Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gnomeo, Juliet, Tybalt. 'Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean'. Red vs. Blue. I finally understood what was going on! This was a Romeo & Juliet situation! I bit my lip in worry as I remembered the ending to the tragic story.
"We've got to keep an eye on them," I muttered to Thumbelina, "Come on, we'll follow Juliet." We snuck through the hedge keeping well out of Gnomeo's sight and hid inside overgrown flower bushes close to Juliet's tower.
We could see Juliet washing her face looking a bit shaken.
"So, where is the oh-so-important, life-changing orchid?" Nanette inquired when Juliet had finished cleaning up.
Juliet seemed a bit lost as she made her way up to her pedestal. "Um…. Um…. What… what orchid?" Nanette thought about what she said.
Juliet stared up at the sky in a kind of daze. Nanette ran up to Juliet and grasped her by the face, gazing into her green eyes. "What?" Juliet asked.
After a few seconds of staring into Juliet's eyes, Nanette jumped back and exclaimed in delight, "Shut up! You met a boy!"
"What?" Juliet cried, surprised that the frog had figured it out, "No. Well, maybe, sort of. Um…. Yes. Yes, I did."
Nanette grabbed Juliet by the shoulders and shook her. "I need details! And go slowly! Is he totally gorgeous?"
"Totally," Juliet confirmed.
"Does he have a nice rotund belly?" Nanette demanded.
"Well, let's call it sturdy."
"And his, uh…." Nanette pointed to her head and made a triangle above it.
"His hat is, um," Juliet began.
"Big and pointy?"
"And um, you know, I suppose in a certain light, you might say it looks sort of," Juliet whispered in Nanette's ear, "blue."
Nanette stared off into space and repeated, "Blue." She then exclaimed, "Ah! This is one of your little jokes!" She laughed squirting water everywhere before she suddenly stopped. "No, I don't get it." Nanette suddenly gasped figuring out what Juliet meant. "Oh! Flipping, flaming Nora! She's smooching the face off a Blue!"
Afraid to have anyone else hear, Juliet placed her hand over Nanette's mouth, "Shh! Please shush, Nanette. Just zip it."
"Zip," Nanette repeated pretending to zip her mouth shut. She was stifling a giggle, and suddenly sprayed Juliet in the face. Grabbing the red gnome by the shoulders and shaking her, she cried, "Oh! Juliet! This is fantastic!"
"Is it?" Juliet asked hopefully.
"It's doomed," Nanette said.
"What?" Juliet cried in surprise. I cringed silently agreeing with the frog.
"What?" Thumbelina repeated beside me. I motioned for her to be silent so that we could hear the rest.
Nanette explained, "A Red and a Blue. It just can't be. So it's a doomed love, and that's the best kind. You'll never see him again. And then one day when you die, you'll be all 'Oh, my true love. I only saw him once.'"
Juliet stared down at her in disbelief. "I'll only see…. What do you mean…. What are you chatting about 'once', I'll only see him once?"
"How romantically tragic," gushed Nanette. Yeah, tragic is right if this is anything like the original Romeo and Juliet! The frog grabbed a daisy from a bush and began picking off the petals with each sentence she said. "Your love is doomed. Your love is dead. Your love is doomed. Your love is dead. It's doomed. Dead."
As she hopped off with the daisy, Juliet picked up one of the fallen petals and said, "I'll only see him once?"
"Doomed!"
"Aralyne," Thumbelina whispered into my ear shaking my arm.
"What?" I hissed turning towards her.
"Gnomeo's here," she explained, pointing to a spot not far from our hiding place. He, too, was hiding and was staring up at Juliet's pedestal.
Nanette was sitting at the bottom, still plucking petals off the flower and repeating the same words, "Doomed. Dead. Doomed. Dead. Doomed. Dead." Juliet was holding her ceramic rose and gazing up at the sky with a love-sick expression.
We watched as Gnomeo crept ever closer towards Juliet's pedestal.
