A Play by Javier

CHARACTERS:

LACY LARRY THE RHINO: the mom of one daughter

     MANIAC THE RHINO: daughter

SETTING:

It’s a hot day.  It’s a time where there’s no jobs, no work, not a lot of food ‘cause everything was shut down because an earthquake has just occurred.

TIME:

Summer.  Hot daytime.  There’s a lot of problems and struggles goin’ on.

AT RISE:

LACY LARRY and MANIAC are in the swamp area of LACY LARRY THE RHINO’S land.


LACY LARRY
Maniac, get over here!   I am tired of you and upset about all the problems you are causing the family!  You are worthless!  And I am also tired of you not taking this seriously and giving me a lot of problems, and wasting food, and not taking things seriously. 

You know what?  Go and hunt some food, bring us water-do something!  Get away from my face, I don’t want to see you.

MANIAC
(crying)
Mom!  Why you always complaining about what I do?  Won’t you just leave me alone and let me continue on with my own life?  And I don’t need you by my side correcting me about everything I do and telling me when I do bad and when I do good.

LACY LARRY
Well, if you don’t want me doing all of that stuff then you should change the way you acting and don’t give me any problems.  And I also think that you are trouble to the family and that is affecting us really bad.  Ever since you be hanging around with those friends of yours you be acting so weird and giving the family a lot of problems.

MANIAC
Well, you know what?  I don’t care anything you say about what I do and about the friends I hang out with, it’s not even your business about what I do and its my choice about what friends I choose to hang out with. And I also don’t care about what anybody else says.  And I wanna move away from you and stay as far as I can…and you know what?  I don’t want to see you anymore and I think it’s better for me if I moved away from the family so you don’t have to deal with my problems that you think its very hard to deal with and that way I won’t have to hear your groaning at all.  I won’t have to hear you anymore.

LACY LARRY
Well, go ahead.  Go ahead and move.  Do what you want.  You think I’m scared?  You think I’m scared about you moving?

(MANIAC starts crying.  She goes under her hidden tree where she usually sleeps and then moves into a hidden tunnel far away from her mom.  It’s very small but it’s a place that she will feel more better but its hard for her to move around and stuff.)

LACY LARRY
(is at home under a tree, crying)
God. I feel very scared about her leaving and I feel ashamed of myself about the way I reacted to my daughter.  I wish and everything I said to her I didn’t meant to.  I just thought that it would make her change and make her stop and think about what she was causing the family to go through.

(The next day LACY LARRY goes and looks for her daughter and finds her.)
LACY LARRY
Maniac, I’m very sorry the way I came at you and I wish that you could come back to the family and try this thing again.  And the way I came at you was because I thought that by screaming at you would make you change and realize about the trouble you are causing the family to go through.

MANIAC
I am sorry I caused the family to struggle but other than that it didn’t make me change, you just made it worser by screaming at me.  If you should have just left me alone I wouldn’t have tooken it this far and have moved away from the family.  But, I am also sorry for not listening to you in the first place and disrespecting you.  Other than that, I accept your apologies but I am not sure that I am coming back with the family because I’ve still got things to think about and try to change some of the ways I act so if in case I come back home you won’t have to deal with my problems.

LACY LARRY
Well, I understand what you’re saying and I hope that you make up your mind pretty soon so soon you will be with the family again and lead a happy life and never have to deal with problems.

MANIAC
Well, I’ll think about it and I’ll let you know.

(They walk away from each other and go their separate ways home.)
(A week later MANIAC goes to her mom’s place.)

MANIAC
Mom, remember about what we talked last week?  Well, I thought about it and I decided that I wanna come back home and live with you.

LACY LARRY
I am so glad that you made a good decision to come back with the family and I promise that I will never come at you wrong.  Instead, I am going to try to talk things out so you won’t be so upset and won’t try to leave the family again.
MANIAC
Well, hopefully that will never happen and so I’ll see you later.

(MANIAC walks back to her hidden tunnel and grabs her belongings and comes back home.)

(A month later…)

LACY LARRY
Man, I have problems feeding the family on my own and I’m struggling.

MANIAC
Mom, what’s wrong?  Is everything okay?

LACY LARRY
Yeah, I’m just struggling because I’m having all these problems because food is running low on us.

MANIAC
Well, don’t worry mommy.  I’ll try to help you out to bring in more food.

LACY LARRY
Thank you, thank you.  I really appreciate it.

MANIAC
Mom, I have something to tell you.  When I arrived home, I accidentally ran into my friends and I was talking to them and they wanted me to come and they wanted me to go do something with them and I told them I’d rather stay home with you.  And I also told them that I didn’t want to hang out with them anymore because it just made me get into trouble.

LACY LARRY
I am very proud of you.  You made a good decision about which friends to hang out and hopefully later on down the road you will find better friends than the ones you have. 

You know daughter?  I  wanted to tell you something too.  I am really happy with you and with the family because I thought that this thing wasn’t gonna work out with you coming home and changing the ways you act but I realize that I was wrong about what I was thinking.  And now look at you!  You are a very different Maniac.  You don’t give us problems anymore.  You act different and instead of giving problems, you help me with my problems and I just wanted to put this out there because I am really happy about what’s going on now.



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