Hannah Vaughn’s full-length plays include Away From, The Unfathomable Blue, and Look Up or Why We Don’t Go Camping Anymore. Her work has been seen at Dixon Place, The Players Theatre, Actors Theatre of Santa Cruz, Left Coast Theatre Company and developed with Fresh Ground Pepper, Paper Kraine, Live Source Theatre Group, and The Navigators She is the co-creator and co-star of the web series, Dates Like This. For more information, visit hannahvaughn.com.

Violet Clifford’s Senior Prank Extravaganza

Characters:

Violet: 17, female, any race; a high school senior, queen bee Lucy: 17, female, any race; a high school senior, an old friend

Setting:

Present day. A small American town. The backyard of Mr. Goodwin’s house. A backyard, night time. The glow from a swimming pool. Violet sneaks out of the bushes..”

VIOLET
Come on!

LUCY
Hang on.

VIOLET
Lucy! Hurry up!

LUCY
It’s fucking heavy as shit. I’m coming.

VIOLET
Jesus.

LUCY
You could help you know. They’re your bags.

VIOLET
Eh.

LUCY emerges from the edges with 3 huge laundry bags, all very full.

LUCY
Here you go.

VIOLET
You are the slowest of slow. I thought you were supposed to be super woman or something.

LUCY
It’s Wonder Woman. And no, I’m not. I am fast when I’m running track, not when I’m carrying your heavy-ass bags all around creation.

VIOLET
Hey this was your idea too.

LUCY
Nope this is your idea – ‘Violet Clifford’s Senior Prank Extravaganza’ I believe is how you pitched it to me.

VIOLET
Uhh – I don’t think so.

LUCY
I’m pretty sure I have it in my texts somewhere.

Pulls out phone, scrolls, shows VIOLET her phone.

See.

VIOLET rolls her eyes.

Wow. The last text from you before that was from 2 years ago.

VIOLET
Well, anyway. You could have backed out. You didn’t have to come.

LUCY
Umm… you made it abundantly clear what would happen if I didn’t.

VIOLET
What can I say?

LUCY
Eugsh - I’ve known you for too long.

VIOLET
You’re still smart as hell.

LUCY
Smart, strong, fast. Maybe I am Wonder Woman.

VIOLET
Just throw on a sick onesie, a cape and a crown and let’s see if you can pull it off.

LUCY
You wish.

VIOLET
That would be hot.

LUCY
Shut up, Violet.

VIOLET
Fine.

LUCY
This is a nice house.

VIOLET
It’s a dirty shit hole.

LUCY
It’s a nice house, Violet. You can’t deny it.

VIOLET
It won’t be soon.

A quiet moment as they watch the pool.

LUCY
So what now?

VIOLET
Now we dump.

LUCY
You don’t want to like say something? Ceremoniously?

VIOLET
…

LUCY
I don’t know.

VIOLET
I’m not an evil villain about to give her final monologue before she gets secretly stabbed from behind by the hero.

LUCY
Did I say that you where?

VIOLET
That’s pretty much what you implied.

LUCY
If it’s an extravaganza, doesn’t that justify a speech?

VIOLET
JEEZUS. It’s not that serious.

LUCY
I’m just saying if you were willing to spend thousands of dollars on fucking Jell-o…

VIOLET
Oh my god. Lucy. You don’t know anything.

LUCY
OK fine.

VIOLET
You know what? Now I do kind of want to say something. This does feel like it warrants a speech.

LUCY
Or an incantation.

VIOLET
I’m not a fucking WITCH, OK?!.

LUCY
Ok – jeez calm down!

VIOLET
Oh, I’m calm.

VIOLET reaches for one of the bags. She pulls out an IV bag filled with blood. She stands ceremoniously by the pool's edge, holding the bag in her two hands.

LUCY
What the fu-

VIOLET
On this night. The twelfth of June.
We beseech thee, oh gods, to help/

LUCY
/That’s blood/

VIOLET
/us in our mission.
Make this liquid move swiftly and boldly.
May this small body of water clog and congeal.

LUCY
That’s a shit ton of blood.

VIOLET
(louder) May it frustrate and dismay.
May it cause uproar and panic.
Doubt and suspicion.

