The weight of leadership weighs heavy on Joe as captain of the school basketball team, and on Wishbone in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I.

A statue to honor Wishbone consumes David's every waking moment, or at least that's what his friends think. It appears to Wishbone that David strikes a chord with Pip in Dickens's Great Expectations.

Joe and David's friendship is tested when they both are interested in the same girl. Wishbone, as John Alden, and his best friend have to decide how valuable their friendship really is in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, ""The Courtship of Miles Standish.""

A betrayed Wishbone lapses into the character Richard Shelton in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow.

Would you believe a missing Super Bowl ring could be traced to Wishbone? Hard for him to notice, as he imagines himself as Franklin Blake in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone.

Wishbone wants to be a hero and tries to rescue two misguided youngsters when they set out to impress the older kids. As ""Monkey,"" he yearns to be immortal and seeks a position of importance in Wu Ch'eng-en's Chinese folktale.

Intrigue and mystery surrounds a letter addressed to Wanda. In trying to trace the anonymous note, Wishbone drifts into Jane Austen's gothic horror novel Northanger Abbey.