Tuesday, English class
“HOW MANY OF YOU BELIEVE, ‘WHOEVER DIES WITH THE MOST STUFF wins’?” Ms. Hollins was asking as Nate slid into his seat. He was replaying what his mom had just told him…. How could his dad—a total fitness freak, Mr. Organic Foods—have had a heart attack? Nate wanted to go to California with her.
Ms. Hollins cupped an elbow with one hand while her other hand stroked her cheek nervously. “Yesterday at St. John’s I read a poem called ‘Ozymandias.’ It’s a harsh, sobering, uncomfortable poem, but Mr. Tut liked what it said about ambition and our capacity to delude ourselves. We were discussing it recently. Mr. Tut thought its message was particularly meaningful for all of you here at Chaps—that’s why I chose it. The poem was written by a friend of Byron’s who also died young. He drowned swimming off the coast of Greece. His name was Percy Bysshe Shelly.”
Chris Butler snorted softly, muttering, “Jesus, what were his parents thinking?”
Usually Ms. Hollins indulged wisecracks, especially Chris’s. Not today. “Excuse me, Chris?” she said stonily.
“Nothing, sorry…just the guy’s name.”
Ms. Hollins made Chris open his book and read the poem aloud. “Page seventy-three,” she ordered.
Chris began reading:
“I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said: ‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read…’”
When the poem was over, Ms. Hollins said, “Okay, Chris. Tell us, what’s the poem about?”
“Uh…I think it’s about a statue, a broken statue of a king who used to be very powerful.”
“Correct.” Then she recited the last lines from memory, her eyes closed, her eyelids twitching slightly. “And on the pedestal, these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!”” A pause. Her eyes popped open. “Just like Ozymandias, we’re all going to die—me, you…you…you….” She went around the room, stopping to stare at every single kid. “No matter how powerful, how rich, how famous we become, we all wind up the same—dead.” A creepy little smile flickered on her lips. “Someone has the largest house in the Hamptons, the most designer shoes, more money than could be spent in ten lifetimes—does it matter? Do the toys mean anything?…If all of us are going to die, what’s left in the end?” She shrugged and pointed to Lily B. “Tell us.”
“Yes, Ms. Hollins, I get it,” Lily B. said sullenly. She was examining a short strand of hair in front of her eyes, twirling it and untwirling it. “You’re dead, and sooner or later nobody has a clue you were once a big deal.”
“Correct. Ozymandias at one time was feared throughout the world, he—Lily, you have got to stop playing with your hair! I’ve watched you for weeks and it’s about to drive me wild!”
Lily’s hand froze. Her mouth dropped open.
“Colossal statues and monuments were built to exalt him. As for us,” Ms. Hollins continued quite cheerfully, “why we’ll be lucky to get a few lines on the obituary page in the newspaper. ‘Food for worms,’ Shakespeare said. That’s how we’ll end up.”
Thankfully the bell rang. Nate scooped up his books and backpack.
“Nate, could you stay a moment?” Ms. Hollins called after him.
“Uh, I’m kinda in a rush.” He wanted to call his father. And Olivia, who’d jumped up the second the class was over, was signaling to him, like she wanted to talk out in the hall.
“Then could you stop by my office later?” Ms. Hollins was putting their papers into her tote. She walked out of the classroom with him and gestured at his backpack. “I heard about what happened to you at the school dance.”
Her and the rest of the world. Two sophomores had come up to him this morning asking if he had any weed on him they could buy.
“We need to talk,” Ms. Hollins said. “Maybe I can help. Come by before six.”
Help how? “Thanks,” he said uncertainly.
Mr. Marshall was striding past and overheard the exchange. He stopped, nodded approvingly as if giving a thumbs-up to Nate—See, kid, we’re all in your corner! Ms. Hollins watched the headmaster resume his march down the hall before saying, “So six? You’ll be there?”
Nate nodded. Farther down the hall, Olivia was casting a nervous glance at the stairwell. Nate followed her gaze. Sergeant Peratta was lumbering up the stairs. On the landing, he stopped to catch his breath and looked around, squinting.
Shit, what had the cops found now? A dead body stuffed in his locker?