Ugly Ducklings by Carolyn Gage
ACT ONE
The scene is the waterfront area of Camp Fernlake, a private camp for
girls on a small lake deep in the woods of southern Maine. A dock runs
across the front of the stage, jutting out over the lake with ells at
the left and right extremities of the stage. There is a rough wooden
bench on the dock. The dock is built up on pilings. A three foot area
under the dock is visible. On the dock is a flagpole nailed to the
side of a pier piling. It flies the flag of Camp Fernlake. Upstage
right of the dock is the entrance to the canoe shack. In the center of
the stage is a campfire circle.
It is a hot July day, mid way through the camp session. It's the period of free
time after lunch, before the bell for rest hour. TONI is seated on the dock. She
is practicing tying knots with varying lengths of rope.
TONI is twelve years old
In some ways she is old and wise beyond her years, but in other ways she could
be judged immature for her age. She has the suspicious nature of a child accustomed
to abuse. She forms passionate, possessive attachments.
LISA enters. She is eight.
LISA is bright, intense, and fond of girl-detective fiction. She has a fierce desire to live
life on a more dramatic plane than that laid out for a middle-class, eight year-old.
She is attracted to TONI's dark and turbulent moods.
LISA: Hi, Toni. I was looking for you. (TONI doesn't look up.) I
figured you'd be down here. You're always down here. (She sits
next to TONI.) We're going to be late for rest hour if we don't
leave now. (TONI ignores her, but she persists.) It takes ten minutes
to walk back up to the cabin from here, and the bell's going to ring
any minute.
TONI: I don't have to go.
LISA: How come?
TONI: Angie said I could stay down here and practice tying knots.
I'm going to help her teach knots to her canoeing class this
afternoon.
LISA: Angie's your favorite counselor, isn't she?
TONI: She's okay.
LISA: You like her. That's how come you're always down here at the
waterfront. (TONI is ignoring her. LISA picks up a piece of rope and
crosses to a pier piling.) I know how to do a bowline. Watch. (TONI
doesn't look up.) Watch me! Toni! (TONI looks up. Slowly LISA
executes a bowline knot around the piling. She makes a mistake and has
to back up. TONI goes back to her knot.) There. Is that it? Toni!
TONI: (Looking up.) What?
LISA: Is that a bowline? (TONI gets up, carrying her rope, as if to
examine the piling. Suddenly she loops the rope over LISA and pulls it
tight. LISA screams and loses her balance.)
TONI: That's a bowline.
LISA: What did you do that for?
TONI: You wanted to see a bowline.
LISA: You hurt me.
TONI: Where?
LISA: It doesn't show where.
TONI: If it doesn't show, it doesn't hurt. (TONI goes back to her
knot.)
LISA: Yes, it does. (She starts to untie herself. She watches TONI.)
What's that?
TONI: A noose.
LISA: What are you going to do with it?
TONI: Something special.
LISA: What?
TONI: I can't tell.
LISA: Yes, you can. You can tell me.
TONI: No.
LISA: Toni!
TONI: Look, quit bothering me. Why don't you hang out with the kids
from your own cabin?
LISA: They're babies.
TONI: And you're not.
LISA: No, I'm not. And why don't you hang out with the kids from
your cabin?
TONI: Because all they want to do is talk about their stupid
boyfriends.
LISA: See Age has nothing to do with it. A lot of girls older than
me act more babyish. What are you going to do with your noose? (In
response to this question, TONI gets up and climbs onto the pier
piling next to the flagpole. She begins attaching the noose to the
Camp Fernlake flagpole.) Why are you putting it on the flagpole?
TONI: (Looking at LISA.) To catch the creature.
LISA: (Challenging her.) What creature?
TONI: (Dead serious.) The one that comes out of the lake at night and
drowns little girls and dissolves all their bones and then sucks them
out with their blood.
LISA: There's no such thing.
TONI: Right! Of course not! It's just a ghost story. It's just
something people say to scare you. I wouldn't believe it either.
(She jumps down) Except I saw the body.
LISA: What body?
TONI: (Going back to her knots.) The body of the girl who disappeared
last summer.
LISA: A girl disappeared?
TONI: Oh, well, the counselors will tell you she got homesick and went
home early. Only I saw the body.
LISA: (Still challenging her, but with less conviction.) Where?
TONI: Right there. Washed up under the pier. Of course, everyone said
it was just an old life raft that had been at the bottom of the lake,
that's all. And then they took it away, so it wouldn't scare the
other girls only I saw the face
LISA: The face!
TONI: I turned it over with a stick, and there it was her nose all
folded over like a flap, and her mouth all smushed up next to her ear.
(LISA is wide eyed.) But don't worry. It was just an old life raft,
and the girl just went home early, and the creature doesn't exist.
This noose is probably just going to hang here. (She goes back to her
knots.) This is a half hitch.
LISA: (Crossing to the noose.) The thing is, why would the creature
just come up and put its head in the noose? (She studies the
flagpole.) No, what we're going to have to do is lay a trap. You and
me are going to have to come down here after dark, and one of us is
going to have to be the bait. We're going to have to lure the
creature up to the dock, so we can get the noose around its neck.
TONI: It's just a story.
