(Brandon and Sam come back on the stage. Sam looks tired, he is dragging his feet.)

Transcription

1 Scene 5 The Wrong Seminar (Brandon and Sam come back on the stage. Sam looks tired, he is dragging his feet.) Sam: Can you stoop nooow? I am soooo tired. Brandon: Do you want to be stuck in this school forever and ever, like Napoleon? Sam: But I am tiiiireeeed Brandon: You must find the correct next seminar room, complete the seminar, and get out of here! Sam: But I am huuungryyyy Brandon: I thought you said you were tired. Sam: I thought you weren t paying attention to my complaints. ( A student has quietly entered the stage, and has been watching/following them. Brandon stops suddenly. The student pretends to be a tree, holding up one leaf) Brandon: (scared) Who s that? (pointing at the student) Sam: It s a tree. Brandon: (angry) That looks like a person and has exactly one leaf?? Sam: It s winter, and many trees have weird shapes. Brandon: If we are about to start school, it s still September! Sam: It s autumn and many trees have weird shapes. Brandon: Yeah? Well, I m going to cut a branch from the tree and see what happens. Student/Tree: Hello. Brandon: Aaargh!! Sam: Wow! A talking tree! Brandon: That is not a talking tree. It s a person trying to trick us. Who are you? Student: I am L.(realizes what he s saying, tries to change the name at the very last minute) Mike. 26

2 Brandon (suspicious) L Mike? Mike: Call me Mike. Brandon (still suspicious) Where does the L come from in your name? Mike: I don t have an L. Brandon: But you just said Mike: That was a slip of the tongue. Sam: Oohh, I hate those. My tongue slipped on ice cream once and it got sprained. I couldn t speak for a week. Brandon: That s biologically impossible. Sam: Not speaking? Brandon: Spraining your tongue.hippo have mercy I can t believe I am having this conversation. Sam: Well, I liked that week. I nodded to all the things people said, and everyone thought I was very wise. Mike: So..are you lost? Sam: Yes. Brandon: No. Mike: Which room are you looking for? Brandon: Why are you so helpful? People in this school were not particularly helpful. Mike: I am a nice person. Sam: Me too. Wanna be friends? Mike: No. Sam: But I know jokes. What do you call a boomerang that doesn t come back? Brandon: And just when I thought you had reached your maximum level of silliness Mike: (vaguely interested) What? Sam: A stick! 27

3 Mike: A stick? (very enthusiastic) Throw the stick! Where? Where s the stick? Sam: In the joke. Brandon: Wait a minute. Mike (realizes people are getting suspicious) I mean wow what a silly non-joke. The seminar you are looking is over there. (points to the circle of chairs behind them, left by the students in the previous scene, where other students have sat down, together with a new teacher) Bye! Sam: Bye, Mike. Thanks for liking my boomerang joke. Brandon: We are not going to that seminar. It s a trap. Sam: No, it s not. Mike told us. Brandon: And you think we can trust a person we met 3 minutes ago? Sam: Of course. Brandon: Brilliant. (They walk towards the seminar. They wait and watch for a bit, while the seminar is in progress). Sally: Should we throw them in medias res and let them figure out the names of characters alone? Steve: No, the conversation is cruel enough. Are you going to explain that bit of Latin you just used? Sally: Nope. It s more mysterious that way. Steve: Ok, audience, we have Prof. StradiEvilarius, and his/her students: Flavius.. Sally: Igor, Drake and Silver Bullet. Steve: Why Silver Bullet? Sally: His parents thought it would be funny. Steve: I don t see the joke in calling your kid Bullet. Sally: His parents are werewolves. 28

4 Steve: Oh. Prof. StradiEvilarius: And now, in order to obtain the levitation spell, you must take the frog and remove one leg and one eye (student interrupts) Flavius: Excuse me, your Magickness, my frog is fighting back. (other students laugh) Prof. StradiEvilarius: The Black Cat have mercy! A student of such a prestigious school and he s about to be defeated by a frog! Flavius: It s a really big frog. Prof. StradiEvilarius: You didn t boil it alive first? Flavius: It seemed cruel. Prof. StradiEvilarius: But cutting out an eye and a leg doesn t? Igor: Ooo, can I help? I looove dismembering frogs. Drake: You love dismembering everything! Igor: It wasn t me! The police can t prove anything! Those bodies that they dug up from the abandoned house where I didn t bury them Silver Bullet: Yeah, now I am totally convinced it wasn t you. Flavius: There is no need. I think I can do the spell with powdered mouse too. Igor: Oops. Sorry, too late. One dead frog coming up. (Brandon and Sam are horrified. They try to leave, unseen) Igor: Oh, hello there. New ingredients, Prof. StradiEvilarius? Prof. StradiEvilarius: Nope. They are probably students lost from that boring Parakeet school. Brandon: You are not part of 29

