Young Writers Society

The Adventures of Steven Lam (the tree)

Summary: Victoria tells the story of how Steven became a tree in geometry class

Characters:

Victoria

Steven

Aleia

Lege

Nikki

Sunny

Paolo

Tierney

Aleia: Give me back the dang jingle bell, Steven! [tackles Steven to the ground in attempt to retrieve the bell]

Steven: Ay! Get off me! [tries to remove Aleia with his noodly arms, but finds himself being undertaken by more girls]

Victoria: Get em’! [stabs a finger in the air] There’s no way elves are going to lose to the trees!

Steven: [grabs one of the nearest desks to heave himself up and glares at Victoria] Pssh, whatever! Everyone knows that trees are better then elves. C’mon. Why don’t you just go back to making your little shoes.

Victoria: [jaw drops]

Aleia and girls tackling Steven: [freeze for a moment before returning on their quest to recover the jingle bell.

[walks in Nikki and Lege]

Lege: [slaps her forehead with her palm and frowns]

Nikki: What are you guys doing?! [flails hands in the air]

[everyone stops what they’re doing and turns toward Nikki]

Paolo: [slides his butt on desk and sighs] They’re fighting over the jingle bell, again.

Lege: [walks over to Steven and yanks him off the ground]

Nikki: This has been going on for too long, guys. [shakes head/folds arms] You Asians have been fighting like you’re ninjas when you should be helping me finish my geometry homework! [glares at Victoria and Steven]

[Victoria and Steven shrink in their socks and hide]

Sunny: [kicks her legs up on one of the desks] Why don’t ya’ll just go buy me one of those chocolate muffins, ya hear? Rather den’ wasting your time fighting over that bell you can be getting me my lunch!

Victoria: [rummages through her backpack and pulls out a chocolate muffin]

Sunny: [mouth drops/drool trickles down side of her mouth]

Victoria: [waves the package in front of Sunny and snatches it back before sunny can eat her hand] This is my muffin! [fire blazes from her nose like a jetpack] MY muffin! Ha-Ha-Ha!

Steven: [pretends to be slick like an ninja and swipes in to grab Victoria’s muffin]

Sunny: Ay’!

Steven: [rips off plastic covering and eats the muffin whole with a hearty smile]

Victoria: [venomous smirk crosses her face as she folds her arms]

Steven: [with giant chunks flying from his mouth] Wot?

Victoria: [flashes a toothy grin and glances down at Steven’s side]

Steven: [looks to where Victoria was glancing and notices an empty space where the jingle bell SHOULD be]

Nikki and Lege: [smother their hands in front of their mouths, trying to contain laughter]

Aleia: [swings the jingle bell key-chain with one hand while carrying a large pair of scissors in the other]

Steven: [slams his foot on the ground] You cut if off the lanyard! [crouches down and prepares for a head on attack]

Victoria: He’s just mad that we killed his mother to make loose-leaf paper and post-its [waves a piece of paper in the air]

Steven: [lifts himself off the ground and grabs a water bottle] What do you think elves are made of? Plastic! [taps water bottle and takes sits on a chair] See this chair? I’m sitting on your dad!

Nikki: [cuts between Victoria and Steven before they can continue to argue] That’s enough! How did this whole thing start, anyway?

[Victoria and Steven stroke their invisible beards and ponder the thought]

Steven: Dis’ girl over here started the whole thing! [jabs Victoria’s shoulder]

Victoria: [snorts and shoves Steven off the desk] Yeah right! I was just minding my own business when the tree started up a fight.

Steven: [Glowers at Victoria and climbs back onto his feet]

Aleia: [pushes Steven down again so he won’t get up]

Steven: How did I become a tree, anyway?

Victoria: How did I become an elf?!

Nikki: [slaps Victoria and Steven] That’s enough! Okay, we’re going to start from the very beginning. [turns to Victoria who is rubbing her arm] Why is Steven a tree, again?

Steven: [whisks his nose up in the air and adjusts his glasses] There is no logical explanation.

Victoria: [shakes her head, stands up, and prepares to tell her tale]

[Lege, Aleia, Nikki, Steven, Tierney, Paolo, and Timmy gather around her like campers around a bonfire]

Victoria: [stretches her arms out in front of her and coughs a few times] You see, ever since I first set eyes on [shifts eyes] Steven, I had this feeling-

Steven: [interrupts Victoria] That you were strangely attracted to me?

Aleia: [slaps Steven] Shut up! She’s telling a story!

Victoria: [shakes her head] No, it was more of this repulsive I-need-to-throw-up feeling. But anyways, back to the story. [settles on the carpet] All the signs were there! He’s six feet tall, he’s noodly and scrawny. Even his hair is like the head of broccoli! [points at Steven’s head]

[everyone turns to stare at Steven’s hair, which jutted out in many directions with the help of Super-Gel]

Nikki: What does broccoli have to do with trees, though?

Victoria: Broccolis are just mini-trees. Plus, I don’t know what the tops of trees are called.

Lege: Tree tops? [plops her legs out in front of her and leans back]

Victoria: Okay, we don’t need to go with all these technical terms! Back to the story, again. So I perceived all of these clues, I decided to do some research on Steven’s history. It turns out there is proof.

Steven: Stalker! You stalker!

Aleia: [smacks Steven in the head]

Victoria: You see, back in China, where Steven “claims” he’s from, their was big storm, a typhoon! Right by the ocean, trees in a forest withered along with the wind, as the sky wept. For some strange reason, there was a big hole in the soil, like it was waiting for something. Up in the sky, a stork with a broken wing and an eye patch flew through the storm, a basket with a child in it.

