Crushing on a Capulet

  All the way into the next scene.

  Chapter 13

  Friar Laurence was pacing the floor of his little cell as usual. And since it was such a small room, he really only did a half-pace before he ran out of cell and had to turn around again.

  “Bad news, friar guy!” I said, when Frankie, Juliet, and I crowded in.

  “No need to tell me, Devin,” said the friar. “Paris has just been here. He told me how on Thursday Juliet is to be married to him.”

  “Man, the dude moves fast!” I said.

  “I will not marry him!” said Juliet. “Never!”

  “Cool down, Jules,” said Frankie. “Friar—”

  “Friar,” said Juliet, her eyes flashing, “prevent this, or I’ll find my own way to stop it. By stopping my heart from beating! I’ll do it!” She pulled out a dagger.

  “Where’d you get that thing!” I gasped.

  “No!” Friar Laurence grabbed the pointy object from her and tossed it away. “Hold, daughter!”

  “Then, bid me leap off the highest tower in Verona—”

  The friar clucked his tongue. “Oh, dear, no, no …”

  “Or chain me with bears!” she said.

  “Are there bears in Verona?” I asked, looking around.

  “Child, do not say such things,” said the friar.

  “Then I shall jump into the river and be eaten by a serpent! If that doesn’t work, I shall—”

  “Whoa, dudette!” I said. “This is very uncool talk. Think happy thoughts. There’s always a way out.”

  “That’s right,” said Frankie. “Just calm down, Jules. Maybe the friar has a plan to turn all this around.”

  It seemed like he did. The friar scuttled over to a high shelf on the wall and slid off a tiny glass bottle. “Behold!”

  “You’re going to hide her in that?” I asked. “She seems too big—”

  “No, no!” he said, giving me the eye. He bent over to a small wooden cabinet and pulled out a larger bottle. Inside it was some kind of purplish liquid. He poured some from the big bottle into the little bottle.

  “Well, then, Juliet,” he said quietly. “Go home, be merry, and give consent to marry Paris.”

  I frowned. “That’s the plan? Maybe we weren’t clear about something. Juliet doesn’t want to marry Paris.”

  Frankie nodded. “This isn’t quite the sort of plan we were thinking of—”

  “I have not finished!” scowled the friar. “Wednesday is tomorrow. Tomorrow night, Juliet, drink this at bedtime.”

  He held out the tiny bottle.

  “What will happen?” asked Frankie.

  The friar smiled. “A single taste of this, dear Juliet, and you will have no warmth, no breath, the roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade, your body shall be stiff and stark and cold‥‥”

  “That’s sort of the definition of, you know … death,” Frankie said.

  “Juliet will fall into a sleep that looks like, but is not, death,” said the friar.

  “You’re sure about that ‘is not’ part?” I said.

  “Quite sure,” he said. “And in this seeming death Juliet shall be for two and forty hours, then awake as from a pleasant sleep.”

  “And the waking up part,” I said. “Is that guaranteed?”

  “Oh, yes!” said the friar. “I tried it once myself. But there is one thing—”

  “Here it comes,” I said. “There’s always a catch.”

  “When Thursday comes,” said the friar, “everyone will think you have died. You will then be taken to the ancient Capulet tomb.”

  Juliet gulped. “And what about Romeo?”

  “Phase two of the plan?” I said, looking at the friar. “We call Romeo up and he shoots back from Mantua?”

  “Exactly,” said the friar. “A friend of mine will take a letter to Romeo that will tell him of our plan. Your husband shall come back here in the dead of night and he and I together will be in the tomb when you awake.”

  “Oh, I get it,” I said. “And then—poof! Romeo will whisk you off to a honeymoon in Mantua, and you’ll live happily ever after, fun in the sun and all that? Right, Frankie?”

  She glanced at the book. “The words are blurry, but, yeah, that’s the plan.”

  I cheered up a little bit. It always helps to have a plan when the situation seems really, really bad. “I feel good about this. I think it will work. I really do.”

  Juliet seemed more cheerful, too. “I shall do it!” she said, a sound of hope in her voice for the first time in quite a while.

