SCENE 1BRYCE: All I ever wanted was for Juli Baker to leave me alone. It all began in the summer of 1957, before the start of second grade.STEVEN: Here we are.PATSY: Ha, ha. What do you guys think? L YNETTA: I like this place.BRYCE: It's cool.L YNETTA: Uh, what color is my room? PATSY: Just you wait.BRYCE: Let's see what's inside. STEVEN: Hey, come on, buddy Bryce. Why don't, uh, you and I go help unload the van and the womenfolk here can get in the kitchen and start setting up. BRYCE: Okay, Dad.BRYCE: For me, it was the beginning of what would be more than half a decade of strategic avoidance and social discomfort. JULI: Hi, I'm Juli Baker.STEVEN: Hey, hey, what are you doing? JULI: Don't you want some help? STEVEN: No. There's some valuable things in there.JULI: - How about this one?STEVEN: No, no, no. Run home. Your mother's probably wondering where you are.JULI: Oh, no, my mom knows where I am. She said it's fine.BRYCE: It didn't take long to realize this girl could not take a hint.STEVEN: It's crowded in here with three people.JULI: I don't mind.BRYCE: Of any kind.JULI: You wanna push this one together?STEVEN: Bryce, isn't it time for you to gohelp your mother?BRYCE: Huh? Oh, yeah.BRYCE: I mean, nothing would stop her. Iwas about to tell her to get lost when theweirdest thing happened. I couldn't believeit. There I was holding hands with thisstrange girl. How did I get into this mess?PATSY: Well, hello. I see you've met myson.JULI: Uh-huh.BRYCE: Finally, I did the only manlything available when you're 7 years old.[BELL RINGING]BRYCE: However, my troubles were farfrom over. The minute I walked into MissYelson's classroom...JULI: Bryce? You're here.BRYCE: ...it was clear: School would notbe a sanctuary.[CHILDREN LAUGHING]KID 1: Hey, Bryce, where's yourgirlfriend?BRYCE: I was branded for life.KID 2: Hey, Bryce, why don't you ask herto marry you?GIRLS [SINGING]: Bryce and Juli sittingin a tree, K-l-S-S-l-N-G.BRYCE: My first year in town was adisaster. And the next three weren't muchbetter. But finally, in the sixth grade, Itook action. I hatched the plan.BRYCE: Sherry. Sherry, wait up.SHERRY: Hi, Bryce. Heh.BRYCE: I asked out Sherry Stalls.BRYCE: I was wondering if you wantedto go...BRYCE: To full appreciate the brillianceof this plan, you have to understand thatJuli hated Sherry Stalls, though I neverunderstood why. Sherry was nice, friendlyand she had a lot of hair.SHERRY: At first, my mother wouldn't letme get my ears pierced, but I begged...BRYCE: The idea was that Sherry wouldeat with me... maybe we'd walk aroundtogether, and hopefully Juli would loseinterest.SHERRY: But I still can't get the hoops tillI'm 16.BRYCE: Oh, that's a shame.SHERRY: So Melanie wanted to get herears pierced, but of course her mother saidno. So she threw a fit and smashed herJohnny Mathis Greatest Hits album...[LAUGHS]...and she got grounded, sonow she can't come to my pajamasleepover party.BRYCE: Things were unfolding quitenicely.GARRETT: What are you doing for yourscience project?BRYCE: That is, until my supposed bestfriend, Garrett Einbinder took an interestin Sherry himself.SHERRY: I was thinking of showing howsplit ends react with different hairconditioners.GARRETT: That's fascinating.BRYCE: Loyalty gave way to desire andGarrett, the turncoat... told Sherry what Iwas up to.SHERRY: Jerk.BRYCE: She didn't take it well. Word gotback to Juli, and pretty soon she started upwith the goo-goo eyes again. Only thistime it was worse. She started sniffing me.That's right, sniffing me. What was that allabout? My only consolation was that nextyear would be different. Junior high,bigger school. Maybe we'd be in differentclasses and it would finally, finally beover.SCENE 2JULI: The first day I met Bryce Loski, Iflipped. It was those eyes, something inthose dazzling eyes.JULI: You wanna push this one together?JULI: His family had just moved into theneighborhood... and I'd gone over to helpthem. I'd been in the van all of twominutes when his dad sent him off to helphis mom. I could see he didn't wanna go.So I chased after him to see if we couldplay a little before he got trapped inside.The next thing I know, he's holding myhand... and looking right into my eyes. Myheart stopped. Was this it? Would