Scene 3
Same scene. INSPECTOR walks to the door and opens it with trepidation.
INSPECTOR: Why, hello, Roy-boy! (relieved) How was your stroll in the woods? Did you find any magical mushrooms or poppets or skunks, Roy? (smiling forcibly).
BOY: (looking right at SHORE's chest) Do you have the woods in you?
SHORE: Well, little sir (looking up at MARTIN and INSPECTOR) I…don't know…what…you mean by that.
BOY: (walks up to MARTIN, squats down and sniffs MARTIN's black shoes ) Do you, Mister? Do you?
MARTIN: uhmm…Inspector?
INSPECTOR: Now, Roy…what did we say about all the horsey business?
BOY: (slowly, with care, to all three of the men) Once I began slowly in the woods the noises start to cut you open. It begins…it begins in the bottoms of your feet. You think that's easy enough, but it spills up into your ankles, cuts through the marrow in the bones of your legs and hollows you out like a trunk. Like the trunk of a tree, no matter what your size. I know my size, and for that noise it doesn't matter. I've seen boys bigger than you three get emptied out from the noise. The trick is…the trick is to capture the noise. A wasp in a cup. A dime in a capsule. A grape in your mouth. That is the trick. Like the song about the mosquitoes in the belly of the cow. There is a trapdoor here. I could smell the rope from the trapdoor all the way out in the woods. Perhaps, Inspector…
(the BOY drops to the floor and begins smelling the floorboards; he comes over and smells the floor by the INSPECTOR's feet; he gets a shiver, stands up, and begins humming a little tune)
INSPECTOR: (startled) Well, the boy has spoken, lads.
SHORE: I think this has gone far enough, Inspector.
MARTIN: We've searched half the morning—I think it's time for you to leave now.
INSPECTOR: Gentleman, this is just it. This is just the beginning. (laughing loudly, he stands up and with the BOYas if on cue begins to push the couch back. There is a rug and they roll it out of the way)
MARTIN: Inspector…?
SHORE: That's enough, sir. (Nervously) Doctor…that's enough.
INSPECTOR: Ah ha! (INSPECTOR finds a little handle and pulls it up with his pinky finger) Step aside, gentleman. Step aside, I say.
The BOY runs out as the INSPECTOR pulls up the trapdoor and SHORE and MARTIN and the INSPECTOR look in the crawlspace. Fade to Black.
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