HENRY’S BABY
RECOMMENDED FOR LEVEL 2 (6THGRADE)
CHARACTERS: Henry
Moon, Skif, The Prof, Daniel, Jake, baby George, Henry’s mum.
SYNOPSIS:
Henry Moon
sees his baby brother as a serious drawback to being accepted by the in-crowd
at his new school. One day, they ask him to have their get-together at Henry’s
house. Her mum and little brother won’t be home, so he can visualize himself in
the gang, but his plans will change when mum has to run to the hospital with
some friend and leave baby George with Henry. Although he’s afraid this will
ruin his big chance, things will go quite differently than he thought they
would be, as they like George very much. Henry, then, gets to belong to “Them”.
CHARACTERS’ OBJECTIVES:
Henry
Moon: His greatest
desire is to be part of “Them”, a kids gang in school. He wants to belong to
them because they are very popular and each one of their members is very cool
and interesting. He thinks there’s nothing interesting about him. He has a baby
brother.
George: He’s Henry’s baby brother. He
thinks Henry is the most wonderful person in the whole world. “Again” was the
first word he ever said, and he learned it because he wanted to be bounced a
bit more on Henry’s lap.
Skif: He is the trendy one. He has the
latest clothes and knew all the latest songs. His only interest is to know
what’s new and get it.
The
Prof: He is a
computer whizz. His dad lets him play games late into the night and he always
has the latest software, often before it comes to the shops. He wants to be a
programmer and get a new computer for his birthday.
Daniel: He’s the best at running, jumping,
swimming, and football. His friends call him Zip. He would like to become a
football player.
Jake: He’s the hard man. He has more
muscles than some of the teachers and can stop a fight just by rolling up his
sleeves (sometimes he starts fights that way too). He doesn’t like studying and
wants to be outside the whole day.
“Them”: The gang just likes having fun and
gets together every Wednesday after school in one of their houses.
SCENE ONE
All kids
are at school, the gang is at one side of the stage, talking to each other and
Henry is looking at them and thinking aloud how bad he wants to belong to
“Them”.
SCENE TWO
In this
scene, the gang is in the playground and they are talking to each other showing
their interests and “how cool they are”.
SCENE THREE
In this
scene, Henry’s home playing with his little brother and telling him how he
wants to be one of “Them” and how he thinks he can’t because there’s nothing
special about him.
SCENE FOUR
The gang
asks Henry if they can come over his house to have their get-together at his
house next Wednesday because they can’t meet at neither of their homes.
SCENE FIVE
Henry asks
his mother if they can come next day after school. She answers they can and
that they’ll be on their own, since she’s going to be out for the afternoon
with baby George.
SCENE SIX
The gang is
at Henry’s home, when his mum rushes leaving baby George with them because she
has to run to the hospital with her neighbor. They start to feed the baby, play
with him…
SCENE SEVEN
The kids
are leaving and ask Henry to come over next week too. When they leave, Henry
screams happily that he’s in.
The End
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
This story
is not mine. It’s been taking and adapted from a book called “Henry’s Baby”, by
Mary Hoffman. I chose it because it is very catchy and deals with typical
pre-teenagers worries. Besides, some more characters can be added to involve
more kids in the class.
