NERD WARS by Colby King

ROUGH DRAFT 11/26/11

FADE IN: INT. RIVERTON MIDDLE SCHOOL CAFETERIA. AFTERNOON. We pan in on a table of a few kids. They are sitting in the middle of the lunch room, the two tables on both of their sides empty. They are total rejects. The kids in no particular order: LUKE PEARSON, 14, short brown hair, average build. NICK YAMAHA, 15, the smart asian kid, also the oldest. BRIANNA PARKER, 14, a nerdy young girl, hair put into a ponytail, small circle glasses. Lastly, SARAH SMALLS, 14, the hottest and least nerdy of the group. She is actually a cheerleader, and is actually very popular. LUKE We have approximately 5 and a half weeks until the bee. If we begin to brainstorm story ideas now, we could probably pick one good idea and finish the essay in time. Brianna and Nick look down at their lunch trays, eating and ignoring Luke. Sarah is staring at someone. Luke looks over in her direction. POV SARAH: Its JOHNNY LARKSON, 15, average jock. We see him through Sarahs eyes. The light is bright and the air around him glistens like he is an angel sent from heaven above. He looks up at her. BACK TO SCENE. SARAH Ohh... Brianna and Nick look up as well to see what Sarah is looking at. Sarah looks over at them, snapping out of her comma. There is an awkward silence. LUKE Well, I was just saying that-SARAH (LOOKING BACK OVER AT JOHNNY) I... heard you. You said we have about 5 weeks to do the essay. Yeah I know. I started mine a few days ago. Its about competitive parenting within society and how some moms spoil their kids to come (MORE) (CONTINUED)

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SARAH (contd) off with a better image of themselves to other moms. Its so.... hot. Sarah has almost all of her attention focused on Johnny. LUKE Well thats nice, I started mine a few days ago too. And, Sarah Im over here. Sarah looks over, half shocked at Lukes tone. SARAH Im... done with lunch. Im gonna go to the gym. Bye guys well talk later. Sarah gets up and looks back over at Johnny once more, then walks away. Luke sighs and puts his head down. NICK Youre never going to get her, you know that. BRIANNA Yeah, you have a better chance with me Luke. Luke and Nick both look up at Brianna, who looks up at them from her food. BRIANNA What, I was joking. LUKE I dont like her. Im just upset that we havent started our article yet. NICK Thats crap, and you know it. Suddenly, Nick is struck in the face by a spoonful of mashed potatoes. We look over at the table of jocks to see one of them, fork still in hand, and all the others laughing their heads off. Luke and Brianna cant help but to laugh too. LUKE What exactly were you saying?

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Nick spits some of the potatoes onto Lukes face. Luke gets up to leave. As Nick starts to wipe the potatoes off of his face, we can see that Brianna is throwing chicken nuggets back at the jocks. CUE CREDITS. EXT. RIVERTON MIDDLE SCHOOL. AFTERNOON. School has just been dismissed and we see our group of nerds walking around in the commons area in front of the school. No one is talking, but everyone looks like they have something to say. Sarah is looking in the opposite direction, probably at Johnny. Luke clears his throat real loud. Sarah doesnt budge. He clears his throat even louder. Brianna gets out a tissue. BRIANNA Bless you. Luke slaps the tissue away and reaches into his bag, pulling out a stapled essay. He hands it to Sarah who screams when the paper touches her arm. SARAH Whats this? (Break). Oh, its-LUKE My article, I finished it in the library. Sarah reads the article. Luke watches happily as she flips through the pages, obviously interested. Suddenly, she begins to wheeze. SARAH (UN-CLEARLY) Asthma. Asthma! Sarah is spazzing out and her friends are standing around. NICK Damn it dude your essays killing her. BRIANNA (SCREAMING) SOMEBODY CALL THE NURSE!

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LUKE Calm down! Luke drops to his knees and begins to pick Sarah up when someone pushes him out of the way. He looks up. Its Johnny and his friends. JOHNNY Shes having an asthma attack! She needs to sit up! Johnny sits Sarah up and his friends help her stay propped up. While this is happening, Luke gets pushed out of view from Sarah. Pissed off and clearly sad, Luke walks to his bus alone, dropping his article on the ground. We look back over at the crowd and see that Johnny and his friends have given Sarah and inhaler. Nick walks up to Johnny. NICK Is there anything I can do? JOHNNY Yeah. (Break.) Go the hell away. CUT TO: INT. LUKES BEDROOM. NIGHT Luke is blasting music and is laying up right on his bed throwing a plush basketball up in the air. Someone knocks on his door. LUKE Piss off. NICK Its me. LUKE Come in. Nick walks in slowly. Hes holding Lukes essay in his hand. NICK This is good. LUKE Okay.

