A conflagration of footballs converging on the same target drew my attention to a rotund figure slumping through the end zone. It was Tub, on foot, as his previous nine bicycles had been stolen from school bicycle racks over the past nine years. He was carrying a duffel bag and grimacing against the half-dozen balls thumping down around him from shoulder-padded bullies. Only the last one struck him, on the shoulder.

“Enough monkey business, men!” Coach Lawrence hollered. “Though that was a real bull’s-eye, Jorgensen-Warner!”

Tub threw his duffel bag down beside a table. On it were the tattered scraps of the free donuts promised by the flyers. Tub lifted a thin sheet of deli paper spotted with powdered sugar with the same delicacy one might handle a war-torn American flag. He set it down, wobbled backward a few steps, and plopped down on the grass, grinding his jaw like he always did after a tightening. He looked to the grassy stage and gave me a morose nod.

“Sleep well upon thine eyes?” the boy continued. “Peace in thy…breast? Breast? Can I say that?”

Mrs. Leach rubbed at her eyes and the kid skulked away in surrender. She consulted her sign-up sheet while Dad’s mower droned on in the distance.

“Jim Sturges Jr.” She peered through her glasses at the makeshift stage. “We’re out of Juliets. Claire, can you read with Jim?”

My heart sunk. Of course Claire Fontaine was to get front-row seats to my degradation. I took a deep breath while she set aside her pink backpack, uncrossed her legs from the grass, and brushed off. It was no secret that Claire had Juliet locked. Sure, she read with impressive poise, and her swings between melancholy and ecstasy were convincing enough to have every boy pledging his nonexistent sword to her defense. But it was the authentic accent that sealed the deal. Next to that, everyone else sounded like the absolute worst: a regular high school kid.

Claire took her place next to me, knocked the mud from her boots, and gave me a kind, if brief, smile. The wind was doing wonderful, wild things to the hair outside of her beret.

“Act two, scene two, page two,” Mrs. Leach said. “Let’s do this.”

Tub gawped at me, the donut scandal forgotten. I cleared my throat, looked at the spinning letters upon the page, and dove in.

“Oh, are you going to leave me so unsatisfied?”

One line in and I was blushing.

“What satisfaction could you possibly have tonight?” Claire asked.

“I would be satisfied,” I said, “if we made each other true promises of love.”