![\"potions\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Potions-300x130.jpg\")
I go to Parkside High, home of the Not-So-Great Apes.<\/p>\n
Wait. That might not be their name.<\/p>\n
Then what is it?<\/p>\n
What? What? What?<\/p>\n
Oh, this is the worst. I have to remember what to call them so I can cheer them on to victory in \u201cThe Big Game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just kidding.<\/p>\n
But now I\u2019m serious: If you see me at \u201cThe Big Game\u201d or even \u201cThe Petite But Adorable Game,\u201d shoot me. Shoot me dead before I cram my hand into a foam \u201cWe\u2019re Number One\u201d finger.<\/p>\n
I hate my school.<\/p>\n
Parkside High has a plus-size student body. Whoever said good things come in small packages (I think it was either Aristotle or Perez Hilton) should have gone on to say that it\u2019s never a good idea to stuff too much into that small package. That\u2019s Parkside: too many kids packed into the stairwells like cattle.<\/p>\n
\u201cTemple Grandin, please report to guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the crush of students at Parkside, I don\u2019t stand out. I\u2019m a stealth student flying under the radar and sailing under the sonar and slithering under the electric eye. I might as well be invisible and fragrance-free.<\/p>\n
This morning I climbed the front steps of the school in a herd, wondering, as always, how I was going to make it through another day. (Hypnotize myself? Chew my cud?) Then it was into the hallowed halls and up the stairs to the second floor. Mr. Littlefield, my biology teacher, was standing outside his classroom, which is what the teachers at Parkside do to provide a safe and welcoming environment for us students. Oh, the warmth! I nodded at him, and he flashed me a winning fake smile and said, \u201cThere he is!\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, I was there. And thank you for noticing.<\/p>\n
Farther down the hall, I ran into Mrs. Webber, my math teacher, and gave her the continental nod-smile combo, the one that comes with the complimentary French eyebrow.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cHey\u2026how\u2019s it going?\u201d<\/p>\n
I stuck a thumb up and narrowed an eye like a sniper. She was thinking, Here\u2019s a young man who\u2019s going places. I was thinking, Hey, how\u2019s it going, Spencer<\/i>? Just once.<\/p>\n
I slipped in through the rear door of\u00a0Mr. Talbot\u2019s room and sat at my desk in the back left corner, which is where I sit in all my classes if I have a choice. While I was wrenching my English binder out of my backpack, I heard somebody come in through the front door, so I looked up and saw a young-ish woman\u2013mid-twenties?\u2013raking a tangle of curly black hair away from her face. She pushed her Clark Kent glasses up, too, while her hand was in the area. She was wearing clunky motorcycle boots, a colorful batik skirt (or was it a tablecloth?), a powder blue men\u2019s dress shirt from the dollar rack at Goodwill, and a fuzzy pink cardigan she inherited from her great-aunt after the 23 cats that lived with the old girl ganged up on her one night and smothered her while she slept.<\/p>\n
She looked fabulous.<\/p>\n
Old Mr. Talbot, bent over his desk like Bob Cratchit, was squinting at his iPad and trying to do something mind-blowingly complicated like check his school email.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cMr. Talbot?\u201d<\/p>\n
Nothing from him. Not now. He was busy. Intense concentration required. Barely breathing. Emergency call.\u00a0Bomb squad. Tick tick tick. Got to defuse it.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cI\u2019m your intern,\u201d and smiled.<\/p>\n
Snip the blue wire. Wait\u2013maybe the green.<\/p>\n
She advanced on him with her hand extended, and finally he blinked and said, \u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSue Stein. Your intern.\u201d<\/p>\n
As they shook hands, he said, \u201cOh, my goodness. Welcome to Parkside High, Ms. Stein. I\u2019m Milton Talbot.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019d been paying attention to what was going on in the front of the room and hadn\u2019t noticed my English binder sliding down the desktop. It tipped over the edge and slapped the floor, which made Ms. Stein look my way.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d she said. \u201cHello there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHi.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of your sophomore English students: Schuyler Watson.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Spencer Wilson.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNice to meet you, Spencer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRight,\u201d I said. \u201cSpencer. Nice to meet you, too, Ms. Stein.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other kids were showing up for English now, but she kept talking to me, which was refreshing. She said, \u201cI\u2019m a student at the university, and I\u2019m going to be here for a while doing an internship\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2013teaching Macbeth<\/i>,\u201d said Mr. Talbot, a dim smile perking up his saggy face.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cReally? I didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, yes.\u201d said Mr. Talbot. \u201cMacbeth<\/i>. Every year at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. Stein said, \u201cIt\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve read it, so I\u2019m going to need some time to prepare.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, there\u2019s no need, dear. No need at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did I notice the skin over Ms. Stein\u2019s temples tighten ever so slightly when she heard \u201cdear\u201d? (How would you know? You weren\u2019t there. Forget I asked.)<\/p>\n