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NICK No, this is very good. LUKE Why are you here? NICK I just wanted to give this back to you. Sorry I read it then. LUKE Its fine just put it on the desk. Nick stands around. Luke looks over and snaps him a glare. LUKE What? NICK Nothing. Hey I want to ask you something. LUKE (FOCUSED ON THE PLUSH BALL) Something like what? Nick grabs a chair and sits down. NICK Do you like Sarah? Luke drops the ball. He looks over at Nick. LUKE What?! No! Why do you think that? Nick holds up the essay and flips it over. On the back of it is a whole page full of hearts and smiley faces with Sarah" in the middle of the page. Luke picks up the ball and starts to toss it up again, embarrassed as hell. LUKE So I kinda barely like her. Why does that matter? She likes the fag Johnny. NICK How do you know? LUKE Open your eyes bro, shes always staring at him any chance she gets. She isnt even focused on the essay (MORE) (CONTINUED)

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LUKE (contd) bee anymore all she cares about is Johnny, Johnny, Johnny! Luke throws the ball, and it smacks a picture on his wall. The picture falls down and we see a school photo of Sarah hanging on his wall. Nick looks at Luke. NICK Well, I think if you talked to her just-As Nick says this we hear a car horn honk O.S. NICK Oh well I gotta go dude. Ill talk to you tomorrow, okay? Nick leaves and Luke continues to throw his ball up in the air. CUT TO: INT. AUDITORIUM. AFTERNOON. The group of nerds is practicing their performance for the Essay Bee. Brianna is reading her essay on the stage when another group of people walks onto the stage. CLOSE ON: Its another group of nerds. They are all wearing matching white and gray hoodies, paired with matching shoes and shorts. They walk on the stage in slow motion, not even looking directly at our group of nerds, just around the gym. They stop just in front of Brianna who looks at them with wide, terrified eyes. One of the five members, HAROLD PALMER, 14, (big nerd, glasses, neatly side-brushed hair), begins to speak. HAROLD Why, hello. We are The Huskies. We just came by to look at our... only competition for the Essay Bee. He studies the group pettily. HAROLD Hmm... seems easy. Luke rolls his eyes and gets up on stage.

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CONTINUED: LUKE Where are you guys from? Weve never had much competition ever before. The Huskies giggle in sync with one another. HAROLD We just moved here a few days ago. Quite and interesting school district if you ask me. SARAH Are you all related? HAROLD No. NICK Then how did you all move together?

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Sarah and Nick jump on stage to join Luke and Brianna. An awkward but angry tension begins to build. HAROLD Our parents all have closely knit relationships. It was of best interest that we all moved out of our horribly retarded district from the past. It seems as though we might have to do so again soon, by the looks of this school... BRIANNA You think youre big stuff, dont you? Well you arent gonna beat us in the Essay Bee, we are first place champs for four years in a row! So hmm! Harold claps his hands together. He begins to circle the teens, and his group of huskies follows him shortly thereafter. HAROLD Very interesting. Because you see, me and my huskies over here have been participating in various bees over the last 6 years, as a group. Weve won every single bee, first place, every consecutive year in a row. That includes Spelling Bees, Geography Bees, Math Bees... and most importantly Essay Bees. (CONTINUED)

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Luke tightens his fist. SARAH Your cockiness will get you no where this year. NICK Yeah, and with those attitudes I would kiss your sorry asses and that first place trophy goodbye. Another member from The Huskies pipes up. She pushes her way through the group and comes out to the front. Its SIERRA PHILLIPS, 14, VERY SHORT GIRL. BLACK HAIR TIED IN TWO PONY TAILS. Luke, Sarah, Nick and Brianna cant help but to "aw" and her. But then she speaks. SIERRA Enough of the small talk, assholes. We never lose. You guys are going down, period. Huskies out. The Huskies get into a formed group and begin to walk away. As they do, Sierra turns around and runs up to Nick and kicks him RIGHT IN THE BALLS. He falls down immediately and Sierra rejoins the group. CLOSE UP: SARAH SARAH That bitch. Lets go we have some work to do. The three leave Nick to stay on the stage in pain. As Luke and Sarah exit the auditorium, Brianna goes back to help Nick up. SMASH CUT TO: INT. CLASSROOM. DAY Our group of nerds is inside an empty classroom. There is writing on the whiteboard. INSERT: WHITEBOARD Members. Catchy group name. Essay concept.

