NO GREATER NARRATOR EVER SPOKE A PLAY …
Getting out was easier said than done.
With every step, Becca and Sam were almost knocked over as more and more people in blue and red rushed to join in. Rufus had to dance around like a cat chasing a laser pointer so that his tail wouldn’t be trampled.
“Where do we go?” Becca shouted to Sam. “Now would be a good time to actually act like an older brother!”
“Uh, we need to hide?”
“I know,” Becca shrieked. “But where?”
Suddenly there was a loud CRACKLE above them. Sam brightened up. “Maybe the thunderstorm will make everyone stop.”
Becca frowned. The noise hadn’t sounded like thunder. It seemed more like static on the radio, but maybe it was even more like the flip of a page from a very old, very dry book.
Becca and Sam knew they needed to hide, and quickly! Only the promise of a nearby vegetable cart offered some hope of protection.
Sam glanced over at Becca, who narrowly missed a flying tomato. “Did you just hear a loud voice say something about a vegetable cart?” he asked.
Becca nodded. The voice was strong, but not loud. Like someone sitting in an armchair at home, but somehow also all around them. Or as though someone had hooked up a microphone directly into their brains.
“Where did it come from—DUCK!” Becca shouted, and Sam dropped to his knees as a basket of tomatoes hurtled over him, barely missing his head.
If they did the sensible thing and took cover in the vegetable cart, maybe they’d have the time to ask questions.
“Beats staying here!” Becca said, looking around until she spotted an abandoned cart. “Go!” she ordered, pointing.
They raced through the battle, Becca using her backpack as a shield to protect them from flying tomatoes until they reached the safety of the cart. Rufus jumped behind it first, and Becca and Sam dived after him.
“Okay, who are you? And where are we?!” Sam shouted above the noise.
The Narrator, at your service. And if you’ll allow me, I was just about to get back to narrating. *Ahem.* Becca and Sam were being given a crash course in the daily life of the Italian city of Verona.
Verona sounded familiar to Becca. Where had she heard that before?
Becca first heard about Verona when Sam read the prologue to Romeo and Juliet in Kyle’s living room.
“Hey!” Becca protested. “Are you reading my mind?”
I am the Narrator. I know everything. Like I was saying, it was a beautiful city and had been at the top of Best Home Pamphlet’s list of Places with the Best Balconies for the fifth year in a row, but alas, Verona was now being torn apart.
Becca and Sam ducked another shower of tomatoes.
“I don’t know if it’s being torn apart,” Sam muttered to Becca. “But it’s certainly getting sauced.”
Pay attention, please! Verona was being torn apart by two families: the Blue Montagues and the Scarlet Capulets. Both claimed to make the world’s best pizza, and they had gone to increasing lengths to prove it. Now it was truly war.
Oh, and you may want to hold your noses in a second.
Sam opened his mouth, but he suddenly turned shamrock green. A second later, Becca knew why. Well, actually, she smelled why.
A tall, skinny man in scarlet appeared in the square, and it was like someone had liquefied a flower garden and shot it through a hose into Becca’s nostrils. She could practically see the cologne waves rolling off him.
“Stand back, peasants!” he proclaimed, waving his sword dramatically.
“Tybalt has arrived!”
Yes, so that’s Tybalt. And he’s the best swordsman in Verona … but he also has the worst temper. And he doesn’t like kids, so stay out of his way.
Tybalt whirled his cloak, sending more waves of overpowering floral aroma toward Becca’s nose, and she thought it would almost be worth sticking her fingers up her nostrils. Rufus whined loudly, and she quickly covered his snout with her hand.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Becca said. “Between that awful perfume and the swords and the tomatoes, we’re going to get hurt!”
“If only I had a basketball,” Sam said.
“For what?” Becca said. “I don’t think your three-pointer skills are going to impress a crowd of bloodthirsty pizza chefs.”
“Oh yeah?” Sam said, grabbing a handful of tomatoes from the back of the cart. He plucked one and rolled it around in his hand. “My teammates didn’t nickname me Sam Kablam for nothing.”
“That’s a terrible nickname,” Becca said automatically, though as Sam began to fire one red fruit bomb after the other, she couldn’t help but be a tiny—a teeny, tiny, TEENSIEST—bit impressed.
His throws were fast, sharp, and accurate. One tomato even landed right on the point of a dagger and stuck there.
And then he made a mistake.
Tybalt staggered, and Becca saw what looked like a red sun splashed across his chest and face.
“Uh-oh,” she murmured as Tybalt’s neck swiveled around quicker than an owl’s. His eyes locked on Sam.
“You,” he snarled, and Becca saw he had unusually pointed teeth. “You owl-nosed, vegetable-hurling street weasel! You ruined my doublet!”
He swung his sword and charged toward them.
“What do we do?” Sam asked Becca.
She grabbed Rufus’s collar. “We hide!”