MacHub: A Tale of Treachery, Ambition, Murder, and HubNuggets

Prologue

The HubNuggets team managed to escape awakening the Mirror-Cracked for Canada Day and the Fourth of July celebrations, but a stray fireworks awakened it, and now the team has been catapulted through the Mirror-Cracked and burped out into a crazy, mixed-up Shakespearean reality...

The Scene: A blasted heath at night. Circling the smoking brazier, several figures in tattered cloaks are barely visible in the fitful, flickering light of the glowing embers. The shadowy figures cackle and caper as they weave their dark spell, casting vile bits of stinking offal into the filth-crusted pot that bubbles on the brazier.

First Witch: When shall we five meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain? (The witch team-leader throws the eye of a newt into the pot.)

Second Witch: Prithee, not in rain - it maketh my antlers all moldy. (He dangles a bat's wing over the malodorous liquid before dropping it in.)

Third Witch: Nay, then - when the hurly-burly's done! When the battle's lost and won... (Hisses, and retrieves her tail from the hands of Fourth Witch, saying,) That's "wing of gnat," not "tail of CAT"!

Fourth Witch (humming like a good-humored Bee as she casts the wings of several gnats into the pot): Your pardon, I prithee, friend cat. My lashes be smattered with the brazier's soot.

Fifth Witch (sternly, recalling the other witches to their business): Double, double, HubNugget trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

First Witch: What treachery speak you, friend PI? Lord Jason of Menayan hath the marketing of that treasure.

Fifth Witch: Not so! 'Tis said the fair Lady Simone doth walk the battlements at night, wailing for the lost treasure. But soft, who comes?

First Witch (turning to face the three cloaked riders who have come upon them): Good sirs, cast off thy cloaks that we may see thy faces and make prophesy for thee.

Fifth Witch (recognizing one of the men, calls out): "Hail, MacHub - Cawdor, that was! Hail, MacHub - Thane of HubNuggets that shall be!

The witches swirl about MacHub and his men, bowing and cackling incantations, then vanish along with the cauldron, leaving the men to make what sense they can of the prophesy.

MacHub: Double-double? I'll take mine "to go", eh.

Scene: The battlements of the castle. It is midnight, the hour that the ghost of Lady Simone walks the night calling for justice, and seeking a champion.

Ghost: Alas, and woe! Will no-one right this dreadful wrong?

Enter Hamlet Anderson, Teamleader, and Prince of HubNuggets, with her two school chums, B.T. Rosenpantz and his sidekick, Zsuzsy GuildenBee. They cautiously approach the ghost.

Hamlet Anderson: So fair and foul a day, I have not seen. Forsooth, good soul, speak you!

Ghost: Murder...murder most foul...Good Hamlet, thine Uncle Felonius hath murdered thy father, married thy mother, and the Golden HubNuggets Wannabes are lost. (The Ghost holds out her hand to Hamlet, and a sheet of parchment flutters to rest on the parapet.)

Hamlet: The HubNuggets Wannabes lost? Good Rosenpantz and GuildenBee, we must haste to England to find them!

Ghost: ...but, Hamlet! Good Lord! Er, I mean - good, my lord - thy mother...thy uncle...

Hamlet (aside to Rosenpantz and GuildenBee): Methinks yon ghostly lady doth protest too much. (to Lady Simone's Ghost): As I know a hawk from a handsaw, they shall be dealt with - but now, we must away to England!

Rosenpantz (nudges GuildenBee, who picks up the parchment and presents it to Hamlet): ...a letter, my lord Hamlet.

Hamlet: Alas! Poor Yorick! - I knew his handwriting well, Horatio, er, sorry, Rosenpantz! (Reading the letter) Why, look you sirrahs! 'Tis part of the HubNugget Wannabes treasure...

The Scene: Verona by moonlight - the balcony outside the window of fair, young Pattiette Capulet. She is reading a parchment by the flickering light of a candle.

Pattiette (gazing out at the moon): Ah, Romeus, Romeus! Wherefore art thou, Romeus?

Romeus (B.T.) Montaguepants (enters below, gazing up at fair Pattiette's fair silhouette): What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and fair Pattiette, the sun.

Pattiette (rushing to the balcony): Romeus, thine antlers have bewitched my heart, and thine nifty hose and doublet doth beshew thy manly form.

R.B.T. Montaguepants: My nifty hose doth chafe my manly form, but soft! Who lurks there behind thy tapestry?

