Int. Montessori preschool.****
Logan: Put away your goddam childish things and listen up, thumb-suckers! What’s that hellacious racket?
Gerri: Shazaming it . . . Dan Zanes, “Father Goose.”
Logan: Is Raffi not good enough for you callow fucking philistines? It’s no secret that I’m retiring from preschool. Which of you short-pantsed mama’s boys thinks he can step into my size-4 Crocs?
Kendall: Respectfully, I have three years of day care under my belt, I’m intimately familiar with our Lego and Lincoln Log operations, I can finger-paint like . . . like fucking Picasso—
Roman: I think what my bed-wetting brother is trying to say is that I would clearly make the best leader, owing to my impeccable motor skills.
Logan: Roman, do me a teeny-tiny favor? Stick a fucking pacifier in your drooling piehole.
Siobhan: Aren’t you overlooking someone with, say, pigtails, a constantly runny nose, and a backless onesie?
Logan: Siobhan, you don’t want this. Dealing with that ballbuster Miss Claudia at check-in, sweeping the room for tree nuts, staying up till seven, eight at night learning numbers . . . It’s like a bad skinned knee, sweetheart. Like a bad fucking skinned knee.
Siobhan: Don’t you think I can decide for myself? And what are numbers?
Logan: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. That’s all of ’em.
Cousin Greg: Sir, if I may be so bold as to not necessarily “pitch” you, but perhaps make babbling sounds—
Logan: For fuck’s sake, Greg, go get changed. You smell like a Diaper Genie in a Soviet orphanage.
Cousin Greg: Of course—I can’t smell myself, so thank you for alerting me to my, uh, olfactory affront. (He exits, stumbles and falls twice.)
Logan: Jesus H. Christ, what is he, four foot fucking eight? Is this a preschool or an Old MacDonald’s farm for feckless, stammering Sasquatches?
(Opening credits, scored to xylophone.)
Ext. Waystar Royco-sponsored playground.
Kendall: Who do you think the old boy’s gonna pick?
Roman: He’s looking for a comer who sleeps with two night-lights and has the social-emotional skills and testicular volume of a newborn, so I’d say you’re a lock.
Siobhan: Word around the sandbox is it’s Connor.
Kendall: No, our half brother’s been out all year with a sore throat. School board would shit their “Frozen II” underpants.
Roman: Is a half brother the same thing as a cousin?
Cousin Greg: If that’s the case, then by the reverse logic—if it, uh, pleases the court—it would, ipso facto, mean that I might be referred to as “Half Brother Greg,” not “Cousin”—
Roman: Shut the fuck up, Greg, before we throw you off the jungle gym.
Cousin Greg: Might I suggest a less physically painful—but still psychically wounding—schoolyard humiliation involving a wedgie?
Int. hallway. Logan walks with Hugo.
Logan: Get me a ring-around-the-rosy with the recess committee! (He clutches his stomach.)
Hugo: What’s wrong?
Logan: I’m fine, just a tummy ouchie. We’ll fucking duck-duck-goose ’em. We’ll go full . . . fucking . . . duck-duck-goose!
Int. art room. Tom tentatively approaches Siobhan with a construction-paper heart.
Tom: I made this for you.
Siobhan: Tom, that’s so . . . sweet.
Tom: Did you . . . make one for me?
Siobhan: Oh, honey, you know I’ve been swamped looking for glue sticks that aren’t dried up—
Tom: I get it. I was thinking, with the D.O.E. on our ass for the cubby-room scandal, we need a fall guy. Maybe I should take the hit and go to public school.
Siobhan: No! Public school ? With the free lunches and the critical race theory? You wouldn’t last a day. (Beat) Hmm . . . it is kind of Baby Einstein.
Tom: Ulp. Could I at least first move to Scarsdale?
Siobhan: Bad optics.
Tom: Montclair? (She grimaces. He sobs uncontrollably.)
Int. limo-bus.
Logan: I’ve chosen Connor. He has maturity, killer instincts, and he knows most of the alphabet. I don’t want anyone leaking this to the parent Listserve—not word fucking one!—or no more Go-Gurt privileges. (He exits.)
Siobhan: Bastard. I’ve been learning my ABCs, too.
Roman: Oh, really, Shiv? Is that what you’re doing every afternoon? You’re not just passing out on the nap rug with a juice box in your mouth?
Siobhan: Fuck off, Rome. Aren’t there some worms you should be eating?
(Kendall gobbles a box of raisins.)
Roman: Whoa, buddy, that’s an intense fructose rush there. Why don’t we try a nice sippy cup of the old H2O?
Kendall: Hey, buddy? Thanks for the concern, but I can handle my sugar.
(He tries to stare solemnly out the bus window, but he’s too short.) ♦
