Characters:
Narrator
Pandy
Anchorman
Jerry
Bobby
Tabby
Alderman Samuels

Narrator: Pandora Darling slumped against the wall, clutching the spot where a hypodermic needle had just stabbed her. In an attempt to finally get to the bottom of her late mother’s mysterious conspiracy, she had looked in the urn which contained her father’s ashes. A strange injection had been the reward for her curiosity, and now, with her boyfriend and her former best friend on their way to committing serial murder, she had finally run out of ideas.

Pandy: (hysterical sobbing) I can’t…I don’t know what to do, Mom…I just don’t know what to do…I’m so…god…damn…alone… (sobs, as Narrator continues)

Narrator: Indeed she was. Pandora had been living a happy life as a popular high school student in affluent Carousel, New York. When she came home to find her mother disemboweling a Jehovah’s Witness, however, she began a downward spiral into a world of intensive training, constant danger, and endless secrets. She had lied to Tabby, once her closest friend. She had helped brainwash Bobby, a helpless loser whose affections for her had led him to see too much. She had spurned the advances of George Batista, hunky jock extraordinaire. Ultimately, she had been unable to protect even her mother, mistaking her concerns for insanity and failing to stop her enemies in time. Now it was over; those who had stood by her were brainwashed, insane or dead, and now she was completely…

Pandy: (suddenly, an idea!) Wait a minute!

Narrator: Utterly…

Pandy: That’s it!

Narrator: And undeniably-

Pandy: (angry, taking control) Shut up! I’m trying to think here! Maybe if I could do that without crazy people shouting at me all the time, things would get done faster! (beat) Thank you! God! (shuffling, broom sweeping, ashes dumped into urn, urn shutting. Now no longer angry, just determined) Sorry, dad. (more shuffling, walking, newspapers and books taken out and opened. Radio clicks on, top-40 song starts) Okay, we need to think about this logically for a minute. People don’t just join CASK because they like being part of a secret conspiracy. There has to be a trigger. Blackstone’s notes may be able to tell me something – oh, gross, he got brains on it. Yuck. Jeez. Okay, let’s see; Tabby joined most recently, starting that Campaign of hers just after she and I stopped being friends. George became active in the Koalas thing about… (flipping of pages, papers) six years ago, just as his dad’s career was taking off. Mr. Batista’s never at home, he’s always off in the Bahamas or something, doing photo shoots. That’s got to be hard on a kid, being left behind all the time only to be overshadowed the little time his dad IS home. And Bobby joined the Computer and Science Klub when his dad married his stepmom…oh man, I remember that! She didn’t want him in the house, she hates him! And mom…(pages flip, surprised) Blackstone puts her as starting CASK operations not two months after dad was killed! She told me… (putting it all together) of course, she put together what was happening afterward! Okay. (scribbling on paper, frantic writing, listing and circling) People join CASK because they’ve lost someone or something important to them. They need drive, purpose, something to keep them going. But that’s why CASK is dangerous – because instead of giving your unhappiness a healthy outlet it feeds back, making you crazier and crazier until…

(song cuts off, news-bulletin music or something)

Anchorman: We interrupt this program to bring you this breaking story; local high school student Leslie St. James was brutally beaten to death in her home in eastern Carousel. Authorities remain baffled as to the purpose or identity of the attacker.

Pandora: I thought so. Let’s check the yearbook. (pages flip) Yup, Leslie St. James, Computer and Science Klub, fourth from the right in the back row. And she lives…where’s the student directory? Here we go! (pages) Anderson Street, right near…St. James, Starling, Stern…Jerry Tiptree! Bobby’s next target!

Narrator: Pandora leapt into her mother’s old car, speeding off toward Anderson Street, her training helping her outrun or outmaneuver any police who might catch sight of a sixteen-year-old driving alone. (brakes screech to a halt) Pandora found 22-75 Anderson Street without difficulty. She hadn’t really known Jerry Tiptree, but if she was going to help save her boyfriend, she would need to stop him before any more blood was spilled.

Pandora: (almost singsong, frustrated) Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up. Now, two-story Colonial, four bedroom, three, three-and-a-half bathrooms from the look of it, so a sixteen-year-old male would be…there. The door’s already opened, looks kicked in – when did Bobby get that strong? Interior looks clean, probably a maid’s service. Certainly doesn’t look like a place where people live.

(screaming of Jerry)

Pandora: Yup. Got the room right. Oh my god! Bobby, put that lamp down!

Jerry: Help! The Counter-Anderson Street Klatch has gotten him! They’re trying to destroy the street so the road map of Carousel will turn into a summoning circle for Azathoth! (bang of lamp against head) Unh… (slumps onto floor)

Pandora: Bobby, no!

Narrator: Pandora moved quickly interposing herself between Bobby and the prone –

Pandora: (calm, verging on tearful) Bobby, look at me. Look at me. You don’t have to do this. This isn’t you. You’re not a killer. You’re the sweetest, gentlest, kindest person I’ve ever known, and nothing’s going to change that. (beat) Bobby, you’re all that I have. I…I love you.

(long beat)

Bobby: Really?

Pandora: More than I ever thought I could.

Bobby: You…you’ve never said that before.

