Bozeman - A Musical Read online

you...

  Madison: Madison.

  Charlotte: Madison. Got it.

  CHARLOTTE exits.

  Lights fade out.

  Scene 2

  A black stage, a single light on CHARLOTTE.

  Charlotte: I was afraid. Everything was new, and I was anxious. More than anxious, I was horrified. I wanted to go home, but I didn't know where home was, or if I had one.

  Lights open on a bathroom. CHARLOTTE splashes water on her face, seemingly scrubbing at it, she continues looking in the mirror. The door opens, and LANDON enters.

  Charlotte: Occupied!

  Landon: Oops.

  Charlotte: That means leave, Landon. (She emphasizes his name, showing she remembers)

  Landon: Why are you here?

  Charlotte: I told you my mom had a-

  Landon: Do you think I'm stupid?

  Charlotte: No I just-

  LANDON gets uncomfortably close to CHARLOTTE.

  Landon: People don't get put in here for drinking problems, kid.

  Charlotte: I'm not a kid.

  Landon: Just-I just want to know why you're here. You owe me that.

  Charlotte: I owe you nothing.

  Landon: You're living in my house.

  Charlotte: (Crossing her arms, losing her temper, choosing to display authority she knows she lacks) No. I'm living in a group home. It's East's house anyway. You don't own me or my past. I owe you nothing. You aren't my friggin' boss and I don't take orders from teenage boys.

  Landon: West.

  Charlotte: Huh?

  Landon: The house parent's name is Peter West.

  Charlotte's face goes red after realizing she can't win. Landon remains calm, asserting a cool and cocky vibe.

  Charlotte: Is that all you got from my speech? That I don't know the house parent's name?!

  Landon: No. I got that you think you own the place after you've been here for an hour. I've been here since I was 11, I'm 17. You're scared. I get that. So was I when I got here, you don't have to be so...cold.

  Charlotte: I'm not scared, and I'm not being cold.

  Landon: C'mon, Char,, just-

  Charlotte: Uh-no. No nicknames, Landon.

  Landon: Charlotte. I understand that you want to be strong for your brother, who's name I'm blanking on but you don't have to be strong for me. I tend to be the rock for everyone here. I never want you to feel alone.

  Charlotte: I-I just want to be left alone right now. Is that okay with you?

  Landon: Sure.

  LANDON exits. CHARLOTTE throws her head into her hands and begins to cry.

  Blackout

  Scene 3

  Hallway of Willow Hills Group Home, CHARLOTTE is walking down the hall. She stops looks down and picks up a small metal object. It is a bullet, it is untouched, meaning there is a gun somewhere that the bullet is for.

  Charlotte: Oh my god.

  CHARLOTTE looks at the floorboard, where a piece of it is plied up. She pulls off the board. She picks up a handgun and a masterkey out of the hole in the floor.

  Charlotte:

  I just found a gun

  In the floorboard

  I just found a gun

  Under the floorboard

  Oh my god. Oh my god. How can this be.

  I just found a bullet

  In the floorboard

  I just found a bullet

  Under the floorboard

  Oh my god. Oh my god. What do I see.

  I've been here an hour and things already went wrong

  I've been here so short but somehow my troubles are long

  I've never seen one of these

  How could this be

  A real live gun

  Under the floorboard

  I found a murder weapon

  Or an only source of defense

  I found a key

  In the floorboard

  I found a key

  Under the floorboard

  Oh my god. Oh my god. What's this for

  I need to tell someone

  But what if this is theirs

  I could get myself killed

  Why are these the burdens I always bear

  Why am I the one who finds things in the floorboard

  Things that could maim or destroy

  Why am I the one always fixing to find trouble

  Every way I turn

  I found a gun

  In the floorboard

  I found a gun

  Under the floorboard

  And I need to do something so it's not used

  I found things that could kill

  And though I wish it wasn't me

  I have to step up and be the girl

  Who takes life on the chin

  I found a gun

  And I am nervous

  I found bullets

  And I'm afraid

  But I know

  But I know

  That I must go help the children

  Who need me

  These kids need me

  They might just need me

  Because of what lies

  Under the floorboard

  Charlotte: (to audience) I couldn't believe what was in my hand. It wasn't mine, and I didn't know who's it could be. I was in complete and total shock. Like, why me? Why was it me who finds this, who got placed in this home. I knew what I had to do. And I knew why I found the gun now. The house parent was out, and the house was completely snowed in. Nobody could get in...or out. I needed to get everyone into one room and figure out who's gun it was, and if they had more. (to LANDON and CLARK) Come out into the hallway!

