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The Stilt Girls of Manhattan By Emma Dries and Kate Dries with assistance from Ann Derry
Cast of Characters:
Ann Derry -- mother and narrator
Emma Dries -- Jennifer
Kate Dries -- Regina
Jennifer:
Bye bye daddy. See you when you get back.
Narrator:
The Roberts family was sitting in the living
room. Their father was leaving for Europe.
Mother:
Now girls, be good while I take your father
to the airport, ok?
Girls:
Okay! Bye daddy and mommy. See you later.
The girls kiss their parents goodbye and the parents leave.
Narrator:
When the mother was coming back from the airport,
a snowstorm began. The car slipped on ice, and crashed.
Policemen came and the accident was on the news.
The mother went to the hospital.
Jen:
Waaaa!
Regina:
Don't worry we can take care of ourselves.
Narrator:
The girls decided to clean the house so it
would look nice when the mother got home. They washed
the dishes, folded the laundry and made their beds.
The girls decided that the only way they could visit
their mother was on stilts, because the snow was so
high that it covered the first floor of every building
and there was no other way to visit. From then on they
traveled outside only on stilts during the storm and
called themselves "the stilt girls of Manhattan."
One day Jen went to go visit her mother in the hospital
by herself (Regina's stilts were broken and she had
to get new ones) when she found an abandoned puppy.
He had a broken paw.
Jen:
Oh he's so cute and he's lost in a snow storm.
Narrator:
Jen put the puppy into her backpack with
the thermos of hot soup she was bringing to her
mother. She found her mother in a room with curtains
for a door. As she was taking the soup out of her
backpack, the dog escaped.
Mother:
How did that dog get into your backpack Jen?
Jen:
I found him on the street when I was coming to
visit you and since the hospital doesn't allow dogs
I put him in my backpack.
Narrator:
Jen gave her mother the soup and took the
dog home. She showed him to Regina and they fed the
dog some food and gave it a bed.
Regina:
Let's name him Daffodil.
Jen:
Ew! I think we should name him Lucky.
Regina:
Well, you did find him. OK, we'll name
him Lucky. I like that name, too.
Narrator:
It snowed and snowed, and soon the snow
was all the way up to the top of the second floor.
People were trapped in their apartments and lofts.
They were getting hungry.
If our neighbors don't get food soon, they'll get sick,
they might even die!
Regina:
Not to worry. What do we have that nobody else
in the neighborhood has?
Jen:
Uh, a Nordic trac?
Regina:
No, silly, stilts. We're the only people who
can get through the snow. We're the ones who have
to bring people food.
Narrator:
And so they did. All through the day and
into the night they brought food to their grateful
and hungry neighbors. But when they came to the
Queen's Palace, they couldn't reach the top floor
because it was too tall. So they worked days and
days on it, they tried to make a stilt that was
very long...That was plan A.
Jen:
Let's try making the stilt out of a spare
ladder of Fred's.
Regina:
OK, let's call him.
Jen:
Or maybe we could just connect the stilts
with the ladder.
Narrator:
Fred let the girls use the ladder, but
it didn't work. The whole thing broke down.
Luckily, they landed in the soft snow. Next,
they tried plan B.
Jen:
I have an idea. You know that wire phone
we made out of tin cans?
Regina:
Yeah, what about it?
Jen:
Let's stand on the building next to them and
throw the phone up. Then we can tell them the plan.
Regina:
What's the plan?
Jen:
The people on the top will toss down a long rope
and we'll climb up and give them some food.
Narrator:
That was plan B, but, sadly enough,
it didn't work either. They fell into the soft snow...
again. After they recuperated over a cup of hot cocoa,
Jen had her best idea yet.
Jen:
Plan C is coming right up. We'll hand a big pack
of metal up to the first floor. The first floor hands
the metal to the second floor, the second floor to
the third floor, and so on. When the people on top
get the metal, they make a long metal ladder and hand
it down to us. We climb up and give them food.
Regina:
Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?
Narrator:
So that's what the girls did. And it
worked. And all the people in the Queens Palace
were saved!
The next morning, the storm all died down. The mother
was feeling better, the father came back, and they
all lived happily ever after.
The End
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