A Year in the Life of a Complete and Total Genius (9 page)

I don't think Robbie was that interested in getting a part; he was probably just upset for a minute. I think being an understudy is a pretty big thing, and assistant stage manager is also really important. Like Mr. Tan said…no part is too small!

Good luck at your volleyball tournament!

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

Assignment: Dramatic Scenes

Conversations can be tricky in story writing, and writers often have trouble moving a story forward using dialogue instead of description. After looking at scenes of plays today in class, please use these works as inspiration for your own short play! Write a short scene for a play where two characters meet and solve a problem together. These characters can be real people from your life, based on previous assignments, or new characters who share personality traits with people you've met, or even yourself! Try and weave these details into the conversation seamlessly; don't just come out and tell your reader directly. Your scene should be at least two pages long, double-spaced.

Due: February 4

• • •

Peer Tutoring Program—Progress Report

Session: February 2nd

Worked On: Dramatic Scenes

Ms. Whitehead, I suggest that Robbie see someone for his violent tendencies in his work. Seriously, that guy has some issues that need to be worked out, and I am afraid that he might kill me the same way his “character” kills me in his scene. I doubt that I will sleep well tonight.

—Arthur Bean

Artie helped me with my sene, to make one of the caracters responsable for the problem. The problem is that one of them is staring in the play and the other one wants to star to. Together they kill the other star and never get caught. It's pretty funny. I also got to use the word “cleave”—like “to cleave someone's head open with an ax.”

—Robbie

• • •

February 3rd

Dear RJ,

Today we had our first read-through of
Romeo and Juliet
. It was so great. Now Mr. Tan wants us to rehearse scene by scene. He said that it's best if we can find the driving emotion (he called it the character's motivation) and act that. He said that it is best if we relate that emotion to something in our own lives and write about it in our notebooks. I drew a picture of a heart with a bloody sword sticking through it on the cover of mine, with an empty poison bottle next to the heart. I think it will remind me of the tragedy of the play each time I see it.

I can't wait until we get to the part where I get to kiss Kennedy though. I bet her lips are super soft, because she uses a lot of lip gloss. I just wish I got to work with only her, but Mr. Tan said that we were going to rehearse with Audrey and Robbie there too, since they “need to know the blocking,” where you have to stand onstage for each scene. (It's very technical.) But it's so crowded when there are four of us trying to do everything. Plus, I got paired with Robbie on this other drama scene in class. Why do I always have to work with him? Is there a conspiracy against me?

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

• • •

Assignment: Dramatic Scene

CAST LIST:

Nancy, a girl

Darian, a boy

Nancy: Hey! Hey, you there! Who are you?

Darian: I'm Darian. I live down the street. We just moved here from Ohio. My parents are getting divorced.

Nancy: OK. Can you help me with my problem?

Darian: Maybe. What is your problem?

Nancy: I'm trying to get my little sister out of the sewer.

Darian: How did you sister end up in the sewer?

Nancy: That's a long story.

Darian: I've got time. My parents are divorced, and I don't know anyone here yet since I just moved from Ohio.

Nancy: Well, I put her in the sewer. She was annoying me. She keeps repeating everything I say.

[From below the stage]: She keeps repeating everything I say.

Nancy: SHUT UP!

[From below the stage]: Shut up!

Nancy: I MEAN IT!

[From below the stage]: I mean it!

Darian: Are you sure you want to get her out? She seems pretty happy down there. She should be fine as long as she doesn't see a crocodile.

Nancy: Do you think there are crocodiles down there?

Darian: I know there are. I'm super smart. I learned about crocodiles that live in the sewers. They can grow to be up to twenty-five feet long.

Nancy: How long is that in meters?

Darian: I don't know. I'm from Ohio.

Nancy [yelling down the sewer]: Do you hear that, Franklina? There are crocs down there! You had better be quiet in case they can find you using sonar tracking like bats use!

Darian: So how do you think we should get your sister out of the sewer?

Nancy: Well, I knitted this scarf.

Darian: You can knit? That's the coolest thing I have ever heard. You must be really cool. My friend Arthur in Ohio could knit too, and he was the greatest person to ever live.

Nancy: He sounds dreamy. Maybe instead of getting my sister out of the sewer, I should move to Ohio and marry your friend Arthur.

Darian: You had better move soon. He's going to be very famous soon because he's a really great writer too. He's going to write the next bestselling novel.

Nancy: I will give him this scarf and make him spaghetti and meatballs even though I am a vegetarian. But since I love him so much, I will still make meatballs for him.

Darian: I am a vegetarian too!

Nancy: We have so much in common! We are both vegetarians, and we both think Arthur is the greatest!

Darian: Maybe you should stay here.

Nancy: No. I have to go to Ohio. You could come too and live with your mom.

Darian: Okay. I like Ohio.

[Nancy and Darian leave]

[Voice from below]: Hello?

[Screaming and the sound of a girl being eaten by a crocodile.]

The End

Arthur,

Your interpretation of the assignment is very imaginative. However, most of your character description is still being told through your characters' exposition, and you abandon your “problem” of the sister in the sewer in the middle of your scene. I'm also not certain what character traits you are trying to portray in your characters. Keep working on blending personality traits into your work. Remember, SHOW the readers something, don't TELL them!

