Girls

ANNE OF GREEN GABLESFrom the book, young Anne talking to herself in her bedroom mirror.

ANNE: Now I’m going to imagine things into this room so that they’ll always stay imagined.  This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken cushions, pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it.  I can see my reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall.  I am tall and regal, clad in a gown or trailing white lace, with a pearl cross on my breast and pearls in my hair.  My name is Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald.  No, it isn’t - I can’t make that seem real.
 You’re only Anne of Green Gables, and I see you, just as you are looking now, whenever I try to imagine I’m the Lady Cordelia.  But it’s a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular, isn’t it?

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST
Elnora

Girl, Ages 12 to 14

Oh Uncle Wesley, why didn’t you tell me? You should have seen me among them at that school. I was a picture! They’ll never forget me. No, they won’t get a chance, for they’ll see the same things tomorrow, if I can go back. And if I don’t go back, all of them will know it’s not because of my clothes. They will know it’s because I am so poor I can’t buy my books. It’s books and tuition. Over twenty dollars in all. Oh, how can I get it, Uncle Wesley?

No. I wouldn’t touch a penny from you, unless I really could earn it. Hand me money because you find me crying for it! I owe you and Aunt Margaret for all the home life and love I’ve ever known, and I’ll not take your money. I’m going home, and I’ll try mother for the money. It’s just possible I could find second-hand books, and perhaps all the tuition need not be paid at once. Maybe they would accept it quarterly. But, oh, Uncle Wesley, you and Aunt Margaret, you keep on loving me.

 

THE LION, THE WITCH, & THE WARDROBE

LUCY

Girl, Age 6 to 10

　
It’s all right. It’s all right. I’ve come back. Why, haven’t you all been wondering where I was? I’ve been away for hours and hours. It was just after breakfast when I went into the wardrobe, and I’ve been away for hours, and had tea, and all sorts of things have happened. No, Peter. I’m not just making up a story for fun. I was in the wardrobe. It’s - it’s a magic wardrobe. There’s a wood inside it, and it’s snowing , and there’s a Faun and a Witch and it’s called Narnia; come and see. There! Go in and see for yourselves. But - but where has it all gone? No. It wasn’t a hoax, I promise. Really and truly. It was all different a moment ago. Honestly it was.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Girl, age 14 to 16

Lydia has runaway with Mr Wickham. She believes they’re going to get married and hasn’t thought at all about how her choices will negatively affect her family or her friend Harriet Forster. 

Dear Harriet,

You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater when I write to them, and sign my name Lydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before the are packed up. Goodbye. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our good journey.

Your Affectionate Friend,

Lydia Bennet

UMBRELLA

Girl, age 11 to 14

An umbrella is a stupid thing to get in a fight with your mom over. But she wanted me to get the same ruffled pink umbrella I’ve had since I was three. I don’t feel like a ruffled pink umbrella kind of person anymore, you know? I wanted this art print umbrella I’d found at the museum gift shop. It was the kind of umbrella that made me wish for rainy days. It was perfect, but my mom said ‘no.’ She didn’t just say ‘no;’ she actually told me the pink one matched my style better. Like I have no idea what my style is. Like that’s something she can decide for me. And while I stood there trying to explain how completely wrong she was, she took one of the stupid pink umbrellas up to the counter. That’s when I lost it. Right there in the store. I came this close to telling her I’d broken the old umbrella, just so I wouldn’t have to be seen with it anymore. Next thing you know she’s stomping out the door telling me I could spend the year with wet hair, because she wasn’t buying me anything if I was ‘going to behave like this.’ I’ve never been so relieved in my life. And she was wrong; I won’t have wet hair all year, because Grandma drove me back to the museum gift shop. When it rains, I’ll be out dancing it, with an umbrella that’s all me.

ANNE FRANK
THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL
This monologue is taken directly from part of the book’s Friday, 5 February, 1943 entry

Dear Kitty,
Just recently Mrs. Van Daan came out with some perfect nonsense.  She was recalling the past, how well she and her father got on together and what a flirt she was.  “And do you know,” she went on, “if a man gets a bit aggressive, my father used to say, then you must say to him, ‘Mr. So and So, remember I am a lady!’ and he will know what you mean.”  We thought that was a good joke and burst out laughing.  Peter too, although usually so quiet, sometimes gives cause for mirth.  He is blessed with a passion for foreign words, although he does not always know their meaning.  One afternoon we couldn’t go to the lavatory because there were visitors in the office; however, Peter had to pay an urgent call.  So he didn’t pull the plug.  He put a notice up on the lavatory door to warm us, with “S.V.P. gas” on it.  Of course he meant to put “Beware of gas”; but he thought the other looked more genteel.  He hadn’t got the faintest notion it meant “if you please.”
Yours,
Anne

FIRST KISS

Ages 13 to 14

Your first kiss is supposed to be sweet. Or perfect. Or tingly? It’s supposed to at least be memorable. I wouldn’t know. I’ll probably never know. Not that first kiss. The one where the boy you like looks in your eyes, like you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, and kisses you. It’s not happening for me now. Ever. Because I blew it.

