by Tony Abbott
“And I’m Frankie Lang,” said Frankie. “We’re—”
“You’re Montague spies, that’s who you are!” said the second man, his sword twitching an inch from our nostrils. “And we’ll get you!”
“No, you won’t!” shouted a loud voice from the far end of the square. We turned to see two new guys rush into the square, yanking out their pointy swords, too.
“If there are any spies to get,” one of these new guys said, “we shall get them, you—Capulets!”
Our two men gasped. “You—Montagues! Get them!”
In a flash—clang! clonk! pling!—everybody was getting everybody else. The air rang with the sound of blade against blade. I mean, the four guys went at it like actors in some ancient sword-fighting movie.
I looked at Frankie. “I’d like to repeat what I said before.”
“You said a lot of things.”
“True, but the one particular thing I want to repeat is—HIDE!”
Without another word, Frankie and I dove under a cart standing in the square, and pulled the pile of genuine PTA mom costumes in front of us.
“Look, Frankie,” I said, my head draped in something pink and silky. “I’m not following what’s going on too well—”
“Sort of like in class, huh?”
“Sort of,” I admitted. “But I’m thinking maybe these Montague and Capulet guys are sort of like enemies.”
“You think?”
“If I have to,” I said. “And I think they’re having a whopper of a family feud. With us in the middle.”
“Not a good position to be in,” she said as one of the Capulets fell back onto the cart, rolled off, thudded to the ground, jumped up, and leaped back into the fight.
“Look, Dev,” she said, “I know you’re not going to like it, but maybe the only way to stay alive here is to blend in. You know … get into costume?”
“Ha!” I blurted out, still with the silky thing on my melon. “Frankie, I can tell you right now. There is no way I am going to wear tights! I don’t do dress up—”
Clang! One of the guys slammed his sword down on the cart and nearly sliced it—and us—in two.
“Okay, okay!” I cried. “I think I get the point—his point. But, if you tell anyone—ANYONE!—that I wore tights in this story, I will personally go on the PA and tell everyone that you still sleep with your teddy bear!”
“I sleep with two teddy bears, and it’s a deal!” she said, tossing me a tunic—it was blue with a gray collar and silver buttons. I pulled it on over my Shakespeare T-shirt, then fished around in the tangle of costumes and found the pair of—ugh!—blue tights. I tugged them up my legs.
They felt soooo weird, I can’t even describe it.
But, hey, at least they matched my top.
Frankie’s outfit was a way-too-long purple gown with a funny headdress thingy that looked like a tangled butterfly net with tiny pillows on each side.
“I feel like a princess,” she said.
Fwish! One of the men swung his sword all around and nearly sliced both pillows off Frankie’s hat.
With blades clanging and swishing all around us, we crawled out from under the cart just in time to see yet another bunch of guys jumping into the fight.
“Pull yourselves apart, you fools, there are children here!” shouted one of the new guys, leaping into the scuffle, and moving us gently out of the way. He had a friendly face and a nice green tunic with gold buttons. “Put up your swords. You know not what you—”
Unfortunately, another man rushed up and tried to stop him from stopping the fight. I didn’t like the look of this new character. First of all, he wore a black outfit, which meant he was probably nasty. Plus, he had slicked-back hair, which meant he was mean. If that wasn’t enough, his eyes were close together and slitty, and he carried a sword with a jeweled handle.
All in all, he gave Frankie and me the shivers.
“So! Benvolio!” the slick-hair guy sneered at our nice green-suit guy. “Draw your sword and fight me.”
“No, Tybalt,” Benvolio said. “I seek to keep the peace. Put up thy Capulet sword, or use it to help me part these fighting men—”
“Peace?” snarled Tybalt. “I hate the word. As I hate all Montagues, and thee. Draw thy sword, coward!”
The argument was filled with thees and thys, but I sort of understood them.
“Hey, Frankie,” I said. “It’s almost as if this Shakespeare guy really is writing English! Old-style English, maybe, but I’m getting most of it.”
