Fakespeare--Star-Crossed in Romeo and Juliet

by M. E. Castle

  “Just hold on a second,” Sam said, staying still and crossing his arms. He addressed the empty space above his head. “Who gave you the right to tell us what to do?”

  Stop that. This isn’t a conversation. This is narration. Now then, Rufus’s whining was starting to get—

  “Yeah?” Becca said, fists on her hips. “Maybe we’ll just stand here and do nothing. What’re you going to narrate then?”

  Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you wanted to go home.

  *Ahem.*

  Becca and Sam were silent for a moment, as they soaked in the truth that the Narrator had delivered in his rich, velvety voice.

  “Okay, that’s going a little far,” Becca said as the boy glared at her. He might not have been able to hear the Narrator, but he could certainly hear her.

  She dropped her voice to a whisper. “But yes, we do want to go home. It’s not exactly a Hawaiian luau being caught in a pizza war because a book ate us.”

  Her mind clicked. “Wait a minute! If the book is how we got here, maybe it’s the way out, too.”

  Now you’re catching on. You might want to find that book and remember the poem that came with it.

  Rufus’s whining got louder.

  “How do we do that?” Sam asked.

  BECCA AND SAM FOLLOWED THE SOUND OF RUFUS’S WHINING, CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT THEIR DOG HAD FOUND.

  “All right, no need to shout.” Becca shrugged. She and Sam walked over to Rufus, who was cowering in front of a book.

  And no wonder.

  It was the copy of Romeo and Juliet that had eaten them! After what it had done—throwing them into an unknown land, subjecting Rufus to a world of tomatoes and nose-shattering cologne instead of tennis balls—his terror at seeing the book was hardly surprising.

  “This is it!” Becca said, running forward to pick it up. Hastily she flipped through the book, but … “Sam! The poem! It’s gone!”

  “It’s okay, Becca-breath,” he said as he grabbed Rufus by the scruff of the neck. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and recited:

  As pizza is more than just round, flat dough,

  The tale inside is not just simple woe.

  His family is her kin’s ancient foe,

  Yet you must get the lovers’ love to flow.

  Then read the final page to reach “The End”

  And soon enough, you will be home again.

  Becca stared at him in amazement. Sam had just recited something that didn’t include the phrases pick and roll or fadeaway jumper. She didn’t know what those were, but he seemed to say them about four times a day.

  “What?” Sam asked. “I have a good memory!”

  Or maybe he’s a robot, Becca thought, but she didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she looked back at the book. “Okay, since reading the first line is what got us into this mess, maybe to go home, all we need to do is read the last line.”

  Sam picked up the book and tried to flip to the end, but it refused to open that far. The final pages stayed stuck together and wouldn’t budge at any of his attempts to pry them apart.

  “Let me try!” Becca said, grabbing the tome away from him, but it was no use. The last bunch of pages may as well have been a block of stone.

  “Wait,” Sam said. “Maybe there’s a clue?”

  Becca chewed on her lip, thinking. “Maybe…,” she said slowly. “What was the last part?”

  “You mean, And soon enough, you will be home again?”

  “No, before that.”

  “Yet you must get the lovers’ love to flow, then read the final page to reach ‘The End.’”

  “That’s it!” Becca said excitedly. “I think I know what the poem is saying. We need to make somebody fall in love, and once we do that, we should be able to open the book again and go home! And since this is Romeo and Juliet, they must be who we need to get to fall in love. Right?” She glanced upward, waiting for the Narrator to confirm.

  She waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  .…

  Aren’t you done waiting yet? We can’t move on until you do something!

  “So am I right?” Becca asked again.

  It’s not my job to tell you! This is all about your journey. It would be against the rules of good narrative if I just told you that you were right.

  Becca smiled delightedly. “So I am right?”

  Becca, who was a writer herself, realized she should not cheat her way out of the well-paced story that the Narrator was trying to tell. It was time to get on with her quest, especially now that she knew what they must do.

  “AHA!” Becca said, raising a fist in the air. “I knew it.”

  Curses.