"O Gnomeo, Gnomeo," Juliet sighed pacing the length of her tower, "are we really doomed, Gnomeo, to never see each other again? Why must you wear a blue hat? Why couldn't it be red like my father, or… or green like a leprechaun? Or purple like, um… like, uh… like some weird guy? I mean, what's in a gnome? Because you're blue, my father sees red, and because I'm red, I'm feeling blue. Oh. At any rate, that shouldn't be the thing to keep us apart, should it?"
"No!" Gnomeo shouted out running out from his hiding place. Juliet turned to him in surprise and I hissed at his stupidity. If he's caught, he's dead! "No, it shouldn't! I couldn't have said it better myself!"
"Oh, my giddy aunt," said Juliet in embarrassment dropping her rose, "Did you just hear all of that? What are you doing here?"
"I don't know," Gnomeo admitted a bit nervously, "Um… I came here to…. Well, I don't know, I just wanted to see you again."
"Are you crazy?" she demanded, "If Dad finds you, he'll bury you under the patio!"
"Find me. You kidding? 'Stealth' is my middle name," Gnomeo bragged suddenly stepping on a switch. Bright palm trees shot up from surrounding Juliet's tower, and music began playing loudly echoing around the Red Garden. To be honest, I was surprised the electricity worked out here, but at the same time, I smacked my forehead at Gnomeo's fumble.
"No! Quick! Turn it off!" Juliet cried over the loud music.
"I'm trying!" Gnomeo replied messing with the power switch.
"Do something!" she shouted.
"The button's stuck!" he explained, "Come on." He started stomping on the button.
"He's going to get caught," Thumbelina worriedly said into my ear, and I nodded. There was no doubt that the other red gnomes have seen and heard the commotion. It was just a matter of time before one of them actually showed up.
"It won't turn off!" said Gnomeo slamming the switch into a tree. He started tugging on the wire and suddenly got himself tangled in it. I smacked my head again. Real smooth, Gnomeo!
"Juliet," said Nanette hopping over to the pedestal, "What's with the –"
"Excuse me, a little help here," Gnomeo said desperately.
Juliet said hopping off her pedestal, "My dad's coming."
"So you must be Gnomeo," said Nanette shaking his hand, "Lovely to meet you… in the 30 seconds before you're discovered and killed."
Juliet jumped in between them and said, "Quick, hide."
"Juliet," said Lord Redbrick making me and Thumbelina gasp as we turned our heads towards him. He was heading towards Juliet's pedestal. "I've told you before, no music in the grotto after 10:00." He pulled a plug out of its socket and the lights and music died out. Thumbelina and I turned our attention back to Juliet and Nanette to see that Gnomeo was missing.
"Where did he go?" I muttered frantically searching for him.
"I don't know," Thumbelina replied fretfully.
"What's going on here?" Lord Redbrick demanded.
"Um," said Juliet shooting a glance over at the pond, "It was a… um… I saw a squirrel, and he… he dropped his nuts." Lord Redbrick picked up the switch that Gnomeo had destroyed and eyed his daughter suspiciously.
"Yes," Nanette confirmed, "nuts, the size of… boulders!"
"Yes, all right. Thank you, Nanette," said Juliet.
"Well, okay, but no mucking about, especially not tonight," said Lord Redbrick buying their lie, "We have big plans for the Blues tomorrow." Nanette, Juliet, Thumbelina, and I all gasped in unison. Lord Redbrick continued as he began pacing, "And when I get my hands on a Blue, he'll be sleeping with the fishes!" Gnomeo's head suddenly popped out of the pond, and all of us girls gasped again. "Now, I'm not a man who is wounded up easily!" He began turning back to face the girls, but Nanette hopped forward, grabbed his arm, and turned him away from the pond.
"Lord Redbrick," she said, "I've been having problems with my," she opened her mouth and said something while pointing to the spout in her mouth.
