Laugh Till You Cry (9 page)

“Could I go to the club and hear you?” Cody asked.

Jake shook his head. “I wish you could. I know I can count on you to laugh at my jokes. But you’re too young to go to a club, Cody. I’ll have to tell you all about it. Or Ms. Jackson can tell you. She told me she’d be there. Just cross your fingers for me that the audience will think I’m funny.”

“What’ll you do if they don’t?” Cody asked.

“What other stand-ups do when the people in an audience sit on their hands—pretend that they’re laughing and applauding, and keep going, giving it the best I can.”

As Cody and his mother walked to the front door with Jake, the officer said, “Wish me luck.”

“We will,” Cody said, but he thought,
Somebody had better wish me luck, too. If we don’t find out who made those calls to the school, I’m really going to need it.

Friday morning, right after breakfast, Cody opened his top dresser drawer and reached inside to get his
Hamlet
report. As he stared inside the drawer, filled with nothing but rolled-up socks, he felt his mouth drop open in shock. The report he had put in the drawer for safekeeping wasn’t there.

He tugged open the other drawers, slamming them as he saw they didn’t hold his report, either. “Mom!” he wailed.

His mother, who had come upstairs at the same time he had, appeared in an instant. The clean sheets she had taken from the linen closet were piled in her hands. “What in the world is the matter?” she asked.

“My
Hamlet
report!” Cody answered. “It was right here in the top drawer, and now it’s gone!”

“It has to be somewhere,” she said. “Can you remember where you put it?”

“I know where I put it!” Cody said. He glanced at the clock. In less than twenty minutes he’d have to leave for school. Where was his report?

He and his mother searched the room, even checking under the bed. The paper he had so painstakingly written was nowhere in sight.

Cody dropped onto his bed as a horrible thought hit him. “Mom,” he said, “when Hayden, Brad, and Eddie were here yesterday afternoon, did you let any of them come up here into my room?”

“Honey, I was working in the kitchen, cutting up carrots and potatoes for the stew. I didn’t check to see where the boys were.”

“They took my report.”

“I thought we’d settled this suspicion you have about Hayden. Why do you blame him for everything? He had written his own report. Grandma helped him, we know that. He wouldn’t want yours.”

“He would, Mom. He’d want to take it just to get me in trouble.” Cody jumped to his feet and strode toward the open doorway.

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Carter asked.

“To get my report back.”

“Cody!” He wobbled off balance as his mother clamped a hand on his shoulder. “You are absolutely not going to Hayden’s house to accuse him of taking your report,” Mrs. Carter said. “You have no proof that he did.”

“Mom, I know he did.”

“Prove it to
me
.”

Cody thought a moment. Of course he had no proof. He just knew. He also knew that his mother wasn’t going to buy that argument. He’d have to try another. “Maybe he’s just playing a joke, trying to scare me,” he suggested.

Mrs. Carter looked stern. “If it’s a joke,” she said, “then he’ll give back your report and everything will be fine. But there will be no anger and no accusations. Nothing that will upset the family. Do you understand?”

Cody nodded, but he felt a sick knot in his stomach. “I understand,” he said.

Mrs. Carter glanced at the clock. “You’d better continue to get ready for school. You don’t have much time left before you have to leave.”

Cody realized he must look as miserable as he felt, because his mother put an arm around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “Honey,” she said, “I know things are difficult for you right now, but these problems will work themselves out. I promise.”

“Sure, Mom,” Cody said. As soon as his mother had left the room, he hurried as quietly as he could down the stairs, out the front door, and over to the Nortons’ house. He rang the doorbell.

When Alma opened the door, she looked at him in surprise. “Change your mind?” she asked.

Startled, Cody asked, “About what?”

“About going to school with Hayden. He asked his dad for a ride because he had to take his English project to school, and Mr. Norton told him to call you and ask if you’d like a ride, too. So Hayden did, and you said you’d rather walk. Now they’ve already left.” Alma rolled her eyes. “You kids can’t remember things from one minute to the next.”

“What’s Hayden’s project?” Cody asked.

“Who knows? It was in a box. He says it’s a big secret.”

