Chapter 1 – Now I'll tell thee joyful tidings (Juliet)

I stepped out into the sunlight, the heat hitting me with an almost physical punch. I couldn’t believe I was doing this.

I had been avoiding my mother all day. She had that glint in her eye when I came down in the morning. It was the glint that meant she wanted somebody to do something for her, and she’d take whoever was the easiest target.

Therefore, my usual large breakfast became a quick banana, grabbed on the run as I retreated back to my room, and lunch was a couple of granola bars I had stashed in my bottom drawer. I didn't serious expect that I'd be able to last all day on that; I mean I was a growing girl. There was no way I could survive on mere crumbs.

I was hopeful though, but when I smelled the tantalizing scent of cookies wafting up the stairs, I couldn’t help but sneak down and attempt to steal a few without my mother noticing. I was starving, and the smell of cookies was way too tempting.

Unfortunately I don’t possess superpowers, so my mom caught me, my mouth stuffed with a cookie and another couple in my hand. (I personally think she planned it.)

Now I was bearing the remainder of the cookies – my mom let me eat the ones I had grabbed because she said that I had given them cooties – to the new neighbors down the street. I was the official Cartwright family greeter or at least I was on this occasion. My mother had heard that there were kids in the family so she thought it would be so much nicer if either my brother or I went instead of an adult. Carson, however, saw the same thing I did this morning and had ducked out claiming he was meeting up with a couple of the guys.

Yeah, right.

Actually, I wasn’t that bitter about it. I figured that my mom wanted me to clean, garden, do laundry or something along those lines. I had gotten to that point in the summer when I start counting day until school started (twelve) and I wasn’t going to spend the remainder of my freedom doing household chores for my mom. Not unless she made me do them, which she wouldn’t go out of her way to do, unless I looked particularly bored.

During the short walk, I wondered a little about the new neighbors. The house they had moved into had a high turnover rate. About five families had lived there over the course of my lifetime. The shortest, the Jacksons, had been there for merely six months – they had a horribly yappy dog. The longest, the Dickinsons, had lived there for eight years and had moved when their oldest had gone off to college.

As I rang the doorbell, I prayed that the children my mom had heard about were over the age of five. Since the Dickinsons, no family living there had had a child over five years of age and I was hoping that this visit wasn’t going to lead to a promise of perpetual babysitting.

Something or someone must have heard me because the person who opened the door was definitely over five. Actually, she was probably around my age. She looked at me with bored eyes, taking in the athletic shorts and bright orange shirt I had thrown on and my mom had protested over (I had won the argument obviously). She glanced at the container I carried, and the slightly plastic smile I wore. Her lips turned up slightly at the ends in an almost smile, as she finally looked me in the eyes.

“Do you come bearing Jell-O?” She asked, her face and eyes absolutely expressionless.

“Wh-what?” I looked at the girl in confusion. She gestured to the container and it dawned on me. My mother must not have been the first to send a welcoming gift. “They are cookies actually. Chocolate chip to be exact.”

Her face lit up, and her eyes lost the boredom. Her eyes were beautiful. I had no doubt that many boys had fallen over those long-lashed, doe-like blue peepers. “Man, you are my hero. I love chocolate.”

“What female doesn’t?” We grinned at each other and I stuck out my hand. “I’m Dylan.”

She shook my hand but cocked her head in confusion, her short brown hair falling into her eyes. “I figure it’s a question you get a lot, but isn’t Dylan a guy’s name?”

“You’re definitely not the first. My middle name’s Dylan. My first is Juliet, but I’m not that fond of it.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be either.” I was beginning to like this neighbor of mine. “Why don’t you come in, we’re disturbing the perfect seventy-eight degree artificial temperature my brother is trying to perfect.”

She padded down the hall in her socked feet after she closed the door behind me. She was a girl after my own heart for she was still in her pajamas at two in the afternoon. “I’m Bianca, by the way. Our parents must have similar preoccupations with Shakespeare.”

I grinned as I followed her down the hall. I definitely liked this girl. “Let me guess, you have a nickname?”

“Hmm, yeah. Call me Bi, but no cracks about the insect, ‘kay?”

“Even if I come armed with cookies?” I loved pushing the line, and it wouldn’t hurt to see if Bianca could take it. We wouldn’t get along if she couldn’t.

Bi paused in the hallway, turning to look at me with one eyebrow raised. I always wished I could raise only one eyebrow. Try as hard as I could though, I never managed it. Bi, on the other hand, had the look down perfectly. I shook the cookie tin at eye level, and smiled invitingly. The eyebrow fell and Bi laughed.

“You and I are going to get along. I can tell already,” she said as she threw her arm around my shoulders.

We were still laughing when the hallway ended and we found a boy clad in nothing but his boxers standing in a brightly lit kitchen.