  “So,” said Frankie. “No more thoughts of being lunch for river serpents?”

  Juliet laughed. “No!”

  “Be strong and prosperous!” said Friar Laurence. “I’ll send a friar with speed to Mantua with my letters to thy Lord.”

  With no more chatter, we left the little cell and made our way back to Juliet’s house to put our plan into action.

  Chapter 14

  When we got to the street in front of the Capulet house, we stopped. Inside, the place was bustling and buzzing and all about the upcoming wedding.

  Caterers were everywhere, balancing loaded trays and moving chunky old wooden chairs.

  And in the center of it all was Mr. Capulet, barking orders. “More napkins there! More torches there!”

  It was definitely going to be a big bash.

  Juliet groaned and started to shake. “Oh, no …”

  “Hey, don’t worry,” Frankie whispered to her. “Our plan will work like clockwork. You gotta have faith.”

  It was then that Mr. Capulet boomed out something that stopped us cold.

  “Hurry, with the candles there!” he shouted to a bunch of candle-carrying guys. “Our wedding is not Thursday—it shall be tomorrow. I have changed my mind! The wedding shall be tomorrow morning!”

  The three of us stared at one another.

  “It’s hopeless, hopeless!” said Juliet. She buried her face in her hands, rushed into the house, and up the stairs to her room.

  “We’ll be hiding in the garden if you need us!” I called. Then I turned to Frankie. “Holy cow. Is this going to mess up Friar Laurence’s big plan or what?”

  “If the friar’s letter doesn’t get to Romeo in time, of course, it will mess it up!” said Frankie. “And if we’re stuck here watching Juliet, we can’t tell Romeo about the change in plans. We can’t be in two places at once‥‥”

  All of a sudden, she stopped. She pulled the book from her pocket and stared at it. Suddenly, we were both thinking the same thing. And it was radical.

  “Wait a second … you’re not thinking—” I started.

  But she was way ahead of me. “I am thinking, Devin. And I’m thinking it’s the only way. The only way to help these guys is to be in two places at once. Devin, we need to split up.”

  “That’s risky, very risky. Plus, it’s a bit too much like what’s going on with the lovebirds. Splitting up is bad.”

  “I know,” she said. “But if I go to Mantua to some scene with Romeo in it and you stay here to see that nothing bad happens to Juliet, just maybe we can pull this off. Devin, like they say in all the junky action movies ever made … it’s up to us.!”

  “I love that line!” I said. “Hey, if there’s no other way …”

  “I don’t see one,” she said.

  “Then let’s do it!”

  Frankie nodded. She took the book and held it open to the page we were on. “Okay, here we are in act four, scene two. If I can find the very next scene with Romeo in it, and explain to him what’s going on …”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “But we’d better stand apart so that I stay here.”

  “Brace yourself!” I said. “I hope we meet up later.”

  “Well—yeah!”

  Frankie moved off to the far side of the street. She gave me a little wave, then started flipping the pages, one by one.

  Kkkkk! Lightning flashed right over the Capulets’ roof.

  “That is not a g
ood thing!” boomed the old man from inside. “I fear some evil will cloud our festival!”

  It wasn’t evil. It was just Frankie.

  She flipped another page.

  Kkkk! More lightning, closer this time.

  Then, before you could say Romeo five times fast, the sky went black, and a dark V-shaped rip appeared across the sky, as if we were on a page being torn in half.

  With each page Frankie turned, more thunder boomed. Lightning flashed. Suddenly—Oooof!—I was thrown hard to the street. Frankie tumbled, too, just as a deep peal of thunder rolled overhead—boo-ooom!

  “Frankie!” I yelled. But already she was being pulled away from me on the other side of the black rip.

  “Devin!” she shouted.

  But an instant later—kkkk!—Frankie was gone.

  The lightning faded. And I was alone on the street.

  “Good luck, pal,” I said, as the last of the lightning bolts flashed across the sky. “And for me, too!”

  I hurried into Juliet’s garden. Hours had obviously passed, and now it was night, the night before the wedding. Voices were coming from Juliet’s room.

  I was worried. I never liked the idea of Juliet taking stuff that the old friar cooked up in that little cell of his.

