READER’S THEATER

Pandora Gets Jealous

By Carolyn Hennesy

Script by Carolyn Hennesy

978-1-59990-291-3 • $6.99

www.bloomsburykids.com • www.pandyinc.com

2

CAST:

�

We are in the amphitheater of the Athena Maiden Middle School in ancient Greece. In progress, the

presentations of school-wide project “The Enduring Presence of the Gods in Our Daily Life.” It is

Pandora’s turn and she stands onstage alone.

PANDY: My name is Pandora Atheneus Andromaeche Helena, daughter of the House . . . the great

House of Prometheus. My father stole fi re from the sky-lord, Zeus. And you know that he was

punished by a great eagle eating his liver each day and having it grow back each night.

NARRATOR: The crowd of girls was whispering . . .

GROUP: (whisper, whisper, whisper . . . not too much!)

NARRATOR: . . . not paying any attention.

PANDY: But there was a second part to his punishment. My father never talks about it because it is

so terrible that many of you will . . . faint. And because that’s just my dad.

NARRATOR: Several girls stopped whispering.

GROUP: (immediate silence)

PANDY: Zeus gave my father a box containing (pause) all of the misery of the world! If the box is ever

opened, plagues of every kind will . . . will . . . fl y out and torment each of you for the rest of your

NARRATOR

PANDY:

IOLE:

ALCIE:

HELEN:

HIPPA:

GROUP:

A maiden with brown hair and eyes, freckles, and a slight overbite

A short maiden, one of Pandy’s best friends

A red headed maiden with brown-greenish eyes, one of Pandy’s best friends

A cheerleader with long, black hair, one of Pandy’s worst enemies

A cheerleader, one of Pandy’s worst enemies

otherwise known as The Greek Chorus

3

lives. And, there will be nothing you can do but cry and beseech the gods. Nothing! (Holds box high

or mimes action) And they’re all in here!

GROUP: (gasps, shocked faces)

NARRATOR: There was a deathly silence in the amphitheater.

PANDY: Some of you might not believe me; it’s a very simple box. But here is the great seal of Zeus

himself! My whole family is constantly living with the presence of the gods. And we are saving you

guys everyday from a fate worse than death!

NARRATOR: She stopped. Hundreds of terrifi ed eyes stared back at her.

GROUP: (everyone deliberately stares at Pandy)

PANDY (after a moment): Thank you very much.

NARRATOR: She walked off the stage. Alcie and Iole rushed up.

IOLE: You took an awful chance bringing that to school.

PANDY: It’s no big deal.

NARRATOR: But she was shaking hard as she started to walk away.

PANDY: I have to get this home.

ALCIE: Fine, we’ll come with you.

(Pandy, Alcie and Iole begin to walk away from the group.)

NARRATOR: They were almost out of the school, when Helen and Hippia appeared.

HELEN: Hey Pandy! Pretty neat trick. Fooling everyone like that.

HIPPA: Yeah. Everything bad is in that little box, huh? Everyone is talking about how stupid that was

and what a loser you are.

GROUP: (whispers together, but deliberately): What a loser! She’s so stupid!

4

PANDY: Well, that’s too bad and I don’t really care . . .

HELEN: Let me see it.

ALCIE: As if!

HIPPA: Come on…just for a sec. Come on, Pandy, please?

PANDY: No way.

NARRATOR: Pandy felt like she’d just won a battle. Finally, she had something these girls wanted!

HIPPA (to HELENA): I want that!

HELEN (very sweetly): Pandy . . . Hippia and I weren’t very nice to you yesterday, about the pre-

Bacchanal party. It might be fun if you were there. And, we were talking to Tiresias the Younger.

His date’s come down with a pox so he doesn’t have anyone to go with.

HIPPA: So, let us look at the box, and we’ll arrange the whole thing.

NARRATOR: Pandy turned to tell them where in Hades they could go when:

HELEN: Your friends can come, too.

