A Star is Born (10 page)
Authors: Walter Dean Myers
HAMLET and OTHELLO leave and IAGO reenters.
IAGO
And what have we decided?
ROMEO
We love each other and we're staying together, no matter what.
JULIET
Love lifts itself like a banner above our heads and we bravely follow! If life is indeed a battle then we are armed with sweet affection one for the other.
ROMEO
I'll get a job!
JULIET
And for me a tummy tuck.
IAGO
O what a curse is marriage! That two young people drown happily in the sea of love while older, wiser souls sit barren by the cliffs. But in the end they will grow old and fat while my solitude holds me forever firm and fast. It is my nature's plague to spy into abuses and oft my jealousy shapes faults that are not. Still, looking upon their glowing faces, they will not understand their defeat. Ah, what fools these mortals be!
The End
In the next book of the Cruisers series, when Ashley Schmidt, the editor of
The Palette,
decides to upgrade the school's official newspaper by running articles from the British paper
The Guardian,
the Cruisers respond by adding “across the pond” stories in their own paper. They begin a serial story, invite guest articles by kids from a gifted and talented school in London, and add photos to their paper. But when Kambui photographs a group of kids at the mall, it leads to major complications.
Check out this excerpt:
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OH, SNAP!
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S
o let me get this straight,” Bobbi said. “You were just taking random shots and you saw Phat Tony and snapped a picture without saying anything to him?”
“Because every time he sees a camera, he starts mugging and putting on his gangster poses,” Kambui said. “I was just looking for casual shots.”
“Right, and now you have a casual shot of Phat Tony with those three dudes they arrested for sticking up the jewelry store in the mall,” LaShonda said. “The papers said that they got three of the holdup guys, but one got away. Isn't that what we read, Zander?”
“Yes, but we don't know that Phat Tony was the fourth guy,” I said. “And they're pleading innocent, anyway. They said they weren't even at the mall that night.”
“So what do we do?” Bobbi said. “We keep the photograph to ourselves and let them get away with a crime?”
“Or do we turn the photograph over to the police and get them
and
Phat Tony arrested?” I asked.
“We don't know that Phat Tony was the guy with them,” Kambui insisted.
“What we know, Kambui, is that something bad happened at the mall and that we might have the key to it,” I said. “Now we have to figure out what our responsibility is and to whom. Do you feel right just doing nothing?”
Â
And that's the dilemma. The Cruisers have a photograph that could absolutely be the key to a conviction, but will it also be a conviction for Phat Tony, the loud, bragging, but usually good-doing student at Da Vinci? Should they be the hidden jury that convicts or frees someone who has committed a felony? And even if Phat Tony wasn't involved, do the Cruisers really feel safe in providing evidence against a desperate crew of robbers?
Walter Dean Myers is the critically acclaimed
New York Times
bestselling author of nearly one hundred books for children and young adults. His extensive body of work includes
Sunrise Over Fallujah
,
Fallen Angels
,
Somewhere in the Darkness
,
Slam!
,
Jazz
, and
Harlem Summer
. Mr. Myers's many awards include two Newbery Honors, five Coretta Scott King Author Book Awards, the first Michael L. Printz Award, and the 2010 Coretta Scott KingâVirginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. In addition, he the 2012â2013 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Copyright © 2012 by Walter Dean Myers
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.,
Publishers since 1920
. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, August 2012
Cover art copyright © 2012 by Leo Espinosa
Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
e-ISBN 978-0-545-51268-8
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
