“WE H A V E P O I P U S !”
By Mary Adams
copyright 1998
Download the entire We Have Poipus! Script (PDF)
Scene V: MARBLES reappears on the scene.
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MARBLES: (Talking to himself): “You know, I just had to come back here. This old school has so many memories. Life has been good to me. I have good health-I have a good job and I have a wonderful family. But-I wonder what has become of all my old classmates.”
(PRUDENCE appears on the scene holding the hand of a pathetic looking multiple handicapped child.)
MARBLES: “PRUDENCE! Is that you? Why you’re beautiful! I haven’t seen you for thirty years-since we were kids! What are you doing here?”
PRUDENCE: “I work here. I am a teacher-just like I always said I wanted to be. I love working with the children. They have their whole lives ahead of them and can be anything they want. I try to guide them in the right direction.”
MARBLES: “And this poor child? Who is this poor child?”
PRUDENCE: “This is VENUS’s little girl. VENUS was on drugs when she had this little girl and was also on drugs before she had her. Not always, but many times when you see a child like this, it’s because of drugs. VENUS has been in and out of rehabilitation programs and in and out of jail for years now. Social services has taken this child off of her because of her drug problems.”
MARBLES: (To little girl) “What is your name, little girl?”
PRUDENCE: “She can’t hear you and even if she could, she wouldn’t understand you. Her name is Saturina and she will never be normal.”
MARBLES: “Oh! What a sad story!”
PRUDENCE: “Yes! It is very sad! And, it never had to be!”
MARBLES: (Whispering with his hand up) “PRUDENCE! Who are those two pathetic looking old people coming down the sidewalk?”
PRUDENCE: (To MARBLES) “They’re not old-they’re our old classmates, LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO and VACUUM. They come here every day after school for a special rehabilitation program for sick people. Charity comes too … to help with the program. She’s a nurse and has made a good life for herself. She has taken good care of herself and still looks like she’s twenty years old.”
MARBLES: “Oh my goodness! I would never have known it was them! They look terrible!”
PRUDENCE: (To MARBLES) “Shhh. They’ll hear you!”
(To Snoz and VACUUM) “Snoz and VACUUM-look who’s here! It’s MARBLES who was in our class thirty years ago!”
VACUUM: “MARBLES! You look great!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “Yeah! You look like you belong on the cover of a fashion magazine!”
VACUUM: “And, it looks like life has been good to you.”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “He doesn’t just look great-he looks incredible!”
MARBLES: “Yes, life has been good to me! But, what about you? What has happened to you?”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “It’s those cigarettes. I got hooked when I was twelve and I never could put them down. The doctors had to remove my larynx. And now, I have to use this funny box to talk. But, at least, I’m still here. They had to remove one of my lungs, too, and I almost lost my life!”
MARBLES: “And, what about the wooden arm?”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “I got into some drugs, too! One day I was meeting up with MOUSETRAP and I got shot by another drug dealer. I lost an arm, an eye, and an ear!”
VACUUM: “Life has been hard for me, too! I used to be the fastest tree climber this side of the Mississippi, and now, I can’t even climb three steps without getting out of breath!”
MARBLES: “But your mouth-how come only half your mouth works? And, why do you have to walk with a cane?
VACUUM: “That’s because I had a stroke. It’s all because of the cigarettes. You know, we all thought we were so cool smoking cigarettes!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “Yeah! And some of us even did drugs. If only we had never started, this would never have happened to me!”
MARBLES: “Say, what ever happened to MOUSETRAP?”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “He got shot and killed fifteen years ago. Something about a drug deal gone bad.”
MARBLES: “Oh, no!”
PRUDENCE: “And, you know, I saw MOUSETRAP just a week before he was killed. He was telling me about, how even with all his money which he made from selling drugs, about how unhappy he was! He just kept saying he had no peace. He couldn’t get out of his mind all the people he hurt and some even got killed because of the drugs he sold!”
VACUUM: “You know, these cigarettes I smoke are legal, but I have no peace either. People who don’t smoke are always giving me dirty looks and I worry about my health and the medical bills, not to mention the cost of these cigarettes.”