  Quickly, I climbed up the rope ladder and peeked up over the balcony railing. The nurse and Juliet’s mother were setting out a fancy wedding dress, all frilly and long with silver sparkles and puffy sleeves.

  “Thank you,” said Juliet. “Let me now be left alone.”

  “Get thee to bed, and rest, Juliet,” said her mother softly.

  “Farewell, Mother,” said Juliet. “Farewell, nurse.”

  I could tell from the way Juliet said it, that she meant it to sound casual, but it was probably final. The others didn’t pick up on it, but I knew that if all worked out the way the friar had planned, she would be off to Mantua in a day or so, and it might be a long time before she saw her mother and nurse again.

  “God knows when we shall meet again,” Juliet whispered as they left, and it made me think of Frankie.

  I didn’t like being split up from my best friend in a story that was about two people being split up. It scared me.

  Juliet stood at the door where her mother had just gone, and stayed there for a long time.

  “Fear runs through my veins,” she murmured softly.

  “Mine, too,” I said, climbing into the room. “But we should look on the bright side—”

  Kkkk! Lightning crackled in the distant sky to the south. I wondered if Mantua was that way and if Frankie had found Romeo. I hoped she was okay.

  “What if this medicine does not work?” said Juliet. “Shall I be married to Paris?”

  “I don’t think that will happen.”

  “But what if I am laid in the tomb and wake before Romeo comes for me? What if I cannot breathe in the tomb …?”

  “Don’t go there,” I said. “Things will be okay, I’m pretty sure.”

  She shivered, as lightning crackled again in the south.

  I thought again about Frankie all alone in that strange city. When I focused again, Juliet was carefully and calmly taking that small bottle from the folds of her dress. She pulled out the tiny cork in the top.

  She gave me a look, then held it to her lips. “Romeo! I drink to thee!”

  I held my breath as she swallowed the purple stuff in a single swig. She stood still for a second, then fell back upon her bed. The curtains tumbled down from their ties and fell closed around her.

  “Oh, man!” I whispered. “You actually did it!”

  It was then that I noticed that time seemed to be passing quickly. Frankie, wherever she was, was definitely reading ahead. The distant lightning never really stopped. Every few minutes it crackled and flashed across the sky. Deep, dark night came on and then the sky began to grow lighter.

  I felt helpless. I wanted to help Juliet. I wanted to get to Frankie. But without the book, there was nothing I could do.

  “Frankie,” I said, looking in the direction of Mantua, “I hope you find Romeo quick. The clock is ticking!”

  Then, I heard noises in the house below. It was the sound of pots and pans clanking together. I knew then that all kinds of cooking and baking were underway.

  The wedding party—short one bride—had begun.

  Chapter 15

  “Fetch the logs!” old Mr. Capulet boomed out in his gruff voice. “Start the fires, so that our festive house be warm on this wedding day. And start the music there!”

  I stood near Juliet’s bed. “It’s going to be rough on him and your mom,” I said, in my own sort of soliloquy. “They’re going to think you’re … well, you know.”

  I didn’t even want to say it myself.

  Funny-sounding music, probably from the same band that played at the masked ball where Romeo and Juliet first met, began to play the Verona top forty.

  “Nurse!” Mr. Capulet called from downstairs. “Go wake Juliet. Tell her that her bridegroom, noble Paris, has come already. Go!”

  I heard the nurse bustle her way up the stairs to Juliet’s room. I knew what would happen. I stepped back to the balcony and hid just outside the room.

  “Juliet!” the nurse called cheerily from the hall. “I must wake you! Your wedding day! Everyone’s waiting!”

  The door flew open and the nurse bounded in, carrying a candle and setting it on a table near Juliet’s bed. The bed curtains were still drawn around the girl.

  “Oh, still asleep?” the nurse said with a chuckle. She carefully pulled the curtains aside and peeked in. “You sleepyhead, wake up. What? No word for me?”

  She leaned closer. It was hard to watch, but I couldn’t look away. “Sweetheart,” she said, “my dear, wake up … come now …” She took Juliet by the hand and patted it. A shudder went through her large frame, and she pulled her own hands away.