LUCY
How the FUCK did you get blood? You told me this was Jell-O!!

VIOLET
I lied.

LUCY
You made me carry 3 bags of blood down here?! WHY blood?! I thought this was just a stupid prank.

VIOLET
It is in a way.

LUCY
A prank doesn’t usually involve this many gallons of blood. Serious crimes, murders, usually involve this many gallons.

VIOLET
We’re not murdering anyone, Lucy. Calm down. And they measure blood in liters, not gallons. Metric system and all that.

LUCY
Where did you even get this much blood?

VIOLET
The blood drive at school? I paid good money for this.

LUCY
How?!

VIOLET
I got access to my mom’s credit card. The cash allowance on those is phenomenal. Plus I’ve been babysitting for about five years. I’m very frugal. I had about $40,000 saved up.

LUCY
In your sock drawer!?.

VIOLET
No, dummy, I have a bank account. Like real person.

LUCY
So you’re just going to dump a shit ton of blood into his pool?

VIOLET
Yes. That’s part 1.

LUCY
This is too fucking weird. I can’t do this.

VIOLET
You have to help me, Lucy.

LUCY
No! I don't - I'm not going to be an accomplice to your crazy blood prank! I could lose my scholarship.

VIOLET
There are more important things than a track scholarship.

LUCY
Not if your parents cannot afford college.

VIOLET
You’re not going to get caught, Lucy. I’ve thought this through. I’ve disabled the security system. 

LUCY
What?!

VIOLET
No one is getting video of this shit. You know I plan ahead.

LUCY
Why are you doing this?.

VIOLET
It’s a game of intimidation, Lucy. We’re going to fill his pool with blood, then we smear his house with shit.

LUCY
/Excuse me?/

VIOLET
And when his neighbors wake up and smell that gorgeous smell and see a fucking pool full of blood, they’re going to freak the fuck out. Probably call the cops. There’s going to be a lot of questions..

LUCY
Yeah like WHO did this?

VIOLET
No one is watching. We’re wearing gloves, we’re not going to leave fingerprints. We’re fine. We’re going to get away with this.

LUCY
JEZUS. What did Mr. Goodwin ever do to you?

VIOLET
What do you fucking think, Lucy?

A moment. LUCY realizes what Mr. Godwin has done to VIOLET. IT is exactly what you think.

LUCY
Oh.

Beat.

Why didn’t you tell someone?

VIOLET
Do you honestly, honestly think that would do a damn thing?Think about where we live.

LUCY
I don’t know.

VIOLET
The rest of the country might be awake to this shit. But not here.

Beat.

He was coming for you next.

LUCY
You don’t know that.

VIOLET
I do.

LUCY
No.

VIOLET
I saw how he was looking at you. I know what it is. What that look is.

LUCY
Oh. Violet? I’m really sorry. That he did that.

VIOLET
Are you going to help me with this?

LUCY
Yes.

LUCY and VIOLET each grab a bag of blood. VIOLET hands LUCY a pair of scissors. They slice an end of the bag open and pour it into the pool. The do this a few more times.

LUCY
What’s part 2?

VIOLET
We smear literal shit on all his fucking windows.

LUCY
You have shit just lying around?

VIOLET
Not lying around. I bought it of course. From a pig farm outside of town. It's in the cooler in my trunk.

LUCY
Smart.

VIOLET
Yes. Gloves. Facemasks. The works.

They dump a few more bags of blood.

LUCY
So what’s the end game in all this?

VIOLET
We're going to make him fucking pay. He needs to feel SHAME. And GUILT and SUSPICION. Raining down on his head. I want his neighbors to talk. People in tow to fucking talk. And the police to doubt him. He needs to be drive out of town. And whatever next town he goes to, I'll track the fucker down. Find the queen bee at the school there and warn her.

LUCY
Ok.

VIOLET
This man should never get to work near teenage girls again.

LUCY
Violet?

VIOLET
Yeah?

LUCY
I’m glad you invited me here tonight.

VIOLET
I’m glad you came.

They empty more bags of bloods into the pool as lights go down.

END OF PLAY.