Children

Short Play/ 10 Minute Play

 

Children

            (As the lights come up we see a little girl, center upstage, around six years old, pale skin dark hair, she’s wearing a pink summer dress with a couple of stains and rips on it. She’s in a small, silent attic playing with one of her baby dolls. On the largest wall there is a circular window with a white sofa facing it. The walls have light brown wall paper with small rose designs on it. There are boxes and all sorts of things to her right and left, including a large, wooden rocking chair with a green cushion, upstage right. Next to the girl is a very large doll house where she lays down her doll in. Her name is Sarah.)

SARAH: “There you go Lil’ Johnny. Mommy’s going to go and get a dress for Auntie’s wedding okay? Don’t let that mean man inside again. He might hurt you.” (Grabs woman doll and turns right as she hears someone come up.)

                (Sarah’s older brother Charlie, comes in upstage left, his head is leaningto his left side. Charlie is about eight years old and is wearing a black tuxedo that has huge rips and tears. He looks like he had been rolling in dirt his face is covered in dirt and blood. He’s holding a For Sale fliar which he leaves on a box.)

CHARLIE: (Sits right to Sarah.) “Hiya’ buddy watcha doin’?”

SARAH: (Sighs.) “Nothing just playing. (Pause. Starts to silently cry) Charlie I want them to come back. I really miss them.

CHARLIE: “I’m sorry bud,but you know they’re not coming back. If they were they would have been back by now.(Pause.) I miss them, too.”

SARAH: “Why did they have to go? I liked it better when they were here even though they couldn’t see us.”

CHARLIE: “I guess it was their time, just like our time.”

SARAH: “But our time wasn’t supposed to be our time. We weren’t supposed to die until we were old and wrinkly like mom and dad. Not yet, not yet.”

CHARLIE: “I know but we can’t do anything about it now. It wasn’t our fault, it wasn’t anybody’s fault. Except for that stupid drunk man. I still don’t understand, why is it that they serve alcohol at weddings or anywhere in that matter. It makes you do insane things like driving onto the sidewalk, where you were playing. (Starts to cry.) I’m really sorry Sarah, I’m really sorry, I really did try to save you but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. (Sarah hugs him.) I ran and ran but I couldn’t push you out of the way, my cuff got cought on the fence. By the time I reached you he was right in front of us. I’m so sorry.”

SARAH: “No it’s okay Charlie. You just said it yourself it wasn’t anybody’s fault. Except for that man’s. He sould have known better. Now he’s stuck in the jailhouse with all of those other bad people. I feel bad for Auntie her wedding party got ruined because of us.”

CHARLIE: “Yes, but at least I didn’t get in trouble for dropping my army man in the icing. (Chuckles.) I think we were the only two to actually taste that cake. Well at least the icing.”

SARAH: “I can’t believe Mom and Dad actually kept that piece of cake where we stuck our fingers.”

CHARLIE: “They were really sad, wern’t they? I still remember yelling at them telling them that we were okay and nothing hurt. But then you started to (Streaches out.) scream when you saw us laying down on the floor. Who do you think looked worse? Me or you?

SARAH: “Well I had a bent and broken leg. (Stands up wobbling, her leg stick out at an odd angle and she shakes it in front of him.) But, you have a broken neck. So i’m guessing we’re both as bad. You looked as if your head was going to pop off.”

CHARLIE: “True, true.”

SARAH: “Hey Charlie? What day is it today? I think I saw some children walking around with Valentine’s Day cards. Is today really the fourteenth?” (Sits down, same spot.)

CHARLIE: “Oh yeah it is, I almost forgot. Well happy 67^th Deathday. Wow I can’t belive it’s been that long, seriously.”

SARAH: “Well actually it hasn’t been 67 years, it’s 65. Remember we died on the 14^th of February, 1943 not 1941, so yeah.” (Puts on a smug face.)

CHARLIE: “Well you know what, whatever. I don’t even know why we keep track it’s not going to make a difference we’ve been stuck here for 65 years and we’re going to be stuck here for 65 more and then some.” (Stands up, streches out and goes over to the forgotten piece of paper he came in with.)

SARAH: “I think it’s really ironic that mom died two years ago this exact day, the same day we died, and then dad just died last year this day. It’s kind of odd. But I really couldn’t stand watching dad all alone doing nothing all day, he seemed dead inside. It was terrible, his depression.” (Curls into ball, up stage.)

CHARLIE: “Yeah, no wonder he always said that this was his unluckiest day of the year. And I guess it’s not for us either, look at this paper” (Hands paper.) “The house is officially for sale and a real estate agent is coming over today to check that the house looks decent before people can start to come.”

SARAH: “But what are we going to do if people just take our house away, I don’t want to go. What time is he coming at? Maybe we can prepare to scare him off or something.”

CHARLIE: “Well I would say in about a couple of minutes. He should behere really soon. What’s your plan?”

SARAH: “I don’t know! I’m still with the whole scare him off bit. But he’ll just comeback won’t he?”