“I’m getting it, too,” she said. “Maybe because we’re wearing costumes. We’re sort of part of the play now.”
“And if we have to choose sides,” I said, “I like Benvolio.”
“He seems like a good guy,” she said.
Well, the clanging and clashing noise of the fight was so loud that it brought even more people into the square, including two older men who looked as if they had just woken up.
“Montague is the cause of this fight—where is he?” shouted one of the old men, pulling his shirt on with one hand and flashing his sword with the other.
“You old Capulet! I’ll fight you right here!” growled a second old guy, dragging his own sword behind him.
“Whoa, get the respirators!” said Frankie, barely stifling a chuckle. “These two guys couldn’t fight their way out of a tissue box!”
Just as the two geezers were set to go at it, a horn sounded. Everyone in the square froze as if they were playing freeze tag.
We heard the thundering of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones, and an instant later, a guy dressed in a long shiny cape came riding into the street. He was followed by a bunch of soldiers with extra-big weapons.
“Who do you suppose he is?” I whispered.
“That is the Prince of Verona,” Benvolio whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Now, we are in trouble.”
The prince jumped down from his horse and stared at the two old men. “Montague and Capulet!” he boomed. “Rebellious subjects! Enemies to the peace!”
The two old dudes hung their heads.
“Three times your warring families have disturbed the quiet of our streets!” the prince said.
“So, they’ve been at it for a while?” said Frankie.
“For years,” whispered Benvolio.
“Know this!” the prince said. “If ever you disrupt our streets again, your lives shall pay the price. On pain of death, all men depart!”
Then he snapped his fingers, and his huge guards, who toted bigger swords than everyone else, separated the Montagues and the Capulets and made everyone leave the square.
“Where to now?” I whispered to Frankie as we blended into the crowd. “If this is like most stories, the people in the title are the main characters. Well, so far, we’ve seen Benvolio, Tybalt, old man Montague and similar old man Capulet, plus the prince, but no Romeo—”
“You there, you there—did you say Romeo?”
We turned to see old Mr. and Mrs. Montague hobbling over to us.
“I am Romeo’s mother,” the woman said. “Saw you him today?”
Frankie had the book open. She looked up and shrugged. “Um, we aren’t exactly sure,” she said. “What does he look like—”
Benvolio gave a little smile. “So early walking did I see your son. Towards him I made, but he stole into the wood.”
The prince’s guards finished herding all the Montague people into a side street off the square, then left.
“Benvolio,” said Mr. Montague, putting his hand on the guy’s shoulder. “As his friend, can you find our Romeo, and discover what is bothering him?”
“And can we come with you?” I asked.
Benvolio smiled. “Certainly. I will find him—”
Suddenly, there was a deep sighing sound, coming from around the next corner. “Oh, woe! Ay me!”
Benvolio chuckled. “Ha! I’d know that sigh anywhere. It’s our very own Romeo. Step aside, my dear Lord and Lady Montague. M
y friends and I will discover what ails him.”
I turned to Frankie. “Did you hear that? We’re Benvolio’s friends!”
“I heard,” said Frankie, tucking the book into a pocket in her dress. “I think we have to pay attention. This play moves fast.”
As Mr. and Mrs. Montague slipped away down the passage, we hustled around the corner after Benvolio.
There we saw a young man zigzagging down the street as if he didn’t know where he was. He wore the usual stylish tights-and-tunic outfit, had brown hair, which badly needed a comb, and was sighing all over the place, practically fogging up the air. “Oh … oh!”
“That’s Romeo?” said Frankie, her eyes going slightly buggy. “Oh, he’s cute! He could have his own show!”
“Somebody gag me please,” I coughed.
I would have started to choke myself, but I wasn’t sure if anybody would stop me, so I didn’t.
Romeo wandered closer, his eyes gazing up at the sky, barely managing to put one shoe in front of the other. He stopped every few feet to sigh loudly, slump his shoulders, roll his eyes, shake his head, stagger a foot or two more, then sigh all over again.
