‘Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings as in obeying the voice of the Lord?’” I asked. “First Samuel 15:22.” I patted her on the shoulder.

“Yeow,” she said.

I passed out Hamlet and assigned Wendy and Rick to read the parts of Hamlet and Horatio.

“‘The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold,’” Wendy read.

“Where are we?” Rick said. I pointed out the place to him. “Oh. ‘It is a nipping and an eager air.’”

“‘What hour now?’” Wendy read.

“‘I think it lacks of twelve.’”

Wendy turned her paper over and looked at the back. “That’s it?” she said. “That’s all there is to Hamlet? I thought his uncle killed his father and then the ghost told him his mother was in on it and he said ‘To be or not to be’ and Ophelia killed herself and stuff.” She turned the paper back over. “This can’t be the whole play.”

“It better not be the whole play,” Delilah said. She came in, carrying her picket sign. “There’d better not be any ghosts in it. Or cockles.”

“Did you need some Solarcaine, Delilah?” I asked her.

“I need a Magic Marker,” she said with dignity.

I got her one out of the desk. She left, walking a little stiffly, as if it hurt to move.

“You can’t just take parts of the play out because somebody doesn’t like them,” Wendy said. “If you do, the play doesn’t make any sense. I bet if Shakespeare were here, he wouldn’t let you just take things out—”

“Assuming Shakespeare wrote it,” Rick said. “If you take every other letter in line two except the first three and the last six, they spell ‘pig,’ which is obviously a code word for Bacon.”

“Snow day!” Ms. Harrows said over the intercom. Everybody raced to the windows. “We will have early dismissal today at 9:30.”

I looked at the clock. It was 9:28.

“The Over-Protective Parents Organization has filed the following protest: ‘It is now snowing, and as the forecast predicts more snow, and as snow can result in slippery streets, poor visibility, bus accidents, frostbite, and avalanches, we demand that school be closed today and tomorrow so as not to endanger our children.’ Buses will leave at 9:35. Have a nice spring break!”

“The snow isn’t even sticking on the ground,” Wendy said. “Now we’ll never get to do Shakespeare.”