blank

"Sea of Voices" by Porter Robinson plays quietly.

fade in

ext. schoolyard-late afternoon

School has just let out, and children are flocking all over the green hills, laughing and yelling. The sky is pure and blue. ADDIE, age fourteen, sits alone on the bleachers.

Addie

(V.O.)

Every time they come around looking for me, I’m not there.

The years are silver crayons.

I’m not sure if this is a poem trying to break to the surface or if it’s just a line thrown out into dead space. Sitting there on the bench of my mind, waiting for me to pick it out. To say, you go into this poem.You play your role. Like a cranky gym teacher arranging kids for dodge ball.

Or maybe the line just belongs to itself. I will repeat it over and over, the way I repeat other lines that have popped into my head.

I am the moon, hungry people suckle me

and refuse to feed me

I dwell in the land

where clover has no smell.

Every time they come around looking for me, I’m not there.

They’re all shaken up like salt over French fries, those people. They’re like ice cubes in the bottom of a drink that melt and dilute it and then hurt your teeth. The people grin at my elbows, bite me with their eyes. Even their spleens are singing. I can feel their anxious toenails.

I wish I could make them a jar of rain and I would fill them with glitter and paper boats. I wish I could make them all into a something strange and special, like a nightclub going through the blender. All the drums and drinks and glass…everything shattering and clashing and laughing.

Every time they come looking for me, I’m not there.

As I sit here on the bench, I am aware of a hundred things and nothing at once. I feel the rips in my jeans and the way my baseball cap is on backwards. I notice my shoes, the sweat gathering in my socks. The way the tight skirt over my jeans digs into my belly. My hoop earrings are hurting me.

Addie. I am Addie. I add up to Addie. Addie, sAddie, daddy,bAddie, glAddie. E-i-d-d-a. Addie Addie Cincinnati.

Addie pulls her earrings down to her shoulders, pulls her baseball cap down to cover her eyes, pulls her socks up to her knees, and tucks her shirt into her jeans. Then she stands with her backpack, prepared to go home. She wears an uncertain and sad look on her face.

Believe me, I remember this day from long ago. See it with me. Well, The jump rope is dripping by the time Cinderella kisses a snake. I am six years old and my friend Kissie Sexton just dared me to jump to one hundred...

dissolve to

flashback

EXT. same schoolyard, eight years ago

LITTLE ADDIE and her friend, KISSIE SEXTON, are jumping rope.

kissie

(mindlessly)

C’mon, Addie, you’ve got to jump to a hundred. Cinderella,dressed in yell-a…

Little Addie trips over the jump rope and twists it around herself.

kissie

Bubba-gum, bubba-gum, in a dish, how many pieces do you wish?

Little Addie

(pouting)

Hey, no fair! You can’t change the song!

Kissie

(making a face)

I can do whatever I darn wanna do.

little Addie

Three hundred, four hundred, five hundred…

kissie

Addie, Addie, Cincinnati, she got hit by a baseball batt-y,knocked her silly on the flat flat matt-y…

little Addie

Stop!

kissie

Addie, Addie, Cincinnati, feeling sick and feeling crabby…

little Addie

That doesn’t even rhyme, bird-brains!

kissie

(getting carried away)

Addie, Addie, Cincinnati, she got poisoned by a chicken pattie, got no daddy…

Little Addie yells like a pig about to be killed and smacks Kissie hard with the end of the jump rope. Kissie starts crying.

little Addie

Kissie, Kissie, little missie, is she crying like a sissie? Well, teacher says that she’s dismiss-y!

Sniffing, Kissie ties Little Addie to a tulip poplar tree with the jump rope and leaves her there while she struts down the block, singing.

kissie

Cinderella, dressed in yell-a…

Little Addie breaks the knots with her teeth, chipping one of her teeth in the process and wrecking the jump rope.

little Addie

(yelling)

Kissie Sexton isn’t my friend anymore. I’m never speaking to that brat again!

Little Addie runs off to join some other children who are playing hide-and-seek, but they don't even notice her existence. She hides behind a slide.

Addie

(V.O.)