this be1my first kiss? - But then his mother came out.PATSY: - Well, hello.JULI: And he was so embarrassed, his cheeks turned completely red. I went to bed that night thinking of the kiss that might have been. I mean, it was clear he had feelings for me, but he was just too shy to show them. My mother said boys were like that. So I decided to help him out.JULI: - Bryce? You're here. [CHILDREN GIGGLING]JULI: I would give him plenty of opportunity to get over his shyness. By the sixth grade, I'd learned to control myself. Then Sherry Stalls entered the picture. Sherry Stalls was nothing but a whiny, gossipy, backstabbing flirt. All hair and no substance. And there she was... holding hands with Bryce. My Bryce. The one who was walking around with my first kiss. My solution was to ignore her. I knew a boy of Bryce's caliber... would eventually see through a shallow conniver like Sherry Stalls. It took all of a week. They broke up at recess. She didn't take it well. Now that Bryce was out of Sherry's evil clutches, he started being nicer to me. BRYCE: - Hi, Juli.JULI: - Hi, Bryce.JULI: He was so shy and so cute... and his hair, it smelled like watermelon. I couldn't get enough of it. I spent the whole year secretly sniffing watermelon... andwondering if I was ever going to get mykiss.SCENE 3BRYCE: Seventh grade brought changes,all right. But the biggest one didn't happenat school. It happened at home. Mygrandfather came to live with us. Momsaid he stared like that because he missedGrandma. That was not somethingGrandpa would ever talk about with me.As a matter of fact, he never talked aboutmuch of anything with me. That is, untilJuli appeared in the local newspaper.CHET: Oh, Bryce. May I speak with you?BRYCE: What?CHET: Have a seat, son. Tell me aboutyour friend Juli Baker.BRYCE: Juli. She's not exactly my friend.CHET: Oh. Why's that?BRYCE: Why do you wanna know?BRYCE: Now, Juli Baker did not wind upin The Mayfield Times for being aneighth-grade Einstein. No, she got front-page coverage because she refused toclimb out of a sycamore tree. Juli Bakerand that stupid sycamore tree. She alwaysthought it was God's gift to our littlecorner of the universe.JULI: Hey, Bryce. Wanna come climb thetree with me and my brothers?BRYCE: No, thanks.JULI: Bryce. Come up here. It's fun. Youcan see everything.BRYCE: I can't. My dad needs me to helphim fix... a thing.BRYCE: That's all I needed. Climb up atree with Juli Baker. I'd be dragged rightback into the second grade. Bryce and Julisitting in a tree. Why don't you just makeme eat lima beans for the rest of my life.JULI: It's three blocks away. Two blocks.One block away.BRYCE: Like that's valuable information.GARRETT: I hate it when she does that.I like to think there's at least a chance thebus won't show.JULI: I think the tree looks particularlybeautiful in this light. Don't you?BRYCE: If by "beautiful" you mean"unbelievably ugly," then, yes, I wouldagree.JULI: You're just visually challenged. Ifeel sorry for you.BRYCE: "Visually challenged"? "Visuallychallenged"? This from the girl who livedin a house that was the joke of theneighborhood? They had bushes growingover windows and weeds all over the place.It bugged my dad bigtime.STEVEN: Oh, there he is. The bricklayerwho thinks he's a painter. That truck's notugly enough in real life? He's gotta make apainting of it?L YNETTA: No, he does landscapes. Sellsthem at the county fair. People say they'rebeautiful.STEVEN: Landscapes? Let me tell yousomething. The world would have morebeauty in it if he'd do a little landscapingon that piece of crap he calls a yard.PATSY: I feel bad for his wife. Shemarried a dreamer. Because of that, one ofthe two of them will always be unhappy.STEVEN: Yeah, fine. But why do we haveto be unhappy?BRYCE: As annoying as the yard was tomy dad... it was nothing compared to howannoying Juli Baker was in that tree.JULI: Three blocks away.BRYCE: Every morning we had to listento the sound ...of her blow-by-blow trafficreport.JULI: Two blocks.WOMAN: There you go.GARRETT: Why do they call it The ThreeStooges? I mean, there's five of them.BRYCE: What?GARRETT: Well, yeah, there's Moe, Larry,Curly, Shemp and Curly Joe.BRYCE: Yeah, but they only have three ata time.GARRETT: