The Surprise Party

A group of teens sit chatting and laughing and playing on their phones. ALICE & JOEL enter.

ALICE
Hi everyone!

JOEL
Hey guys!

Various greetings from the group

ALICE
Okay, so, we all know why…

BELLA bursts in

BELLA
Sorry I’m late.

CAM
You’re always late!

BELLA
That’s not true!

ALL
Yes, it is!

BELLA sits. For the rest of the scene she plays with her phone and takes selfies

ALICE
Anyway, as I was saying…we all know why we’re here…

DANIELLE puts her hand up

DANIELLE
Um..I don’t.

EVAN
What?

LIN
How can you not know why you’re here? Didn’t you get Alice & Joel’s text?

DANIELLE
Nup. I lost my phone last week.

BELLA
OMG! You poor thing! How are you coping? Have you ordered a new one??!

DANIELLE
Bella, not everyone sees their phone as an extra limb like you do.

MIMI
Um, I sort of do.

HALLIE
Yeah, me too.

PETRA
Danielle, how did you know we were meeting if you didn’t get the text?

DANIELLE
I just saw you all heading in here and thought I’d check out what was going on. So, what? Are we concocting a master plan to shut down the school or something?

ALICE
Not quite. We’re organising a surprise party for Suki.

DANIELLE
Who?

ALL
Shush!

JOEL
So, as most of us know, Suki has been going through a hard time at home lately.

BELLA
#lifesucks.

ALICE
And her birthday’s coming up so we thought it would be a nice idea to surprise her.

LIN
That’s a great idea. Nice one, guys.

HALLIE
My birthday was last month. Why didn’t anyone organise a surprise party for me?

INDI
Because you haven’t been having problems like Suki has.

DANIELLE
How do you know she’s having problems?

ALICE
Bella posted something on Facebook.

NICKI
What did you post?

BELLA
“Sending big hugs to my girl, Suki. #alwayshereforyou.”

FRAN
Why? What happened?

BELLA
Suki’s brother posted something about their family breaking up.

PETRA
Oh, wow, so her parents are getting divorced.

DANIELLE
Should we check?

JOEL
What?

DANIELLE
To see if that’s actually true?

EVAN
Well, it’s on Facebook. So, you know…pretty sure it’s true.

End of Excerpt

(c) Fiona Harris 2016