The Meanings of Lost

Chapter 9

Diana:

I go to the only place I know, her dorm room. Luckily enough, I find her sitting straight as a stick on her bed, leaning against the wall. I knock on the frame, but she doesn't respond. Her eyes are closed.

"Ambrosine?"

"Hmm?" She looks around. "Oh, hi," she says when her eyes find me.

"May I come in?" 

She shrugs. "I'm not stopping you." 

As I walk into the room, I notice she's holding a journal. I walk over to the bed slowly, watching her face. She's expressionless as I approach. I sit on the very foot of the bed and am met with no complaints.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Good question," she mumbles. I doubt she's paying much attention. "As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII. Lines thirty-six to forty-three to Jacob says to Duke Senior:

O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,

And says, if ladies be but young and fair,

They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,

Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit

After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd

With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!

I am ambitious for a motley coat," She recited the quote perfectly, in a dramatic, passionate voice with just the right pitch to make me believe a young man could have spoken.

"Really? That's it?" I asked, amused. Had she actually been pondering over that quote before I walked in?

"No, it's just the first thing I thought of when you asked me." I smile.

"So you like Shakespeare, I take it?"

She rolls her eyes. "Everyone does, and those who do not are lying. Or haven't actually studied or read him. Honestly, you'd be surprised how many sayings we have today that originated in his writings. And the movies that wouldn't exist! Most people don't know that their favourite movie The Lion King was based on the dreadful tale of Hamlet!" She giggles slightly at the end, and I assume she's thinking of someone in particular.

"Is As You Like It your favourite play?"

"No, but I do enjoy it. I like them all, I guess. I've never really ranked them though I've always enjoyed Macbeth." She begins to chant: "When shall we meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?" Her voice changed slightly. "When the hurly-burly's done, When the battle's lost and won." She changes her voice yet again. "That will be ere the set of sun." Back to the first voice: " Where the place?" The second: " Upon the heath." And finally in her last voice: "There to meet with Macbeth."

"That was impressive. You made it sound like there were three people talking."

"Naw, that's easy. You just change your pitch or make your voice more lighthearted or more wrathy. Signing in different voices, now that is hard. I learnt that when I was young. My parents had a theatre, but it was very small, so when we did Macbeth the witches were heard but not present most of the time, so I could do the voices."

"I guess you did a lot in the theatre?"

"Yes, I did. I actually miss it, not surprising though. I've always known I miss having too much to do when the time came. Luckily the ballet was looking for a kid with a theatrical slash performing background to be Clara. Or I'd be bored silly."

"How often do you get bored?" I ask. I read somewhere that people with photographic memories or that are plainly advanced tend to find repetitiveness boring.

"Well, more recently all the time. There's no reason to do the online program, so I may no longer do it. The school isn't so bad, keeps me on my toes, but once I have finished all my classes or homework, there isn't much else to do."

"You could come live with me," I raise an eyebrow. "I could make things interesting."

"My mom does that," she says automatically, then realizes her mistake. "I mean, used to. I... I don't really want anyone else too." Ambrosine suddenly becomes so small. Her posture never breaks or changes, but I can see how small she feels.

"You know, I'm not totally alien to what you're going through." Her glance proves she doesn't believe me. "My mother didn't die, true, but she didn't raise me. My aunt did. She taught me to fight and defend myself, quite literally.  She died well before I was ready, though I wasn't quite as young." She just nods, staring at the blue wall opposite to us.

"All the world's a stage and death is just the seventh act," she mutters. "As You Like It, extreme abridging and paraphrasing." 

Mayhap she processes things in plays and literature. Sees herself or and emotion explained in a story, and uses that story to explain to herself and the world. I guess it could be worse. I can read Shakespeare.

"Diana?" She calls me back.

"Yes?"

"I still don't want to live with you," I shouldn't find it funny, but the certainty with which she says it is unparalleled to anything I've heard before. I burst out laughing.

She crosses her arms over her chest.  "What's so funny?" 

"Sorry, just the way you said. I swear you sound like the fate of the world revolves around you staying here."

"Maybe it does," she says in the same, flat tone. "Maybe it doesn't. Either way, I'm not risking my place here and I'm not going to some school for animals and the unrefined. I've done that once and I will not do it again."

"You mean public school?"

"Yes. And before you ask, I was there for two full years and I went to various ones. They are all strewn with the same problems: students don't want to learn, teachers don't want to teach. There is no discipline, no punishments that are consequential. There's no respect. They're also very hypocritical."

"Really?" I don't know the difference. I was never schooled here.

"Yes!" Fiery passion again. "The teacher got angry at me for handing in my homework on the due date after they extended it for another month because they didn't want to correct it. When I was told to write an opinion article, I failed because my opinion was not the same as that of the rest of the class. When I did creative writing, I always tried to write stories like those I read, with believable religions and characters and lands with history, but whenever it wasn't ridden with flaws, the teachers accused me of plagiarism and didn't even check online to see if it was true. The one teacher that did said she couldn't find it online, but that I was still a liar. In Stonewall, excellence is rewarded, not punished. Do you know that an accusation of plagiarism can stop you from ever going to university? We had to fight them in court to have it removed so that my future wasn't blown to smithereens by incompetence." 

"That's all true?" 

She nodded and takes a deep breath. "The longest two years of my life, and ordeals I have no intention of ever repeating."

"What about the online programme?"

"You have to have a specific reason that proves that taking the online classes is a better option than showing up to school every day. And it can't just be because it's easier. I got it before because with the theatre I could attend all rehearsals and also have time to audition for other productions and attend Spirit Productions. All of that is preparing for the future, which is what school is supposed to do. Therefore, in preparation for my future, I was able not to attend all the time. I still had to show up three times a month to write tests, but other than that I was fine as long as I never missed a class. Which I never did." She looks down, her jaw askew. "Although I guess if you could come up with a convincing reason - I'm not doing the work because you want this way more than I do - we can see about it after the holidays when applications for online schooling reopens."

"I think I can do that," I reply.

She offers her hand. "Deal, Miss Prince." 

We shake on it.