Frankie gave the lady a gigantic frown. “Take that back, Mrs. F!” she said. “It’s not even funny!”
“Actually, even though it’s a tragedy, parts of Romeo and Juliet are quite funny,” said Mr. Wexler. “But, you’ll enjoy the whole thing more when you are both speaking your speeches on that stage.”
Frankie and I stared at each other, speechless.
“Good. It’s settled,” said Mrs. Figglehopper. “The PTA mothers have made costumes especially for your two roles. They’re in the library workroom. Would you toddle off and bring them here? Thank you.”
I was rooted to the floor in a kind of shock, still mumbling, “Me … play … on stage … lines … reading …”
Frankie was making a soft, whimpering sound. “Can’t do this … can’t do this … no, no, can’t do this …”
But the two grown-ups had no sympathy. They were cruel. They were heartless. And to make us move faster, they began talking wacky again.
“‘Arise, fair sun,’” said Mr. Wexler, “‘and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief—’”
“Me, too,” I groaned. “Me, too.”
But my lament did no good.
Frankie and I had no choice but to stumble off sadly to the library.
Chapter 2
“Frankie, no way am I dressing up, PTA moms or no PTA moms,” I said, as we made our way down the hall to the library. “Dressing up includes the word ‘dress.’ And I don’t wear dresses!”
“Neither do I much,” she said, squinting at the book again. “But you gotta take a look at this stuff. The lines don’t even reach to the edge of the page.”
I peered at the pages. “Already, I have a headache. What do you even call that stuff?”
“Poetry, I think,” she said.
“Nuh-uh. Poetry is like ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, I like peanut butter, you like glue.’ This stuff is way too hard to understand. I predict we’ll flunk this play. Imagine me, failing play. Talk about tragedy!”
Frankie chuckled. “But you know, Devin, we’ve sort of been in this situation before. Faced with reading a classic old book and getting A’s on it anyhow.”
“Don’t go there,” I said, shivering.
But, of course I knew what she meant.
The zapper gates.
We pushed open the main library doors, took a sharp right, and entered the library workroom.
Frankie and I knew the place pretty well. It was a small room with tables pushed up against two walls. We saw a bunch of funny costumes on one table. On the other were stacks of old dusty books needing repair. There was a copy machine, a computer, a scanner, and a printer. And in the middle of the room were bookshelves with hundreds of old classic books that Mrs. Figglehopper was repairing.
But the most important—and crazy—things in the room were the zapper gates. That was what Mrs. Figglehopper called an old set of security gates that she stored in the library workroom.
I was staring at them now. They actually looked like a doorway, except that the sides only went up partway, and there was no top.
Frankie and I knew all about them. They’re the kind of gates that are supposed to go all zzzt-zzzt! when a book goes through them that hasn’t been checked out the right way.
But these gates don’t go all zzzt-zzzt!
They go kkkk-kkkk! And lightning flashes and thick, blue smoke fills the room and the wall behind the zapper gates cracks right open and you’re sucked into a book.
That’s right! Into a book!
It’s happened to Frankie and me a few times already! And each time it’s more incredible than the time before. We get all jumbled and tumbled around, then we get thrown out smack dab at the beginning of some old classic story—right there with the story’s real characters.
It is very weird and very impossible.
But being impossible doesn’t mean it’s not possible!
Okay, maybe it does. But it happens anyway!
“I can’t even read this!” said Frankie, shutting the book. “It’s like somebody is punishing my brain—but my brain didn’t do anything wrong!”
I laughed. “For sure. It usually doesn’t do anything at all—hey, look!”
Right next to the pile of funny costumes was a box full of T-shirts. The shirts had pictures of this old dude on the front, and they said SHAKESPEARE under the picture. “What are these? Prizes if we’re in the play?”
I pulled one on over my shirt. So did Frankie.
“Maybe if I could wear this, I might do a walk-on.”
She chuckled. “You’d have to walk on in tights,” she said, digging in the costume pile and holding up a pair of blue tights that were part of the Romeo outfit.
I stared at the wiggly things.
