the Battle of the Bands, I still wasnât sure about it. So I found a little cubby under a staircase and quietly chewed my sandwich and worried.
âHiding?â
I looked up and saw Jen5 peeking into my cubby.
âNah,â I said. âMeditating.â
âGreat,â she said. âMind if I sit with you?â
âWell, itâll delay my quest for enlightenment, but I guess thatâs one of the trials I must face if I am to become the next Dalai Lama.â
âOh, good,â she said and plunked down next to me. ââCause I need help with English.â
âOh, yeah?â I said.
âYeah.
Macbeth
. Help me.â
âWith what?â
âWhatâs it about?â
âDidnât you read it?â
âOf course I did. But theyâre always going off on these tangents about gods and stuff. I keep losing track of the story.â
âWell, you know we were only supposed to read the first act for today, but itâs actually a pretty intense story, so I just did the whole thing,â I said. âIâm kind of amazed that Ms. Jansen was allowed to assign it to us, because itâs crazy violent.â
âReally?â said Jen5 as she pulled out her salami sandwich. âWhat did I miss?â
âOkay, well, Macbeth is this thane, right? This knight-warrior dude. And heâs won all kinds of battles for his king. But then he runs into these creepy witches who can see the future, and they tell him heâll be king someday. And that totally obsesses him. He wants all that power, right? So he tells his wife about it and sheâs like, âLetâs not wait around for this to happen. Letâs
make
it happen. Like, tonight.â So they kill the king and Macbeth takes over and then he just turns into this total power-hungry psycho. Just goes around killing people, even friends and little kids and stuff.â
âHe kills kids?â she asked, the sandwich halfway to her mouth.
âTotally. Lots of them. And the witches give him all theseweird riddles, like âNobody can kill you except someone who wasnât born from a woman.â And heâs like, âAwesome. Everybodyâs born from a woman, so Iâm totally safe.â But then this dude named Macduff shows up who technically wasnât
born
from a woman. He was ripped out of her womb.â
âGross!â said Jen5.
âYeah, then Macduff kills Macbeth, chops his head off, and sticks it on the wall of the castle.â
âAnd thatâs the end of the story?â
âThatâs it.â
âWow,â said Jen5. Then she finally took a bite of her salami sandwich. She frowned at it and shoved it back into her bag. âYou know, I think I might become a vegetarian.â
âWhyâs that?â I asked. âFeel bad about killing animals, or just want to be trendy?â
âIâm serious. Some days, meat just seems gross to me. Like I canât believe we put stuff like that into our bodies. Especially right after hearing you talk about babies being ripped from their mothersâ wombs.â
I shrugged and took a big bite of my roast beef.
âI wouldnât want to be a vegan, though,â she said. âI like cheese too much.â
âAnd leather boots,â I said, nudging the cowboy boots she was wearing with her plaid pantsâa look that somehow madesense on her. âVegans donât wear leather, I think. No animal products of any kind.â
âYeah, screw that,â she said.
We both stared at her boots for a minute. Then she said, âSo why are you hiding down here?â
âIâm not hiding,â I said.
âYou know what I mean.â
âThereâs some Battle of the Bands that KLMN is hosting,â I said, âand Joe wants us to enter.â
âSo?â
âSo, I donât know if we should do it.â
âWhy not?â
âWell, I mean, come