Ms. Whitehead

• • •

February 5th

Dear RJ,

I don't suppose you have written any stories for me HA-HA-HA. I know that's asking a lot, especially since you are an inanimate object. But seriously, RJ, enough with the jokes. I've really got to write a story. Once I start I won't be able to stop writing. The words will just flow from my fingers onto the page. I probably won't even have to edit it much. It's just that I can't get my fingers going! Plus, I have all these rehearsals too. It's very tricky to write my own words when I'm trying to memorize someone else's.

I tried asking Nicole for ideas and she said that I should write about a sad rabbit making friends with other animals in the forest. It was the stupidest idea ever. I told her that and she got offended and said that a great allegory is often the simplest story. Then I had to look up allegory, and I think she was making fun of me. Whatever. She's not trying to be a great writer. I am.

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

• • •

Romeo and Juliet
—a Star's Reflection

By Arthur Bean

Act 1, Scenes 1 and 2

In this first scene, I play a man in love. And oh! What a love it is! It is intense and passionate. I imagine myself like I am a fire, and I have been doused in gasoline. I burn and burn and burn!

(Is this what you mean, Mr. Tan? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing in this reflection journal.)

Romeo/Arthur,

You're on the right track and I'd like to see more emotion. Really feel what Romeo is feeling… Is Romeo really in love in this scene? How does he feel about being in love? Is he happy about it? Does it make him sad? Does it make him angry? Read over your lines, and try and find something in your life that helps you connect with how Romeo is feeling. It can be a memory or present-day feelings… Don't hold back; Romeo is very dramatic, but he is also very nuanced!

Mr. Tan

• • •

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME…

Help support the drama department's costume fund by buying a rose for your Valentine! Roses will be on sale in the cafeteria at lunch hour every day this week.

Cost: $2 a rose

Show someone you care! Two colors available!

Red Roses: True Love. Pink Roses: Secret Admirer

All roses will be delivered on February 14th during sixth period.

• • •

February 7th

Dear RJ,

I'm going to talk to Kennedy at school tomorrow. Not just in class or in rehearsal, but at lunch or something. I'm going to do it. Something light and funny to remind her of how funny I am. I can't decide if I should get her a rose for Valentine's Day either. I think that maybe if I start just talking to her then maybe she will send me a rose! This is the first time on Valentine's Day where Valentines count. In my elementary school we always had to give a Valentine to everyone in the class. Then everyone would count up their cards to see who got the most. Big reveal, RJ: it was never me. Somehow I never got as many as the other kids in my class, even though it was a rule that you had to give one to everyone. I guess not everyone played by the rules. I sure didn't. I mean, I never gave one to Robbie or any of his friends. My mom made me write them out, and would keep track to make sure I did the whole class, but I threw out the ones for kids I didn't like on my way to school. But this year they mean something! And you never know, RJ, maybe I'll get a secret-admirer rose from someone!

Ha! That would be awesome, but I doubt it. Kennedy doesn't know that she loves me yet. I just like to pretend sometimes as if she does. It's a lot easier than doing anything else. For example, right now, I should be writing my story for the competition. But I don't feel like it. Every time I come home, I have these really great intentions to get something done, but it seems as though walking through the door sucks all the energy out of me to do anything. This weekend I tried to get my dad to go to the movies with me, but he gave me money to go alone and said, “Not really feeling it, buddy.” I could have gone, but who goes to the movies by themselves? Instead I went to the wool store with Nicole and listened to her talk about dating with her friends who work there. It was so boring. Girl talk is so boring.

And the whole time we were there I felt guilty for not writing. Nicole says that even when you're procrastinating, you're thinking about the project you're putting off. But it's not true.

I think about anything
but
that.

Yours truly,

Arthur Bean

• • •

Peer Tutoring Program—Progress Report

Session: February 9th

Worked On: Romeo and Juliet

Ms. W: Artie fixed my speling on a comic strip for the r&j journal mr t is making us keep. Like we didn't have enuf homework…

—Robbie

Ms. Whitehead, it's weird that Robbie can make a comic strip out of pretty much anything. Did you know that he can do that?

—Arthur Bean

• • •

JUNIOR AUTHORS CONTEST

REMINDER: All entries are due for the Junior Authors Contest on April 1st! Please submit your stories to your English teacher directly, or to the office. All stories must have a title page with your full name, your teacher's name, and your class in the right-hand corner.

Example:

John Doe

Mrs. Ireland

Class 8B

Good luck, everyone!

• • •

Hiya, Arthur,

I've got an assignment for you, Romeo! Can you tap into your inner romantic, and cover the poetry reading for the paper? Mrs. Ireland's eighth-grade English class will be performing their poems in the drama room, and it sounded like an event that's right up your alley.

Cheers!

Mr. E.

PS Why couldn't the poet get a bank loan? Because he already “ode” too much!

• • •

February 12th

Dear RJ,

Another week gone, and still no story and no girlfriend. I was going to talk to Kennedy this week. I really was. But then I found the sequel to
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
in the library so I read that over lunch hour sometimes, and then I was helping Mr. Everett with the newspaper layout a couple of times, and I had rehearsal and I have so many lines to learn! I mean, I really was going to do it, RJ. I really was! I was just so busy!

About Kennedy. Okay. Fine. I chickened out. I mean, I did read in the library, and I did practice my lines, but I definitely chickened out. It's so hard to talk to her when all her friends are around! Plus, I think her friend Catie doesn't like me at all. She's one of those girls who seems really nice, but I've seen her say something to me, and then when she thinks I'm not watching, she whispers something to her friend and they giggle a lot. So I didn't say anything. Next week though. I'm going to make a move next week.