  “Okay,” Sam said, “but how do we find these people? I knew a Juliet Miller in second grade, but I don’t know where we can find a Juliet here. Or a Lame-o.”

  “Romeo,” Becca corrected.

  Sam shrugged. “What kind of name is Romeo, anyway?”

  “Hmm?” said the boy, looking up from his desk. His hair stuck out at funny angles as though he’d been sitting there all week. “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

  “Definitely not,” Becca said. “Why?”

  The boy raised an eyebrow. “Because you just said my name. I’m Romeo.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BOLDLY OUR HERO MOPES

  “You’re Romeo?” Becca said, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice. After all, he was so small. He didn’t look like a main character. He didn’t look like someone who would bravely ride into anywhere on a horse and defeat whatever was keeping him away from his love. He didn’t even look like he could defeat a mild cold.

  The boy spread his arms dramatically. “Romeo Montague, at your service.”

  “Oh great,” Sam said, quickly taking a step behind a cheese shelf. “Do you have a dagger, too?”

  Romeo let out a sigh as long and gusty as a whale’s good-bye. “I have only a quill and my sorrows.”

  “Er, that’s good,” Becca said, “because the other Montagues we met were pretty scary.”

  The boy looked insulted. “You don’t have to be afraid of the Montagues. It’s the Capulets you have to watch out for! They are the villains and thieves, after all. They’re the ones who stole our cheese!”

  Woof! Rufus barked excitedly, and Becca wondered how a dog who didn’t know sit or stay understood the word cheese. Sam hurried over to Rufus and scratched him behind the ears until he quieted. After all, Tybalt could still be lurking.

  “C-H-E-E-S-E?” she spelled out. Rufus stayed silent.

  “Yes, chee—I mean,” Romeo said with a glance at the dog, “C-H-E-E-S-E. The Capulets were jealous of our pizza, and to get back at us, they stole all of our mozzarella and our supersecret mozzarella recipe! We haven’t been able to make a decent pizza since.”

  “That’s awful,” Sam said solemnly.

  “It is,” Romeo agreed. “Luckily, we’ve been able to come up with a new recipe for imitation mozzarella. We call it Lotsa-Rella. To celebrate, we’re having a big ball tomorrow night. And that’s where my sorrows come in.” His face drooped. “I don’t have a date for the party!”

  Sam tilted his head. “Girls are a pain anyway. Can’t you just go with some friends?”

  “We are not,” Becca said, even as Romeo shook his head.

  “I can’t show up to the party without a date. I’m Lord Montague’s son! It would make the whole Montague family look bad if I showed up alone. Besides”—he sighed again—“there is a girl I’d really like to go with me.”

  Becca and Sam looked at each other excitedly. If Romeo were already in love with Juliet, it would be a piece of cake—or a slice of pizza—to get Juliet to love him back.

  “I see her walk through the square every day, and I’m overwhelmed,” Romeo continued. “It feels like—like, a … big … loving … thing.”

  Romeo sighed in frustration. “See? That’s the problem. My friends suggested I write her a poem, but I’m awful at
it! I’ve been taking a correspondence course taught by this girl Ophelia in Denmark, You’re a Poet, You Just Don’t Know It, but it takes a long time for mail to travel between Denmark and Italy.”

  “Okay,” Becca said, giving Rufus a scratch. “Maybe we can help. There’s a type of poem called a haiku that might work. It’s very short. Just three lines: five syllables, then seven, then five again.” … She thought for a moment, then improvised:

  She walks through the town

  Like music pattering in

  The minds of dancers.

  “That was a poem?” scoffed Romeo. “It didn’t rhyme once.”

  “I agree,” Sam said. “It barely even had a rhythm.”

  “It doesn’t have to rhyme to be a poem,” Becca protested. “There are lots of styles of poetry.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s the style our new friend needs,” Sam said. “If you want love poems, good rhymes are the seeds.”

  “Wow!” Romeo said as Becca rolled her eyes. It figured the spawn of Stephen R. Danielson III would come up with something so cheesy. “Can you do that again?”

  “To win a heart, you need a brain. Just stick with us, and we’ll explain!” Sam said.