I am Addison Bell during hide-and-seek.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten…

I am Addison Bell in cursive, Addison Bell in regular old kindergarten block letters. Addison. Addie’s son. Who’s Addie, anyhow, and why am I his son? Why is arson called arson? Did someone with a dad named Ar start the first fire? Why are people named Carson? Cars can’t have kids.

I am Addison, a dreamer, kicker, biter, dancer, shape-shifter, trampoline-breaker, Kissie-puncher, jump-roper. I was born in the back of my granddaddy’s Chevy Silverado. There are still bloodstains on the backseat from when I came out. I was born between Wilbur County and the Kentucky border line.

little Addie

(screaming)

Addie, Addie, Addie! Why wasn’t I born in Cincinnati? Sin,sin, atti! Sinners live in Cincinnati. Our family rug is torn and ratty.

People drive me batty.

end flashback

cut to

int. Addie's eighth-grade Classroom

Morning. The bell is ringing, and the sound of children’s footsteps is heard from the hallway. Addie is the first one to arrive in class.She starts sharpening her pencil, not stopping until it has been reduced to a few wooden shreds.

focus on pencil sharpener.

Addie

(V.O.)

I am Addison Bell.

I am Addie when the teacher takes attendance.

As I sit there in English class, I am seething inside. I suddenly feel like a purple blob rolling out over a desert floor. I imagine I’m painting a whole blank boring desert purple as I roll forever…

Oh, I want to wreck this classroom. There’s a boy named Johnny sitting across from me. I want to bite him really hard on the shoulder.I want to bite Lizzy, Bessy, Missy, Annie, Tommy, and Kissie. I can’t do it because I’d get kicked out, because they’d call the cops and the ambulance and maybe even a fire engine. And people would scream and say, “Addie’s crazy! Addie’s going crazzzzzzzyyyy!”

If I could wreck this classroom, I’d start by jumping from one desk to another. Then I’d topple the desks and enjoy the nice clunk. Papers and textbooks would fall out. I would mangle notebooks, I would snap ink pens in half. I would swallow the class hamster named Jeff, I would rip down the sign that says STAY MOTIVATED, I would rip down the sign that says BE KIND, I would rip down the sign that says, PARTS OF THE SENTENCE.

I would even gnaw on the slide projector. I want so bad to see if I can rip that thing down with my teeth!

At times like these, I feel like I’m all teeth wanting to gnaw things. I want to rip the world apart. I don’t get why I’m not allowed to have psychotic episodes in class, why I’m told I have to save them for my home,and yet even when I’m home, all people care about is that I clean up after my episodes. I want to be a category five hurricane. You know, on the news, you hear about the crying people and broken houses after the hurricane, but the hurricane itself has the time of its life. Getting to be angry and all.

Addie stomps on her tiny stub of a pencil, then pours the sawdust from the sharpener all over her desk like snow.

cut to

ext. small-town street-daytime

Addie waits on a bench beside a run-down candy store, carrying her backpack.

Addie

(V.O.)

One day when I was in my thirteenth year, I met Phoebe Trickle, and she became my new best friend.

Phoebe has daffodil-blond hair and she knows how to bite her fingernails to just the perfect length so that she won’t get bleeding hangnails. That’s a skill I really need to learn. She has these perfect little gnawed fingernails that look so beautiful that I just about want to cry. I wish I could bite my fingernails like that. But mine aren’t like Phoebe’s. They don’t grow fast enough, and when they start to grow just a little, I go crazy and bite them off and suck on them for hours. You have to do that when you’re poor and can’t afford chewing gum. But anyhow, Phoebe is beautiful, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.

Phoebe stops beside Addie and looks at her like she is worried. The two girls start walking home together, arm in arm.

Phoebe

(nervously casual)

Addison, do you know any songs by the Ricketts?

Addie

The Ricketts, that’s your favorite band, Phoebe. You listen to them all the time with one ear bud, because the other one doesn’t work, and you gnaw on that ear bud until I fear you’ll get an electrical burn on your tongue. Nope.

Phoebe

(perplexed)

Do you know how to cook or sew?

Addie

Nope

Phoebe

Can you skip rocks?

Addie

Nope.

Phoebe

Have any pet rocks?

Addie

Nope.