Nurse Ripplemaker (appearing from behind the arras - a famous, French-woven tapestry much favored by Shakespearean lurkers): Fair Pattiette, Gentle Romeus, thy two houses, both alike in dignity, will not allow thy love. Thou knowest of the bitter feud o'er the greatest treasure in all Verona - one scroll of the HubNuggets Wannabes. Though I have journeyed throughout all Hub Pages, offering my congratulations to each new-chosen scribe, I cannot uncover the hiding place of the scroll.

Pattiette: Good Nurse, thy scroll lies in my chamber, upon the very bed where Romeus and I would pledge our love.

Nurse (removing a vial of poison and a dagger from her robe and placing them upon the ledge): Climb up then, Gentle Romeus, and we three shall peruse this treasure.

R.B.T. Montaguepants (ascending to the chamber): With love's light wings will I o'er-perch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out. (Glancing nervously at the poison vial and the dagger, he crosses to fair Pattiette, taking her fair hand in his): We shall on the morrow hie to Friar Laurence's cell.

Pattiette (linking both her fair hands to his): Yet saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and paw to palm is holy palmers' kiss. Fair Romeus - let us read:

The Scene: The woods near Athens. Zsuzsy Spangle-Wings, Queen of the Fairies, slumbers, holding a tiny scroll, unaware of the mischief-making band of HubNugget Wannabe-gathering fairies that encircle her.

PI-Blossom: Oh, what fools these HubNugget-hoarders be! She loves the Wannabes, and would keep them for her own, but King Jason-Oberon desires that all may read the last HubNugget Wannabes scroll.

Sweet Shirley-Vine: The course of true love never did run smoothly.

Enter B.T. "Puck" Fairybloomers, who, having put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, returns disguised as Bottom, an Athenian weaver, and bearing a suspicious resemblance to an ass - er, wearing the head of an ass - with antlers.

PI-Blossom: Bless thee, "Bottom"! Bless thee! Thou art translated.

Rosy-Red Elf: Prithee, anoint Queen Spangle-Wing's eyes with the magical juice of that flower 'ere she awakens and sees yon ass.

B.T. "Puck" Fairybloomers winks at Elf, as PI-Blossom squeezes the flower juice onto the eyelids of the slumbering queen, who immediately awakens.

Zsuzsy Spangle-Wings: What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?

Bottom/Fairybloomers: A sweet-face man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day.

Zsuzsy Spangle-Wings: Sweet-faced angel, I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxslips and the nodding violet grows. Wouldst thou thither to read this scroll with me?

Bottom/Fairybloomers: Fair queen! Let us but read them here, and I shall hence, with thee. (Queen Zsuzsy Spangle-Wings flutters her long, sparkling eyelashes at the ass-headed jackalope, and unrolls the scroll...)

The Scene: A courtroom in Padua. Judge Menayan, Portia Anderson, and B.T.Shylockpants enter to hear the verdict in the case: "How to become eligible to be nominated as a HubNugget Wannabe":

Portia Anderson: The qualifying of a HubNugget Wannabe is not strained - it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the earth below:

• Neither a borrower nor a lender be - write, within the last seven weeks, thine own original words on one of the featured topics
  
• It is twice blessed, for thy author score shall be 75 or better, and thy qualifying hub shall attain a score of 55 or better
• Thou shalt be a fresh-faced writer who joined three months ago or less

B.T. Shylockpants: Oh, noble judge, most learned judge! A boon - I beg of thee a boon! My thousand ducats! These youths, these HubNugget Wannabe striplings owe me yet a thousand ducats! ("Ducats" is an olde Shakespearean word, that, we believe, roughly translates to "gravy boats")

Judge: Nay, good Shylockpants, thy gravy boats are forfeit. These striplings, these beardless new writers have out-promoted thee!

B.T. Shylockpants: Nay, good judge! How make you this judgment?

Judge: Good Shylockpants, these HubNugget Wannabes must call on all their family and friends to vote for them.

• They shall tweet, twitter, post on FaceBook,
  
• Digg, and blog about their hub, to advertise their writing to all the world.
  
• Then, the lucky nine who receive the most votes will be proclaimed HubNuggets, and their hubs shall be sent out to over 60,000 other hubbers in the weekly newsletter.

B.T. Shylockpants: My ducats! my gravy boats!

Portia Anderson: My goodness! Calm thyself, good Shylockpants! Thou shalt get other gravy boats, and, for now, "All's well that ends well!"

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2010 Text by Elle Fredine, All rights reserved