  Rufus wagged his tail. Romeo’s quill quickly wrote down the rhyme, and Becca pulled Sam down to whisper, “This isn’t a goofy game! We need this to work if we ever want to get home!”

  “I’m getting him to trust us,” Sam whispered back. “That’s the most important thing. Once he agrees to follow our instructions, then we can figure out details.”

  Becca paused. To her complete and utter surprise, Sam was right.

  “Well,” Sam said to Romeo, “what do you think? I bet Juliet is going to love it!”

  “This is great,” Romeo said, turning to hunt down his crumpled poem. “But the love of my life isn’t Juliet. Her name is Rosaline.”

  Becca’s insides turned to Jell-O. “Are you sure her name is Rosaline?”

  “Of course I am,” Romeo said indignantly. “I might not be good at poems, but I do know people’s names.”

  Becca and Sam looked at each other in horror. Rosaline? They had just helped Romeo write a poem to the wrong girl! And if they couldn’t get Romeo and Juliet together, then they were doomed to stay in Verona … forever.

  “Thanks for reminding us,” Sam muttered under his breath.

  You’re welcome.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ROMEO AND … ROSALINE?

  “So what do we do now?” Sam asked.

  Becca noticed his hands twitch, as though he were just longing for a basketball. She couldn’t blame him. Only Rufus, who’d found a wooden spoon to chew on, seemed relaxed.

  “Okay,” she whispered. “We just need to keep him away from Rosaline until we find Juliet. And then we’ll help him impress her.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, Becca-breath,” Sam said, and before she could tell him the rest of her plan, Sam snapped his fingers at Romeo. “We can help you get your dream date.”

  “How do we start?” Romeo said eagerly, folding up his crumpled poem and tucking it into a pocket.

  “Like Coach always says: practice,” Sam said.

  “Exactly,” Becca said, quickly stepping in before Sam started talking about dribbling drills. “You just need to learn a few good jokes and dance moves, and you’ll be able to get Jul—I mean, Rosaline’s, attention.”

  “And can we work on my poetry?” Romeo asked.

  “Definitely,” Sam said.

  They heard voices and angry shouts from outside the shop. Sam ducked behind a cheese shelf, and Becca dropped to the floor so no one could see her through the windows.

  “But maybe we shouldn’t practice here,” she said nervously. “Some guy named Tybalt is looking for us.”

  Romeo’s eyes widened. “You got on Tybalt Capulet’s bad side?”

  He let out a low whistle. “That’s bad—really bad. Of all the Capulets, he’s the worst. He doesn’t just hate Montagues—he hates everyone and everything: rainbows, snow days, kids, and puppies. Especially puppies. They shed.”

  “Right,” Becca said, picturing the shining needle point of Tybalt’s sword. “Do you know a safer place?”

  Romeo scratched his head with his quill. “I think I can sneak you into Montague Mansion. We have plenty of spare rooms where we could practice.”

  Becca stood and carefully picked up the Romeo and Juliet book that Rufus had found and put it into her backpack. She made sure to carry the pack with both straps over her shoulders so they wouldn’t lose it. The hungry book was their only way home.

  Romeo opened the cheese-shop door and slowly peeked out. When the coast was clear, he nodded at Sam and Becca. The three of them sneaked into the street with Rufus tromping not so sneakily behind.

  “Why do people keep staring at us?” Becca whispered.

  “Probably because of your funny clothes,” Romeo said.

  She looked down at her outfit. “This is popular where we’re from!”

  “Well, it must be a place far away,” Romeo said as he hopped over a pile of tomatoes. Rufus gobbled two, his cheeks puffing up like a chipmunk’s, but nobody seemed to care.

  “Why are there so many tomatoes lying around?” Sam asked as he stepped on one for a third time.

  “Since we don’t have any cheese, we don’t need any pizza sauce, so the tomatoes that would have been used for that are going to waste,” Romeo explained.

  “But what about the Capulets?” Becca asked as she sidestepped a ketchup-y puddle. “Aren’t they making pizza?”

  Romeo blushed. “Er, well … the Montagues might have stolen the Capulets’ dough recipe. But that’s only because they stole our cheese recipe first!”

