(Open on the inside of a train station waiting room. )
Newsie: Extra, extra, read all about it. Scientists predict
global warming will become biggest money-spending, overreaching piece of
government propaganda ever. Extra, extra, read all about it.
(Anne walks up to a seedy-looking man.)
Anne: Excuse me, sir. Would you like to have your ears
delighted by a sintilating piece of literature spoken in an unbelievingly
enthralling manner?
Seedy Man: Sure, why not, little goil. All I got’s two bits,
though.
Anne: Twenty-five cents will be perfectly acceptable as it
is currently 25 cents more than the state of destitution in which I have lately
and unfortunately come to find myself.
(Anne begins to recite “Hamlet” from the beginning using
silly voices and making her fingers into puppets. Matthew can be seen
approaching. The seedy man hands Anne a quarter.)
Matthew: Anne, Anne, there you are. I’ve been looking all
over for you. Marilla’s worried sick about you.
Anne: Get away from me!
(A policeman approaches.)
Police Officer: Is there a problem here, sir.
Anne: This man (points to Matthew), he is the problem,
officer.
Matthew: Anne, just listen to me---
Anne: Why? So you can draw me back into your web of
deception that you want to raise me, a girl, when all you originally wanted was
a boy to help on your farm?
Matthew: We love you, Anne. Please come back to us.
Seedy Man: Look, mack, looks like you better push off where
this little goil’s concerned, if ya follow me.
Matthew: Mister, this little girl is my daughter, if not by
flesh and blood, than by my very spirit.
Police Officer: Sir, there is no need to defend yourself
using flowery poetry.
Matthew: Sorry, officer. I just didn’t want to get sued for
copyright infringement.
Seedy Man: Fair enough, Mack.
Anne: Fine. I shall accompany you and Marilla back to Green Gables.
(Anne and Matthew walk out of the train station and step
inside the carriage. Marilla is in the carriage waiting for them. Matthew picks
up a set of keys, sticks them in the horse’s ear, gives a command, and the
carriage starts moving.)
Marilla: Anne, you really must stop doing this.
Anne: Oh, doing what, praytell?
Matthew: Running away whenever there’s the slightest bit of
trouble between you, on the one hand, and Marilla, I or someone else in Avonlea
on the other.
Marilla: Really, Anne, this is the thirtieth time you’ve
done this. Have you any grasp of the lengths to which Matthew and myself have
gone to prove we love you and want you for our very own?
Matthew: I’ve been in five carriage wrecks, permanently injured
in three of them, quite seriously.
Marilla: He’s been lost in the jungles of South America.
Matthew: I’ve been shipwrecked off the Gold Coast of Africa.
Marilla: He’s been kidnapped and held prisoner by nomadic
terrorists in both the Sahara and Gobi Deserts.
Matthew: And every time you’ve run away Marilla’s gotten
worried sick about you.
Marilla: It’s true. The doctor has diagnosed me with some
pretty serious diseases known to man and a few medicine hasn’t any idea about
yet.
Matthew: And yet you keep running away from us, Anne.
Marilla: So we have an idea. (She reaches under the seat and
produces an electronic family Bible with a stylus attached to the side) We’d
like you to take our name, become Anne Cuthbert. If the idea is too your
liking, you can write “Anne Cuthbert” right here in our family Bible.
Anne: Oh, Marilla, this day is truly an epoch in my life.
Giving up my surname, the one thing I have from my late parents whom I never
knew, owing to their deaths when I was but three months old, is the thing I
have dreamed about for so long I was beginning to loose all hope it would ever
become an actual occurrence.
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