  “Cold,” she said. “Cold. Alas, alas, help, help! My lady’s … dead!” She shrieked it over and over. “My lady’s dead! Dead! Dead!”

  Blam! The door blasted open and Juliet’s mom raced in. “What noise is this? What are you saying!”

  “Look, look! Oh, heavy day!” cried the nurse, her hands hovering around Juliet, but not daring to touch her again.

  Mrs. Capulet pushed the nurse away and gently tried to shake Juliet awake. “Juliet … Juliet … Oh me, oh me …” She nearly fell from the bed. “My child! My only life, revive, look up, or I will die with thee. Help, help! Call help—”

  I got this huge lump in my throat and tears started to fill up in my eyes. Man, I so wanted to tell them that Juliet was only sleeping, but I couldn’t. If everyone knew, the whole plan would go up in smoke.

  And that would be a real tragedy.

  Now Mr. Capulet staggered in, his face gray, his mouth hanging open. Others in the house followed him, crowding around the bed and shouting and crying over Juliet. It was too painful to watch.

  “She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!” her mother wailed.

  Her father leaned close. “Oh, oh … she’s cold. Her joints are stiff. Death lies on her like a frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field!”

  More and more people gathered around Juliet. Finally, Friar Laurence himself was ushered in, along with poor Paris. They seemed surprised by all the commotion.

  “Come,” said the friar, “is the bride ready to go to church?”

  Her father stole a look at the friar, his eyes flashing. “Ready to go, but never to return. Oh, Paris, the night before thy wedding day, Death came for thy wife!”

  Paris staggered back from the bed, bursting into tears now, too. “How I longed to see this face, but now I see so terrible a sight!”

  “Oh, unhappy day!” howled Mrs. Capulet. “Cursed, wretched, hateful day!”

  They all collapsed around the bed. Friar Laurence knew it was all going according to plan, but even he seemed sick at the idea of putting these people through this. He got them to leave the room. “Peace
now, she is gone. In her best gown let us take her to church now, and then the tomb.”

  Mr. Capulet took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “All happy things we ordered for the wedding feast, now furnish us the blackest funeral. Her bridal flowers now will decorate her tomb.”

  One by one, they all left, leaving only the friar in the room with Juliet. I hopped in from the balcony.

  “Is she really okay?” I said.

  He turned to me. “Ah, Devin. Things go well, for the moment. Juliet shall soon be taken for her peaceful sleep in the tomb. It shall not be long now. I dearly hope Romeo will get my letters in time … I hope … I hope‥‥”

  Even as he said this, the distant storm seemed to get louder. Lightning flashed across the morning sky, and thick clouds darkened the horizon.

  “The skies themselves seem to speak of what happens here,” he said. “The heavens know our plan.”

  I stepped out onto the balcony and looked up. Black clouds swirled where just the day before bright sun had shown. I knew what was going on.

  It was a storm all right.

  Only the storm wasn’t a natural one.

  It was Frankie.

  At that moment—kkkk!—a bolt of bright white light shot across the sky and exploded over the house.

  “Holy cow!” I cried, stepping back. Not quickly enough. Another bolt came flying in from nowhere—kkkk!—and I was sent hurtling off the balcony.

  But I didn’t hurtle through the plants and bushes and into the garden. I kept tumbling and bouncing until I landed on something hard. It was a street.

  And Friar Laurence wasn’t next to me.

  Frankie was.

  Chapter 16

  “Am I glad to see you!” I cried, leaping to my feet. The storm had stopped. I looked around at a square with a bubbling fountain. “Where are we?”

  “We’re in Mantua,” said Frankie, dusting herself off and tucking the book into her dress again. “But we could be on the moon, for all the difference it makes.”

  I shook my head to clear it. “What do you mean? Did you tell Romeo the plan?”

  “Tell him the plan?” she snapped. “I haven’t even found the guy! I spent the entire time just getting to this point here! First, I flipped too far ahead, then I flipped back. When I finally wound up here, the Mantuan guards chased me all around because I had come from Verona and they thought I was carrying the plague or something.”