  Sam looked horrified. “You’re telling me there’s no pizza? But this is Italy!”

  “I know.” Romeo shook his head. “It’s a tragedy.”

  Rufus’s nose twitched excitedly as they wound their way down the streets. Becca thought Verona, with its lack of indoor plumbing, smelled much more … interesting than her neighborhood.

  Several splashes of color caught her eye. There were posters up on the street-facing walls of several buildings. She couldn’t tell for what, but she could make out the word TONIGHT in great big letters, and a logo that looked like two Fs and an S.

  Romeo suddenly stopped. “Wait a second.”

  Turning his jacket inside out so the blue trim wouldn’t show, he gestured to them to follow him to the opposite side of the street.

  “That’s the Capulet mansion,” he whispered. “We’ll have to pass right by it. Keep your heads down and be quiet.”

  “Hey, nice rhyme!” Sam said.

  Romeo beamed.

  Becca rolled her eyes and lowered her head, though she couldn’t help but look at the mansion as they walked by. It was four stories tall, and a small army of workers carried huge bouquets of red flowers and scarlet streamers inside.

  “It looks like they’re planning a party,” Sam said.

  “They are,” Romeo muttered, his eyes still on the cobblestones. “They’re revealing their newest menu item tonight: Instead-Stix. It’s their imitation pizza dough. They found out we were planning our Lotsa-Rella Ball for tomorrow, and they just had to beat us to it!”

  Sam pointed to the guards stalking in front of the iron gate. “Are those people in silver dressed for the party?”

  “No,” Romeo whispered, and began to walk faster. “Those are guards. In armor. With very sharp spears. Hurry!”

  Becca kept her eyes on her feet, trying to stay brave. She noted how her heart rattled inside her chest and how her ears suddenly seemed to pick up even the littlest noise. These details would all be great for the next astounding installment of Mal & Cal Worthy. In fact, maybe she’d slip one more description into their Storyland submission.

  Provided, of course, that she got out of this book, made it to the library, and returned the library books in time so she could afford the contest entry fee.
/>
  “Okay, we’ve cleared the Capulets!” Romeo said, and Becca looked up. “We should be good from here on out—”

  He was interrupted by a sound that came from behind. The fshhhhhink! of a sword being drawn. A gravelly voice followed it.

  “Not another step, Montague.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  DON’T TRICK-OR-TREAT AT THE OLD CAPULET HOUSE

  When Mal and Cal Worthy were faced with certain capture, they’d turn invisible and climb away. Or trick their way out of the situation with smooth talk like they did in issue II. In one of Becca’s favorite sequences, Mal and Cal escaped a rampaging giant by just vanishing to another century.

  But Becca didn’t exactly have those options.

  The only things she had were a lovesick poet, a basketball-crazed stepbrother, and one very friendly dog.

  “Roo,” Becca said, “say hi!”

  Woof! Woof! Rufus joyfully lunged himself onto their would-be attacker. When Becca finally thought it was safe to turn around, she saw that Rufus was on his hind legs, his front legs draped across a boy’s shoulders as he wildly licked his face.

  “AHH! Evil breath! ACHOO! And even eviler fur! AHH-CHOO! AHH-CHOO! AHH-OO!” The boy fell to the ground under Rufus’s weight.

  Becca, Sam, and Romeo hurried over to take a look at the guard.

  He wasn’t much older than they were, but a sword in a white leather scabbard hung on his belt and he was carrying a large, lumpy sack. His hair looked like he combed it with a thornbush.

  “It’s Mercutio!” Romeo said. “Call the dog off—he’s a friend!”

  Sam tugged on Roo’s collar, but he seemed much more interested in tasting Mercutio’s face than listening to Sam. Becca grabbed a bruised tomato from the ground. At least there was one good thing about the Pizza Feud: There were always tomatoes when you needed them.

  “Hey, boy,” she said, holding the fruit above Rufus’s nose. “FETCH!”

  She lobbed the tomato as far as she could. He tore after it, yapping excitedly.

  “Not bad,” Sam said. “You have a good arm.”