Read Online Doppelganger by David Stahler Jr. - Free Book Online Page B

don’t remember,” I said.
    â€œWell, who cares, anyway.”
    â€œI do,” I said. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind going.” I should have taken her up on her offer to bail, but for some reason, I didn’t.
    She looked at me and rolled her eyes again. “All right, whatever,” she said. “Just pick me up at nine. You know how I hate getting there early.”
    â€œHow about you pick me up?” I suggested. I didn’t know how to drive, let alone where she lived. “My father needs the car,” I explained.
    â€œYou mean I get to drive?” she said. “How enlightened of you.”
    The bell rang. Everybody around us started moving. She leaned in and fixed me with a glare.
    â€œAll I can say is, it better not be like last time.”
    â€œYou mean last time wasn’t good?” I asked. Big mistake on my part. As soon as I said it, she recoiled in disgust. I think if she’d had a knife, she would have stabbed me.
    â€œYou’re a bastard,” she said. She got up and left.
    Way to go , Chris, I thought as I watched her walk away.
    Â 
    The last class of the day was English. The teacher, Ms. Simpson, was young and pretty, and you could feel the energy rise in the room the moment she walked in.
    â€œAll right, everybody, get out your Macbeth s and turn to act two. We’re going to pick up where we left off yesterday.”
    I pulled out the paperback and checked the cover.
    Shakespeare. I’d heard of the guy, but my mother never brought any of his stuff home for me to read.
    â€œWhen we started this play at the beginning of the week, what was our take on Macbeth?” Ms. Simpson asked. “Susie?”
    â€œWell, like, he was a hero, right?”
    â€œYeah, he was the good guy,” a boy added.
    â€œThat’s right,” Ms. Simpson agreed. “Before we even saw him, we heard about his exploits. And, like you said, he was the hero. But what made him a hero? I mean, what was he doing, Richard?”
    â€œKilling,” Richard said. “The bleeding sergeant describes him slicing that rebel dude in half and sticking his head on a pole.”
    â€œThat’s right. And how does Duncan, the king, react to the description?”
    â€œHe gets all excited,” a girl said.
    â€œHe does. And who can blame him? After all, Macbeth has just saved his royal rearend. But the point here is that, right away, Shakespeare’s showing us that the world of the play is a violent one, and that everyone is complicit in that violence, from the king on down. Most of all our hero—Macbeth is knee-deep in it from the start.”
    â€œBut even so, why does he turn around and suddenly go after the king?” a boy asked.
    â€œIt’s his wife, man,” Richard said. “You saw what she did to him. She totally manipulated him.”
    â€œSo what?” the kid replied. “He’s still responsible, isn’t he?”
    â€œYou both raise interesting points,” Ms. Simpson said. “What is it that leads Macbeth to do what he does? I want you all to think about that as we make our way through the scenes surrounding the murder. So let’s get started.”
    I shrank in my seat as she went around handing out parts. Her eyes fell on me for a second, but she gave me a pass. I was glad—the last thing I wanted was to have to read in front of everyone on the first day. Not to mention the fact that all this talk about killing had me a little freaked out.
    Of course, as soon as we started reading, things only got worse. Don’t get me wrong, the play itself was great. I mean, I didn’t understand half of what the characters were saying, but somehow it didn’t matter. I understood enough, and Ms. Simpson explained the tougher parts. The trouble was that the play was almost too good. It was really creepy—all that darkness in the old castle and the weird hallucinations with the dagger and the