PARODY TIME-WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW

WHAT THEY DON’T KNOW

Scene 1

The gym. The science fair is going on.

How To Commit Suicide Hannah has the following pasted up at her booth. It can be seen alongside the opening credits:

You might commit suicide for several reasons: depression, divorce, losing a pencil, someone  talking during “South Park”, or someone talking during “The Office.”

You can commit suicide several ways. You can shoot yourself, take pills, hang yourself, or  choke on your own vomit. Black people might commit suicide by watching the short-lived mid-2000s sitcom “Method and Red.”

  
Hannah: Want to try this depression machine?

Kid: I don't know.

Hannah: Come on.

Kid: What does it do?

Hannah: Makes you really depressed.

Kid: OK.

(Kelly, Hannah’s sister, and Mandy, Hannah’s and Kelly’s mother come walking up to Hannah's display)

Mandy: (Talking on her cell phone) Yes, Howard, sell fifteen percent of Cyprian Holdings, thirty  percent of Kyoko Manufacturing and buy all of Shelton Communications.

Hannah: Hi Mom and Kelly.

Mandy: Hi Hannah.

Hannah: Want to try this depression machine?

Kelly: No thanks.

Hannah: What about you, Mom?

Mandy: No thanks, Hannah.

Hannah: Karen tried it.  

Mandy: Then prick me with it over and over again. (Hannah pricks her with. the needle. Mandy  then makes a call on her cell phone.) Hi, Howard, sell everything. It's not worth it.

Kelly: See you.

Scene 2

The tiny kitchen of Kelly and Hannah's house. Kelly is standing in the kitchen. Hannah and her  father enter.

Ian: Why did you do that?

Hannah: He was hogging the spotlight.

Ian: Are you aware of the ramifications of what you did?

Hannah: It's no big deal.

Ian: Five stitches! When he recovers, he could turn himself invisible and beat you up.

Hannah: That'll never happen.

(Hannah is shown in her room being beaten up.)

Obituary

Voiceover: Hannah Farrow died today at the age of twenty-five. She committed suicide. What was wrong  with her? It was like Pope John Paul II: what wasn't wrong with her? In addition to having every  disease known to man, she had also lost her husband to Count Choculitis, and her son died while  fighting as a child soldier in Gulf War V, a glorious effort to make our 51st state,  Saudi Irania, great again by getting them involved in a perfectly morally correct civil war with our fifty-second state, Canada.

Hannah Farrow is survived by no one. She will be cremated and unknowingly placed in the  public drinking water.

Scene 3

The restaurant. Ian, Karen, Kelly, and Hannah are sitting at a table. 

Karen: I was thinking, at the wedding we could have Kirabatian food.

Ian: That's a great idea.

Karen: Since its a small wedding, who could we get for a band?

Ian: How about Hanson?

Karen: That's a great idea.

Ian: What do you kids think?

Hannah: Well, you'll just do whatever you bloody well please anyway.

Ian: Good point.

Hannah: (To Kelly) I love these weekends. It makes all the bad things just seem as if they're not

there. 

Kelly: Yeah.

Hannah: Like being the worst basketball team in the league.

Kelly: Yeah, like being the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Scene 4

Kelly's bedroom. Kelly is in bed reading. Hannah enters.

Hannah: Karen can't stop me from going out. Grounded for two weeks for getting drunk at that  party. I'll do what I want.

(She climbs on Kelly’s bed and starts walking over her to the window even though the window is accessible from the empty side of the bed.)

Kelly: OK, but why do you have to walk over me?

Hannah: I don't know.

(She exits out the window)

Scene 5

The kitchen. Karen is placing bottles of elderberry wine in the school lunches. Kelly is also  in the kitchen. Kyle enters.

Kyle: Hi, Karen. Is Hannah home?

Kelly: I'll get her for you. (Kelly goes upstairs to the bathroom. Hannah is having a shower.) Hannah, Kyle is here to see you.

Hannah: I'm not coming down.

Kelly: Come on.

Hannah: I'm not coming down.

Kelly: Come on.

Hannah: Oh, OK.

(Hannah comes downstairs after about a minute.)

Kyle: Do you want me to break up with Amy, because I'll do it if it'll mean we can keep being  friends.

Hannah: No, I don't want you to break up with Amy.

Kyle: Then will you be my friend again?

Hannah: No.

Kyle: Why?

Hannah: Because maybe I'm not cut out to hang with guys like you. I'm not good at school. I'm  more suited to people like Natalie and Lisa.

