The Mercutio Problem Read online

“I know that’s hard. It’s crazy that Merlin doesn’t remember whether you’re from the twenty-first century or this one.” That was the thing about Merlin that bothered her most. If he could forget where Adam came from, could Beth also be forgotten and stranded in the old world? Did she have enough magical powers to get herself back home?

  Home. Beth remembered what she had said to Kevin before she had plummeted into London and the Thames. What would Kevin think—especially if he saw her disappear? “I’d better go home for a little while.”

  Beth closed her eyes, and opened them in the classroom. Kevin stood beside her, but so did Sita and Arnie. Oh no.

  Beth plopped down onto a chair. At least she was dry, but she had a few other problems.

  “What’s happening?” Kevin asked. He stared at her. “You’ve been weird for a long time, but now you’ve got to open up,” he demanded. “You disappeared. That freaked me out. I texted Sita and Arnie, and they got here right away. Now you appear again. What are you up to? I’ll bet Sita knows about it, but you have to tell us all.”

  “Be easy on her, Kevin,” Arnie said. “She’s probably unsettled from time travel.”

  “Time travel!” Kevin shouted.

  “Will you quiet down?” Sita frowned. “You can’t shout about something like that. Too many people know already.” She touched Beth’s shoulder. “OK, Beth, what’s happening now? I thought you told Merlin you were over it.”

  “Merlin!” Kevin exclaimed.

  “Listen and be quiet.” Arnie nudged him.

  “There isn’t time to explain everything.” Beth wished she didn’t have to. “Maybe Sita can fill you in on the background later. Last semester, Merlin sent me to Shakespeare’s time and to his plays. I met many of the characters. I liked Mercutio a lot, but Richard III killed him. Then Lady Macbeth killed Richard. Now Richard is back, but Mercutio isn’t. Merlin persuaded me to go back as Mercutio. So I’m traveling to the plays, looking and sounding like Mercutio. And I discovered that Richard is trying to enlist characters from all the plays to help him push Shakespeare to change all the endings. So I have to stop Richard. Is that clear?”

  “If I hadn’t seen you disappear, I’d call a cab and take you to the emergency room,” Kevin said, shaking his head. “But I envy you. I wonder why Merlin picked you instead of any of the rest of us?”

  “For one thing, she’s discreet, which you had better learn to be. Starting right now,” Sita told him.

  “Like Horatio and Marcellus in Hamlet,” Arnie said. “They never tell anyone except Hamlet that they’ve seen the ghost.”

  “But they leave Hamlet to duke it out alone with Claudius,” Kevin objected. “No way are we going to let you fight all this alone, Beth.”

  “Thanks,” Beth choked. “I don’t know what you can do, or whether you can travel to Shakespeare’s worlds, but it’s good to know I have your support. It’s been lonely.”

  “Please be careful,” Arnie said, looking at Beth as if she were about to step off a cliff. “We don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Mercutio’s a great character, but he’s still in the plays no matter what happens in this magical world,” Kevin said.

  “I’m not sure about that anymore. That’s why I have to defeat Richard. To protect all the characters.” Beth was near tears. “Now Bottom has disappeared.”

  “It’s time for you to get some food and caffeine in you,” Sita said, taking her by the arm. “Then you can worry about saving Shakespeare’s world. We’ll see you later, guys.”

  “All right.” Beth went with her, just saying “good-bye” to the boys. But she knew that they were still staring at her.

  Beth had a feeling, like a pricking in her thumbs, that Sita had known about what she was doing and was just pretending not to know.

  A pricking in her thumbs. Beth hoped to see the witches the next time she traveled. Perhaps they could help her find Bottom.

  As she walked down the street, avoiding mud from snow melt, Beth said, “I’m getting tired of seeing bare trees. I can’t wait until spring.” The street was lined with small, bare trees, which were more pathetic than large, bare trees, Beth thought.

  “The winter of our discontent,” Sita said. Beth winced. “There’s something you aren’t telling us.” Sita’s voice was less than sweet. “Something big. Out with it. Just how are you going to save Mercutio by pretending to be him?”