I stopped short, not shocked – I had seen boys in boxers before, I did have a brother after all – but still a little surprised. The boy cocked his head at me, raising his eyebrow in a perfect imitation of Bi’s earlier look, and stared pointedly at the tin in my hands.

When I glanced at Bi, she was rolling her eyes at the boy in the kitchen and I figured that he must be her brother (Yeah, I know. No shit Sherlock).

“What are you doing, doofus?” She said, leaving me standing in the hallway and walking over to the fridge.

“I’m trying to see if I can jump into my jeans,” he replied distractedly stilleyeing the tin in my hands. When both Bi and I stared at him in confusion, he looked from Bi to me then to Bi again, obviously as confused as we were. “What?”

“Not exactly the brightest crayon in the box, is he?” I asked, smiling wickedly at Bi. I figured no girl who called her brother a doofus was going to mind if I did the same. I was right and I was rewarded with another of Bi’s laughs and one of her brother’s glares.

“Dylan, I not only am going to like you, I’m going to love you. Bring those over here.” She motioned towards the cookies as she pulled out milk and a couple of glasses.

“That isn’t Jell-O, is it?” Bi’s brother looked at the tin hopefully.

I smiled at him. He had the same eyes as Bi, giving his face a feminine and innocent look, but there was a wickedness that I liked that glinted from behind the doe eyes and his muscled torso wasn’t exactly something to scoff at. “Cookies to be exact.”

His entire face lit up and he grabbed me, surprising me and squeezing the air out of me. He let go, took the tin from me and bounded to the counter where Bi was pouring milk as I just stood there, still shocked from the sudden contact.

Bi looked up at me, rolling her eyes at her brother’s antics. “You’ll have to excuse Christopher. He was dropped on his head as a small child.”

Christopher sighed theatrically. “Tisk, tisk. Surely you can be more creative. That is such an overused expression.” He turned to me, his expression serious but his eyes dancing wickedly and I suddenly knew that I was going to like him as much as Ialready liked his sister.

“You’ll have to excuse my sister. She has always been bitter about being the youngest andthat has led her to grow to be a cynical young woman who uses overused passé phrase to explain the inexplicable.”

As I laughed, Bi glared evilly at her brother throwing the milk cap at him. Christopher just smiled and opened up the tin.

“Chocolate chip! You are a goddess!”

“You can thank my mother.” We all can, I thought to myself. I hadn’t smiled so much in weeks, and for once was actually glad for once that my mother had caught me.

“I’ll do that,” he said with his mouth full of cookie, crumbs spewing onto the counter.

“You’re so gross, Chris.” Bi rolled her eyes again. I was beginning to see that eye rolling was quite a habit for Bi. “Hey, Dylan, pull up a stool.”

I sat next to Chris, and Bi pushed a glass of milk toward me, her mouth full of cookie. At which point Chris took the opportunity to poke Bi in the side, causing her to spew her cookie all over the counter.

“You’re so gross, Bi,” he teased in a perfect imitation of her voice. I hid my laugh behind my hand as Bi grabbed the jeans Chris had left on the floor and began beating him with them. She yelled curses at him and he held his arms up in mock protection, laughing as hard as I was.

When they settle the argument, Bi the obvious victor for the moment, we dug into the cookies with relish, enjoying the fresh-baked chocolaty taste.

“So, Chris,” I said, dunking another cookie, my fifth today, into my milk. “What exactly were you doing with those pants again?”

“Trying to jump into them.” He looked at us exasperated when we looked at him in confusion yet again. “It’s not that hard to understand.”

“I was trying to see if I could put both of my legs into my jeans at one time,” he explained patiently, emphasizing each word and pausing between as if we were small children. “And the only way to do that is to jump into them. As in both feet off the ground and into the jeans at once.”

He looked at us with expectation in his eyes, obviously expecting cries of sudden understanding, but I just stared at him stupidly. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand. I did, but I just didn’t get why he would try to do that – it seemed like such a stupid thing to try to do.

Bi obviously agreed with me for she rolled her eyes again and smacked Chris.

“What was that for?” he asked, glaring at her.

“For being dumb,” she replied, glaring back.

“You guys obviously get along great,” I said, finishing off my milk. If I ate one more cookie, I was going to explode regardless of how good they were.

“Our relationship is peachy, just absolutely peachy,” Bi drawled as she placed my glass and hers into the sink.

“Believe it or not,” Chris said, drawing it out as if the next thing out of his mouth was going to be a revelation to top all revelations. “We’re twins.”

I feigned a look of complete surprise, dropping my jaw and putting my hands on my cheeks – a perfect imitation of Macaulay Culkin – earning a laugh from Chris.

“Chris is older by about two minutes and he lords it over me like it’s two years.” Bi glared at her brother, but this one held a bit of affection as well. They did love each other, Bi and Chris. I suspected their behavior was just an act or at least their way of showing their affection for one another.