Pandora: I was scared. Scared of what might happen, of how we’d live with that between us. Now…now I know I don’t want to live without it. Not for another minute. Please, Bobby. Please don’t do this.

Bobby: Blackstone ordered me to –

Pandora: Blackstone’s dead. Shot himself in the face. Even if he hadn’t, you don’t need to do this. You don’t need to kill to be part of something. You already are.

Bobby: A part of what?

Pandora: Of us. (long kiss)

Bobby: Wow. That was…

Pandora: Perfect.

Bobby: Oh my god, Leslie! Pandy, I –

Pandora: Shhhhh. They don’t have your fingerprints on file, I can change them with a curling iron and a safety pin. But we’ve got bigger problems, Bobbysox.

Bobby: Oh no… Tabby and George!

Pandora: We need to find and stop them. Before we go, though, hold down his arm.

Bobby: What’s that?

Pandora: It’s my mom’s memory cocktail. She doped you with it a couple of times before you figured out what was going on.

Bobby: Woah, really?!

Pandora: Yup. Works like a charm.

Bobby: (upset) Oh. Good.

(car starting)

Bobby: So where do we go from here?

Pandora: Tabby. Her Campaign Advocating Social Knowledge is a political action committee that includes high-profile members of the municipal government. The closest one to my place is Alderman Samuels’ house on Johnson Court. We’ll need to go there; I just hope she hasn’t gotten past his security system yet. Does this street take me to Windsor?

Bobby: No, take the next right.

Pandora: Right. Okay.

(beat, as they drive)

Bobby: Say it again.

Pandora: Say what?

Bobby: You know.

Pandora: (teasing) No, Bobby, I have NO idea.

Bobby: Come on!

Pandora: I love you.

Bobby: I love you too.

Pandora: Well, that works out really well, then.

Bobby: Turn here.

Pandora: I know.

Bobby: Sorry.

Pandora: Don’t sweat it, Bobbysox.

Bobby: That’s kind of a silly name.

Pandora: I know.

Bobby: Well, then I need a name for you.

Pandora: Pandy isn’t bad enough?

Bobby: You don’t like it?

Pandora: Not really, no. It makes me sound like I eat bamboo and ride the short bus. People just started calling me that, and I never really got up the nerve to tell people to knock it off.

Bobby: Wow. I never had any idea.

Pandora: I never told you. Never told anyone, really.

Bobby: Well, what do you want to be called?

Pandora: I don’t know. I guess Pandora is too long. I just don’t want to be Pandy.

Bobby: How about Dora?

(beat)

Pandora: You know, I like it.

Bobby: Dora it is then. Here’s Johnson Court.

Pandora: Doesn’t look like the alarms have gone off. Either she’s in or she’s still trying to get in.

Bobby: Where would she be?

Pandora: Probably around the back, away from the street.

Bobby: We need to hurry!

Pandora: This way!

Bobby: There she is! By the pool!

Pandora: Oh my god! Alderman Samuels!

Bobby: She’s holding him under the water!

Pandora: Give me that rock.

Bobby: You can hit her from here?

Pandora: My mom taught me to improvise, right?

(rock hits head, Tabby grunts)

Bobby: Great throw!

Pandora: Fish her out of the pool, I’ll get Alderman Samuels.

(grunting, gasping)

Samuels: (coughing and gasping) Thank heaven you came! I was sure that agent from the Committee to have Alderman Samuels Killed would succeed!

Pandora: (soothing, placating) Shhh, Alderman Samuels. Here’s something that’ll help you relax.

Bobby: Tabby’s out cold.

Pandora: So’s the alderman. Bring Tabby back to the car; we’ll cuff her and keep her in the back.

Bobby: What then?

Pandora: Haven’t figured that out yet. For now, we need to get to George.

Bobby: His group is nationwide! How are we going to find him?

Pandora: Think about it, Bobby. Who’s the highest-profile advocate for koalas?

Bobby: (getting the picture) Oh my god… his dad?!

Pandora: We’d better hurry.

Narrator: Pandora and Bobby burned rubber all the way to the palatial estate of the Batistas. Dora’s home-invasion training made entering a breeze, and Bobby was able to fast-talk them past the private security. Finally, the duo entered the home proper, decorated by the most expensive designers.

Bobby: Where will we find them?

Pandora: Not sure. I’m not familiar with the interior decorator’s style. But listen – running water.

Bobby: I think it’s this way.

Pandora: Should be right around – oh my god!

Bobby: But how did they…?

Pandora: (horrified, but still analytical) George must have come in with the knife while his dad was soaking in the tub. He stabbed, dad struggles, the flatiron must have been knocked into the water, creates a circuit. They both fry.

Bobby: That’s horrific!

Pandora: No kidding. God, the smell is awful.

Bobby: I don’t think I’ll ever eat barbecue again.

Pandora: We need to get out of here before security finds them.

Bobby: Good thing they didn’t get our license number.

Pandora: Can’t take any chances. We’ll have to get rid of the car; we can report it stolen. I just wish I knew what to do now…

Narrator: Will Pandora discover the fiends behind CASK? Can she and Bobby evade the police and take care of Tabby? “Like Daughter” continues next time with, “The Heart of the Maze.”