  Beth groaned. “You would ask. I didn’t want to tell that part. I have to die as Mercutio to bring him back to life.”

  “No, absolutely not.” Sita grabbed Beth’s arm. “You’re in love with Mercutio, but this is going too far.”

  “Not exactly in love,” Beth said. “I just like him a lot.”

  “Come on, Beth. It’s love.” Sita’s glared at her. “You’ve been infected by Romeo and Juliet. You want to die for the guy you love. Don’t do it.”

  “But I wouldn’t die as Beth. Just as Mercutio.”

  “Like it’s so easy to control what happens in magical worlds,” Sita said with sarcasm.

  After they had gone to a diner and had grilled cheese sandwiches, fries and Cokes (in Beth’s case, more than one), Beth was ready to go home. That is, after she’d had a chocolate shake to make sure the taste of the Thames mud was out of her mouth.

  They walked down the muddy streets. Sita turned down her street, which had larger houses and lawns than Beth’s. But Beth was glad enough to go to her own red brick townhouse. She knew that her mother worked hard to pay the mortgage.

  As soon as she was home, Beth contemplated her homework. Geometry, or trying to find Bottom. Biology, or trying to find Bottom. French, or trying to find Bottom.

  She changed her screen saver to Kevin Kline as Bottom. Too bad Kevin Connelly wasn’t as cute as Kevin Kline, though he was kind of nice looking. She stared at the screen, then closed her eyes.

  The smell of the heath wafted in the air. Fog shrouded her. She was getting tired of dampness, though at least the fog wasn’t as bad as the water of the Thames. Then the odors of the witches’ cauldron drowned the heath scent.

  “Mercutio comes,” chanted the witches.

  Beth surveyed her clothes. Green velvet, looking as fresh as if it had gone to the dry cleaners. She extended her hands. Yes, large man-fingers with heavy rings. When this masquerade was over, would she miss wearing jewels, or would she never want to wear them again?

  “Bottom the weaver is missing,” she said. “Can you help me find him?

  “Bottom,” the witches chanted. “Weaver, weaver, weaver.”

  “How can I find him?” she asked.

  “You sound like Beth, not Mercutio,” the first witch said.

  “You must be Mercutio,” the second witch said.

  “Mercutio first. Then ask about Bottom,” the third witch said.

  “But is Bottom in danger?” Beth asked.

  “Mercutio, speak!” the witches chanted.

  “You witches are fair,” Beth said, bowing to them. “Fair as cats that have howled and prowled all night. I swear that I am in love with all of you.”

  “Mercutio!” they chanted. “All hail Mercutio.”

  “Queen Mab herself has sent you to dream me a way to oppose the boar-king. For you are more powerful than he.”

  “You will find a way, but will you take the way?” they chanted.

  “I will take the way.”

  “Mercutio will take the way. Take the way. Take the way?” they chanted.

  “I am more than Mercutio,” she objected.

  “More than Mercutio and less,” the witches chanted.

  “That’s true,” Beth agreed.

  “Beware of your friends,” the first witch said.

  Those words hit Beth harder than the cauldron’s stink.

  “My friends, or Mercutio’s?”

  “Watch o
ut for your friends,” the second witch said.

  “Do you mean that I should take care of them, or be afraid of them?” Beth asked.

  “Fear them and fear for them,” the third witch said.

  “Do you mean my character friends, or my human friends? It would make sense to be wary of Lady Macbeth,” Beth said. She didn’t want to believe that she needed to fear any of her human friends.

  The witches laughed. Their laugh was more like a warning bell than a cackle.

  “Beware,” they chanted.

  Great, Beth thought. Beware of everyone. Perhaps she should beware of the witches.

  “Will you help preserve Shakespeare’s work as he wrote it?” she asked.

  Their laughter hurt her ears.

  “If Shakespeare is not great, are we great?” they chanted.

  “If Shakespeare’s words do not stand, then neither do our prophecies.”

  “Great. You’re on our side. Thanks.” Beth smiled at them, but she had to cover her ears at the hail of eerie laughter that sounded as they disappeared.