Yeah. You know, I hate CurlyJoe. I mean, he shouldn't even be a Stooge.MAN: Listen, girl, I'm this close to callingthe police. You are trespassing andobstructing progress on a contracted job.GARRETT: What's going on?MAN: Either you come down... or we'regonna cut you down.JULI: You guys, come up here withme.They won't cut it down if we're all up2here.GARRETT: Bus, bus, bus.BRYCE: Juli was frantic. They wanted to cut down her tree. I couldn't understand why that mutant tangle of gnarly branches meant so much to her.JULI: Bryce, please.BRYCE: I felt bad for her. GARRETT: Leave her.BRYCE: But I wasn't about to cut school over it.GARRETT: Come on, bro.CHET: Why isn't she your friend, Bryce? BRYCE: You'd have to know Juli. CHET: Well, I'd like to.BRYCE: Why?CHET: That girl has an iron backbone. Why don't you invite her over sometime? BRYCE: An iron backbone? She's just stubborn... and she's pushy beyond belief. CHET: Is that so?BRYCE: And she's been stalking me since the second grade.CHET: Well, a girl like that doesn't live next door to everyone.BRYCE: Lucky them.CHET: Read this. Without prejudice. BRYCE: Like I needed to know anything more about Juli Baker.BRYCE: Juli wasn't at the bus stop the next morning. Or the morning after that. She was at school, but you'd never know it.GARRETT: Little Joe? He's got so much makeup on...BRYCE: He doesn't age.BRYCE: I told myself I should be gladabout it. I mean, isn't that what I'd alwayswanted? But still, I felt bad for her. I wasgonna tell her I was sorry, but then Ithought, hey, no... that's the last thing Ineeded: Juli Baker thinking I missed her.SCENE 4JULI: I see why you like to come out here.RICHARD: Would you mind explaining itto your mother?JULI: I loved to watch my father paint. Orreally, I loved to hear him talk while hepainted. I learned a lot about my dad thatway. He told me all sorts of things... likehow he got his first job delivering hay andhow he'd wished he'd finished college.Then one day he surprised me.RICHARD: What's going on with you and,uh, Bryce Loski?JULI: What do you mean? Nothing.RICHARD: Oh, okay. My mistake.JULI: Why would you even think that?RICHARD: No reason. Just that you... talkabout him all the time.JULI: I do?RICHARD: Mm-hm.JULI: I don't know. I guess it's somethingabout his eyes. Or maybe his smile.RICHARD: But what about him?JULI: What?RICHARD: You have to look at the wholelandscape.JULI: What does that mean?RICHARD: A painting is more than thesum of its parts. A cow by itself is just acow. A meadow by itself is just grass,flowers.And the sun peeking through the trees isjust a beam of light. But you put them alltogether...and it can be magic.JULI: I didn't really understand what hewas saying until one afternoon...when Iwas up in the sycamore tree. I wasrescuing a kite. It was a long way up,higher than I'd ever been. And the higher Igot, the more amazed I was by the view. Ibegan to noticehow wonderful the breeze smelled. Likesunshine and wild grass. I couldn't stopbreathing it in...filling my lungs with thesweetest smell I'd ever known.BRYCE: Hey, you found my kite.JULI: Bryce, you should come up here.It's so beautiful.BRYCE: I can't. I sprained my, um (I)have a rash.JULI: From that moment on, that becamemy spot. I could sit there for hours, justlooking out at the world. Some days thesunsets would be purple and pink. Andsome days they were a blazing orangesetting fire to the clouds on the horizon. Itwas during one of those sunsets that myfather's idea of the whole being greaterthan the sum of its parts moved from myhead to my heart. Some days I would getthere extra early to watch the sunrise. Onemorning I was making mental notes ofhow the streaks of light were cuttingthrough the clouds …so I could tell mydad when I heard a noise below.JULI: Excuse me. Excuse me. I'm sorry,but you can't park there. That's a bus stop.MAN 1: Hey, what are you doing upthere?MAN 2: You can't be up there, we'regonna take this thing down.JULI: The tree?MAN 2: Yeah. Now come on down.JULI: But who told you, you could cut itdown?MAN 1: The owner.JULI: Why?MAN 1: He's gonna build a house, andthis tree's in the way. So come on, girl, wegot work to do.JULI: You can't cut it down. You just can't.MAN 1: Listen, girl. I'm