MARBLES: “And what about Go Cart?”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “He committed a robbery for drug money and is doing fifteen years at the prison and, Fermento, who used to drink wine down at the park became an alcoholic. He’s living in a cardboard box down on Fifth Avenue.”
MARBLES: “This is all so sad! And none of it had to be!”
VACUUM: “Yes, you are right! None of this had to be! And even FIREBALL … if he had learned to control his temper, he would never had gone to jail all those times, and then died because he popped a blood vessel getting mad.”
PRUDENCE: “Here comes GREEN MEANIE! She never smoked cigarettes or did drugs but she never learned anything in school. And, she sure made it hard for the rest of us to learn!”
MARBLES: “Yes, she was always disrupting our class when most of us just wanted to learn!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “She’s a bag lady now and no one wants anything to do with her!”
VACUUM: “Just look what being mean all these years has done to her face!”
ALL TOGETHER: “Ugh!”
PRUDENCE: “Well, I need to take Saturina to her bus.”
MARBLES: “I’ll walk with you.”
PRUDENCE: “You know, Steadfast became a fashion designer-just like she said she would-and Eggplant became a successful businessman. Just like us, they never smoked or did any drugs either, and they look great, too!”
MARBLES: “I heard Oliveloaf has become a very successful architect.”
PRUDENCE: “Yes, she has. I saw her a few weeks ago and she looks terrific. She never smoked or did drugs either.”
MARBLES: “I heard that CRUISER who taught everyone how to smoke died of lung cancer!”
PRUDENCE: “Yes, he did! And he really suffered, too!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “Just look at our lives-it gives me the hives!”
VACUUM: “We made a terrible mistake! If we had stayed drug free, this would never be!”
GREEN MEANIE: “If only I hadn’t been so mean!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “If only we could turn back the clock!”
VACUUM: “That’s it! The clock! Look, Father Time left his clock here!”
ALL TOGETHER: “We’ll just push back the hands!”
VACUUM: “They don’t want to move!”
GREEN MEANIE: “Here comes a freight train. That’ll make the hands move back.”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “Do you have the hands attached?”
VACUUM: “Yes, I do! I’m ready!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “Did they move back?”
VACUUM: “No! It didn’t even move a hair! It just keeps going forward!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “I know! We’ll call the most powerful person in the world. We’ll call the president of the U-nited States!”
VACUUM: “That’s right! Ellie! Our old classmate!”
GREEN MEANIE: We’ll call Ellie! She won’t let us down, even though we did act like clowns.”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “GREEN MEANIE, you even used to tell her she belonged in a circus, but look at her now!”
(The students dial a futuristic television style telephone.)
GREEN MEANIE: “Just dial! Just dial!”
ELLIE: “This is the White House, President Ellie Phant speaking! May I help you please!”
ALL TOGETHER: “Ellie! This is your old classmates! We’re sorry we made fun of your belly!”
ELLIE: “And my nose and my ears?”
ALL TOGETHER: “And your nose and your ears!”
GREEN MEANIE: “I’ll never be mean again … to anyone! Just help us, Ellie! Please help us!”
ELLIE: “I forgive you. Now, what can I do for you?”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “Ellie! We made a terrible mistake smoking and taking drugs!”
GREEN MEANIE: “And, being mean!”
ELLIE: (Her ears wiggle) “I hear you!”
VACUUM: “We’re sick! We have no money! We’re in trouble with the law and we look a hundred years old!”
ELLIE: “(Her ears wiggle again) “I hear you! But, you know, you should have listened when we were kids! Everybody tried to tell us that cigarettes and drugs are bad! And, GREEN MEANIE, you knew you were supposed to treat others the way we would like to be treated.”
GREEN MEANIE: “Ellie! If you can just turn back the clock! Father Time! He left his clock here!”
ELLIE: “My dear friends! If I could, I would, but, I can’t! Nobody can turn back the clock! Not even ten presidents!”
VACUUM: “Oh! Oh my! What are we going to do! We made a terrible mistake! My heart! I need a nitro pill!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “My wooden arm is killing me!”
GREEN MEANIE: “Looking at my face in the mirror is killing me!”
LEONARDO DA SNOZZIO: “And poor MOUSETRAP! Shot down on the street with his guts all over the sidewalk!”
ALL: “Oh! OooooH!!”