Monologue for a young girl.

Raccoon Ball

by Jeff Goode

copyright © 2005
THIS SCRIPT IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, TRANSMITTED, PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

     (Lights up on: Girl with a baseball bat.)

I love raccoons. They’re so cute.
I used to love baseball. (sadly) But that was before the raccoons.
My dad always used to play catch with me and my brother Jason in the backyard every day after work. Even if he got home late, he always had time to let us practice batting balls around.

I was always way better at it than my brother. He’s horrible.
My dad says it’s because I have the love of the game.
And Jason just loves pounding things he finds in the yard.
So his bat is always chipped up. Or covered in bugs.
And he never practices hard like I do.
     (She takes a practice swing.)
But we don’t get to play as much since my mom died. And my dad had his thing.
     (She makes "Dad went crazy" gesture)

They sent me and Jason to live with our grandparents.
And they live in the country, so now our backyard has raccoons.
Which are the most completely adorable animals I have ever seen in person.

They have built-in masks, like little bandits. But they don’t steal things, except what you already threw away. Which drives Grandpa crazy, because some nights they come up on the back porch and knock over the garbage. Well, every night.
He gets pretty upset about that.

Grandma doesn’t mind so much though, because she says they’re clean animals, because raccoons always wash their food before they eat it.
Which is more than Jason.

But actually–did you know?–the reason they do it is because raccoons don’t have any saliva of their own, so they have to rinse off their food before they eat it, so it’s moist and soft in their mouth.

But now that Grandpa got those special locks to put on the garbage cans, they can’t get into them any more.

So I started feeding them with whatever I didn’t eat from dinner, so they don’t go hungry.
I don’t need as much as Grandma tries to feed me anyway.

Every night, I put out a plate of leftovers on the back porch.
And a little glass of water, in case they want to eat it there.

Then when the raccoons come up on the porch–
My brother jumps out with his baseball bat and pounds them on the head.

Then he pours lighter fluid on them and sets them on fire.
He’s horrible.

I told him the President says it’s wrong to kill raccoons because we’re in a culture of life.
But he just says, "Some things need killing", and does it anyway.

So now when I think about baseball it kinda makes me sick to my stomach.

But I saved up my allowance and got this new gamestation cartridge for my brother.
     (She takes out a video game cartridge)
And tonight I’m gonna leave it out on the back porch for him.
With a glass of soda in case he wants to play it right there.

And I’m gonna see if I can restore my love of the game.
     (She takes a slow, careful practice swing)

BLACKOUT