5 Prof. StradiEvilarius: Don t be ridiculous! I am the great Prof. StradiEvilarius and this is the Dark School of Magic, Misery and Malevolence, where evil students train in.. Brandon: Evil Magic? Prof. StradiEvilarius: Indeed. You are smarter than you look. Sam: Magic? Can you make rabbits appear out of hats? Prof. StradiEvilarius: And you are even stupider than you sound. Sam: I remember seeing a lady being cut in half at a magic show once. She seemed to take it very well. Igor: I did that... Drake: Yeah..they let anybody in our school now..even butchers. Silver Bullet: Because your father works for the Frankensteins. Brandon: Those.Frankensteins? Drake: Noo another family, famous for cultivating tulips. Sam: Really? I love tulips! If they are Frankenstein tulips, are they alive? Flavius: Totally. And carnivorous. Sam: No, they are vegetarian, because they are tulips, so..plants. Flavius: Umm..they are carnivorous because they eat meat. Sam: So..I am popcornious because I eat popcorn? Flavius: There are only 3 main categories.. Brandon: Trust me, this explanation is a waste of your time. Prof. StradiEvilarius: Knowledge is never a waste of time! Brandon: Agreed, but some people are not built to assimilate lots of knowledge. Sam: And the 3 categories are? Flavius: Well vegetarian, carnivorous, omnivorous. Sam: What about dogs? Flavius: What about them? 30

6 Sam: They sometimes eat poop. Drake: Omnivorous. Sam: What about vampires? Silver Bullet: What about them? Sam: They drink blood. Are they bloodious? Drake: Blood is an animal product, sooo carnivorous. Sam: What about Kelly? Flavius: Who? Sam: Kelly, my sister. She sometimes eats paper. Flavius: Paper s plant based, so either vegetarian or omnivorous. Sam: What about Prof. StradiEvilarius: Enough! Silentio totalis! Sam: Wow! You speak foreign languages! What is that, Sanskrit? Prof. StradiEvilarius: Why doesn t my spell work? Sam: Mom says I should always read the terms and conditions every time I use something new. Igor: And do you? Sam: No. But I know that s where the traps are. (Drake and Silver Bullet pretend to read from a big book of spells) Silver Bullet: Spells do not work on low level creatures. Drake: Spells, for example, work on the smarter trolls, who can count to 10. Silver Bullet: But not on the stupider trolls, who think five is the last number in the known universe. Prof. StradiEvilarius: Ah, that explains it. That s alright. Igor Igor: Yesss, masssteeeer. Prof. StradiEvilarius: Use the axe. 31

7 Igor: I shall..axe him a question. (Students laugh in an evil manner) Sam: Brilliant! I love quizzes! Igor: This one will be to die for! Brandon (panicked): Excuse me, you can t harm a student not to mention another person. Prof. StradiEvilarius: You should have read the terms and conditions of Parakeet Drake: We totally can. Silver Bullet: We totally will. Flavius: We totally are good at it. Igor: And we totally love our job. (Mike runs on stage) Mike: There you are! I ve been looking all over for you! Sam: Oh, hello Mike! Brandon: Yeah, thanks a lot, Mike. You sent us to the murderous seminar! Sam: Is murderous like carnivorous? So..you eat murder? How does that Prof. StradiEvilarius: Enough! Listening to you, I feel my brain leaking out of my ears in protest! Students..dismember him! Flavius: Also, you are Mike? Since when? Igor: You are Lou. Drake: Or was it a trap? Silver Bullet: Another one of your traps? Also, mom says Wuuf, Wuuf, Bow, Wuf. Mike: Thank you. Many greetings to your family too. Was the full moon last Monday? Silver Bullet: Tuesday. They missed their favourite opera. Mike: Shame. It s difficult to have a cultural life when you are a werewolf. Silver Bullet: That s ok. They ate one of the critics. He gave a really unfair review. 32

8 Mike: Well done! Sam: Hmm..Lou sounds familiar. Wasn t there an old teacher called that? Brandon (completely resigned) : No. It was the dog, Lucifer. Sam: You are a Lucifer dog, Mike? Cause I only know about Labradors and punctual dogs. Brandon: No, his name is Lucifer, not Mike, and he s an Evil Dog. Sam: Don t be silly! Look at him! He s a good dog..aren t you? Mike: Yes, yes I am. I am a dog and it s a day and I am very happy that it s a day and I am a dog! Prof. StradiEvilarius: What s a punctual dog? Sam: A clocker spaniel! (The students laugh) Igor: That s kind of funny. Drake: In a brain dead sort of way. Prof. StradiEvilarius: What do you want, Lou? Lou: Doris sent me to fetch them. She says they have completed their sentence. Sam: That s great! Brandon: That s weird. Prof. StradiEvilarius: Really? The last time a student left this place alive there was a short German man with a moustache running around Europe.. Sam: OO I love Charlie Chaplin films but he wasn t German! Brandon: Seriously? A Hitler joke?? Who wrote this?? Lou: You know, you don t have narrative protection just because this is a school play. Your character could die. Brandon: I mean.ha ha.very funny ya gut gut schön Deutsch. Prof. StradiEvilarius: Take them away before I destroy these fountains of ignorance! 33