Phoebe

Have any siblings?

Addie

Nope.

Phoebe

Can you say anything except nope?

Addie

Nope.

Phoebe

Then can you tell me what you’re always grinning about like an idiot jack o’ lantern?

Addie

Nope.

Phoebe

Can you please go straight to hell because you’re driving me insane?

Addie

Nope.

The two girls reach Addie's house. Before she opens the door, Addie pauses in reflection, recalling a childhood memory.

fade to

flashback

int. Addie's home-nine years ago

Little Addie is a kindergartner this morning.

Addie

(V.O.)

On my first day of kindergarten, my mother braided my hair so tightly that it felt like she’d super-glued two ropes to my head. She gave me a shiny new cartoon lunchbox with the words PICKLE PRINCESS in huge letters.

Little Addie skips outdoors, slamming the screen door. She recklessly crosses the street, narrowly avoiding a car, knocking over traffic zones and climbing over construction tape.

I skipped out the door to school, knocked over three traffic cones, called the paper boy a dirty name…

She flings herself on the floor of her classroom.

So I opened the door of my kindergarten class, and ran straight into my teacher. She had a nice fat stomach and I wanted to stay inside it and hug it because it felt like a beanbag chair.

By my second day of kindergarten, I had called five people dirty names. The paperboy, my teacher, the principal, the janitor, and Kissie Sexton.

little Addie

Barf bathtub!

Rusty stop sign!

SEWER!

Addie

(V.O.)

By my first week of kindergarten, my mouth was full of ponytail holders. I had to chew on them hard to keep from calling people dirty names. I had just been forbidden from going to the ice cream man since I’d called him a “rotten refrigerator.”

Little Addie stuffs ponytail holders into her mouth and sulkily goes to her baby-sized school desk.

My teacher told me I was as as cute as a button so I'd change my behavior. Why did she think buttons were cute? They were just stupid buttons. Why couldn't she let me be as cute as a zipper?

kissie

(from her seat)

Bed-wetter!

Little Addie

Eat my boogers, Kissie Sexton!

end flashback

cut to

int. Addie's bedroom-night

Present-day Addie sits on her bed and looks out the window, gazing across the street, talking to a house.

Addie

(V.O.)

By the time Christmas vacation rolled around that year I was five, my grandmother had committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, my grandfather had tried to commit suicide by drinking a whole bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid, my father got a new job in some city that I don’t even care about, and my mother was braiding my hair twice as tight. And I wound up in the E.R. for swallowing a Slinky. That meant I didn’t have to go back to school for the rest of the year.

Addie, Addie, is feeling sadd-ie.

zoom in on the house across the street

ext. house across the street-daytime

The house is too tall and made of crooked bricks that are peeling with grayish-white paint. The house is the color of spoiled milk. Addie is sitting cross-legged on the roof.

Addie

(V.O.)

I am Addie, and he is Mister Flowers, and he doesn’t exist. Believe me when I tell you that. You might wonder why I spell out Mister when I speak of Mister Flowers. Well, using an abbreviation for Mr. in his name doesn’t quite look right. And I don’t know his first name, and I’d really like to. So he’s M-i-s-t-e-r Mister Flowers to me. I can imagine walking down the street a hundred times just to repeat his name.

Clasps hands prayerfully

Addie

(with reverence)

Hello, Mister Flowers. How do you do, Mister Flowers? Nicely, Mister Flowers. With respect, Mister Flowers.

Addie

(V.O.)

Mister Flowers for hours and hours and hours. Mister Flowers got magic powers. If you’re really wondering, I don’t know his last name, either. I just decided that his last name was Flowers on account of the flowers by his door. It looks real weird to me, a door without a porch. The flowers are all foxgloves and daffodils, which will kill you if you eat them. He also has wild parsnip, which will give you a rash within 24 to 48 hours if you touch it. That’s how Mister Flowers keeps the people away.

focus on the flowerbeds

Mister Flowers is a most astounding gentleman who went on the moon before airplanes were invented, turned the clouds upside down,invented Ferris wheels, saved the spotted gecko, and melted Antarctica to slush. That’s what Kissie says. Says she should know.