I don’t know if you noticed, but I talk a lot when I’m nervous. That, and my hands get sweaty. I think everybody’s hands get sweaty when their nervous. But, you just wipe them off on your jeans and move on. It’s not like it’s super noticeable, like say, talking non-stop. And I mean non-stop. Like an insane parrot that just can’t shut up. Not even when Noah Miller looked at me with the I’m completely into you look. Not even when Noah Miller, the guy I’ve been dreaming about for weeks, put his hands on my waist and pulled me closer. Nope, why would I stop talking then? In fact, I talked faster. It talked much that Noah Miller finally gave up and told me he’d see me later. But I think we all know he won’t. Why would he want to see me later? So I can talk some more?

 

THE SECRET GARDEN

Mary is 8 to 10 years old in this scene

MARY: I don’t know anything about boys. Could you keep a secret, if I told you one? It’s a great secret. I don’t know what I should do if anyone found it out. I believe I should die! I’ve stolen a garden. It isn’t mine. It isn’t anybody’s. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don’t know. And I don’t care, I don’t care! Nobody has any right to take it from me when I care about it and they don’t. They’re letting it die, all shut up by itself. It’s mine now.


HOW TO SCARE GIRLS

Ages 6 to 10

Look, I know you’re thinking it’s probably a fake. I mean, why would I sell you a real list of how to scare girls? It’s like the ultimate betrayal of my kind or something, right? Except, I get it. Scaring girls… it’s fun.

Last week, Becca, Abbey, and I were getting tadpoles by the stream, and I saw this dead fish. So I picked it up to show them. Only, they started screaming - like it was a brain eating zombie instead of some stupid old fish. Next thing I know, I’m chasing them with it, and it was…..Anyhow, scaring girls? I get it now.

The list is one dollar, and I guarantee they’ll all work. Only, save number eight for your mom. Mom’s are girls too, right? And number eight, made my mom have to lay down with a wash cloth on her face for a whole hour. It was amazing.

 

 

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

Here are two monologues adapted from the Kevin Sullivan Productions movie Anne of Green Gables. Anne is roughly 11 years old.

Riding home to Green Gables for her first time with Mathew

ANNE: Oh, I know you and I are going to get along just fine, Mr. Cuthbert. I love this place already. I always heard that Prince Edward Island was the most beautiful place in Canada, and I used to imagine I was living here. This is the first dream that has ever come true for me. It's always been one of my dreams to live by the sea. These red roads are so peculiar. When we got into the train at Charlottetown and the red roads began to flash past, I asked Mrs. Spencer what made them red, and she said she didn't know and pity's sake not to ask her anymore questions. Dreams don't often come true, do they Mr. Cuthbert? Just now, I feel pretty nearly perfectly happy. I can't feel exactly perfectly happy because, what color would you call this?
Red. That's why I can't ever be perfectly happy. I know I'm skinny and a little freckled and my eyes are green. I can imagine I have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion and lovely, starry violet eyes, but I cannot imagine my red hair away. It'll be my life-long sorrow.

 

Apology to Diana’s Aunt Josephine for jumping on her in bed

ANNE: I’m Anne of Green Gables and I've come to confess. It was all my doing, Miss Barry. Diana would never think of such a thing as racing to a bed and jumping on it. She's far too lady-like, whereas I am merely an orphan who doesn't know any better. So I think you ought to forgive Diana and let her have her music lessons back.
I don't know what it's like to be wakened from the few hours of precious sleep granted an old woman in a strange bed by two ferocious, wild girls landing on her head, but I can imagine it must have been terrifying in the extreme. And if you had any imagination you could have put yourself in our place.
Don't you have any imagination, Miss Barry?
Well, we honestly didn't know you were in there, and you scared us half to death. You should just imagine how exciting it was going to be for me to sleep in a spare bedroom, reserved for important company such as yourself. As it was, I had to sleep with Minnie May, and you don't know how she kicks. Mine was the sleep of the bitterly disappointed, Miss Barry. I was forced to lie awake all night with the knowledge that I had cost Diana her career as a world famous concert pianist.