Free Fiction Friday!

And excerpt from a one act play.

Pumpkins

a play in one act and two scenes

Characters:

Fairy Godmother Flora

Fairy Godmother Rosa

Fairy Godmother Ruby

Scene One

Scene: a fairly bare stage with a few places for the godmothers to sit. A bar cart. A pumpkin.

(lights. The godmothers enter in various ways, #Flora sits, the other two fuss with their clothes, wands, etc.)

Flora: (removing her shoes and rubbing her feet) My feet ache.

Rosa: Why, were you walking?

Flora: I have a cramp in my left wing.

Ruby: You were flying though the Alps again, weren’t you?

(Pause. Flora does not respond)

Ruby: Well…?

Flora: Yes! I was flying through the Alps. It’s faster. I hate having to go all the way over Spain, and then down through the Mediterranean, and past Italy and –

Ruby: I warned you about the Alps. It’s the headwinds, you know.

Flora: It was fine until I was over Tuscany and then – wham! My left wing just wouldn’t budge.

Ruby: Headwinds.

Rosa: How far did you walk?

Flora: (thinking) Since… Milan.

Rosa: Milan?!

Flora: It’s not that far.

Rosa: It’s three thousand kilometers! You should’ve called.

Flora: I didn’t want to bother you.

Ruby: You were embarrassed.

Flora: I was embarrassed. What’s a self-respecting godmother going to do? I can’t not fly: it’s unthinkable. What would the guild say?

Ruby: the Guild – always the Guild. I hate the Guild. It’s an over funded bureaucracy, full of over paid and under worked bureaucrats. I swear I’m going to go freelance one of these days. There’s a lot to be made in freelance work, you know. I heard that one freelance godmother made more than a million last year.

Rosa: Where did she make that kind of money? Most of the poor louts we’re sent to don’t have a cent to their name.

Ruby: (whispering) She was granting wishes on the side for a few extra bucks.

(the other two gasp)

Flora: That’s outrageous!

Rosa: It’s unethical is what it is! We can’t charge for our services – it puts the whole profession in a bad light. Not to mention that it’ll play havoc with the pay scale over time.

(pause)

Flora: So – who was it?

(Ruby pulls the other two closer to her and whispers).

Ruby: I hear it was Glinda.

Rosa: Glinda?!

Ruby: Shhhh! The Guild has ears everywhere, my dear.

Rosa: (quietly) But Glinda?! That’s terrible. She had such a good thing going, too. Why in heaven’s name would she resort to extortion?

Ruby: Oz is apparently not such a shit hot place to work these days. I heard the Witch of the West has it out for Glinda – she wants the whole market in Munchkinland and she wants a piece of the Emerald City too. You see what those Emerald City folk make? That’s outrageous. I could afford a much bigger chateau if I had half their salaries.