  Chapter 6

  “THIS PRODUCTION IS MORE like Eleventh Night,” Sita grumbled at Twelfth Night practice. The drama classroom was stuffy because it had no windows. “It hasn’t come together yet.”

  “Maybe it will at the Eleventh Hour,” Amelia said, smiling at Sita. Amelia’s blonde hair flowed over her shoulders like a storybook princess’s. “As Feste, you have to be moody. But I’ll get what I want at the end, so I don’t have to worry.”

  “And I’ll be stuck with the wind and the rain, hey nonny,” Sita said.

  “You asked for the part,” Beth reminded her. She noticed that Sita was wearing a new yellow silk blouse. “I’m glad I have mine.” Not so much my Mercutio part, Beth thought. If she could just be Viola/Cesario, and not Mercutio too, life wouldn’t be so complicated.

  She felt that her identity was splitting the way her mother shredded old credit cards.

  “Viola, Olivia, your first scene,” Ms. Capulet ordered.

  Beth stuck out her uncomfortably bound chest. She tried to act the way she did as Mercutio, but softer, because she was supposed to be a girl playing a guy, and a guy who was better mannered than Mercutio.

  “Most radiant, exquisite and unmatchable beauty,” Beth addressed Amelia.

  The words were rather silly, because Viola/Cesario had not yet seen Olivia’s face. After quite a few exchanges, Viola said, “Good madam, let me see your face.”

  A few more lines, and Amelia pretended to lift a veil.

  “Excellently done, if God did it all,” Viola said.

  Beth knew there were productions of Twelfth Night where Viola really is smitten when she sees Olivia’s face. Beth wasn’t sure that James Dean High School was ready for a lesbian Viola, but she thought there probably should be undertones of attraction. She tried to hint at real feeling behind Viola’s words.

  Amelia responded well. She almost swooned over Viola.

  When Beth said, “Make me a willow cabin at your gate and call upon my soul within the house,” she tried her best to sound romantic. She had seldom played a woman in love, and she decided to make Cesario convincing, though of course she would have to show subdued love for Duke Orsino, who also believed that Viola was a boy. Yes, being Mercutio helped her with Viola, and Viola helped her with Mercutio.

  Amelia’s Olivia plunged further and further into passion.

  “Good work!” Ms. Capulet said when the scene ended.

  “This is wonderful,” Amelia whispered to Beth, and it occurred to Beth that Amelia might be attracted to her.

  “It’s a great play,” Beth said noncommittally. She was only acting, but if Amelia wasn’t, Beth didn’t want to hurt Amelia’s feelings.

  Sita came over to Beth and gave her a wicked grin. “Don’t lead her on,” Sita said. “She’s a good kid.”

  “I won’t.” Beth blushed. “What am I supposed to do? Rush over and kiss one of the guys to show that I’m heterosexual? Tell her, ‘by the way, I have a boyfriend,’ even though I don’t?”

  “Don’t be dumb,” Sita chided her. “You can be subtler than that.”

  BETH SLUNK INTO HER history class the next day. Arnie beckoned her to sit beside him, and she did. Sita swooped in wearing a fashionable new scarf and sat behind Beth. Kevin clumped in, wearing boots that looked as if they belonged to a lumberjack.

  Today was the day they would start reading Richard III. Beth brought a bottle of water to keep her going, and had some aspirin handy. She had taken Dramamine and wished she could bring a barf bag.

  Mr. Clarke brandished a copy of the play. “We shall read the play aloud instead of watching the movie,” he said. “Remember that Shakespeare’s Richard is not the same as the real Richard, the one whose bones were discovered recently. The real Richard might not have been treacherous. There is no conclusive evidence that he killed the princes in the Tower. Shakespeare’s play is a clever piece of propaganda to show that the Tudors had the right to the throne. Nevertheless, we can revel in the cunning of Shakespeare’s Richard.”

  You revel in it, Beth wanted to say. And let me go to the girls’ room and be sick.

  “Kevin, you read Richard’s part,” the teacher said. “Start with the opening speech.”

