Chip frowned but stood up stiffly. Then the two boys dodged horses and knights again to get back to Katherine and Alex.
“How many people do you think heard him?” Jonah asked Katherine grimly when they reunited.
“Honestly, only the four or five who were right beside him,” Katherine said. “They’re the only ones who looked startled. Everyone else was cheering so loudly … these people believe in ghosts and sorcery and that kind of thing anyhow, so they wouldn’t be too suspicious, would they?”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Jonah muttered.
While the procession was still advancing, slowly, Jonah and the others slipped into the church.
“Where can we go to get out of the way?” Jonah asked, pausing at the back of the huge sanctuary.
“I don’t want to get out of the way!” Chip said. “I—”
“Just so we can talk,” Jonah assured him. “And plan.”
“That way, then,” Chip said reluctantly. He pointed down a dark hallway.
They ended up huddling in a corner near eerie statues and flickering candles. In the dim light Jonah finally got a good look at Alex’s anguished face.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jonah demanded, tact having deserted him about the time he tackled Chip in the manure.
“I didn’t know it was Richard the Third,” Alex said. “I didn’t know who he was.”
“Because he’s not Richard the Third,” Chip said cuttingly. “He’s only Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Our uncle. Stealing the throne for himself.” He glared at Alex. “You knew his first name was Richard.”
“But not the Third.”
“So?” Jonah asked quickly, before Chip had a chance to interrupt again.
“Because Richard the Third—that’s Shakespeare,” Alex explained, grimacing. “There’s a whole play about him. He’s, like, one of the worst villains in literature.”
Jonah suppressed a shiver. Literature, he told himself. Not history.
“We already know he’s a villain,” Chip complained. “He tried to have us killed! He’s usurping the throne!”
“Wait a minute,” Katherine said. “Shakespeare wrote a play about this guy, and Alex remembers it? That’s great! Now we’ll know what’s supposed to happen in reality!”
The light from the prayer candles glowed through her.
“Well … um … that is … er …,” Alex stammered.
“What?” Katherine demanded.
Alex winced.
“My mom’s a high school English teacher, okay?” he said. “She loves Shakespeare. She’s always trying to get me to read the plays or go to the plays or just listen to her quoting the plays. But—they’re all really boring, all right? I never pay any attention. I just know Richard the Third’s an awful villain, because she always says, ‘You’d think I was raising Richard the Third, the way you’re acting!’ any time I do something wrong.” He frowned. “Is Richard the Third the one where there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark?”
“We’re in England,” Jonah said flatly.
“Oh, right … I think that’s Hamlet,” Alex said. He made his hands into fists and pounded them against his forehead. “Think, think, think. …” He took his fists away from his forehead for a moment. “I can recite all of Einstein’s greatest formulas. Would that help?”
“Not right now,” Jonah said. “Not unless you can use those formulas to get us out of here.”
“And then Einstein probably wouldn’t ever exist because of us,” Katherine said gloomily.
“No, wait, I do have a plan,” Jonah said.
He’d kind of hoped that everyone would turn to him and fall silent, in awe. But Alex was pounding his fists against his forehead again, muttering, “Is ‘winter of our discontent’ from Richard III? Doesn’t matter, it’s summer now. ‘Parlous youth’? Maybe, but that’s no help. …” Katherine was frowning and watching Alex. Chip was staring off into the distance, toward the light coming from the open door. His eyes were narrowed to slits now, as if he was listening to the ongoing cheers outside: “Long live the king!” “Long live Richard the Third!”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Chip muttered.
“What doesn’t make sense?” Jonah asked, giving up on announcing his plan for the moment.
“It was just last night that someone tried to kill me, the real king,” Chip said. “They didn’t even succeed. There’s no proof of it, anyway. So how could they be having Richard’s coronation today?”
Jonah shrugged.
“Fast planning?” he suggested. “Overconfidence?”
“It takes a long time to plan a coronation,” Chip said. “That’s why I hadn’t been crowned yet. They were still working on all the details, all the invitations. …”
“Are you sure you were king?” Jonah asked, then flinched because he thought that might set Chip off again. “Can you be the king before you’re coronated—or whatever it’s called?”
“Crowned,” Chip said emphatically but without anger. “And I am the king, regardless. A coronation’s just a formality. A show, for everyone to see. I was supposed to have a grand one. But I was already king. I became king the minute my father died.”
“Oh,” Jonah said. “So how do you explain …” He gestured weakly toward the hubbub coming from outside.
“I can’t,” Chip said. “Did you see how much cloth of gold our evil uncle was wearing—the shimmery stuff, with real gold woven into it? And that purple velvet cape—I bet there was at least eight yards of it trailing behind him. …”
“So?” Jonah asked. He wouldn’t have expected Chip to care about fashion at a time like this.
“So—it all had to be woven and sewn by hand,” Chip said.
Jonah still didn’t understand.