“Older is important, little sis. It means I will always be two minutes wiser than you.”

Bi shook her head, looking at me with an obvious ‘can you believe he is this stupid’ expression on her face. “Bullshit.”

“In case you're wondering, we’re always like this,” Christopher staged whispered in my ear.

“Drives Ro crazy.” He added more loudly.

“Ro?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah, our older brother.” Something suddenly dawn on Bi and she collapsed into fits of giggles. I looked at Chris but he looked back at me just as confused as I was.

“Was it something I said?” I asked, even more confused now. I had no clue what she was laughing about. All I did was ask I question.

Bi waved her arm at me, still trying to control her laughter. “It’s not really that funny. I’m slightly deranged.”

“You going to explain, anyway?” Chris asked, nibbling on a cookie. By now he had put on his pants, but he was still shirtless and still showing off his toned torso.

“My parent’s are just preoccupied with Shakespeare; they are obsessed. Chris is the only one who got away decently. I mean Christopher is pretty tame for Shakespeare.”

“And you were laughing at that?” Chris asked, a little annoyed. Bi smacked him from across the counter and glared.

“If you let me finish. Anyway,” she continued with an additional glare at Chris. “My oldest brother got the worst my parents could dish out. They named him Romeo.” She collapsed into giggles again and I blushed. Meeting him could be a little awkward.

Chris looked at both of us, raising his eyebrow at both Bi’s giggles and my blush. “I’m obviously missing something, cause Ro’s name isn’t that funny or embarrassing to anyone but him.”

Bi suppressed her giggles for a moment and managed to spit out, “Dylan’s real name is Juliet,” before collapsing into laughter again. Chris grinned madly, and raised his eyebrow suggestively at me. I blushed even deeper and punched him in the arm.

“Ow.” Chris rubbed his arm in mock pain and turned his puppy eyes on Bi, obviously looking for sympathy.

“Juliet, violence is not the answer.” Her voice containing an admonishing tone as she shook her finger at me, but her eyes gained a wicked glint as she turned to her brother.

“Poor baby,” she cooed as Chris preened slightly. Until she too punched him in the arm and shared a conspiratorial grin with me.

“Why is it that girls always gang up together?” Chris asked, raising his eyes and arms to the ceiling, exasperation in his every motion. Bi and I just grinned at him and he sighed theatrically, shaking his head in resignation to his fate.

“Well, anyway,” Bi said, jumping onto the counter and swinging her legs into the cabinets in perfect rhythm with one another. “Ro’s our older brother. He’s a senior and still asleep I think. Guy sleeps about eighteen hours a day.”

Now it was Chris’s turn to roll his eyes. “No, he doesn’t. He just goes to bed at three in the morning and sleeps till about three in the afternoon.” He explained. “Unlike Ms. Sunshine over here, none of us boys in the family are morning people.”

“You’re a morning person?” I ask Bi, eying her pajamas. They were covered in smiley faces, her shirt proclaiming ‘If you don’t like my face, you should take a look at yours.’

“Yeah.” Bi grinned. “I just stay in my pajamas cause I'm way too lazy to change.”

“Besides, I don’t want all the visiting parents to think I’m too responsible," she added as an afterthought, motioning toward her shirt. "I hate babysitting.”

I laughed and thought of my silent prayer before Bi had opened the door. I don’t hate babysitting – it’s a good source of cash. I just didn’t want to spend the rest of my summer with five-year-olds. Perfectly reasonable, or at least I thought so.

“So I guess I’m not the first to stop by.”

“The first to bring anything but Jell-O.” Chris sighed in frustration. “I never thought I’d hate Jell-O so much.”

“No kidding,” Bi added in agreement. “Really, Dylan, you should see the fridge.”

I raised my eyebrows – I wish I could do only one – and walked over to where Bi was holding the fridge open. I glanced inside and gasped.

I had never seen so much Jell-O. The fridge had mountains of it, in various shapes, colors, and configurations. They were Jell-O salads, Jell-O bunt cakes, and Jell-O with fruit in the middle. It looked almost as if every family in the neighborhood had stopped by, all bearing Jell-O.

“You guys are going to be eating Jell-O for the next decade,” I exclaimed, turning back to Bi and Chris.

“Yeah, I know,” Bi said sadly. “My mom hates it when we waste food and Jell-O never goes bad.”

“It’s worse than fruit cakes at Christmas.” Chris asked, his face resigned as he rested it in his hands. “At least Mom admits those are inedible. But according to her, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Jell-O.”

I give them both sympathetic looks. “I don’t suppose you have a dog,” I asked as Bi and I joined Chris at the counter again.

“I wish,” Chris replied. “Do you?”

