Episode 1: Serpentpedia
ACT ONE
EXT. CARTIER’S SCURVY HIGH SCHOOL - DAY
An average-sized high school sits peacefully in the suburbs.
INT. CARTIER’S SCURVY HIGH SCHOOL - CAFETERIA - SAME
The cafeteria is wide open. The front linked to wide stairs leading up half a floor level to an open hallway. The café is filled with rows of tables. One end has vending machines and the other has the serving area.
EVAN BERTRAM, high school student, spikey-black hair, over-ambitious, takes a seat at a table with a two-person group of drooling students.
LOUIS & JARED, two students, both seemingly easily distracted.
EVANGreat to see you, boys. It’s been a wonderful summer of intense reality-Storage War TV-watching, and I’ve come through it like a man out of a coma— disoriented and unshowered.(confused)Do any of you know where I can get storage bin grade brass knuckles?
LOUISMe enjoy butterflies for summer. Nothing but butterflies.EVANWhy are you guys still talking like that? You were supposed to learn sentence structure while I was gone!JAREDWe talk quicker when fractured. We meet and discuss before falling into raccoon traps.LOUISMe like things me hate.EVANWell, it’s not your fault. You guys haven’t changed since Elementary school. Like the time you ate all the glue and had to be replaced by a new group of guys.LOUISWe new group— Me think?(beat)Butterfly?
He takes out and opens his lunch box, releasing a butterfly.
Jared takes out a glue bottle and squeezes its contents into the air, at the butterfly, missing.
EVANHe’ll be back. In the meantime, you two may recall our high school plan of trying to branch out to the other groups while here. I’ve decided to begin my attempt.(beat)But I have to keep my standards low. Anyone with drool inhibiting lips, or non-Michael Cera-isms.(beat)Alright, let’s see what we’ve got here...
In sequence, Evan begins scanning the cafeteria of all its segmented groups
INT. CAFETERIA - SAME (CONT’D)
We see what Evan sees: a group of sports jocks at a table (3 or 4); one of them punching another in his face, repeatedly.
MARVEN is the nerd. PETE is the bully.
MARVEN(punching)Well, this is a great work out, but how many more do I have to do?PETE(being punched, shouts)You’ll stop when I say you stop! You want to improve your curling this year, don’t you!?
THE NEXT GROUP:
EVAN (V.O.)...There’s the high turn around rate of the cool group.LINDA(putting on lipstick)Ugh. Being lame is stupid.STEVESaying what’s lame is so Degrassi: Teen Whiners.(beat)Please leave!
Linda has a moment of shock before she gets up and walks away, sad. A new girl, ALEXIS, enters and takes her place.
THE NEXT GROUP:
EVAN (V.O.)...The unrelenting goths.SALLYThis year, it’s black olive for lips and licorice black for eyes.TAMATHAI was thinking onyx black for hair?SALLYYou bitch!(points while speaking to group)
In the name of our god, Nick Knight, we’re shunning this girl for the semester.TAMATHA(excited)I’ve been chosen!
INT. CAFETERIA - DUMB GROUP TABLE - SAME
EVANNever mind. The lesson is, always appreciate what you have.
He looks over at the dumb group and watches as Jared drinks the glue until its run out.
EXT./ESTAB. BERTRAM HOUSE - DAY
INT. BERTRAM HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - SAME
Evan sits at home, in the living room, watching TV. The Canadian Bachelorette is on.
On TV: The show logo splashes on screen.
Cuts to: the subject, Claire.
CLAIREI’m soooo Canadian-single! Which of you gentlemen are going to hook up with me? Hehehe!
Cuts to: all the men in a small pit of ANGRY BEAVERS.
TV HOST (V.O.)Six men... thrown into a pit of death! Last one alive gets the girl!
Wide: They all start fighting each other with Claire clapping, in excitement, in the background.
Cut to: MARK, 30s, average, and JEFF, 30s, average.
JEFFOh yeah? First you deliver my baby, now you try to murder me!?
OFF-SCREEN SOUNDS of the two men grunting and fist-fighting.
In the living room:
Then, his mother, SAMANTHA, late 30s, enters the room.
EVANMom! Where have you been? I made dinner an hour ago.SAMANTHA(sighs)Sorry, sweetie. I got caught up in a City Council meeting about taxing taxes. You know my job is my life-- just like every other powerful woman ever. Anyway, how was school?EVANWeird. All the calculators in Math class were abacuses and Home Economics took place in an alley way.SAMANTHAThat’s terrible! Though, my school, UOIT, took place entirely in a forest. The squirrels were our guardians.EVANSpeaking of friends, I’m having trouble connecting with the other kids at school. I handed out several venus fly traps as peace offerings but they attacked everyone and the school had to be evacuated. One special needs kid died.SAMANTHAEvan! Those plants were for Liberal Campaigners! Well, I can grow more, next to the weed. As for you, my motherly advice is “don’t give up”. Sometimes fitting in takes work. Just hang in there and time will reveal all.EVAN(in an "Everything's going to be ok" tone)Thanks, mom.SAMANTHABut if time reveals too much, like it unzips something, or calls you into its white, unkempt van; you get home right away, or call an adult. You hear me? You hear me!?EVANMom, you’re trying too hard again.
