Something Like Romeo and Juliet

Chapter 4

I sat wearily at my bedroom desk, finishing up the last of my homework for the day. It was the kind of night that made me want nothing more than to curl up under the heavy covers of my bed and feel the bliss of gently closing my eyes for the final time until morning; crickets chirping distantly, rain pattering softly on the roof, a bed with freshly washed linens...complete serenity if you ask me.

I sighed resolutely as I pulled out my final task from my backpack: my Shakespeare notebook, with two pages of notes that I needed to review before tomorrow's class. I was stupid for putting it off until now, but too late. I forced myself to lift the front cover.    

My groggy eyes immediately travelled to a cluster of writing in the corner of the front page, sprawled in bright red ink contrasting sharply with my dull penciled notes. I leaned forward to make out the writing, some of the fog clearing from my head in curiousity. I whispered the mystery message out loud to myself: "S146, 3-4; S29, 1; S6, 1."

I blinked. Not quite what I had been expecting.

Had Jonathan written it? It didn't make sense why he would be writing random letters and numbers in my notebook, but he was the only one who could have. He must have just been doodling or something, I decided, my half-asleep brain not allowing me to pursue the matter any further. My notes were skimmed, and I fell asleep to thoughts of letters and numbers scribbled in red ink.

***

The morning, however, was a different story. I woke up much more willing to pursue my new mystery, and opened back up my notebook to get a better look at the writing. "S146, 3-4; S29, 1; S6, 1," I read aloud. Nope, I definitely hadn't missed anything last night. But I was getting increasingly skeptical  about my theory about the writing being nothing more than doodles. First off, no one uses semicolons when they doodle. Second, I liked to think that Jonathan was the perfect combination of weirdly smart and mysterious to write a secret message like this. I went to my laptop and tried searching it into Google, but all that came up was a bunch of census data.

I sat back and crossed my arms. Okay, I mused. This was written by Jonathan, a Shakespeare freak, in a Shakespeare class. So I was betting it had something to do with Shakespeare.

I stared for a few seconds at the repeated S's, and eventually I got some sort of idea. I recalled Jonathan's flat voice in class two days ago: "The guy wrote 37 plays, plus like a million sonnets..."

Did S equal sonnet? I went back to my laptop, figuring I might as well find out. "Sonnet...146...3-4," I typed. The sonnet entitled Sonnet 146 promptly popped up. I tipped my head for a bit as I skimmed the confusing poetry before I finally got my lightbulb moment. My fingers flew across the keyboard excitedly.

                               ***

I immediately sat up at the sight of Jonathan taking his seat next to me.

"Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, painting thy outward walls so costly gay? When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, then not let Winter's ragged hand deface," I recited triumphantly from my notebook.

Jonathan didn't act at all unperturbed by this impromptu recitation. I guess when you're as weird as he is, it takes a lot more to surprise you.

"Oh yeah, that thing I wrote," he reflected. "You figured that out on your own?"

I snorted. "Oh, yeah, because I forgot to tell you, I have all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets memorized," I laughed. "No, Judge Jay, I Googled your sonnets."

"Judge Jay?"

"John Jay, statesman, diplomat, first Chief Justice in America?"

"No, I know that," Jonathan said, frowning. "But I didn't write in invisible ink."

"Well, I'm sorry I couldn't think of any historical figures who wrote in Shakespearian code," I shot back haughtily, though secretly I was impressed that he knew that John Jay was the inventor of the kind of invisible ink used in the Revolutionary War. I was a huge U.S. History geek, and I'd never met anyone before who could keep up with my extensive knowledge on the subject--not even my history teacher.

"Whatever," he shrugged, moving past the subject. "Did you do the reading?"

I reached for my Romeo and Juliet packet. "Of course I did. I don't plan on flunking Shakespeare class."

"Wow, low blow," Jonathan responded monotonously, though I swore I saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

"Okay, so, we're supposed to discuss it. Did you have any questions about the content?"

Jonathan leaned back against his seat with his hands behind his head. "Nope."

"Fine then, we'll discuss my questions," I sighed. "First off, do you know what a collier is?"

Jonathan heaved himself up slightly.     "A coal miner."

"And?"

"And what?"

I huffed in frustration. "And what the heck does a coal miner have to do with the scene?"

"Sampson and Gregory are saying they won't act rough and common like coal miners," Jonathan answered, his eyes turned up to the ceiling.

"Okay, thank you, William J. Sidis," I said, rolling my eyes a little. "I forget that you've memorized this thing word for word."

"Wow, William J. Sidis," he remarked. "The smartest man in American history."

I hid a smile. "Thought to be, at least." I marvelled at a second American history reference being understood.

We were silent for a few seconds, with neither of us having anything left worth discussing.

"Hey, Jonathan?" I waited until he looked at me. "Uh, what did the sonnet combination you wrote in my notebook mean?"

"It was this thing I did where I took the question in Sonnet 146 and used old sonnets to answer it," he replied dismissively.

"So, what was the question and answer?"

He glanced at me. "You said you figured it out."

"Well, I figured out what sonnet lines you were citing," I said somewhat defensively. "I'm just not big on the whole translation thing."

"Apparently," he remarked."What do you think it means?"

"Um," I started. "Well, I was thinking it was him asking why you act like you're fine when you're really having problems. And then the answer you found was that when life's not going your way you should still be strong and, like, not let it bring you down?"

He clapped slowly. "Two hundred points to Contestant number one for correctly translating Shakespeare into a modern day Tumblr quote."

I laughed. "Wow, did Christian Bale here just make a joke?"

Jonathan smirked a little. "Yeah, and did Barbara Tuchman just make a pop culture reference?"

"I do branch out on occasion," I replied, while meanwhile feeling honored to have been compared to a famous American historian.

"Jonathan and Zara, are you working on Shakespeare over there?" called Miss Robinson sternly from her desk.

"Yes, Miss Robinson," I quickly responded. Feeling awkward, I headed my piece of paper for my paragraph on Act I, Scene I. I barely got a sentence down before the bell rang, however, feeling suddenly excited and distracted.

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New chapter! I'm thinking I'll update every Sunday from now on.

Just a side note that the sonnet combination thing took me like two hours to think up. I'm still not sure if it was worth it.