Yesterday while the tornado sirens were shrieking, the world smelled like old bagels. And somewhere in that air was another smell, like old gasoline, like old cold gasoline poured over bagels. And somewhere Mister Flowers was moving, moving toward his windows, moving toward the lightning, moving without me.

A light turns on in Mister Flowers' bedroom; all other lights go out, leaving Addie in the moon's faint glow. Looking disgusted, she pulls out a heap of thick newspapers and research books from her backpack and throws them down from the roof.

I searched the papers, I searched the phone books. I searched my parents’ conversations until they dried up. I searched the encyclopedia, even. Searched every single book in the library. But he isn’t anywhere. They do not speak of him, the people who pass by his house, the people who never come inside his house. I feel afraid of the name Mister Flowers. I feel like if I speak of him, it will be like speaking of some faraway obscure country torn by war, some sad country that tears my heart to shreds whenever I hear its name. He is Mister Flowers, and I have long ago lost my heart and become an old lady. Forever I am reaching for his hands.

Kissie pretends she knows him. Pretends he buys her cherry-red balloons and sweet sticky cherry cough syrup. I can tell by the way her eyebrows twitch that she is lying. But I am lying about being alive, about telling this story, about being Addie Bell. I am lying so hard that truth staggers behind me like a cow with bricks on its back. I am lying so hard that my breath comes short these days and I may be very sick, just like Mister Flowers. I may be very angry, like Mister Flowers at the core of his innermost self. But on the outside, I am white as sugar and as nothing as alone.

Addie climbs down from her neighbor's roof.

fade to

int. Addie's eighth-grade Classroom

Addie stands at the blackboard before her class, backpack in hand. Her classmates hardly notice her.

Addie

(voice trembling)

Addie, Addie, Addie, a hundred fifty million billion thousand trillion gazillion times.

Addie fills up the blackboard with a large number that has an endless number of zeros. The zeroes start out small and get progressively larger.

A dozen times, an egg-basket of times.

She listlessly reaches into her backpack and throws a dozen eggs across the room.

Ten times, twenty times, thirty times, forty times...

She frantically scribbles her name over the zeros.

Write it backwards, put it in front of the mirror...

She writes her name backwards in school glue on a mirror that she pulls from her backpack.

Dump it in the trash.

She throws the mirror into the trash can, steps inside the trash can, and stomps furiously.

Swear it’ll go rotten like old prunes. Like mayonnaise, too.

She pulls expired mayonnaise and prunes from her backpack and throws them across the room.

Addie going badd-ie. Addie, Addie, Addie. They should have called me adder, like a snake, but I guess Addie is OK.

Addie goes to the girls’ restroom. She sits in the sink and writes her name with soap on the mirror. The letters drip down until they fade. After they fade, she begins writing in a notebook.

Addie

(V.O.)

My name is Addie, the Bible is the book of love, fire is the devil’s best friend, I like wearing paper bags on my head, my teacher’s name is Mrs. Blonde and she has black hair, my mailman’s name is Mr. Milk, my pet lizard’s name is Siggie, my favorite book’s name is How to Go Through Menopause Without Losing Yourself even though I’m barely fourteen, my favorite candy is Necco wafers because they fit into vending machine slots, my favorite smell is dryer sheets, my favorite thing to do on a rainy day is have spitting contests with myself, and the thing I’d really like to do is stop writing this sentence.

I have a pimple. It feels good. I mean, it hurts, but it feels good. I like it when I can bring pimples to the surface of my forehead. I like picking the dead skin off the tops of my pimples and then putting it in my mouth. Feels so satisfying. I just want to rain down dead pimple skin. But that’s never what happens. Blood happens. It gets on math textbooks. It gets messy sometimes.

Addie frantically scratches her forehead and takes out her ponytail, twisting it around her fingers.

If I could give something away to somebody, which I’ve never done in my life, I would rip my heart out of my chest and give it to Mister Flowers.

fade back to Addie's classroom

Writing on the blackboard, the teacher has announced that students will be presenting papers about “My Favorite Person in the World.” Addie comes up first to present, her report in hand.

Addie

(with a dramatic deep breath)

Mister Flowers lives across the street from me, two blocks away from Kissie Sexton, two towns away from Phoebe Trickle. I got the house next to him. That must mean God loves me.

