A REASON TO BELIEVE
INT. LUXURY TRAVEL BUS – DAY
OVER BLACK
JUANITA (V.O.)
Thirteen hours into the trip…my butt got more sleep than I did.
Three teenage girls are blinking the sleep from their eyes. JUANITA, average-sized with brown hair and eyes, has her face pressed against the window. CLAIRE, blonde and slight, is sitting next to Juanita with her feet up on the chair, bundled in blankets. REBECCA, thin with a bob of brown hair, is stretched across the two chairs behind Claire and Juanita. The band students around them mumble along with the hum of the bus.
CLAIRE
Where are we?
REBECCA (reading a street sign)
Ohio…
JUANITA
Uggh. We’re so far from D.C.
CLAIRE
I guess all the older band kids were right about these trips. The busses are horrible. I swear I didn’t sleep for a second.
REBECCA
Yeah, but D.C. will be awesome, being in the Independence Day parade and all.
The friends are quiet for a moment, and then the bus gives a sharp lurch and swerves off the road. The bus fills with the shrieks and screams of profanities. The bus hits an old telephone pole, and immediately the kids and chaperones run out.
EXT. Middle of nowhere- Day
REBECCA
Oh my God…
BUS DRIVER BOB is a rugged, old southern man. He steps forward to defend himself.
BUS DRIVER BOB
A damned deer ran right into the road! We woulda crashed either way.
CLAIRE
Does anybody have any cell service?
JUANITA
Nope. We’re in Nowhere, Ohio. I doubt anybody does.
CLAIRE
Why did the bus driver have to swerve off the road? I’m pretty sure a deer wouldn’t have done much to us.
REBECCA
I don’t think he’s the brightest bulb in the tanning bed…
JUANITA
Yeah, you know, because only the most intelligent people swerve themselves and 50 kids into the line of danger to avoid hitting an animal when they’re in a bus about 50 times the size and strength of it.
Over the noise of the students, CHAPERONE 1, a tall, graying man, calls out orders.
CHAPERONE 1
Listen up, guys. We don’t have a signal out here, so we’re just going to have to stay here a little while until we figure things out. Stay with the group- do NOT wander off.
JUANITA
Corn, corn, corn, corn…Oh look! There is a tree!
CLAIRE
Not really…There are no trees out here. This corn sure looks good though.
REBECCA
YOU ARE READING
A Reason to Believe: A Comedy Script
HumorA bus full of band geeks crashes in the middle of an Ohio corn field on their way to Washington D.C. But as they await help, kids start disappearing! It's up to Juanita, Claire, and Rebecca to discover what is happening to their fellow band-mates...