  Kevin rose from his desk. He grinned at his classmates. It was a malevolent grin. “Now is the winter of our discontent,” he said, “Made glorious summer by this sun of York. . . .”

  Beth gripped her desk.

  “Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths . . . .”

  The voice was Richard’s. The king stood in the classroom, a laurel wreath on his head.

  Beth fainted.

  She woke with the feeling of hands massaging her forehead. She opened her eyes and saw that the hands were Sita’s. Beth lay on the floor. Arnie pressed smelling salts to her nose. Nice that he had thought to bring them.

  “What’s going on here?” Mr. Clarke demanded. “Are you sick, Beth, or are you playacting?”

  “I . . . .” she stammered.

  “She didn’t eat breakfast this morning,” Sita chimed in. “Beth has been dieting too much lately. I’ve told her that she looks fine as she is.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Beth managed to say. She never dieted because not eating meat was restrictive enough.

  Sita and Arnie pulled her up.

  Kevin hovered nearby. His face paled.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  Mr. Clarke frowned at Beth. “You’re supposed to be the Shakespearean scholar here. I expect you to arrive in class in shape to participate. Go to the nurse’s office now, but you must never let anything like this happen again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Beth leaned on Sita, who led her away. Arnie’s gaze followed them as if he wished he could come along.

  “You see, it’s good that we know what you’re going through,” Sita told her. “We can help you.”

  Beth nodded, but she still didn’t feel like speaking.

  Instead of taking her to the nurse’s office, Sita led her outdoors and they sat on a bench under a tree near the tennis courts. The ground there wasn’t muddy. It was a warm day for January, almost sixty degrees. Beth took off her sweater. Sita brought a thermos of chamomile tea out of her bag and gave Beth some to drink.

  The taste made Beth want to spit, but she accepted the drink.

  They stayed there for lunch instead of going to the cafeteria. Arnie and Kevin joined them and brought sandwiches.

  “I’m sorry my reading was so hard for you,” Kevin told her, handing her a hummus sandwich on pita.

  “It’s not your fault,” Beth said. “Thanks.” The hummus wasn’t as good as the kind her mother bought, but it tasted all right.

  “Maybe it is his fault,�
�� Sita said, staring into Kevin’s eyes.

  Kevin laughed. “Don’t be dumb. Did you see how many girls came up to me afterwards and told me I was great?”

  Arnie put down his chicken salad sandwich. “Meanwhile, our friend Beth became too sick to stay in the classroom. You shouldn’t play Richard again. I’m going to play him tomorrow.”

  “If you think I’m giving up a role like that, you’re crazy.” Kevin crunched his potato chips.

  “You could be sick tomorrow,” Sita said sweetly.

  “I don’t like the way you said that.” Kevin glared at her.

  “Beth, tell him to be sick,” Sita said.

  “Of course I won’t say that.” Beth gave Sita a dirty look. “You know that might make him really sick.”

  “OK.” Sita’s smile was so saccharine that it gave Beth goosebumps. It reminded her of Sita’s acting the part of Lady Macbeth the previous autumn.

  Chapter 7

  WHEN BETH WENT HOME that afternoon, she cleaned up the sink, which her mother had left messy after breakfast, and put the dishes into the dishwasher. Their kitchen was thirty years old, but Beth wondered why some women made a big deal about fancy kitchens and granite countertops. All that mattered was having a working stove and refrigerator. The linoleum on the floor didn’t look too bad.

  Then Beth went to her room and pushed her dirty clothes under the bed because the clothes hamper was full and she didn’t feel like doing a wash. Then she did some geometry. Some people thought geometry was mystical, but she didn’t have any love affair with quadrangles. After she had finished her homework, she decided it was time to visit Lady Macbeth. Beth closed her eyes and thought of Macbeth’s castle.

  She moved through Maryland’s air to chilling winds. Ravens gronked and dove around her. She landed in the bleak garden. Its bare trees had a more melancholy look than bare trees did in Maryland.

  Beth had grown taller and thicker, and Mercutio’s rings were on her hands. She had worn green nail polish at home, but now her nails were bare. They looked so good that she guessed Mercutio sometimes had manicures.