Kyle: Nat's no good. A gnat is a little bug that bothers people and bites them. Are you telling me  her parents knew how she was going to turn out when they named her?

Scene 6

 The dining room. Ian and Karen's wedding reception is going on.

Hannah: (Shouting) Let's see how many famous stepmothers we can name.

Guest 1: How about Cinderella's stepmother?

Guest 2: That's fiction.

Guest 3: How about Snow White's stepmother?

Guest 2: That's still fiction.

Guest 4: How about that stepmother played by Bette Davis in the 1989 movie “The Wicked Stepmother.” She had a cat named

Paraclete.

Scene 7

The house. Kelly hears a knock on the door and answers. Two police officers are standing on the front porch. There characters are reminiscent of constables Goody and Gladstone from the mid-nineties British sitcom “The Thin Blue Line.”

Constable 1: Is Hannah Farrow home?

Kelly: No.

Constable 2: Then are her parents home?

Kelly: Yes. Well, technically her father and her stepmother, but I guess…

(Karen enters)

Karen: what seems to be the problem?

Constable 1: We're looking for Hannah Farrow.

Karen: She hasn't been here for several days. We have absolutely no idea where she is. In fact, we’ve called the police station several times but no one seemed to even be interested in taking our call.

Constable 2: That’s what comes of outsourcing your call centre to Ontario.

Constable 1: Right, then, just bring her down to the station when she comes home.

Karen: Why?

Constable 1: She was seen breaking and entering into a home last night. She stole some

liquor, cigarettes, a video, and a Cd player. 

Karen: All right.

Constable Goody: Thank you awfully much.

Kelly: Which movie did she allegedly take, officer?

Constable 1: No, honey, she stole a video, not a movie.

Kelly: Yes, I know, but which video?

Constable 2: The family only had one.

Kelly: But which _one was it?

Constable 1: They only had _one video.

Kelly: But what was it called?

Constable 2: Somehow I don’t think they named it.

Kelly: No, what was the title?

Constable 1: The title of what?

Kelly: The title of the video my sister allegedly robbed from the house she allegedly broke into.

Constable 2: The title of the video. I don’t think they knight them either, even if Canada is part of the Commonwealth.

Kelly: No, what was the title of the movie?

Constable 1: Miss, as my partner has said, even though Canada is part of the British Commonwealth, I still do not think they knight videos in this country.

Constable 2: Miss, in England, what you call a VCR, we refer to as a video.

Kelly: Then why didn’t you say that before? Details, people.

(She flounces off)

Scene 8

The kitchen. Hannah and Ian come into the kitchen.

Ian: You were fortunate. If that Inspector Grimm hadn't knocked his clock radio off the desk, we  would have never got you out of there.

Hannah: Just be quiet.

Ian: Needless to say, young lady, you are grounded, again.

Hannah: Who are you calling a lady, and if it’s needless to say, then why are you saying it?

Ian: Your behavior lately has been unacceptable.

Hannah: Then could you recommend a place I could move to where it is?

Ian: Just go to your room.

Hannah: Didn’t have any other plans for some reason, remember?

(Hannah heads upstairs.)

Ian: As someone whose well into his second decade of fatherhood, you’d think I would have anticipated all that sarcastic back and forth, but apparently not.

Scene 9

Hannah's room. Kelly knocks on her door and enters.

Kelly: What's the problem?

Hannah: Just get out.

Kelly: Tell me.

Hannah: I hate my life.

Kelly: Expostulate.

Hannah: I wish I could be little. I wish nothing ever changed. I wish I were little again, so that I  didn't know things. Its better when you don't know things, like Cecil B. DeMills didn't actually  appear on “The Lux Radio Theatre.” It was just a guy doing his voice.

Kelly: I sure miss the old days too.

(Flashback...

We return to when Kelly and Hannah are little girls. They are sharing Kelly’s bedroom, the one in which the scene in the present is taking place. In this flashback, it is the early nineties.)

Kelly: Get in bed. Daddy said he would come up and read us a story after Married... With

 Children and Twin Peaks were over.

(Ian enters)

Kelly and Hannah: Daddy.

Hannah: Will you read to us from Saturday Night magazine again, Daddy?

Ian: Sure. (Reading) The bar is a beehive of activity. Girls are dancing on tables and the bar to the  latest from M.C. Hammer and Vanilla Ice. "I think they'll be popular forever," Nadya, a  student says. For Russians, freedom is to be enjoyed at every dosage, "Freedom  is incredible," Borris says, "like having a phone you can take anywhere."