“He looks like he’s just been told he has to go to summer school,” I said. “What’s his problem?”
“Is he sick?” asked Frankie.
“Sick in love, it seems to me,” said Benvolio, a little smile on his lips. “But let’s find out. Ho, there, Romeo!”
Romeo put his hand to his forehead, sighed again, lowered his eyes to us, brushed some dust from his tunic, then said, “This is not Romeo; he’s some other where. He is with the one I love …”
“Tell us, then, cousin,” said Benvolio, nudging us. “Who is it you love?”
Romeo sighed. “I love … a woman.”
I laughed. “We pretty much guessed that. And I think I know what her name is. It’s Jul—”
“Rosaline!” said Romeo. “My true love’s name is Rosaline!”
Frankie and I looked at each other. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Did we crash-land in the wrong play? Are we in Romeo and Rosaline by mistake?”
Frankie squinted at the pages of the book. “You know what I think? Romeo and Juliet haven’t met yet.”
“Sure, sure, I can see it all now,” I said. “If they don’t meet up, everybody will blame us for wrecking Shakespeare. Hey, Romeo, just so you know, we’re Devin and Frankie. Friends of Benvolio. Nice to meet you.”
Romeo barely looked at us. “Nice? Nice? My true love Rosaline is nice. Her hair is the color of the raven’s wing, so black and long, her cheeks are like the whitest cream, and her eyes shine like pools. Rosaline is so rich in beauty, if you saw her eyes …”
Blah, blah, blah. For the next half hour, we wandered through the streets of Verona, listening to Romeo go on and on about this Rosaline character. And the play wasn’t even named after her.
“He’s got it bad,” said Frankie.
“More than bad,” I chuckled. “His brain’s fried. But, if Romeo is all goopy about Rosaline, maybe we should try to find Juliet. You know, to get them together? Otherwise, this play will never end, and we’ll never get home!”
Frankie nodded. “Good idea. Um, hey, Benvolio?”
But Benvolio was suddenly crouching in a doorway. “Look yonder, my friends,” he said. “Here comes Capulet and some young man with a sword—”
We looked down the street.
“Again with the swords!” said Frankie. “Don’t you people have regular sports?”
Benvolio paused to give her a strange look, then said, “We cannot risk another street battle. Perhaps we shall see one another soon. For now, I must take my lovesick cousin away from here. Montagues and Capulets are like oil and water. There’s no mixing them! Be careful!”
With that, Benvolio trotted away, tugging the sighing Romeo with him. Before we could make tracks ourselves, Mr. Capulet saw us.
“You there! You with the book!” he shouted, motioning to Frankie. “Come here at once!”
Since the guy with him had a sword, Frankie and I decided to do what he said.
Chapter 4
“I need you for a task,” Mr. Capulet said to us. “Stand by my house there, and do not leave!”
He pointed to a big stone house with lots of windows, a walled garden, and a balcony overlooking the garden.
Obeying, we stood in front of it.
“This looks like the balcony on the stage at school,” I said. “I wonder if we get to climb up.”
“Not if they can help it,” whispered Frankie, pointing to lots of guardy types standing around with long speary things. “People sure like to make with the sharp and pointy in Verona, don’t they, Dev?”
“Which tells me we shouldn’t mess with them. So this is old man Capulet’s house?”
Frankie glanced at the book and nodded. “If I’m reading this right, the fight in the square and meeting Romeo was in act one, scene one, right at the very beginning of the play. Now we’re in act one, scene two. And, yeah, it’s supposed to be at Capulet’s house.”
“Acts and scenes instead of chapters?” I said. “Plays are sort of strange, aren’t they?”
She nodded. “What’s even stranger is that plays are almost totally people talking. You only know what the people are thinking by what they say.”
I thought about that. “If a play is mostly people talking, then we should probably listen to what Capulet and the other guy are saying, right?”
Frankie grinned. “A plan. I like it. Let’s listen.”
I tugged up my tights as we leaned over and listened.
And boy did we get an earful!