The door bell rings and Evan gets up to answer it. Samantha goes upstairs back to her own business.
SAMANTHA (V.O.)If it’s the Green Party, tell them I have their drugs out back!
FOLLOW TO DOOR:
INT. BERTRAM HOUSE - DOOR
Evan is met with two well-dressed government officials, MARTA, 40s, business casual top and skirt, and WALLY, 40s, business casual suit, both holding pamphlets.
MARTAWe represent the Department of Canadian Heritage. Last week, a culturally sensitive icon moved into town, and, in an effort to preserve trouble-free relations between the Government and everyone else, we’re asking you to sign a petition for unforced-no-hard-feelings-removal.EVANDoesn’t that go against everything you stand for?WALLYWe were hoping no one would notice that part. --Misdirect! Sign this week, and we’ll throw in a maple leaf key chain!EVANHah! I had one of those grafted to my rib cage at birth just like every other Canadian.MARTARight. We always forget about that. It’s just that we have so many left over.WALLYNot enough reproduction happening in our nation. The cold puts people out of the mood.EVANYou know what? I object to what you guys are trying to do here. This is the land of the free, and the home of the brave!MARTAWrong country; and that literally means nothing anymore.WALLYPart of helping us with the removal is you get two free tosses with the exile-catapult-- But no cheesecakes. We love cheesecake and can’t in good conscience support the tossing of them.EVANHmm. What about cheese and cake; and aimed at someone wearing a flannel shirt and jeans?WALLYHow dare you, sir!? Flannel is the pride of your country. But, seeing as how we’re desperate, we would accommodate.EVANNice. All I need now is the perfect high-five pose.Evan jumps and high fives the air a few times, in practice. He stops when Marta starts talking.
MARTAAnyway, if you do change your mind, just have your local giant search light operator shine a goose silhouette in the clouds. It’s our department’s phone number.
EXT./ESTAB. SCHOOL - DAY
INT. CARTIER’S SCURVY HIGH SCHOOL - CAFETERIA - SAME
A group of kids, JAY, student, black; JULIE, student, blonde; and LEN, student, Asian, are studying at one of the tables.
JAYAlright, so multiples of 4 with exponential additions of 1. What are they? What aren’t they? Where are we in relation to them?LENNever mind that. Did we go over the animal kingdom yet? Is Sasquatch real? I could have sworn I saw him yesterday.JULIEGuys, I really want to look at Greece’s legal system. They got rid of it and now a Centaur is calling the shots.
Suddenly, Evan, with a tray of lunch, takes a seat at the table with them.
EVAN(looking at food while sitting)Turns out the school put fruit-paste in all the glue thanks to Elementary school teacher warnings, so none of you should be dead... this time. --Let’s go back to our discussion on Middle East cosmology. Drool once for yes--
The others stop and look at him in shock. He looks up in shock as well.
JULIEWho are you?(beat)Wait. Don’t tell us. We’re studying for the Part-A Intensity IQ test and new names are like mental Moose bombs.EVANIs that the test where they light a firecracker fuse and the room explodes in your face?JAYNo, that’s Part-B. In ‘A’, they turn the thermostat down until your fingers freeze off.EVANI didn’t think anyone still had the guts to take those strangely inhumane tests. Also, a lot of people don’t survive them-- Also, they’re illegal.JULIEIn America, probably.
(beat)
In Canada, anything goes!JAYAnyone remember if Winston Churchill was a fan of hell, or was it just a place he thought about visiting?JULIEWe really should be talking about how many cubes there are in this drawing of cubes.
She holds up a drawing, with the caption: “Cube Count or Die: The Russian Edition”.
EVANYou guys are intense! Way more intense than a Rob Ford interview. Ever see how much that dude used to sweat? You could’ve asked him how his day was and he’d need five towels for his forehead alone.
(beat)
You know, I bet it was the crack fields. The Majestic Crack Fields of Canada.
(sad)
I miss him.JAYDude! You know we’re not supposed to talk about those fields.
Shocked out of the flow of thought, Evan gets up and leaves, with Jay, Julie and Len watching.
INT. CAFETERIA - DUMB GROUP TABLE - SAME
Evan returns to the other group table.
As Evan takes his seat with them, not noticing who he’s sitting down, next to:
(Shot: Close on Evan, to not reveal Nate, until...)
EVANWhoa, whoa, wait. Louis, you can’t just stop forming sentences. They’re structured obelisks of language that are perfect and uninterruptible---(cut off by seeing NATE)--Aaah!!
REVEAL: NATE, a reptile-body, horse-headed, lake serpent, with a wise-cracking, metro-sexual attitude, is already sitting at the table with them.
NATEYou just redacted your point. Funny word, redacted. Who even uses it? Or takes the time to redact something? No one. That’s who. I’m not trying to be facetious, it’s just the way I feel.
END OF ACT ONE