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Sarah is standing in front of the whiteboard holding a plastic chicken as an item to point to the board with. SARAH This is the plan. Sarah smacks the chicken onto the board. The head flies off of the body and it smacks Nick right in the face. He falls out of his chair. SARAH Oh god Im so sorry Nick. NICK Its fine, its fine. Am I fine? Nick looks up. His eye is bruised blue and is bleeding slightly. The group nods a semi-realistic "yes". Sarah goes back to the board. SARAH Alright. We have three things to do in the next 4 weeks so that we can bring these rabid huskies down. Step one. Get to know all of the members. Im assigning Brianna and Nick to this job. You guys need to spy on all of the members. Get to know their names, and a little bit about each of their personalities. Step two. Catchy group name. Im leaving that to you, Luke. You have five minutes to think of something. LUKE Five? SARAH Oh youre right thats too many. Three minutes. Go. I have faith in you to make a good name, dont worry. Shocked, Luke cant help but to smile a little. SARAH Step three. We need to figure out what their essay concept is in order to all together bring them down as a group if the first two steps fail.

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NICK How are you gonna do that? SARAH My neighbor is a computer whiz. I will figure out their essay concept and have him hack their website the day before the bee and have him put up a notice that their idea is no longer allowed. They will never know what hit them and the last day of before the bee they will have nothing to present and be forced to forfit. Luke, do you have a catchy group name thought up? LUKE I got The Bulldogs, the-SARAH Bulldogs it is. Now, do you guys have all of the other stuff written down? ANGLE ON THE GROUP. Brianna and Nick stare lost at the camera, and Luke is still smiling a bit. LUKE You... have faith in me? Sarah groans. MONTAGE. 1.) We see The Huskies sitting at their lunch table. We pan down the group and get to the end of the table to see Brianna sitting next to Seirra. She is slouched down low. Seirra is completely oblivious and is having what seems like an interesting conversation with her friends. Brianna sits back and looks down the row of kids. We ANGLE ON Nick, sitting at the end of the row. He sits back and gives Brianna the thumbs up. They are getting tons of information from the group. 2.) We are in Lukes bedroom as he messes around with logos on his computer. Hes making custom sweatshirts with The Bulldogs and matching logos on them. 3.) We are in math class. Harold is sitting in front of Sarah. He is looking straight ahead and Sarah is studying his bag. She needs to get inside it. She looks around. Suddenly, she gets up as if to go to the front of the room, but turns around "changing" her mind and elbows Harold smack (CONTINUED)

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in the nose. He falls to the ground. While everyone else rushes to Harolds side, we see Sarah reach around in his bag and after a few seconds gets the essay. She hides it in her binder. END MONTAGE. INT. CLASSROOM. DAY The Bulldogs are gathered in the same classroom as earlier. They are all eager to reveal everything they have done from the day, and are all talking at the same time. Suddenly, the door handle begins to shake. Everyones eyes dart straight to the door. Immediately the group runs around. Sarah shoves The Huskies essay in a folder, Brianna folds up her paper about The Huskies and puts it in her pocket, ala Nick who crumbles his and puts it in his mouth. Luke, having nothing to do, stands by the door. LUKE Hold on! He looks back at his friends. They are all lined up, smiling, except Nick who cant even open his mouth. Luke opens the door. The Huskies walk in... Harold is standing in the front, Sierra just behind him, with the rest following. HAROLD Hi guys. Despite our, earlier welcoming, on behalf of all of The Huskies, wed like to properly introduce ourselves politely. We have rented out a building and we are throwing a small dinner party. Wed love if you guys could join us. The Bulldogs are shocked. HAROLD Im sorry to sound so sudden-LUKE No, no. Youre fine. We will be there. Sarah kicks Luke. He doesnt look back. HAROLD Wonderful. He hands Luke a paper.

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HAROLD Here are the directions. Party starts at six. See you guys there. Harold turns around and begins to leave. Sierra stands still. She has a sad look on her face. She steps closer to the camera. SIERRA Im really sorry about everything I said today. I really hope we can all be friends, and no matter who wins the trophy, were all winners in the end. We pan across the members of The Bulldogs. Luke, Sarah, and Brianna arent convinced. Nick is frowning, suckered by the story. The Huskies walk out of the room. Luke runs and closes the door behind them. He spins around. LUKE Bullshit? SARAH Bullshit. NICK Bullshit??? LUKE BULLSHIT. BRIANNA What are we gonna do? LUKE I think we have to go to the dinner... Sarah spins right around towards Luke. SARAH Really? You really want to go? LUKE I honestly think they are trying to be nice. NICK (HALF CRYING) Yeah, me too... BULLSHIT. SARAH

(CONTINUED)

CONTINUED: SARAH Wow, whatever... Ill go if you guys go. But Im telling you right now they are not doing this for us.

