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Regarding the Koi Pond
Devin volunteered to wear the school mascot costume for the pep rally. Now he is soaking wet in the principal's office. He has one shot to explain how the badger ended up in the koi pond, and he intends to tell the whole truth.
Characters
- DEVIN - 15 to 16, earnest, damp, and completely convinced that he did the right thing
Setting
A high school principal's office, early afternoon, about twenty minutes after the pep rally ended.
A principal's office. DEVIN, 15, sits in the chair across from the desk, soaking wet, a towel around his shoulders. He has clearly rehearsed this on the walk over.
DEVIN
Okay. First of all, thank you for letting me explain, because I feel like the story you got from Coach Pruitt has some gaps in it, and I wanna fill those gaps with truth.
So. Marcus has mono. That's step one. Marcus is Barnaby the Badger, and Marcus has mono, and the pep rally was at one-fifteen, and nobody else fits the suit. It's a very specific suit. It's built for a Marcus.
So I said, I'll do it. Nobody asked me to. I wanna be clear that I volunteered, which I feel like should count as leadership.
Now. Have you ever been inside Barnaby? You can't see. There's a little mesh window in his mouth and it's at, like, chin level, so I'm basically looking at the world through a tiny screen door that's also full of Marcus's breath from last year.
And it is hot. It is so hot in there. It's like a hundred and ten degrees and it smells like a gym bag had a baby with another gym bag.
So the pep rally's going great. I'm doing the arms. Everybody's into it. And then the band starts, and I do the spin, which is the big move, the badger spin, and when I come out of the spin I have no idea where I'm facing. And I hear Coach Pruitt yell, "Go to the courtyard door!" So I go. I go toward the voice. Because you're taught to go toward the voice.
(beat)
The voice was on the other side of the pond.
And I wanna say, I didn't fall in. I want that on the record. I walked in. On purpose. Because by then the heat had gotten to a place where I truly, honestly, with my whole heart, believed I was on fire.
I was not on fire. I know that now. But at the time, there was steam coming out of the neck hole, and I made a call. And my call was: water.
He adjusts the towel.
The koi are fine. I counted them. There's eleven. I know the sign says twelve, but I counted three times, and I've been thinking about it, and I believe the sign is wrong.
(quieter, sincere)
I know it looks bad. I know it looks like a guy in a badger suit jumped in a pond for attention. But I'd just ask you to think about the version of me that was in that suit. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. He was on fire, in his heart. And he did the brave thing.
He stands. Drips.
Also the head's still in there. I couldn't get it back out. It's real heavy when it's wet. So. That's probably the other thing Coach called about.
End of script