  LANDON and CLARK enter

  Charlotte: We're completely snowed in, so I thought maybe we should all hang out.

  Landon: Get to know each other better?

  Charlotte: Exactly, and since West can't get in, we could hang out in the girls room.

  Clark: What're you holding behind your back, Char?

  CHARLOTTE is filled with fear, until LANDON jumps in, not knowing he's being distracting.

  Landon: So he can call you Char?

  Clark: Char!

  Landon: (Sarcastically) I'm hurt, really.

  They enter the girls room. CHARLOTTE, who has stolen and hidden the keys in her back pocket, locks the door from the outside before she enters, locking everyone in.

  Annie: Woah, why the hell'd you lock it for?

  Charlotte: Someone here is a danger, to all of us. I'm taking matters into my own hands.

  Annie: If anyone here's the danger, it's you. I've known these people for most of my life, then you walk in the door and suddenly there's a danger? I don't think so.

  Charlotte: Everyone put your hands up.

  Madison: But why? Are you going to kill us?

  Charlotte: What?! No!

  Madison: Then why do you have gun.

  Landon: What?! Charlotte?

  Charlotte: I found it.

  Annie: Bullshit.

  Charlotte: I did! I found it! It was under the floorboards! With bullets and everything.

  Annie: Convenient you find that your first day.

  Charlotte: I bet it's yours, isn't it. You're so afraid of me finding it.

  Sarah: (Calmly, treating CHARLOTTE like a cop would in a hostage situation) I think she's scared because you have a gun, now if you'd just put the gun down-

  Charlotte: Put it down?! And what? Let whoever's it is shoot me? Hell no. I'm not putting it down until we've talked through this and I know whose it is. (to audience) It was about to be quite the snow day.

  Scene 4

  Everyone is sitting on their bunks except for LANDON who sits on the floor. CHARLOTTE takes the key out of her pocket, unlocks the door, throws the gun out of the room, and locks the door again, but this time, throwing the key out of the room with it. Snow is scene in a blizzard outside of the window.

  Annie: Why'd you lock us in? Are you insane?

  Charlotte: So that we're all safe from whoevers gun it was.

&
nbsp; Landon: C'mon Charlotte. We all know it's yours.

  Charlotte: But it's not. I-

  Madison: We've been here for years, no one ever has had the gun.

  Sarah: I have to admit, it's awful suspicious that we have never had an incident like this until you showed up.

  Clark: Charlotte what's going on with you?

  Charlotte: Are you serious? Clark, you too?! It's not mine, I saw a plyboard pryed up and I found the gun and bullets and stuff, it's not like it was lying around. You had to be looking for it.

  Landon: What exactly were you looking for?

  Charlotte: I don't know, confirmation?

  Clark: Of what?

  Charlotte: I don't know, just-like-that this house was as strange as it seemed to be.

  Annie: You think our home is strange.

  Charlotte: That's not what I mean.

  Mayzie: Leave her alone.

  Everyone turns, shocked that MAYZIE spoke.

  Mayzie: It's not her gun.

  Landon: Mayzie, dear. Let just-

  Mayzie: It's West's.

  Clark: The house parent?!

  Mayzie: He threatens me with it.

  Landon: What?!

  Mayzie: He threatens me with it. Whenever he gets angry or frustrated he'll point it in my face and threaten to shoot me.

  Landon: Why didn't you tell me?

  Mayzie: He said he'd kill us all if I told.

  Sarah: Oh my god.

  Mayzie:

  Where secrets lie

  We lie with them

  We sacrifice our brains and our lives to house them in our hearts

  We sit in our bedrooms and cry all our tears out

  To keep in a secret, where secrets lie

  When secrets seep in

  Our heart seeps out

  Our own passion draining smoothly from our lungs

  We breathe in the lies, and out the happiness

  Our own self worth going, where secrets lie

  And I know I should've told you

  And I know you should've know

  And I know that I'm a liar for keeping this

  But where secrets lie, I'm lying with them

  And as my secret lives, I am dying inside

  As I break, my secret is mending

  And I am all alone

  And I am so afraid

  And I am just a secret to tell on another day

  Where secrets lie, so does our body

  We submit in order to let it exist

  Where secrets lie, there is my morals

  Where secrets lie, there is my faith

  I used to be so happy and now I am just broken and alone

  Where secrets lie

  We lie with them

  We sacrifice our brains and our lives to house them in our hearts

  We sit in our bedrooms and cry all our tears out

  To keep in a secret, where secrets