Nikki and Aleia: Steven!

Lege: [chuckled to herself and laid back again]

Victoria: So the half-blind stork with a broken wing flew through the night, trying so hard to reach his destination. Unfortunately [rolls eyes] the storm was too strong for the stork, so he had to drop his package. The package tumbled down into the forest and fell into the hole that was ever-so-conveniently there.

Steven: Hey! What do you mean a messed-up stork was delivering me! I object! Object ya hear!

Aleia: [punches Steven in the stomach] Let her finish!

Victoria: [nods at Steven and smiles] I forgot to mention it was raining acid rain. So the little messed-up seedling fell into the hole with a loud PLOP! The elements of nature covered the hole with mud, providing it acid rain to grow!

Steven: I object!

Aleia: [tackles Steven and ends up sitting on him] Continue.

Victoria: So like I was saying, together with the acid rain, the moonlight, and the earth worms, the little seedling grew! It grew and grew, until finally it became a tall, scrawny little thing, but a tree nonetheless. Oh, I forgot to ask. Steven, did you use to live in China?

Steven: [answers from under Aleia’s butt] No, I’ve lived here my whole life.

Victoria: Well I’m changing that. You started off in China.

Nikki: [has a silent seizure from laughing so much]

Victoria: Now anyways, it was Christmas time, and little Stacy wanted to buy a Christmas tree that she could decorate and put presents under. Her parents brought her to the forest and told her to pick out any tree she liked. Little Stacy looked around at each tree, trying to find the perfect one. This tree is too tall, she thought, and this one is too fat. [lowers her head] and then she comes across one directly in the center of a clearing. A tall, crooked, messed-up tree stood in the distorted light. Stacy knew this was the one. “Even though it’s ugly, messed-up, crooked, and scrawny, I want this one!” Stacy told her parents.

Steven: What do you mean 'ugly'?!

Nikki: Shut up, Steven! I want to hear this!

Steven: [turns over and frowns]

Victoria: Her parents tried to convince her otherwise, but found that she wouldn’t budge. So they chopped down the ugly tree, threw it on top of their car and drove home. Once they arrived home, Stacy placed the tree in her living room, decorating it with pride. Before she went to bed, she prayed. [clasps hands together] “Dear Santa, for Christmas please give me a brother. I’ve always wanted a little brother. I don’t care if he’s ugly, weird, or thinks he’s part-ninja. I really want a brother, thank you.” With that, little Stacy went to bed under her covers, dreams of Christmas morning flooding her thoughts.

Lege, Aleia, and Nikki: [start breaking out into laughter]

Victoria: [glares at them] I’m trying to tell a story here!

Lege: [slaps her knee and tumbles onto the floor] Sorry! Just give us a moment.

Victoria: [slams her head on the desk and presses forward] So on Christmas morning, little Stacy woke up an ran downstairs to see her Christmas tree. Rather than her withered tree, she found a little boy with crooked features, twisted around a pile of presents. “Steven!” She cried, immediately knowing what to name her brother. She toppled her new little brother, making him even more crooked. Later on, the whole Lam family moved to America, where Steven eventually grew taller and taller. He let his branches reach up to the sky, and now, here he is today, right in our very classroom, learning geometry.

[everyone erupts into laughter/tears and start clapping]

Steven: [slams the desk] Excuse me?! This is not accurate at all! Let me tell my story about how Victoria became an elf!

Aleia: [kicks Steven aside] We’ve had enough story-time today, plus, you’re not a very good story-teller, Steven.

Victoria: [folds arms together and poses a wry smile] That's alright, Aleia. I've had my chance, now it's Steven's turn. Let's see what he come up with.

Steven: [juts finger at Victoria's face] So you admit it! [laughs triumphantly to himself] You made the whole thing up!

Victoria: Psst, sure. It's all truth. Now go along and tell your story before class gets out.

Steven: [settles into the center of the circle dramatically] Hang on, let me prepare my voice. [mimics Victoria and starts coughing a few times] La-la-la! Di-di-diii-

Lege: [kicks Steven in the gut] Get on with it, Lam!

Steven: [corners of his lips fall] I'm going! Okay, so you see, all the signs were there. The whole reason Victoria lied and accused me of being a tree was to hide her secret identity as an elf.

Victoria: [yawns] Mhmm, right.

Steven: [stabs finger at Victoria] Kick her, Aleia! This is MY time!

Aleia: [yawns and stretches back, ignoring Steven]

Steven: [grumbles unintelligible thins to himself and resettles] So anyways, that was why she accused me of being a tree, because she really is an elf. She wears red and green and gold, she's sneaky and can take two cartons of chocolate milk from the Student Store unoticed, somehow 'magically' gets A's on everything when she doodles in class, and she's always carrying around jingle bells [shakes the fraud jingle bell that Victoria gave him]

Victoria: That proves nothing. The people at the Student Store don't even notice when you fifty-cents and when you pay a dollar.

Steven: There is more proof, though! [flails hands in the air] Look at how short she is! She's barely a foot tall! [look around him absently, pretending to not see Victoria] I can't see your Victoria! Where are you! You're too short!

Aleia: Oh, God. [puts face in her palm]

Steven: And on top of that, notice how she always has fairy dust with her! Do you see the glitter! It's pixie dust! Pixie dust I tell ya'!

Lege:[eyelids slowly close]

Steven: Also, did you notice tha-

[bell rings, indicating it's lunch time]

[everyone stands up, grabs their bags and leave]

Steven: [waves hands in the air] Wait! Come back! I'm not done! [becomes frantic] I have more proof! Nooo!

The end.