"Your what?" inquired Lord Redbrick. She said something again still pointing to her spout.
"I guess this isn't the best time to talk," Gnomeo whispered to Juliet floating in the pond.
"It's not ideal," she said keeping an eye on her father.
"But I –"
"Just go. Please go."
"– just came to say I –"
"What? You what?"
"I'm –"
Juliet heard Nanette and her father returning. "Oh, sorry." She said pushing Gnomeo back underwater with her foot.
"Juliet," said Lord Redbrick, "is there something wrong with the pond?" He was about to peer into the water, but Juliet obstructed his view.
"The pond?" said Juliet, "No. What, this pond? No, it's fine. I mean, it's just as pondy as ever. Oh, my gosh! What is that thing over there?" She began pushing her father away from the pond.
"What? What was it?" asked Lord Redbrick as Nanette gestured for Gnomeo to get out of the pond.
"The… thing, over there," Juliet replied when Gnomeo was out and running to hide.
"What did it look like?" inquired Lord Redbrick.
"Oh, it looked like a really…."
"Okay," said Nanette shoving Gnomeo into the hedge so that he could go back to the Blue Garden, "bye-bye then. Off you go. Thanks for popping by. Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels or pigeons or sparrows or whatever. Parting is such sweet sorrow." She headed back towards the pedestal while Gnomeo walked out of our sight.
"Oh," said Thumbelina crestfallen. We were going to turn and leave when Juliet returned to the pond.
"Nanette, where's Gnomeo? Is he gone?" she asked.
"Yeah. Gone forever," Nanette confirmed.
"What?!" Juliet cried sounding heartbroken. She ran over to the hedge and climbed onto Nanette's back to peer into the Blue garden.
"Whoa!" we heard Gnomeo cry out. Thumbelina and I moved over a few paces to see on both sides of the hedge. Gnomeo was dangling from the hedge with one hand while he held the orchid in the other hand. "I think you'll find this does, actually belong to you," he said handing her the orchid between the branches of the hedge that sort of resembled bars.
"Thank you," said Juliet and they leaned in to kiss, but they stopped about an inch short of making contact. Juliet chuckled and pulled away from him. She pulled her head out from between the branches, but Gnomeo seemed tobe having trouble pulling himself free.
"I can't go," said Gnome after a while, giving up the struggle.
"I know how you feel," Juliet said dreamily.
"No, really," he said, "I'm stuck." I finally got a good look at him to see his head was stuck between the branches and he was just dangling there like an idiot. I smacked my head again. Not exactly a romantic moment, Gnomeo. Both of the gnomes were laughing and Thumbelina quietly giggled beside me. "So, uh… can I see you again tomorrow?" Gnomeo asked hopefully.
Juliet replied, "Yes, but not here."
"Back in the old greenhouse then?" he suggested.
"Noon?"
"Not soon enough."
"I can do 11:45," she said.
"Done," agreed Gnomeo, "That frog was right. Parting is such sweet sorrow."
Juliet kissed her fingertips before placing them upon Gnomeo's lips. She then shoved his head through the branches and he popped out free, almost falling backwards, but he clasped her hand to keep from tumbling to his death.
Their hands parted and Juliet started lowering herself back onto the ground. "Thanks, Nanette."
The frog was scowling and said, "You know he's going to ditch you when he finds out how much you weigh."
I snorted at Nanette's comment while Thumbelina said, "That's mean." We then watched Gnomeo climb off the hedge and return to the Blue Garden.
"Come on," I said to my companion as we followed Gnomeo. When we were out in the clear, we made our way to Gnomeo.
"Hello, ladies," he said with a smile when he saw us. He wrapped his arms around our shoulders and added, "Lovely night, isn't it?"
Thumbelina and I exchanged glances and suppressed giggles. "Wow, you're in a good mood," I commented, "Anything interesting happen while you were out patrolling?"
Pulling away from us, he winked at me and said, "Let's just say I've never had a more wondrous night."