this close tocalling the police. You are trespassing andobstructing progress on a contracted job.Now either you come down, or we'regonna cut you down.JULI: Go ahead. Cut me down. I'm notcoming down. I'm never coming down.Bryce. You guys, come up here with me.They won't cut it down if we're all up here.Bryce, please don't let them do this. Comeon, you guys. Bryce, please. You don'thave tocome up this high. Just a little ways. Bryce,3please. Please.JULI: What happened after that was a blur. It seemed like the whole town was there. But still I wouldn't move. Then my father showed up. He talked a fireman into letting him come up to where I was. RICHARD: Sweetie, it's time to come down.JULI: Daddy, please don't let them do this. RICHARD: Sweetie...JULI: Daddy, look. You can see everything. You can see the whole world from here.RICHARD: No view is worth my daughter's safety. Now, come on.JULI: I can't.RICHARD: Julianna, it's time to come down now.JULI: Please, Daddy.RICHARD: It's time.JULI: And that was it. I must've cried for two weeks straight. Oh, sure, I went to school and did the best I could... but nothing seemed to matter.TEACHER: Juli?JULI: Huh?TEACHER: Do you know the answer? JULI: Uh, the Peloponnesian War? TEACHER: I'm sure that's the answer to something... but I was looking for the area of a rhomboid.[CHILDREN LAUGH]JULI: Somehow, rhomboids and isosceles right triangles... didn't seem so important. I rode my bike so I wouldn't have to passby the stump... that used to be the earth'smost magnificent sycamore tree. But nomatter what I did, I couldn't stop thinkingabout it.[KNOCKING ON DOOR]RICHARD: Are you okay?JULI: It was just a tree.RICHARD: No, it wasn't just a tree. Inever want you to forget how you feltwhen you were up there.JULI: Thanks, Dad.JULI: It was the first thing I saw everymorning... and the last thing I saw before Iwent to sleep. And once I could look at itwithout crying... I saw more than the treeand what being up there meant to me. Isaw the day that my view of things aroundme started changing. And I wondered, didI still feel the same things about Bryce?SCENE 5BRYCE: I've never been a huge fan ofeggs. I mean, I could always just takethem or leave them. That is, until one dayin Skyler Brown's garage.. when myfeelings about eggs were solidified.[BAND PLAYING ROCK MUSIC]SKYLER: Hey, hey, hey. Guys. Edna'sfound her breakfast.BRYCE: I mean, if a slimy reptile foundthem appetizing... there was certainly noplace for them in my diet.MATT: Oh, man, that's so cool. Shedoesn't even have to chew. I mean, thinkof all the time you'd save.BRYCE: I could've gone my whole lifenot knowing that snakes eat eggs raw... ifit hadn't been for Lynetta. She had amajor-league thing for Skyler Brown.L YNETTA: I think it's gross.BRYCE: He and Juli's brothers, Matt andMark, had formed a band. And Lynettawould watch them practice.MARK: That is so neat. How about that,huh, Bryce?BRYCE: Yeah. Neat.SKYLER: So, Brycie, how do you thinkhe's gonna digest that?BRYCE: Stomach acid?SKYLER: You'd like to think that. Wait,everybody quiet. Here he goes. [SHELLCRACKING] Eggs over easy.L YNETTA: Gross. Gross, gross, gross.SKYLER: Wait, wait. You haven't seen thebest part.L YNETTA: Ugh! Gross.BRYCE: I tried to be casual about it, but itdidn't take. I started having bad dreams.I'd be trapped inside a huge egg... and thismonster would open his jaws and start todevour me. I'd wake up just in time.[KNOCKING ON DOOR] Then the realnightmare began.JULI: Hi, Bryce. I brought these over foryou and your family. My chickens arelaying eggs.BRYCE: What?JULI: You remember Abby and Bonnieand Clyde and Dexter and Eunice andFlorence? The ones I hatched for thescience fair.BRYCE: How could I forget?BRYCE: It was classic Juli Baker. Shetotally dominated the fair. And get this, herproject was all about watching boring eggshatch. I mean, here I had a live-actionerupting volcano... and all anyone caredabout was Juli's boring chicks... breakingout of their boring shells.JULI: Oh, I think the last one's hatching.WOMAN 1: It's hatching.WOMAN 2: Oh, it's hatching.WOMAN 1: Kids, come over here.BRYCE: But hey, she won. I lost. I'venever been one to dwell.WOMAN 2: Here it comes.BRYCE: But that didn't mean I had