Filed under: Screenwriting | Tags: children's story, Screenwriting, treatment
Here’s a treatment for a fucked up children’s story I did for my Adaptation class. It’s based on a friend’s childhood memory about falling in the toilet. I’ve also been heavily influenced after watching way too much of Making Fiends.
Malischa in: A Shitty Situation
There is a mountain of pink quilts and pillows atop a jewel embellished princess bed, draped with a sheer canopy and accessorized with a plethora of plush kittens, bunnies and teddy bears. Birds sing as sunshine leaks through velvet curtains. Suddenly, a harsh alarm roars, the buzz blaring from a digital pink clock in the shape of a ballerina. There is a groan. The quilt-pillow-and-plush mountain shakes and Malischa, a frowning first grader, erupts from the bed. “I fucking hate alarms.”
Malischa sits in front of a majestic gold mirror as her nanny, Miss Merry, brushes her long black hair – it juxtaposes her frilly pink dress completely. Miss Merry asks which bow she’d like in her hair today and Malischa responds, “I fucking hate bows.” Miss Merry sighs, asking if her Mommy and Daddy would approve of such language. “They’re never around so how should I know?”
Malischa now sits beneath an enchanting chandelier at a giant dining room table while the delicate sounds of violins fill the room. There are enough settings for twelve regardless that Malischa sips her orange juice alone. A French chef enters, placing a silver plate in front of the girl. “I took the liberty of wrapping your eggs and sausage in a tortilla, quite similar to a burrito, in celebration of your parents escapades to Mexico.” Malischa groans. “I fucking hate burritos.”
Malischa waits at a bus stop surrounded by a dozen other children and their robe wearing, curler headed mothers who whisk them onto the mustard school bus, exchanging kisses on the cheek for brown paper lunch bags. Malischa is last on the bus. Her seemingly endless walk to the back of the bus is like walking the plank – she faces taunts from every direction, like “Princess Pee Brain” and “Frilly Pink Butthead”. Malischa is unaffected, her frowning face never melting to sadness until third grader Puck spits “orphan” in her direction. Malischa stops in her tracks. “What the fuck did you just say?” Puck repeats the word over and over in a sing-songy voice before Malischa erupts – “I’ll fucking kill you!” But before her grip can reach his neck, a bus aid comes to Puck’s rescue. Malischa is dragged to the back of the bus and receives a wag of the finger. She peers in Puck’s direction, serving him the death stare.
Children flood into the halls after a bell rings at Mammoth Elementary. Malischa butts her way to the front of the water fountain line right next to the boys’ bathroom. She pretends to drink from the fountain while keeping her eyes glued on the bathroom door. When Puck approaches she grins and hastily shoves him into the bathroom.
Malischa gives Puck a swirly. She holds his head in the toilet, ignoring his flailing limbs and flushes the toilet over and over again in front of an audience of other boys. They point and laugh at Puck, reminding him that he is, in fact, getting beat up by a little first grade girl.
Suddenly the sea of boys parts as Morella, Puck’s sixth grade sister, approaches the stall to fish her gasping brother from the toilet. “You are such a mean little girl, someone has to teach you a lesson, and that someone’s gonna be me!” She grabs Malischa by her ear and pulls her to the toilet, forcing her head into the bowl – flush. In one swift instant the toilet tugs on Malischa’s long black hair, pulling her entire body into the toilet. When the water settles in the bowl Malischa is gone. Morella sighs, “Aw, shit.”
Malischa is propelling through the clean and clear water of the toilet pipes, laughing as if on a ride at the water park. Suddenly, the water turns murky, then brown just before she plops into a whole new world – the sewer.
Malischa sits in a brown puddle, her hair a ratted mess, the pink of her dress undetectable, as it now appears brown. She screams as she pounds her fists in the puddle – “I fucking hate this shit!”
An almost inaudible voice sounds, as if someone is speaking under water – “Well that’s too bad.” Malischa cocks her head as she notices a bubbly patch just in front of her. Suddenly, a brown sludge-like creature erupts from the murky water. She looks around before asking, “Was that you?” The creature – Peppy – nods. “Well what do you mean?” He insists that she smell herself. “It smells like shit,” she exclaims, sticking out her tongue in disgust. Peppy grins, “Exactly. Our whole world is made of poo.” Malischa screams and it echoes through the tunnel, reaching other poo people who sit in poo benches reading poo newspapers, poo people in poo houses making poo meals for their poo families, to a poo zoo full of poo creatures that do not stand upright like Peppy, but on all fours.
Peppy grabs Malischa’s arm, begging her to go on an adventure through the poo world with him. She doesn’t budge. Peppy then begins skipping through the sewer as he drags Malischa by the arm – she is motionless besides her mouth, which doesn’t cease to spout obscenities between complaints about the smell. Peppy smiles and whistles as they pass all the poo people – he is sure to greet each and every one of them. Finally Malischa asks where they’re headed and Peppy promises that even tough it’s a secret, where they are headed will surely blow her mind.
The whole way Malischa complains about everything even though Peppy finds the good in whatever she bitches about – Malischa hates the smell, but Peppy is thankful to even have a sense of smell considering his Grandfather lost his nose in the Poo Crusades of 1942; Malischa hates the sludge they walk through, but Peppy likes it because you can slip through it as if on ice skates; Malischa hates how dark the sewers are, but Peppy appreciates that he will never get skin cancer because there’s no sun to burn him; Malischa hates the color of poo, but Peppy thinks it’s slimming and definitely brings out the color of his eyes. Malischa eventually asks Peppy how he can be so optimistic all while living in a world made of poo and he smiles – they have reached their destination.
Peppy points to the sky, at a hole in the top of the sewer – through the hole leaks the only ray of sunlight ever to reach the sewer. They can hear dim chirps of birds and laughter and traffic. “The best part about it,” Peppy ecstatically explains, “is that just across the street is a cookie factory. And once a week, you can hear the big bang of the cookie machine. Soon after, the sweet smell of chocolate or peanut butter or sugar cookies fills the air, and if you stand at just the right spot at just the right time, you can get a whiff of those delicious, oven baked gems.” He lifts some of his poo arm like a sleeve to check his watch then begins to anxiously count down from ten. When he reaches zero his eyes close and he inhales as deep as he can. Malischa takes a few sniffs and shrugs, but Peppy insists that it’s the most beautiful thing. Malischa asks how he can be so optimistic in the midst of all this shit and he smiles. He explains that it’s the poo that makes him happy; his crappy world forces him to search for happiness because even beneath all the shit, somewhere there’s a little sliver of sunshine and pastries.
Peppy smiles as he wipes a tear from his eye, then looks down to see that Malischa is gone. His head rises to see Malischa scurrying up the wall of the sewer and she pops through the hole to the street. Peppy sighs, then suddenly a voice screeches from above – “You’re really nice and all, and I guess I like what you had to say about happiness and shit – but I fucking hate happy endings.”
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