Cody knew that Hayden had written a report based on a stolen idea. A two-page paper couldn’t be heavy enough to require a lift to school. But he had no time to try to puzzle out the answer now. “Alma,” he said, “I think I left part of my project in Hayden’s room. Could I run up there and see if I can find it?”

“Sure,” she said, glancing at her wristwatch. “But make it fast or you’re going to be late.”

Cody took the stairs two at a time to get to Hayden’s room. He fumbled through the stack of papers on Hayden’s desk and threw open the drawers, searching in vain for the
Hamlet
report he had written.

“Cody?” Alma called from the bottom of the stairs. “Did you find what you needed?”

Cody’s last chance was the wastepaper basket. He looked into it and saw that it was filled with torn scraps of paper. He scooped up a handful, sick when he recognized his own handwriting. His report! There was no way he could tape the pieces back together.

“Cody?”

He had begun to let the handful of scraps fall through his fingers when the computer-printed words “powdered sugar” on one of them caught his eye. Snatching up the scrap, he read what looked like part of a recipe on it. There were a few letters that seemed to be the name of a chemical, then “Cook over low” and something else about a long waxed string.

“Cody! You better hurry or you’ll get detention for being late!”

Cody shoved the scrap of paper into his pocket and dashed down the stairs. He needed to talk to Jake. But right now he’d have to run all the way to school.

Just as the first bell was ringing, Cody made it into his first-period class. He dropped into his seat, hot, sweaty, and panting for breath.

Hayden, Eddie, and Brad, turned and grinned at him.

The map his history teacher was unrolling slipped from his hands with a bang, and Cody jumped back into the present. There was no way he’d have time to rewrite his report before English class, but he had to come up with something.

Ms. Jackson had said she wanted them to use their
own original ideas. Okay. What he’d just been thinking might work. If he did what Jake said a detective had to do, then he might be able to save himself.

Cody patted his back pocket, checking for his wallet. Yep. It was there. And inside it was the business card Jake had given him. As soon as he could manage it, he was going to talk to Jake.

Cody was able to avoid Hayden, Brad, and Eddie until English class, but he saw each of them carry his written report up to Ms. Jackson’s desk and put it on the pile. Almost everyone in the class had chosen to write a report. But Paul, the artist, had made a poster of the final act of the play. It had cut-paper bodies and lots of painted red blood. Only Hamlet’s friend Horatio had been left standing. Paul had even added a few glass eyeballs into the carnage. Cody thought it looked cool and creative.

Emily and Jennifer had created a diorama in a shoe box. A small doll, dressed as Ophelia, floated down a blue crepe-paper river, flowers in her hair. Alison, another girl who never talked in class, had cross-stitched a small, lumpy pillow with Polonius’s advice to his son Laertes: “This above all, to thine own self be true.”

Ms. Jackson seemed pleased with all the projects, and she smiled at the class. “Has everyone turned in a project?” she asked.

Cody was aware that Hayden was looking at him. He was sure he heard Eddie giggle. Cody held his hand high and said, “I haven’t, Ms. Jackson.”

She looked surprised. “Why is that, Cody?”

“Mine is an oral report. I will be conducting a trial. I’d like the class, as members of a jury, to decide whether Hamlet was sane enough to be brought to trial for the murders of Claudius and Polonius—or if he was too mentally unstable to know what he was doing.”

“I like your idea of a trial, Cody. Quite original. Come up and you can get started. Have you prepared your witnesses?”

“Oh, no,” Cody said as he walked to the front of the room. “I don’t want to get charged with leading a witness. We’re after the truth. The witnesses don’t know they’ll be called on to testify.”

Ms. Jackson smiled. “All right,” she said. “I’ll turn the classroom over to you. Court is in session. Begin, please.”

Cody tried to stand as tall as he could and looked over his audience, who stared back. For a moment he wished he could just bolt out of the room. He realized what Jake meant by a dead audience, but he remembered what Jake said a detective had to do.

He even thought of his father’s skills as an attorney. He gathered his courage, took a deep breath, and turned the chair kept for classroom visitors so that it faced the class. He began, “I’d like Jennifer, lady-in-waiting to Queen Gertrude, to take the stand.”

Jennifer frowned and didn’t budge.

Before anyone could say anything, Ms. Jackson piped up. “By the way, everyone who cooperates by taking the part of a witness will get extra credit.”