to eather lousy eggs.PATSY: I think it was very sweet of Juli tobring us those eggs.BRYCE: I don't care. I'm still havingcereal tomorrow.STEVEN: Yeah, how do we know there'sno chicks in one of those eggs?CHET: I used to eat farm-fresh eggs whenI was a kid. They were delicious.STEVEN: Yeah, well, that's all well andgood... but what if we crack one open anda dead chick falls out?CHET: Do they have a rooster? If theydon't have a rooster the eggs can't befertile.4PATSY: And if they had a rooster, we'd know. The whole neighborhood would know.L YNETTA: Maybe they got it de-yodeled. STEVEN: "De-yodeled"?L YNETTA: You know. De-cock-a-doodle-doo'd.STEVEN: What the hell are you talking about?L YNETTA: Like they de-bark dogs. PATSY: Bryce, why don't you just ask Juli?BRYCE: I don't think that...L YNETTA: What? You afraid to talk to her?BRYCE: I'm not afraid to talk to her.L YNETTA: [MIMICS CHICKEN] BRYCE: I know you are, but what am I? STEVEN: Okay. Just talk to her and find out.Bryce: How do you tell if one's a rooster? GARRETT: Well, a rooster's bigger. Longer feathers.BRYCE: Mm-hm.GARRETT: They've got that red stuff growing out of their head. And around their neck too.BRYCE: That shouldn't be too hard to spot.GARRETT: Although, come to think of it, chickens have the rubbery red stuff too. Just not as much.BRYCE: Garrett's expertise in roosters... was the cornerstone of our plan to avoid contact with Juli Baker. The balance ofwhich involved spying over her backfence.BRYCE: Come on, come on. Shh. Shh.Over here.BRYCE: I can't see the stupid chickens.GARRETT: We gotta get them out of thecoop.[CLUCKING]BRYCE: Is that a rooster?GARRETT: No, it looks like a chicken.BRYCE: How can you tell?GARRETT: It just does.BRYCE: See what I mean? Expertise.BRYCE: Shh, shh!GARRETT: What?BRYCE: Juli.JULI: Here, guys. Go on, there you go.Here, guys. Go on.GARRETT: Yeah, they're all chickens.BRYCE: There's no rooster?GARRETT: What did I just say?BRYCE: How can you tell?GARRETT: Well, none of them arestrutting.JULI: Here, come on.BRYCE: Roosters strut?JULI: Come on, guys.GARRETT: What did I just say?JULI: Here.GARRETT: Plus, hardly any of them haveany rubbery red stuff.JULI: What are you doing?GARRETT: Yeah. They're definitely allchickens.BRYCE: They're all chickens.CHET: I'm proud of you, Bryce. Youovercame your fear.BRYCE: Huh?CHET:CHET: You talked to her.BRYCE: Oh, heh. Yeah. It's no big deal.STEVEN: That's what she told you?They're all chickens?BRYCE: Yeah.STEVEN: She's a genius. You're bothgenius... Of course they're all chickens. Arooster's a chicken. The question is: Is oneof them a rooster or are they all hens?BRYCE: Hens? Who said anything abouthens? Then it hit me. Garrett didn't knowjack shit about chickens.BRYCE: Do roosters strut?CHET: Yes, they do.STEVEN: What does that have to do withanything?BRYCE: They're all hens.PATSY: Well, the main thing is the eggsare okay. It's all settled.BRYCE: Not for me. There was no way Iwas ever gonna eat anything that hadanything to do with Juli Baker.BRYCE: I'm not eating them.PATSY: Well, why not?BRYCE: Have you seen their yard? It's...There's not even any grass. It's all mudand chicken turds.L YNETTA: Ew. Gross. Salmonella.PATSY: Do you suppose they could havesalmonella?CHET: It's not very likely.STEVEN: Why take the risk?PATSY: What do we do with the eggs?STEVEN: Give them back.BRYCE: Give them back? To Juli?STEVEN: Sure. You talked to her before,right? It didn't kill you.BRYCE: Well, what do I say?STEVEN: Tell her we don't eat eggs.Uh,we're allergic to them or something. Comeon, use your brains.BRYCE: It didn't feel right to lie. Besides,even a seventh grader would know thatentire families aren't allergic to eggs. But Ididn't wanna hurt her feelings either. Sothat left me with only one option. And thusanother near-death experience in myongoing saga with Juli Baker had beensuccessfully avoided. Until one week later.LULI: Hi, Bryce. Brought you some moreeggs.BRYCE: Wow. Thanks.JULI: Did your family like the first batch?BRYCE: Do you even have to ask?JULI: Great. See you at school.BRYCE: What I hoped would be aone-time event was just the beginning of alife consumed with lies, intrigue anddeception. Every morning I'd be on thelookout for Juli so