STRONG, never really DRIFTING.
Amalia Vargas is another one. Sharp, full of opinions, and so COMMITTED to her artwork.
They don’t seem three years younger. They’re such personalities. Definite, clear personalities.
I wish I felt like that. I never know how to BE.
I know how NOT to be. NOT prep. NOT grunge. NOT jock. NOT high-tech nerd.
Step right up, folks — meet Ducky McCrae, Palo City’s number one NOT! Make your own
guess about what he is. EVERYBODY else has an opinion. Choose from the options below: A. Sissy wimp girlie man — the Cro Mag perspective, shared by a certain species of Vista School male.
B. Immature stupid little kid — Ted and friends.
C. Oddball child — Hi, Mom and Dad, wherever you are.
D. Carefree, mature, laugh riot — Sunny and friends.
E. NOT.
Personally I love D., but it’s just as wrong as A.-C.
SO … WHAT AM I?
Defining Ducky
A Madcap Confessional Romp
REEL ONE, TAKE ONE
[Enter Ducky McCrae, a nondescript 16-year-old with a few pimples and nondescript brown hair, wearing nondescript pants and shirt bought from a vintage clothing store. He looks in mirror and sees … nothing.]
DUCKY: I am … a 16-year-old who hangs out with 13-year-olds.
“Robbing the cradle.” That’s what Jay called my friendships with Sunny & Co. I didn’t know what it meant, until Ted explained: It’s how you describe someone who’s going out with someone else much younger — which is typical of the way Jay’s mind works, imagining that I’m dating those girls all at the same time … and that they don’t mind. Which not only is wrong but insulting to Sunny, Maggie, Amalia, and Dawn, because they’re way too smart and independent to let themselves be treated like that. And besides, now that Jay is going Cro Mag on me — and Alex is just fading away and has hardly said two words since New Year’s — those three [sic]
girls ARE becoming my closest friends. Thirteen or not. And that’s that.
DUCKY: I am … a virtual orphan.
That is exactly the way I feel. Ducky and Ted’s Excellent Orphan Adventure. No parents, no rules. See the decorative piles of laundry in every room, gathering dust. Admire the food on the walls and floors, the dish sculpture in the sink. The 23 half-full boxes of cereal. The refrigerator full of soda, ice cream, and a carrot left over from last year. Enough to horrify ay adult, except technically Ted IS an adult, which is a laugh, but somehow his 20-year-oldness makes it legal for Mom & Dad to spend months in Ghana while their sons eat take-out pizza after occasional pathetic attempts at cooking dinner.
I mean, come on. Whose parents go on extended business trips to GHANA? Or to Qatar, or Abu Dhabi, or Sri Lanka? Can you possibly GET farther away from your children?
Enough about that. Back to the screenplay.
DUCKY [still looking in mirror]: I am … everybody’s best friend.
* * *
According to Sunny, at least.
And maybe it used to be true. I still have the journal from 6th grade, where I counted my friends and came up with 47.
Not anymore, though. Not since the Cro Mags started ganging up on me in 8th grade. And Jason became JAY. And Alex became
What HAS Alex become?
When I gave him that flower this morning — nothing. No laugh, no wisecrack, no response at all. As if this kind of scene happened every day and he was bored with it.
Alex the Morph.
This is NOT the Alex I grew up with. It’s as if some alien ship came down and sucked out his soul.
I stared at him today at lunch, while he wasn’t looking. The same way I used to when we were kids and I’d try to send an ESP message, and most of the time he’d notice I was staring and sometimes he’d even GET the message. And we were convinced we could read each other’s minds, because we always finished each other’s sentences and we liked the same movies and books and CDs and TV shows, and we could look at each other — just look — and both burst out laughing. No one knew why, but WE did,
Amalia Vargas is another one. Sharp, full of opinions, and so COMMITTED to her artwork.
They don’t seem three years younger. They’re such personalities. Definite, clear personalities.
I wish I felt like that. I never know how to BE.
I know how NOT to be. NOT prep. NOT grunge. NOT jock. NOT high-tech nerd.
Step right up, folks — meet Ducky McCrae, Palo City’s number one NOT! Make your own
guess about what he is. EVERYBODY else has an opinion. Choose from the options below: A. Sissy wimp girlie man — the Cro Mag perspective, shared by a certain species of Vista School male.
B. Immature stupid little kid — Ted and friends.
C. Oddball child — Hi, Mom and Dad, wherever you are.
D. Carefree, mature, laugh riot — Sunny and friends.
E. NOT.
Personally I love D., but it’s just as wrong as A.-C.
SO … WHAT AM I?
Defining Ducky
A Madcap Confessional Romp
REEL ONE, TAKE ONE
[Enter Ducky McCrae, a nondescript 16-year-old with a few pimples and nondescript brown hair, wearing nondescript pants and shirt bought from a vintage clothing store. He looks in mirror and sees … nothing.]
DUCKY: I am … a 16-year-old who hangs out with 13-year-olds.
“Robbing the cradle.” That’s what Jay called my friendships with Sunny & Co. I didn’t know what it meant, until Ted explained: It’s how you describe someone who’s going out with someone else much younger — which is typical of the way Jay’s mind works, imagining that I’m dating those girls all at the same time … and that they don’t mind. Which not only is wrong but insulting to Sunny, Maggie, Amalia, and Dawn, because they’re way too smart and independent to let themselves be treated like that. And besides, now that Jay is going Cro Mag on me — and Alex is just fading away and has hardly said two words since New Year’s — those three [sic]
girls ARE becoming my closest friends. Thirteen or not. And that’s that.
DUCKY: I am … a virtual orphan.
That is exactly the way I feel. Ducky and Ted’s Excellent Orphan Adventure. No parents, no rules. See the decorative piles of laundry in every room, gathering dust. Admire the food on the walls and floors, the dish sculpture in the sink. The 23 half-full boxes of cereal. The refrigerator full of soda, ice cream, and a carrot left over from last year. Enough to horrify ay adult, except technically Ted IS an adult, which is a laugh, but somehow his 20-year-oldness makes it legal for Mom & Dad to spend months in Ghana while their sons eat take-out pizza after occasional pathetic attempts at cooking dinner.
I mean, come on. Whose parents go on extended business trips to GHANA? Or to Qatar, or Abu Dhabi, or Sri Lanka? Can you possibly GET farther away from your children?
Enough about that. Back to the screenplay.
DUCKY [still looking in mirror]: I am … everybody’s best friend.
* * *
According to Sunny, at least.
And maybe it used to be true. I still have the journal from 6th grade, where I counted my friends and came up with 47.
Not anymore, though. Not since the Cro Mags started ganging up on me in 8th grade. And Jason became JAY. And Alex became
What HAS Alex become?
When I gave him that flower this morning — nothing. No laugh, no wisecrack, no response at all. As if this kind of scene happened every day and he was bored with it.
Alex the Morph.
This is NOT the Alex I grew up with. It’s as if some alien ship came down and sucked out his soul.
I stared at him today at lunch, while he wasn’t looking. The same way I used to when we were kids and I’d try to send an ESP message, and most of the time he’d notice I was staring and sometimes he’d even GET the message. And we were convinced we could read each other’s minds, because we always finished each other’s sentences and we liked the same movies and books and CDs and TV shows, and we could look at each other — just look — and both burst out laughing. No one knew why, but WE did,
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