He’s always there, he’s just not there. He is the thereness of not being there. He is non-existence, he is never, he is nobody. He is nails on a chalkboard. He is rejection, he is war, he is unhappiness. He is ash and maggots. He is the dirt under my fingernails. He is me when I’m asleep, when there are no thoughts in my mind. Mister Flowers is the scum under the shower. He’s the sky when it rains so hard that it turns white. He’s the attic, he’s the cellar. He is hell. He is far away. He is so far away, like the stars that are old and will die by the time I get to them.

Mister Flowers is the air inside balloons. I don’t know what else to compare him with, honestly. He’s the human equivalent of dividing by zero and a half and then multiplying that by the cubed square root of pi to the fifteenth power. Oh, but don’t get me wrong. The man is perfectly normal. I’m sure if a doctor x-rayed all his organs, he’d find nothing wrong inside him. Heart, lungs, liver. There, there. Vitals all normal. Health history, normal.History in his family of sudden death before the age of fifty? Nuh-uh. Psychiatric history…?

Seven hundred twenty-two and half bricks make up Mister Flowers’ house. Every one of them he’s never noticed, I’m sure. I’m sure he doesn’t notice where one spot of concrete on the sidewalk ends and another begins. So I’m not sure he notices where Addie begins and the rest of the world ends. Like we’re all just tickets rolled off a tape. What difference do I make?

Addie runs out of the class. She goes to Mister Flowers’ house and finds that it has been freshly painted Pepto-Bismal pink. She climbs up the gutters and sits on his roof, getting covered in pink paint.Her hands folded in desperation, she speaks to Mister Flowers, who is just seen as a shadow moving down below.

Addie

But you, Mister Flowers, you’re different. You’re the winning ticket. I know where the world ends and where you begin. Every time you open your windows and the light looks in, my heart bumps up against all my other organs and I nearly have to puke. Because you’re Mister Flowers, that’s all.

ext. small-town street-daytime

Addie and Phoebe are walking home from school.

Addie

(talking to herself)

I am walking down the street today. On one side of me there is Phoebe. On the other side of me is the air around me.

Phoebe

Wanna stop to look at the matchbox cars at Mo's Candy Store?

focus on the candy store window, filled with rusted, mildewed, and cobwebbed toy cars from the fifties.

Addie

Oh, to hell with your matchbox cars.

Phoebe

(looking hurt)

Why are you so rude to me, Addie?

Addie

I don’t know. I’m just thinking about apple pies and dump trucks, and how a garbage truck one day when I was nine years old picked my sofa right up from the curb and scrunched it up and tossed it inside with everyone else’s garbage and took it away to God knows where.

Phoebe

Do you wanna look at the stars tonight?

Addie

OK. Freebie Phoebe.

Phoebe

Nasty Addie.

Phoebe leaves Addie at the doorstep of her house. Addie gazes at Mister Flowers' house.

Addie

(V.O.)

My mind wanders. I think of how the Flowerman—that’s how I think of Mister Flowers more and more these days—how he throws poetry books out the windows of his house and rips them all to pieces. Yesterday, Browning went to the wind. Wordsworth was the day before. I honestly didn’t know why he had all that poetry to begin with, why he thought he needed it out of his house. I thought he could at least roll cigarettes with it. But nope. Out the window,into the wind.

The wind blows hard, and Addie clutches her coat around herself.

fade to

ext. small-town street-one year later

The passage of time is shown by the changed calendar in front of the candy store. Addie walks down the street from school, weighed down by her heavy new textbooks and an oversized suitcase. She has begun wearing makeup and lipstick, and it is running down her face. Her hair is disheveled and her eyes are pink, smeared with tears.

Addie

(V.O., in a choked, numb voice)

I didn’t mean to run away yesterday. It’s not fun to be the only odd berry in the bowl, I’ve learned. Not fun to fumble for your credit card number, doctor’s phone number, and a hundred other imaginary numbers you have to memorize. But I guess it’s not any easier to stay at home and die of cancer,the way the Flowerman did yesterday.