“Yeah. He’s a lab, so he’ll eat just about anything,” I said conspiratorially. Bi and Chris look at me in shock and then at each other. Chris raised his eyebrow in a silent question to Bi and she began to smile.

“So,” she said, drawing out the word as they both turned to look at me, expectation and hope in their faces. “If we were to show up at your house, say, bearing Jell-O, there might just be someone, two-legged or four, that might just be willing to eat some of that stuff?” She motioned back at the fridge and I grinned wickedly at her.

Chris punched the air with his fist. “Score!” He jumped up and grabbed me into a fierce hug again. “You really are a goddess, Dylan.”

I laughed and hugged him back. “Thanks, Chris.”

“I serious,” I added when Chris finally let me go. “Even if Luke doesn’t eat it, you can probably convince my brother to eat some of it.”

“You have a brother?” Bi asked, hopefully.

“Yeah, Carson. He’s older by a year. But he has a girlfriend,” I added watching Bi perk up and then sag slightly and sigh.

“Typical,” she mutter as I laughed and Chris rolled his eyes at her.

“You haven’t even met him and don’t even know what he looks like.”

“No, but if he looks anything like you, then he has to be gorgeous or at least cute,” she replied, sighing dejectedly. “But it was not to be.” I grinned at her and shook my head.

Carson was cute, or at least all my friends thought so. He was the heartthrob of his class, and girls from all grade levels fawned all over him, for he not only had good-looks, but he had the grades and athletic prowess to match. He was the star of the football team and captain of the basketball team by junior year. To top it off, my brother was a genuinely nice guy, which made the remainder of the girls who hated the gorgeous jocks fall all over him too.

Carson could easily have been a player, but instead he hated all sickly-sweet flattery he got from girls and constantly complained about it. According to him, if everyone thought you were gorgeous it was impossible to get a real girlfriend because most girls just wanted to be with you for the bragging rights.

Last year he had managed though, finding Avery who could care less if my brother looked like Adonis incarnate as I had once heard a girl proclaim. Avery was just as smart if not smarter than my brother, equally as good at sports, and while no guy would describe her as gorgeous, Avery was pretty. What I think my brother liked most about Avery though was she let him get away with nothing. Honesty was everything with her.

I liked her better than all of my brother’s former girlfriends. Carson was right; most of his ex-girlfriends could care less about what Carson was really like. They just wanted to be with him. Since I was obviously a burden on the relationship as Carson sometimes took me along when he went on dates, I wasn’t exactly a favorite among Carson’s dates. They knew better than to treat me badly when Carson was around, but when he wasn’t, that’s when the fun really started.

Avery was different. She actually liked me. We were friends and she really could care less if I tagged along with on their dates, which I didn’t do that frequently (before I had gone more as a sort of chaperone than anything else – to keep Carson from being jumped). She treated me like a living, breathing human being, even when my brother wasn’t around.

“How’d he get away with a name like Carson, when you’re stuck with Juliet?” Chris asked, pointedly ignoring his sister.

“Luck?” I replied, shrugging. “No really, my parents weren’t or aren’t obsessed with Shakespeare. They just really liked the name Juliet.”

“Lucky,” Bi said, over her momentary grief at my brother’s relationship status. "My parents not only gave us first names from Shakespeare, but middle ones as well.

"Meet Bianca Celia Connors," Chris said, motioning toward Bi. Adding a flourish toward himself he mocked bowed and added, "And Christopher Mercutio Connors at your service. But of course my brother is the worst off. He is Romeo Flavius Connors."

"Celia and Christopher are from Shakespeare?" I asked. Those names seemed pretty tame compared to what their older brother had to live with. Even Bianca wasn't as bad as Romeo.

"Yeah, Celia is from As You Like It and Christopher is from The Taming of the Shrew." Bi explained. "Personally, though, I'm not sure Celia is any better than Bianca."

"Well, I know without a doubt that Christopher is much better than Mercutio," Chris said. "Even if Christopher was a drunk. At least he wasn't murdered."

"Your brother doesn't have any luck though, doe he?" The twins shook their heads, Bi resigned and Christopher contemplative.

"I think he's planning on changing it though, once he moves out of the house or something," he said. "I know I would, even if it did upset Mom and Dad."

"No kidding."

"Hey, I hate to ruin the moment," I said, standing up. "But I really need to use the restroom. Is there one around here I can use?"

Chris looked at me solemnly. "Do you have ten bucks?"

"What?" I asked, looking at Bi in confusion, but she seemed as confused as I was. I had considered that one of them might tell me 'no' just to mess with my head, but I wasn't expecting Chris's question.

"To pay the toll for the toilet." Bi smacked him, and I rolled my eyes (It was catching).

A few minutes later, I came out of the restroom, my bladder much relieved. I turned the corner and collided into something hard, warm and smelling faintly of soap that felt amazingly like naked human flesh.