NARRATOR: Gods! Gods, if it were only her, she would have walked away. But now Alcie and Iole

were part of it. The three of them really didn’t have many other friends. Losers . . . plebes . . . were

the words everyone used. This was not only her chance to get in with the popular girls, but it was

Alcie’s and Iole’s as well. It was an opportunity for all three of them to be something other than

losers, something other than themselves.

PANDY: Fine . . . but be careful and don’t touch the seal.

IOLE: Pandy, don’t do it! This is crazy! It’s absurd! It’s incongruous! It’s . . .

HELEN: Shut up, dummy!

NARRATOR: Helen snatched the box from Pandy, examining it carefully.

(HELENA snatches or mimes snatching the box from Pandy. She looks at it for a moment.)

5

HIPPA: This doesn’t look so horrible. And there’s no lock on it. Zeus would never trust your loser

dad with evil in a box with no lock.

PANDY: Whatever. Now give it back.

HELEN: Maybe. In a minute. We’ll see.

NARRATOR: The fake sweetness was gone. Pandy realized the enormity of her mistake. These girls

were never, ever going to accept her or her friends. They were just as mean as they’d always been.

HELEN: This isn’t Zeus’s seal. You melted wax and drew a thunderbolt.

NARRATOR: She started to draw her fi nger over the great red seal.

PANDY: Don’t, Helen! Don’t touch it! You can’t ever touch the seal.

HELEN: Why not? It’s just a glob of wax! (Touches the wax) See? No big . . .

NARRATOR: But she couldn’t get her fi nger off the wax, now slowly starting to bubble and foam.

HELEN: Oh! Ahhhh . . .

PANDY: Give me the box!

HELEN: Take it!

NARRATOR: But the box wouldn’t leave Helen’s hands. Hippia tried to wrench it away and also

touched the seal. Her hands stuck to the box like it was made of tar. The wax was melting and

steaming away in a fi ne mist that splattered and burned and the girls were screaming wildly. And

then, in the middle of their foreheads, they began to grow wide, curving, black horns, and their

teeth began to go wide and fl at in their mouths.

PANDY (whispering desperately to herself): Gods, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!

NARRATOR: Suddenly, with a force of will, Pandy leapt forward. She grabbed the box, and gave a

tremendous tug. The box left Helen and Hippia’s hands, but the lid fl ew open. Pandy dropped the

box. There was a tremendous crack of thunder.

GROUP(together, loudly!): CRACK!!!!

6

NARRATOR (pause): Nothing horrible came out. Nothing at all.

HIPPA (her words sound mushy): Look at me! I will totally get you for this, you little . . . !

NARRATOR: Just then, the ground started to shake slightly.

IOLE (whispering and pointing): Look.

NARRATOR: A black tendril of smoke was creeping slowly out of the box. Then a green tendril and

a gray one. Brown, red, rust, yellow. An ugly rainbow of smoke was rising into the sky. The smoke

started to pour out faster and faster. Stumbling, Helen and Hippia got too close to the torrent and

brushed against it. Instantly, both girls began to shape-shift very fast, changing from rhinos to

large whiskered rats to spotted razorback boars to pink and red striped pythons to overgrown lime

green skinks and everything in between. Finally, they turned into large black legless salamanders,

gasping for breath and fl opping on the stones like fi shes. The torrent of smoke continued with a

roar. Then it stopped abruptly. Pandy stared at the box. She saw something like a fi ne silvery mist

slowly start to rise. She quickly snapped the lid shut. The sky was now streaked with lines of red,

yellow and gray, fl ying fast in all different directions. Loud wails and cries were starting to erupt

throughout Athens. Pandy had no idea what she was doing when she picked up the little box. She

only knew she had to get it back home. She turned, sobbing, to her friends.

PANDY: Run! Run, run, run!

NARRATOR: The new school buildings were crumbling around them. The marble columns at the

front entrance were tottering precariously, and they barely missed being hit by pieces of the roof

as it slid off. Students were fl eeing in all directions. She ran fast, past collapsing buildings and

uprooted trees. Past people stumbling about, hurt and crying and confused. Not one of the girls

stopped running, over the shaking ground, around fl ooded streams, past overturned oxcarts and

tumbling boulders, until each was at home under her own pallet.