“My lord Capulet,” the young man was saying, “I love your daughter, Juliet. I wish to marry her.”
“Holy crow, Frankie!” I whispered. “Juliet is Capulet’s daughter!”
“And Romeo is a Montague,” she said. “I begin to see the problem in this story. Let’s listen some more.”
Old Capulet stroked his beard. “My child is yet a stranger in the world, dear Paris. She does not know you well enough yet. But I have an idea. This night I hold an old accustomed feast. I have invited many a guest.”
I nudged Frankie. “Do you hear that? A party! I do great at parties! All the food, the fun, the people, the food. Plus, of course, all the food, which is my personal specialty, if I may sayeth so—”
“Devin,” growled Frankie. “There is a play going on here.…”
“It shall be a costume party,” said Capulet. “So, Paris, I ask you to come tonight. Woo my Juliet, win her heart. If you can win her, then I grant that you may marry her. What do you say to that?”
Almost like a ballet dancer, Paris did a small twinkly leap in the air. “Thank you, my lord. I shall be there!”
The next moment, he was running off chirping about what sort of costume he would wear.
I turned to Frankie. “Talk about mix-ups. We have Romeo all gooey about Rosaline, and Paris all twinkly about Juliet. I think we have our work cut out for us—”
“Now, then, you two!” said Capulet. “Come here!”
I cringed. “I hope he’s not going to slice and dice—”
But instead of tugging out a sword, he tugged a sheet of folded paper from the pocket of his robe. “I called you over because I see you have a book. I presume you must be able to read.”
“Read?” said Frankie, waving the book around. “Sometimes our English teacher Mr. Wexler’s not so sure.”
“But we try,” I said. “When we can understand the words.”
The old guy squinted at us. “Yes, well, good. I have a little errand I’d like you to do. Go about fair Verona, and find the people whose names are written on this sheet. Tell them there is a great feast at my house tonight. And that they should come in costume! Now, run along!”
He hustled back into his house, barking out orders for his servants to begin preparations.
“You know what’s weird, Devin?” Frankie asked.
“Actually, the shor
ter list is what’s not weird,” I said.
“I agree. But what’s really weird is that, by themselves the Capulets and the Montagues seem like fairly nice folks. The problem is, when they get together they can’t stop fighting.”
I nodded. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could stop it? Like if we get Romeo and Juliet together, maybe the Montys and the Caps will stop fighting.”
Frankie’s eyes grew wide. “What a great idea!”
“I thought it up myself,” I said, as we headed to the town square. “Plus, I like happy endings.”
“My personal fave, too,” Frankie said with a grin. “Okay, then, first of all, if we’re playing parts in a play, let’s play our part by trying to find the people on Capulet’s list.”
“Frankie, that was beautiful. Read that list!”
But when Frankie unfolded Mr. Capulet’s paper and scanned the writing, she stopped, blinked, held it up to her nose, blinked again, turned the paper upside down, blinked a third time, rubbed her eyes, blinked yet again, then gave out a long, low grumble.
“What’s the prob?” I asked.
“I can’t read this!”
“Why not?”
“Because, it’s … in Italian!”
I grabbed the sheet from her and peered at the words. “Whoa. Headache City! I guess we need to find someone who knows the words. But who do we know that doesn’t want to wave a long pointy sword our way—”
Frankie grinned suddenly. “I know who! Romeo!”
I turned and there he was, the hero of the story, doing his famous zigzag walk along a side street on the far side of the square. Benvolio was straggling behind him, rolling his eyes and muttering to himself.
“Hey, guys!” called Frankie. “Can you read?”
For the first time since we met him, Romeo cracked a smile. Pointing to the book in my hand, he said, “Ay, if I know the letters and the language. Cannot you read?”
“Of course we can,” I said. “But pretty much only English, and sometimes not even that. Anyway, Mr. Capulet gave us this list and it’s in the wrong language.”
“Capulet?” said Benvolio. “Ho-ho, a secret letter from the Capulets. This will be good. Read it, Romeo.”