Mr. Talbot opened a squeaky drawer low on his vintage oak desk and lifted out a tome that looked like a Bible with a water retention issue. He said, \u201cYou can use my Macbeth<\/em> file,\u201d and dropped it\u2013thwomp!\u2013onto his desk, narrowly missing the iPad.<\/p>\n Ms. Stein gulped.\u00a0\u201cThank you. I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be a big help.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Talbot said, \u201cWell, let\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean now?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo time like the present.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just meant I thought I\u2019d have a day or two to get settled in and\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, give it a try. Jump right in. I\u2019ll introduce you.\u201d<\/p>\n And within a minute, Ms. Stein picked the Macbeth<\/em> file up from Mr. Talbot\u2019s desk and started reading to us. What fun. Nothing else quickens the pulse like listening to someone read unfamiliar material written in a leaden style. When she got to the part about the play being written in iambic pentameter, Mr. Talbot clapped the five-beat rhythm, looking happy that he could still clap.<\/p>\n I scanned the room from my observation post in the back to see how the lesson was going over: Thirty-two kids looked ready to go nighty-night.<\/p>\n Ms. Stein kept reading. \u201cThe Bard arranged words to suit his needs and desires, whether to create rhythm or to highlight phrases or to make a character\u2019s speech pattern unique. At times, he inverted the typical word order of English speech. For instance, a character might say, \u2018Goes he,\u2019 instead of \u2018He goes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Rudy lifted a well-muscled arm and said, \u201cMs. Stein, I\u2019ve got to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Stein said, \u201cGo? You mean to the\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBad.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Talbot said, \u201cYou\u2019re a sophomore in high school now, Rudy, and it\u2019s time you learned self-control. See if you can hold on.\u201d<\/p>\n When they get around to remaking the juvenile delinquent movies of the 1950s, Rudy will be cast as a brooding loner in a tight T-shirt who gets shot accidentally when a zip gun battle breaks out at the Pulaski Day Dance.<\/p>\n While Rudy slumped at his desk and scowled, Ms. Stein, her forearms seizing up, put the file down and said, \u201cYou know, kids, I was just thinking. So much of William Shakespeare\u2019s life is unknown to us, but his life\u2019s work is familiar to people all over the world. Isn\u2019t that something? He wrote Macbeth<\/em> 400 years ago, and here we are today at Parkside High beginning our study of that very play.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Talbot looked just a tad put out. Back to the file already!<\/p>\n But Ms. Stein pressed on extemporaneously, probably glad to give her arms a rest. \u201cI remember one of the themes of this play is ambition, and now that I\u2019m thinking about it, it seems to me that Shakespeare, who was a playwright trying to forge a career in an iffy business, must have understood what a powerful drive ambition can be, and that probably helped him write the Macbeth character as a fully-formed human being.\u201d<\/p>\n I made a note of that.<\/p>\n Camden, famous school-wide for her flowing mane of perfect blonde hair and for using people and then throwing them away like dental floss, must have heard that tidbit even though she was watching a horror movie on her iPad with her earbuds plugged in underneath all the hair. She snapped her fingers. Taylor, her top handmaiden, leaned forward from the desk behind her.<\/p>\n Camden said, \u201cWrite that down.\u201d<\/p>\n Write that down?<\/p>\n Oh.<\/p>\n Ah.<\/p>\n I see.<\/p>\n Camden wanted to give the impression to Mr. Talbot and Ms. Stein that she was paying attention and<\/i> she wanted to keep Taylor on her toes. Just last year all she was allowed to do for Camden was give her her dessert at lunch, and now this year she picks out the horror movies that Camden watches in school. If that isn\u2019t the American Dream in action, I don\u2019t know what is. Of course Taylor makes herself sick worrying that her movie selection might displease Her Highness, but that\u2019s the price she pays for status. Today\u2019s movie seemed to be a winner. Phew. From what I could glimpse, it had something to do with dead teenagers. Maybe you\u2019ve seen it.<\/p>\n Ms. Stein said, \u201cThe ambition that drove Shakespeare to make a name for himself with his plays was like the ambition that drove Macbeth<\/em> to make a name for himself by murdering Duncan and\u2013\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Talbot said, \u201cAll well and good. Thank you, Ms. Stein.\u00a0Now please return to the lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s what Ms. Stein did, but she looked a tad put out herself to be reined in just when she was starting to roll.<\/p>\n I wrote \u201cmake a name for himself\u201d in my notebook.<\/p>\n Then I leaned on my elbows, my face in my hands, and closed my eyes so I could concentrate on the lecture.<\/p>\n Not.<\/p>\n I took a nap.<\/p>\n When I came to, I checked out the room again. Some of the kids were awake, but their heads were doing the slow orbit thing, and there was drooling.<\/p>\n Ms. Stein read, \u201cIn the year 1603, King James VI of Scotland ascended to the throne of England, at which time he also became known as King James I. Londoners of the day became as interested in Scottish culture as students at Parkside High School are today.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, there\u2019s a meaningful benchmark.<\/p>\n And the bell rang.<\/p>\n Rise and shine!<\/p>\n The other kids left, but I stayed behind for a minute to look at my notes.\u00a0While I was reading them, I highlighted \u201cambition,\u201d \u201cmake a name for himself,\u201d and \u201ctheatre,\u201d and when I did that, the seed of an idea took root in the mental soil inside the cerebral flowerpot on the psychological windowsill of my mind\u2019s kitchen, right next to the virtual spider plant.<\/p>\n This is chapter one of Brian Daly\u2019s Toil & Trouble<\/em>, a novel about \u201ca high-school sophomore who thinks he\u2019s put the Macbeth<\/em> Curse on his school\u2019s production of \u2018The Scottish Play<\/em>.\u2019 He\u2019s the author of Big and Hairy<\/i>, a middle grade novel. He also wrote the screenplay adaptation of that book for a Showtime Original\u00a0 Feature starring Richard Thomas. Look for a staged reading of Brian\u2019s new musical comedy Come Out Swingin<\/em>\u2019!<\/i> at the Lyric Music Theater on October 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is chapter one of Brian Daly\u2019s Toil & Trouble, a novel about \u201ca high-school sophomore who thinks he\u2019s put the Macbeth Curse on his school\u2019s production of \u2018The Scottish Play.\u2019 He\u2019s the author of Big and Hairy, a middle grade novel. He also wrote the screenplay adaptation of that book for a Showtime Original Feature starring Richard Thomas. Look for a staged reading of Brian\u2019s new musical comedy Come Out Swingin\u2019! at the Lyric Music Theater on October 2. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12135,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12133\/revisions\/12135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}