CHARLIE: “Yeah probably, so what to do?” (Walks around center stage, SARAH watches him intensly.) “Maybe if we . . . no that wouldn’t work. (Throws his hands over his head.) “Argh, I don’t know what to do.”

SARAH: “Well we could kill him.”

CHARLIE: “Oh yeah, because nobody would suspect him missing, and the humans would suspect an odd smell coming from our house.” (SARAH shrugs.)

SARAH: “So . . . what if he’s a nice and reasonable young man,you never know. He might just find us fascinating.”

CHARLIE: “Well that’s not bad, but we’ll use it as plan B.”

SARAH: “Then for plan A we should . . . do nothing?” (CHARLIE stops pacing.)

CAHRLIE: “You know what maybe your first plan wan’t that bad. What if we just scare him enough to just give up on this house and leave it deserted. There are a lot of deserted buildings around, we could become of them.” (SARAH purses herlips together,tryingto think.)

SARAH: “ Fine we’ll do it. It should work. Maybe we should stay up here and lure him up. It is the scariest part of the whole house. I remember I would never come up here because it was dark. (They hear a front door being opened and heavy footeps.) (SARAH whispers.) “Come on let’s do it.”

(CHARLIE nad SARAH both make stomping noices to get the real estors’ attention. They hear a man’s deep, panicked voice)

AGENT: “Who was that?! Who are you?! You are not allowed to be here by state and federal law. So I advise you to get out before I call the damn police.”

(CHARLIE and SARAH keep making more stomping noises and start to whail.)

SARAH: “Mommy. . . where is my mommy?” (They Stop. They hear steps becoming louder.)

AGENT: (Panick in his voice, it cracks.) “Do you think you’re being funny? Stop this right now” (CHARLIE and SARAH hide behind the boxes. AGENT opens the attic door.)

                (A middle aged man enters the scene he is wearing a blue business suit,black shoes and is carrying a black suitcase. He is a rather fit looking man with a young face. He seems like an ordinary business man.)

AGENT: “ Who’s up here?” (Looks around, SARAH comes out. AGENT is shocked, he looks at her broken leg.)

SARAH: “Hello sir, have you seen my mother by any chance?”

AGENT: “ Uh . . . no.”

SARAH: “What about my big brother Charlie?” (SARAH walks around him. Charlie walks out.)

CHARLIE: “Here I am, Sarah.” (Agent turns around to face CHARLIE.)

AGENT: “What do you want from me?”

SARAH: (Slowly.) “We want you out.” (AGENT turns around again.)

CHARLIE: “This is our house. Not yours. You can’t take it away.” (AGENT backs up stage.)

AGENT: (Looks at both children. Voice cracks.) “I’m sorry I didn’t know please. . . please. Don’t hurt me. Just leave me alone. Please.”

CHARLIE: “Only if you leave us. We don’t want other people coming into our house again. So find a way to keep them and yourself out.”

AGENT: “Uhh. . . yeah. I-I think I could do that. . . uhmm. . . i-if I mark this house as uninhabitable, they won’t mind. The-they don’t c-care about another old- I mean . . .historical, house anyway. The-they never do.”

SARAH: “Wel that would be absolutely marvolous, wouldn’t it?”

AGENT: (Weak smile) “Uhh . . . y-yeah I guess. Uhmm. . . I- I guess I should you know . . .uhmm . . .leave.” (Weak smile again.) I need to talk to th-the family that was c-coming over.” (Looks as if in the verge of tears.)

CHARLIE: “Very well, off you go.” (Waves out hand. AGENT walks to door. Stops.)

AGENT: “Uhh. . . n-nice to meet you. . .uhh. . .”

SARAH: “Sarah.” (Smiles.)

CHARLIE: “Charlie.” (Nods.)

AGENT: “Nice to meet you S-sarah and . . . uhmm. . . Charlie.” (AGENT walks out and we hear fast paced footsteps, and a door slam.)

SARAH: (Surprised.) “Oh my! I can’t believe that actually worked!” (Turns to CHARLIE.)

CHARLIE: “I know. . . wow. That was just so unexpected. Do you think he’ll actually do it?”

SARAH: “I don’t know, but that was fun! But anyway, yeah I think you should go follow him to see if he actually does it.”

CHARLIE: “Yeah maybe I should. By bud.” (Exits scene.)

SARAH: “Bye.” (Turns and walks to her dolls again. Kneels down and picks up male doll.) “Hi Lil’ Johnny, Mommy’s back. Did you miss me?”

The End.

(Lights dim down and curtain closes.)

 

 

Author's Note

Yeah I guess there are a bit of grammar problems.
Please tell me what you think.

Reviews

[[untitled]]

awesome, even with grammer problems

[AJChallenger]

I'm a big fan of plays, they take so much more talent to develop successfully because of the limited space. There are some words, some phrases that could be cut, I think. Remember, in a play every word must further the plot. As a whole I think this is interesting, I'll be curious to read the rest.

[Shelly Araujo]

intriguing story, very sad. You describe the scene so well, I feel like I can see it so clearly. look forward to reading more.