“How much credit?” Jennifer asked.

“Five points.”

Jennifer slid out of her seat, walked to the empty chair, sat down, and waited.

“Are you Jennifer, attendant to Queen Gertrude of Denmark?” Cody asked her.

Jennifer looked scornful. “If you say so.”

“You were with her a lot. Did she ever talk to you about her son, Prince Hamlet?”

“Yes.”

“Was she worried about him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Jennifer squirmed in her chair. Then she answered, “Okay, Gertrude wanted Hamlet to stop moping around because his father had died and also to stop acting so angry with her.” It almost seemed to Cody that Jennifer was getting into the role.

“Did she know why he was angry with her?” he continued.

“She knew he didn’t like the fact that she had married Claudius so soon, but don’t blame Gertrude for that,” Jennifer said defensively. “Think about what life was like for women at that time. She was a queen, and by marrying Claudius she could go on being a queen. If she didn’t marry him, then what was she supposed to do? What was a queen to do? Take a job serving as a waitress in a tavern or scrubbing floors?”

“The witness is getting off the subject,” Cody remarked. To Jennifer he said, “Did she believe Polonius when he thought Hamlet was mad with love for Ophelia?”

“Well, I think she wanted to believe,” Jennifer said.
“She liked Ophelia and would probably have been glad to have her as a daughter-in-law. And being mad with love was a lot better than just being mad, period.”

“Let’s get the facts here. Later—after Hamlet heard someone behind the curtain and stabbed him—did she change her mind?” Cody asked.

“Well, sure,” Jennifer answered. “As she told King Claudius, Hamlet yelled, ‘A rat! A rat!’ and stabbed Polonius through the curtain.”

“Would you say that Hamlet’s own mother thought he was crazy?”

Jennifer thought for only a moment. “Yes,” she said with certainty.

“Thank you for your testimony,” Cody told her. “You may step down.”

As Jennifer went back to her seat, Cody announced, “My next witness will be Emily, best friend of Ophelia.”

Emily giggled, jumped from her seat, and hurried to take the witness chair. Cody noticed that most of the kids were looking interested. Paul and a guy named Bruce tried to catch his eye and pointed to themselves.

As soon as Emily was seated, Cody said, “I understand that you grew up with Ophelia, that you were friends since you were small children.”

Giggling again, Emily said, “That’s right.”

Cody said, “Polonius showed King Claudius and Queen Gertrude some letters and poetry that Hamlet had written to Ophelia. Had she ever shown them to you?”

“The letters?” asked Emily. “Well, I’m not sure.”

“Did Ophelia encourage Hamlet?” Cody asked pointedly.

Emily broke off midgiggle and said, “I guess not
really. I mean, her father thought Hamlet wasn’t really planning to marry Ophelia because he would someday be King of Denmark and he’d have to marry somebody of royal birth. So Polonius told her to give back his letters and poems and tell him she wouldn’t see him anymore.”

“Did she?” Cody pressed on.

“Yes. She did whatever her father told her to do.”

“What did Hamlet do about it? Tell us as much as you know, please.”

“He came to see Ophelia,” Emily said. “His clothes were all messed up, and he was acting weird and saying all sorts of crazy stuff.”

“Did Ophelia tell her father?”

“Yes, she did. That wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t tattling.”

“What did he say?”

“He thought Hamlet had gone nuts because his love was rejected.”

“Did Ophelia think so, too?”

“I guess she thought whatever her father wanted her to think,” Jennifer answered. “At that time a girl had no choice, you know.”

“So she thought he was crazy?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Cody said. “You may be excused. I call on Hayden, attendant to King Claudius, as my next witness.”

Emily, still giggling, hurried back to her seat. Hayden clutched the edge of his desk and looked at Eddie, then Brad, as if waiting for a sign as to what he should do.

Ms. Jackson said, “Hayden?”

Hayden jumped and scuttled to the chair. He wiggled his shoes and looked down, not facing Cody.

“Hayden, you served as attendant to King Claudius. Right?”

“I guess,” Hayden mumbled.

Cody went on, “Doesn’t that mean you helped care for his clothing, tasted his meals to make sure they weren’t poisoned, cleaned his boots, and each morning emptied the pot under his bed?”