(Present …)

Hannah: We were sitting around and one of the kids said that he knew this kid who was away at  a Hungry Hungry Hippos tournament and his parents were away, and some people suggested we  break into this house. They were all too chicken. I said I would, and they said I was too chicken  too. Well, I'm not going to let them challenge my courage like that, so I broke into the house.  Some kid said he had seen us, and when the police showed up, all my friends had left for some

reason.

Kelly: Hmmm, it would seem strange for them to do something like that, almost as strange as your childhood recollections going back fifteen years before you were actually born.

Scene 10

A stream. Mandy quickly jumps into the stream, then just as quickly jumps out because the water  is so cold.

Mandy: Hey, where's my cell phone?

Scene 11

Mandy's apartment. The phone rings.

Mandy: Hello.

Voice: Hello, Mandy, its your cell phone. Are you coming to get me?

Scene 12

The driveway. Mandy, Peter, Kelly, and Hannah pull up. The two police officers from previously are waiting for them. The Farrow's get out of the car.

Constable 2: Mrs. Farrow we're arresting your daughter on a charge of breaking and entering.  Mandy: What happened?

Hannah: We were in the park. There wasn't much drinking, I think I only had one twenty-sixer, so, you know, not a lot for a typical Canadian girl, and we were daring each other to do stuff. The dares got more serious. I was  dared to sneak into a house and take something out. I went in and took a bag of flour because it  was something we could use. It was in a glass bag. As I was walking out, the bag fell on the front  walk and smashed.

Ian: Well, little girl, I breaking and entering is one thing, but destroying someone’s precious, cherished bag of flour is quite another. Officers, take this one away and don’t worry about bail, either.

(The two officers nod.)

Scene 13

The courtroom. Ian, Karen, Mandy,  and Kelly are there. Hannah is in front of the bench. Her lawyer is reminiscent of Ted Gordon, overbooked attorney, from “SCTV.”

Bailiff: Court is now in session. The honourable Elganon Sourgravy presiding.

Judge: (Offstage) Well I don't care if I’m down to the one hidden in the grating in the ceiling of the lady’s loo. Just get me another bottle of sherry! (To the court) The prosecution will speak first.

Crown Prosecutor: Your honour, Miss Farrow has already committed a previous offense. She also has a bad reputation. 

Judge: Very well. I have already made my decision, but as a formality, and as a result of this  namby-pamby  English law system which you bunch of neo-communist colonists never even had the making of the slightest bit of intestinal fortitude to dispense with that I find myself under, I will let the defense speak.

Defense Lawyer: Your honour, its technically, kind of, er, Hannah's first, you know,  real offense ...

Judge: Spare me, you hybrid of a man who nevertheless inhabits England’s much less than fair colony of Canada, Miss Farrow has already been booked, as  those swine of police officers say, on a charge of breaking and entering.

(A man from a food service delivery app enters)

Delivery Man: Asparagus tips and a glass of carbonized water for… Aahhh, Judge Sourgravy! Never thought I’d have to see you again.

Judge: Never thought I’d have to see you again, either.  Bloody appeals process. Those who thought of that ought to be hanged.

(The delivery man flees the room with the food.)

Defense Lawyer: She's a good student...

Judge: On the contrary, you dimwit, I happen to know, through bullying my way into the office to  look at Hannah’s school records, that she is not a good student. In fact, she’s barely even attended school for the last several months.

Crown Attorney: Excuse me, Your Honour, as the crown prosecutor, I think I should be handling matters such as accessing school files and---

Judge: Shut up!!!

Defense Lawyer: ... and she shows genuine remorse.

Judge: She'll show genuine remorse, when I sentence her to death by lethal injection.

(Judge Sourgravy bangs his gavel.)

Bailiff: Court is adjourned.

Judge: Normally I would say such things but after my stirling career I rather think such menial tasks are quite beneath me.

Ian (To the lawyer) Isn’t there anything we can do?!

Defense Lawyer: ‘fraid not. We’re under the English law system. The rulings are final.

Karen: Can’t we appeal?

Defense Lawyer: (Dejectedly) Ah, what would be the point.

Ian: I guess that’s true.

Mandy: Besides, I can’t afford to miss anymore work. Nor would I want to.

(Hannah’s family walk out of the courtroom arm in arm.)

Closing credits.

Based on “What They Don’t Know” by Anita Horrocks.