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SMASH CUT: INT. RESTAURANT. NIGHT Everyone is spread out, sitting at a long table. There is no food on anyones plate yet, but the plates, silverware, napkins, etc., are all set up neatly. Everyone is talking quietly amongst themselves. A MAN enters the room, bringing out a cart with multiple dishes that are enclosed with cases. He stops the cart short at the end of the table where The Bulldogs are sitting. Its extremely silent. The man stares at the kids for a few seconds, then begins to speak. MAN Tonights main course... He lifts one of the casings revealing: A HAPPY MEAL. The nerds cheer in excitement. CUT TO: INT. RESTAURANT. NIGHT. 30 MINUTES LATER Everyone is stuffed. Those Happy Meals sure did hit the spot. Groaning, the kids are wiping their mouths and the man is picking up the trash. HAROLD Luke, would you mind putting on some music? Luke nods and gets up, walking to the stereo system in the corner. He flips on the switch and begins to browse through the stations. He finds one and promptly shouts in excitement. SONG UP: DROP IT LOW - ESTER DEAN Luke blares the stereo system. He starts to dance along with the music. Everyone at the table watches in awe, no one moving, not even the man picking up the trash. Luke realizes he is alone in his break out. He begins to scan the stations again, he stops on a song. SONG UP: MARVIN & CHARDONNAY - BIG SEAN Everyone in the room begins to dance in their seats. (CONTINUED)

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CUT TO: EXT. RESTAURANT. NIGHT. Dinners over and everyone is going home. Luke and Sarah are walking together on the sidewalk. LUKE See, they were just being nice. They knew that they came off a little mean. SARAH Yeah, I guess... Hey guess what? LUKE What? Sarah stops and Luke looks over at her. They are both facing each other. Luke is getting nervous. SARAH Guess! LUKE Aww just tell me! SARAH Only 3 weeks! LUKE Oh yeah! I totally forgot! You know we should probably get to work on our-Before Luke can finish, Sarah takes his hand and moves in closer to him. The both look each other in the eyes. Their faces move closer... and closer. Just as their lips are about to touch, SARAH THROWS UP ALL OVER LUKES SHIRT! She blushes immediately. Luke is in total shock. SARAH (TALKING WITH PUKE IN HER MOUTH) Oh my GOD! Im so sorry!!! Luke strips his outer shirt off, luckily he had a plain tee on under. LUKE Its fine... My mom is here I think... I gotta go. Cya later.

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CUT TO: INT. LUKES BEDROOM. NIGHT. Luke is sound asleep. We pan in as we hear a quiet noise thats progressively getting louder. Its his stomach. Its growling very loud. Luke sits up very straight. Hes gonna get sick. INT. BATHROOM. NIGHT Luke is throwing up. His phone starts to go off in his pocket. He answers and puts it on speaker. INT. BATHROOM/INT. SARAHS BATHROOM. Split screen with Sarah and Luke on the phone. SARAH Were sick. Lukes phone beeps. LUKE Hold on, Nicks calling. Luke clicks a button on the phone. NICK Were sick... SARAH We know! NICK It was those goddamn bulldogs... SARAH They poisoned our Happy Meals! LUKE You know what, I gotta go I have an idea. Dont go into the lunch room tomorrow I have a surprise. Sarah is throwing up in her split screen then comes back up. LUKE We know! LUKE Were sick.

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SARAH What is it? LUKE Cant-Luke throws up. LUKE Say. Youll see. Gotta go. All three hang up. INT. HALLWAY. DAY Luke is waiting outside of the lunchroom doors with a bag. He is wearing a sweatshirt that has "The Huskies Fight Back" on it. Sarah, Nick and Brianna walk up to Luke. SARAH Whats going on? Luke gets 3 more sweatshirts out of the bag. He also pulls out a container with something white colored in it. LUKE Put these on! BRIANNA Why? LUKE Hurry! SARAH Whats in the container. She reaches out to grab it but Luke pulls it back. LUKE Oh youll see. INT. CAFETERIA. DAY. Slow motion. Were angled on the door when The Huskies walk in. The scene is perfect. All eyes are on them as they walk up to the lunch room doors. We cut to The Bulldogs table. The Huskies walk up.

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HAROLD (PISSED) So... how did you like those Happy Meals? LUKE They were pretty good. They did upset my stomach a bit though. Luke unscrews the cap on the container he had. He pour the contents all over Harolds head. It was a container of Lukes puke. The others at the table instantly begin to gag at the smell. Harold himself begins to throw up himself, Luke stepping out of the way just in time. The Huskies are cracking up, then begin to walk away. This officially declares war between the two groups of nerds.