I have never before heard about cancer in your heart. I heard about cancer in the breasts, in the stomach, lungs, liver, pancreas. Even in the hands and in the feet. Right under your tongue. Crumpled up inside your intestine like packing peanuts. Cancer, cancer, everywhere. Why don’t people talk about heart cancer, I wonder? Well, any how, it doesn’t matter where the cancer was inside of the Flowerman. Maybe he just faked his death, anyhow. Took off for the open roads.

The Flowerman must be feeling so clean now, I thought.Without realizing it, I was reaching for my old kindergarten lunchbox. I stuffed my tiny pillow of baby teeth into the lunchbox, threw in some crummy old sunflower seeds, grabbed a suitcase, and decided I was all set to run away. I grabbed my mother’s Girl Scout compass on my way out the door.

Addie rounds the corner and comes back to the Flowerman’s house. It looks different this time: the doors are padlocked, the curtains are closed, the pink paint is peeling, and someone has tied black balloons to the doorknob.

It was November, rhymes with remember. Rhymes with dismember, too. I’m not sad about what happened to the Flowerman. I just wonder if Kissie will finally break his windows now, like she threatened to all those times. Maybe she’ll sadly fumble for her Kleenex, just to make fun of me for being sad, but I’m not sad. I promise I’m not sad. The Flowerman is sad, the way he’s feeling so clean.

Addie leaves her suitcase on the doorstep with a resigned look on her face. Then she turns and heads home until all that can be seen of her is her shadow on the sidewalk.

int. Addie's Classroom-Nighttime

It is after nine o' clock. Addie’s small classroom looks abandoned. School has let out several hours ago and the world is quiet and empty, except for Addie and her bored teacher.

Addie

(V.O.)

In-school detention is called the Learning Club at my school, but I’ve learned my lesson, like I said before. The years are silver crayons. They’re golden pencils, too. I need some ivory erasers. Then all the mountains will be made of cardboard, and I can hug them without being afraid.

The white walls at the Learning Club are supposed to make me afraid, but I’m not afraid. Or maybe I am afraid. A lady is sitting across from me. She has two eyes. You might wonder why I would be dumb and point out the obvious. Well, what else can I say about her? We really need some people with three eyes in this town.

I am in the Learning Club because I broke into the Flowerman’s house with my own fists. Like I said, every time they come around looking for me, I’m not there. But they tried to drill up my hollow places,like I was a cavity at the dentist’s. They really tried. I’ve got to give them credit for trying.

I was called Addison for a long time after that. I don’t know why. People are such snakes.

At least I wasn’t pretending to be anything when I went inside the Flowerman’s house. I knew that house was mine. Even though they tore it down, it’s still mine. Because it exists and doesn’t exist at the same time. All those poisoned flowers, they’re mine, too.

Well, after the Learning Club ends (for the next twenty-two hours,at least), Phoebe will be looking for me.

Addie opens the classroom door, and Phoebe is waiting for her in the hallway.

Addie

Bite any new fingernails today?

Phoebe

(sounding worried)

You look feverish, Addie.

Addie

(on the verge of a meltdown)

Get me a Band-Aid.

Phoebe takes Addie’s hand with a comforting gesture.

Addie

Your face is like the inside of a corncob you find along the roadside here in Illinois. All hard, hard, hard. I would like to bite your face and tell you I love you, but I can’t. You’re not corn, and you can’t be boiled. And you wouldn’t be sweet, anyhow. What am I talking about?

Phoebe

(biting her fingernails)

Kissie is looking for you.

Addie

Tell her the Flowerman is dead and I'm not sorry.

Phoebe

Who's the Flowerman?

Addie

Oh, some dumb man I had a crush on when I was a kid.

Phoebe

Did you ever introduce him to me?

Addie

He never knew anyone in the world existed but me.

Phoebe

Well, let’s get home, Addie. The nights are getting longer.The nights are coming sooner.

Addie and Phoebe walk outside and the town’s lights are on, casting a series of perfect reflections on the cracked sidewalks.The moon and stars are shining.

Addie

(yawning, so tired she can barely speak)

The years are silver crayons.

"Goodbye to a World" by Porter Robinson plays softly in the background.

fade to black