I shrugged. She had a point. “Well, how about toadstools like the kind we used before? Maybe we could locate a toadstoolius dramaticus correcticum. Or how about a toadstoolius shakespearius disastrius preventum?”
Miss Blossom sighed. “Now you’re reaching. Well, maybe not. But there’s only one chance in that gazillion you’re always mentioning that we’d find them, especially that second one. And I don’t know if I’d recognize them if we did. There are no two ways about it, Rupert, we are in very big trouble.”
For a few minutes, the classroom was sunk in gloomy silence.
“I guess,” I said at last, “what we could use is a fairy godmother. ”
“WHAT?!!!!!!!!!”
Oops! Bad idea. I had to duck to avoid being pelted by a tornado of sparks whipping about the room.
“FAIRY GODMOTHER! Don’t even mention them to me. We witches get more bad press from just swooping around at Halloween, and generally doing more or less what’s expected of us. All up front, all very straightforward. But those devious creatures—why, most of them are worse than we are. They’ve caused more trouble with those three wishes they offer than you can shake a broomstick at. Why, I could tell you some tales that … oh, never mind. They’re beneath discussing.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Blossom,” I said meekly.
“Not your fault, Rupert, just don’t believe everything you read about them,” she said. “And I must be honest, there are some very decent fairy godmothers. And there are also some very nasty witches, which happens to be what we’re involved with now. But I’m afraid we’ll have to do the best we can. We’ll just have to keep our noses to the ground, our eyes peeled, and our ears pricked, or whatever.”
Well, I couldn’t think of any “whatever” that would do much good. It was scary. And there was good old Peatmouse waiting for me out on the monkey bars, with no idea at all of the danger that he and I, and the whole sixth grade, might be headed straight for.
10
A Bunch of Eyewash
“I can’t figure it out,” Peatmouse said as we were sitting out on the Pepperdine monkey bars the following morning. “I think I’m actually learning something. I mean, considering who’s our teacher.”
“Me too,” said Banana. “Anybody here thinks she’s maybe as good as … well, as good as Miss Switch?”
We all looked at each other and shrugged. “Nobody’s that good,” I said, which I just happened to know was exactly the truth.
“I don’t know how she does it when she’s such a mess doing everything else,” said Creampuff.
“Romeo and Juliet! Lo-o-o-ove! Sheesh!” Peatmouse said.
“Yeah!” we all agreed.
“But that was dorky Mr. Dorking’s idea, not Miss Blossom’s,” Creampuff said. “I guess she had to go along with it.”
“Yeah,” said Banana. “There’re only two people in the balcony scene, though. I wonder what the rest of us will be doing?”
“What do you mean, ‘rest of us’?” Creampuff said. “What makes you so sure you won’t be the lucky one who gets to be Romeo?”
“Not me,” Banana said. “I can’t do heights. I’ll just tell Miss Blossom if I have to climb a ladder to any balcony, I’ll throw up all over Juliet.”
We all knew this was not exactly a true statement, considering that at that very moment Banana was dangling from the top rung of the monkey bars. But we didn’t say anything. After all, we knew we’d all back up any of our excuses no matter what they were.
Of course, of everyone there, of everyone in the whole class, actually, I was the one person who could be sure of not having to be a Shakespearean actor. Miss Blossom would be counting on me to do some very serious detective work, especially at the performance, where she would be busy with the PTA and trying to keep the sixth grade under control. She’d be counting on me to go snooping around, not standing up on a ladder waving my arms. That is, of course, if we ever got to that point without discovering what Grodork had in mind for the sixth grade, and having Miss Switch put a stop to it. Yes, indeed, I was quite safe from having to play Romeo, but I would stand by my friends and do all I could to keep it from happening to them!
Miss Blossom announced as soon as the bell rang that morning that we would be having tryouts for the scene just before lunch.
“I’m so sorry there are only the two roles,” said Miss Blossom, flapping her eyelashes at us and giving us this big sympathetic smile. “I’m sure you all want a part. But the rest of you will be onstage as an audience just as they were in Shakespeare’s day. Now, won’t that be fun?”
Well, it would be more fun than the alternative, at any rate, I thought to myself. But Miss Blossom was half right when she said we would all want to win a part. All the girls wanted to be Juliet. After all, Mr. Dorking would be out there with the rest of the PTA watching them. But none of the boys cared to be Romeo. And there were all sorts of escape routes tried. As for me, what I did was read the part in such a dead voice, nobody in their right mind would have even cast me as a doorpost. Miss Blossom smiled sweetly through it all.
Jessica Poole got chosen to be Juliet. And guess who got chosen to be her Romeo? I could have dyed my face blue. I could have suddenly grown a tail or ears the size of flapjacks. It wouldn’t have made any difference. Miss Blossom had me in mind all along, and the tryouts for the Romeo part were just a bunch of eyewash. I sidled up to her desk as soon as the classroom
