by Lucie Shores

Created on: September 14, 2009

Setting: Rear porch of farmhouse and yard, with three or four tree trunks and a pile of leaves. A rake leans against one tree-trunk. The house is from circa 1920.

Time: Present.

Cast: Cecily, a nine-year-old girl with braids, wearing shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and some kind of farm boot. Tom, her hero and 16-year-old adopted brother, wears a faded t-shirt, jeans and workboots. Their mother from whom we hear only a voice and sounds of footsteps.

[Lights come up downstage on a scrim that hangs just behind the curtain line. The time of day is dusk. All we see is the pile of leaves, a tree trunk and the rake. Something moves inside the pile, just slightly, with the aid of a cord or sub-stage assist.]

Tom: [From off stage left - Throws a melon-sized rock into the pile of leaves then runs on]. Awww. That was so sick! Hail Mary, full of grace! [He flexes his biceps like a weight lifter, then, feels right bicep with left hand]. Like a rock. Ha, ha! We are so going to stick it to those whiners this year. [He takes the stance of the receiver, fakes receiving a football, runs across the stage, catches an imaginary football and runs off stage right, making sound of a cheering audience from afar raspy, loud, whisper]. Hhaahh. We can see two or three more tree trunks and the back porch of a farm house, reaching from upstage center to downstage left. A white railing with modest posts at sides of three steps up. There is a bench, painted white, pushed up against the downstage end of the porch. The porch wall contains a large window of diamond-shaped lights.]

Mother's voice: [From behind the screen in the open window.] Cecily? [Then she calls with a drawn out eeeee at the end]. Cecily! [Another call with emphasis on the first and last syllables.] Yoo-hoo, Cecily. [There is silence, except for a slight breeze that blows a few leaves from the pile. The light in front of the scrim dwindles slowly.] Hey! Tom! [Same calling voice, up and down, with stretched syllables. Now, sharper and shorter]. Thomas! [Waits as if listening. Still calling, we hear her footsteps moving to the screen door.] Dinner's ready. [Silence] Just leave the leaves. [To herself] Hah! That was funny.leave the leaves. [To outdoors] did you hear that? [She laughs to herself, lightly, barely audible. Then loudly.] I said leave the leaves you two! Come and get it!

Tom: [Enters, running from stage right, behind scrim. Downstage lights dim. He catches another imaginary pass, runs onto the porch for a touchdown].

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>