if she happened tocome, I could whip the door open beforeshe knocked.5BRYCE: Thanks.BRYCE: Then I'd dump the eggs before anyone noticed. And why? Why couldn't I just face her? Why couldn't I just say:"No, thanks. Don't want them. Don't need them. Give them to the snake"? Was I really afraid of hurting her feelings or was I just afraid of her?SCENE 6RICHARD: Now, you wanna make sure you get it...JULI: When Mrs. Brubeck first suggested hatching eggs as my science project I was less than excited. That is, until I saw my first sign of life.TRINA: Is that it?RICHARD: That's the embryo. Heh. TRINA: Wow.JULI: It looks like a bean.TRINA: It does.JULI: Let's try the other ones.JULl: Suddenly it felt real. All the eggs were alive. There were, like, little bean babies inside every one. On the day of the fair,all six chicks hatched. What are the odds? TEACHER: This year's top prize goes to Juli Baker for her wonderful project: "A Chicken is Born."JULI: I won first place. And that was cool, but all I really cared about were my chicks.JULI: There you go. There you go, guys. JULI: My mom wasn't crazy about us raising chickens. But I begged and pleaded.I told her I would take care of everything.And I did.JULI: Where's Clyde? Clyde? Hey, Clyde.What's the matter? Are you okay? Aren'tyou hungry? Come on. Come here. What'swrong, baby? Come here. Hey, you're notClyde. You're Clydette. Mom!JULl: As it turned out, my hens laid moreeggs than we could eat. At first we tried tokeep up, but after a month of boiling,frying and deviling like that movie TheBlob, we were being overtaken by eggs.Then opportunity in the form of ourneighbor, Mrs. Steuby, knocked.STEUBY: Hello, dear. If you ever haveany extra, I'd be happy to buy them fromyou.JULI: Really?STEUBY: Certainly. And I happen toknow that Mrs. Helms would be interestedas well.JULI: Great.STEUBY: Nothing like fresh eggs.JULI: Thanks, Mrs. Steuby.STEUBY: You bet, dear. Bye.JULI: Between Mrs. Steuby and Mrs.Helms, my egg overflow problem wassolved. Then I realized that Mrs. Loskideserved eggs too. But I didn't think itwould be right to charge her. She had beensuch a good neighbor, lending us supplieswhen we ran out, giving my mother a ridewhen our car wouldn't start, it was theleast I could do. Besides, if I happened torun into Bryce, that wouldn't be the end ofthe world.JULI: Hi, Bryce.JULI: By the third time I brought eggsover to the Loskis I realized Bryce waswaiting for me. Waiting to pull open thedoor and say, "Thanks, Juli. See you atschool." And in return, I got a fewmoments alone with the world's mostdazzling eyes.BRYCE: Thanks, Juli. See you at school.JULI: It was a bargain. Until the day itwasn't. It was two weeks after thesycamore tree was cut down and I was juststarting to feel normal again.BRYCE: Hey, Juli. Right on schedule.JULI: Yeah, well, neither rain nor sleet.BRYCE: Huh?JULI: You know, the mailman thing?BRYCE: Oh. Right. So, um, will you startriding the bus again?JULI: I don't know. I haven't been up theresince...BRYCE: It doesn't look so bad anymore.It's all cleared away. Well, um, I better getready for school. Guess I'll see you there.JULI: See you.JULI: Maybe Bryce was right. Maybe itwas time I started riding the bus again.After all, didn't he just tell me he wantedme to? Could it be that Bryce Loskiactually misses me?[DOOR OPENS]BRYCE: Juli? What are you still doinghere?JULI: I was just thinking.BRYCE: It's pickup day. The cans are infront.JULI: I know. You need some help?BRYCE: No. Maybe I'll do it later.JULI: Are those my eggs?BRYCE: Yeah. Yeah, I dropped them.JULI: They're not broken. Why are youthrowing them away? Don't you wantthem?BRYCE: It wasn't me. My dad didn't thinkit was worth the risk.JULI: Risk? What risk?BRYCE: Salmonella.JULI: What are you talking about? He'safraid of being poisoned?BRYCE: Well, Juli, I mean, look at yourback yard. It's a complete mess. It's likecovered in turds.JULI: That's not true. I clean up after mygirls every day.BRYCE: We just didn't wanna hurt yourfeelings.JULI: Have you always thrown them away?You know, Mrs. Steuby and Mrs. Helmspay me for my eggs.BRYCE: They do?JULI: They pay me 60 cents a dozen.BRYCE: I didn't know.JULI: How could you?BRYCE: I'm sorry.JULI: No, you're not.6。