“Okay, this is where I check out. No way ever does Devin Bundy wear tights!” I started for the door.
“There’s also swords,” she said, holding up two bendy plastic toy swords that were next to the pile.
I stopped. “Swords? Mr. Wexler did say there was action in the play. And I like action toys.” I flashed one of the swords around in the air. “Okay, then. I choose to be a swashbuckling old-time dude. On guard, Miss Frankie of Lang!”
She grabbed the other sword and grinned. “Same to you, Sir Devin of Bundy!”
We started clacking our weapons all around the room, leaping up to the tabletops and waving our swords at each other.
“Now, this is the sort of play I can get into!” I said.
It was fun. But fun has a way of not lasting too long.
On a really great leap from the book table to Mrs. Figglehopper’s swivel chair, I accidentally lost my balance, fell back to the desk, and kicked the old Romeo and Juliet book clear across the room.
Yep, you guessed it. Right between the zapper gates.
Kkkkk!
The room exploded with bright blue light. The air shook, the floor quaked, Frankie and I tumbled to the floor, and the wall behind the gates cracked right open.
Instantly, thick, blue smoke poured from the crack.
“Oh, no!” I cried. “It’s happening!”
Before we could make a move—Hoop!—the book was gone. Vanished. Disappeared into the swirling, dark smoke of the cracked wall.
The next instant—floop! floop! floop!—the costumes were gone, wiggly tights and all.
“Did what just happened really happen?” I said.
“I think so. The PTA moms will be very mad.”
The library doors suddenly creaked open. Someone was coming toward the workroom.
“Frankie—we’ve got to get those costumes back!”
“And that book!”
“And we’d better do it right now!”
An instant later, Frankie and I were gone, too—floop! floop!—straight through the zapper gates and into the dark, swirling, smoky crack in the wall.
“Yikes!” cried Frankie.
“Yikes and a half!” I added.
Over and over we rolled. There were lots of legs and arms and costumes and props. It was like Frankie and I were inside some sort of classic-book clothes dryer, tumbling around and around until we were dumped down into a street in the pile of costumes.
I rolled over and over until I splatted against something flat and cold. Frankie slammed up against me. We both groaned for a while before we moved. When we got to our feet, we saw that all around us were old stone buildings and twisty streets. Some buildings were pink and some were blue.
In the center was an open square and a big stone fountain. But instead of spouting painted water, this one spouted actually real water.
“Frankie?” I said. “Do you see anything weird?”
“Devin, I don’t see anything not weird!”
“What I mean is, this looks a lot like the stage set in the cafeteria, only it’s really real. I think that’s weird.”
“Weird times two.” Frankie picked the book up from the ground and opened it to the first page. “Okay, look, first t
hings first. The setting of the story. Mr. Wexler said Romeo and Juliet were Italian, right? Well, it says it right here, just like he told us, ‘In fair Verona where we lay our scene.’ So I guess we’re in Verona, Italy.”
“Isn’t Italy where all the meatballs are?”
She laughed. “With us here, there’s at least two.”
“Better make that four,” I said, pointing to the far side of the square. “Because here come a couple of guys wearing tights—”
Two men rushed into the square.
“They’re wearing swords, too,” said Frankie.
Spotting us instantly, the two tights-wearing men pulled out their deadly-looking swords and started running toward us, shouting something like “Get them!”
I turned to Frankie. “Can I just say something?”
“If you say it quick,” she said.
“It’s just one word,” I said. “HIDE!”
Chapter 3
But we couldn’t hide. The two swordy guys were all over us like sauce on meatballs, carving shapes in the air with their swords and backing us all the way up against the bubbly, spurting fountain.
“Whoa, dudes!” I shouted. “Put away the pointy things! This is the land of macaroni, not shish kebab!”
“Silence, you, you—Montague!” snarled one of the men, drawing shapes around my head with his sword. “Draw your blade and fight us!”
“It’s plastic!” I said, showing him how the toy sword bent every which way. “Besides, I’m not this Monty Glue you’re looking for. I’m Devin Bundy—”
“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. My 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!”