LISA: It's going to take both of us pulling at the same time to
break his neck.
TONI: I told you, it's just a story.
LISA: You don't have to tell me that. I'm not like the other
girls. I know a lot of things they don't. I've see a lot of things
people pretend not to see. There's a lot of things grown ups don't
want us to know, but some of us find out anyway. And it's up to the
ones like you and me to take care of these things, because nobody else
is going to do it. (TONI is taken aback by the intensity of this
speech. She can't figure LISA out.) You can trust me, Toni. You're
my best friend. (Just then the door of the canoe shack opens and ANGIE
enters. ANGIE is a nineteen year old college student. She is the
canoeing instructor. ANGIE has grown up surrounded by middle-class
privilege, and she has never had cause to question her entitlement or
the cost of it.)
ANGIE: Hi, guys.
LISA: Hi, Angie. (TONI, who is in love with ANGIE, pretends not to
see her.)
ANGIE: (To TONI.) And how are you, Toni?
TONI: (Without looking up.) Fine.
ANGIE: Look at all these knots! Toni, you know them better than I do.
(She sees the noose.) Is that yours too?
LISA: It's ours.
ANGIE: Is it a warning to trespassers?
LISA: Sort of. (She gives TONI a conspiratorial nudge. TONI,
embarrassed by the company of an eight year old, ignores her.)
ANGIE: You're going to scare off hunters with it?
LISA: Sort of Aren't we, Toni? (She nudges TONI again.)
TONI: Hey, get away from me! What are you some kind of queer?
ANGIE: Toni!
TONI: Well, she is. She's all the time trying to hang on me.
LISA: What's a queer?
ANGIE: Never mind. Toni, you need to untie all these knots, because
I'm going to use these ropes for my class.
TONI: (Getting back at ANGIE, she turns to LISA.) I'll tell you
what a queer is.
LISA: What?
TONI: It's a girl who does nasty things to other girls.
LISA: (Excited.) Like putting snakes in their bed?
ANGIE: Toni, you don't need to be worrying about "queers" now.
You and Lisa get those knots out. (The bell rings.)
LISA: (Jumping up and handing her ropes to ANGIE.) That's rest hour!
I gotta go! See you later, Toni! (She takes off running.)
ANGIE: You better get going too, or you're going to be late.
TONI: I don't have to.
ANGIE: (Suspicious.) You don't?
TONI: Sherlock said I could stay down here and help you get ready for
your class.
ANGIE: I don't need any help.
TONI: (Ingenuous.) It's part of this new program she's got. I
think she called it a "mentorship" or something where every
rest hour she's going to send a different camper to help a different
counselor. I think it's supposed to teach us responsibility. Anyway,
today I'm supposed to work with you.
ANGIE: Well In that case, take down that noose before it scares the
younger campers. I'll finish the knots. (TONI crosses to the
flagpole. She watches ANGIE closely as she sweeps. Finally, she gets
to her point.)
TONI: So Angie (ANGIE looks up.) I saw on the bulletin board at
the lodge that tomorrow's your day off.
ANGIE: That's right!
TONI: Does this mean you're taking off tonight?
ANGIE: (Checking her watch.) Six hours and counting.
TONI: Where are you going to go?
ANGIE: Well, I'm going to take one of the canoes tonight and paddle
across the lake to Fern Island, and then tomorrow morning I'm going
to sleep in, and have a big pancake breakfast-all that I can eat,
and then I'm going to spend the whole day doing nothing but reading
and eating and laying out in the sun.
TONI: It might not be safe.
ANGIE: I think I can handle it.
TONI: I heard there's rapists on the island sometimes.
ANGIE: They better not try anything on my day off.
TONI: I could go with you.
ANGIE: I don't think so.
TONI: Why not?
ANGIE: For one thing, because I'm already going to ask someone to go
with me.
TONI: (A violent reaction.) Who?
ANGIE: Lisa's counselor. Renée.
TONI: (Exploding.) That's not fair! How come Renée gets to go and
not me?
ANGIE: Because she's a grown-up and you're a kid.
TONI: That's no reason. I can do everything she can.
ANGIE: And she's got a day off.
TONI: How come us campers don't get days off?
ANGIE: Because every day is your day off.
TONI: That's bullshit! (ANGIE is surprised by TONI's vehemence.)
You think it's fun to get stuck in a camp all summer you didn't
even want to come to, and then get stuck in a cabin with a bunch of
girls you can't stand and have to listen to them talk about
themselves and their stupid boyfriends all day, and to have to do
everything together like some kind of herd of cows or
something-"Girls! Sit over here!" "Girls! Time for lunch!"
"Girls! Lights out!" You wouldn't like it either. It's
degrading as hell, and it doesn't have anything to do with how old I
am.
ANGIE: (Taking her seriously.) Well, I'm sorry, Toni. But you
can't come.
TONI: Yes, I can. I can sneak out after lights out. I've done it
before. We can take two canoes. I can spend the night, and then paddle
back before it's light and be back at camp before anybody wakes up.
ANGIE: No.
TONI: Why not? It would work.
ANGIE: Because I don't want you to.
TONI: You don't want me to come?
ANGIE: No. I'm going to ask Renée.
[End of Extract]