The Little Tornado
by Sharon Black
An original screenplay  based on the story , The Little Tornado © by Sharon Black
copyright © 2012 Script may not be reproduced in any form without express written permission of the author.

WGAw #                                                                                                         First Draft 8/2012
THE LITTLE TORNADO
ACT 1
SCENE 1
FADE IN
EXT. DAY. AVERAGE NEIGHBORHOOD OF MIDDLE SIZE TOWN. 
A storm cloud hovers in the western sky.    Rain begins, the wind blows, and  the tornado siren sounds. 
INT. DAY: KITCHEN IN AVERAGE HOUSE  

LIBBY, 35, and her piano students, STEVEN, age 10 and SALOMÉ́, age 9, are sitting at the baby grand piano in Libby’s average American home, listening to STEVEN play a bit of Mozart. 
LIBBY
Good, Steven, you have practiced your lesson. 
You’re next, Salomé.
SALOMÉ  plays some Beethoven. LIBBY nods, smiling  at her playing, and notices the tree branches bending sharply by the wind. She hears hail hitting the roof.  The tornado siren sounds. LIBBY stands.
LIBBY
Let’s get to the basement, now.
She leads the way, opens the door, turns on the light, and she lets STEVEN and SALOMÉ go down into basement first. 
EXT. LIBBY’S HOUSE. 
Wind blows hard and a window cracks, glass falling to the ground. Dirt and debris swirl around the open window.   
INT. LIBBY’S DARK LAUNDRY ROOM.
Two glowing eyes blink heavily in the darkness as objects fall to the floor. 
EXT. LIBBY’S HOUSE.
Rain stops, wind dies, and the sun appears. People emerge from houses to look at the minimal damage.
INT. LIBBY’S KITCHEN.
LIBBY, STEVEN, SALOMÉ emerge from the basement, and stop abruptly when they see six yellow socks lying toe to toe on the kitchen floor. They stare at it. LIBBY eyes the kitchen warily, rubbing her chin. SALOMÉ looks up at LIBBY, wide eyed, and hesitant. STEVEN reaches down to pick up the socks.  A gust of wind blustered out of the louvered laundry doors. SALOMÉ gasps, LIBBY grabbed her hand, and put her hand on STEVEN’S SHOULDER. Pictures in the kitchen go crooked. Mini blinds shake. SALOMÉ and STEVEN shriek and run back down into the basement.
Libby inched her way to the louvers and listened to a whirling noise.   She pulled out her cell phone to dial the police, but instead it rang.
LIBBY
Yes, Sis, we went into the basement as 
soon as the siren went off. Uh-huh,  your power lines
snapped? And trees? Geez, nothing like that over here.
She stepped to the window to look out.
LIBBY CONT’D.
There’s a whooshing sound coming from my laundry room.
VIVIAN
-voice-
Libby, laundry rooms usually make a whooshing noise.
LIBBY
Viv, Something awful is in this room
She pulled the louvered door open, and stepped slowly to the light switch, and flipped it on.  Shirts and trousers spun in the center of the room. A whitish gray little tornado broke apart, embarrassed by the intrusion. The spinning wind wrapped Libby’s favorite dress around her head. She pulled it off her face.
LIBBY 
Viv, I think a tornado is trapped
 in the laundry room. How do I get rid of it?
                                                                   VIVIAN
-voice-
Do you have a concussion?
LIBBY picks up a baseball off the countertop and aims it at the tornado. She throws it and watches with an open mouth in awe at the little tornado spinning the ball around, and dropping it. It rolled out to her feet,  super white and clean.
LIBBY
It’s like a sauna in here.
                                                                       VIVIAN 
-voice-
I’m coming over at once.
LIBBY
Picking up baseball. 
Sure, watch this when you get here.
SALOMÉ and STEVEN run upstairs after hearing the conversation.
STEVEN
The tornado is in the laundry room, Libby?
                                                                             LIBBY
Watch this!
 Libby tossed a shoe into the tornado. The little tornado spun the shoe and wiped away all grass stains. It dropped at Steven’s feet with tied shoelaces.
SALOMÉ
Sweet!   
The doorbell chimed. LIBBY slammed the laundry door shut as if the tornado could escape. She pranced to the front door, let VIVIAN, 38, in, took her hand, and pulled her to the laundry room. SALOMÉ and STEVEN  opened the laundry door. 
SALOMÉ and STEVEN
Look!
Libby tossed in several shirts. They watched with silly grins and when the tornado finished, the two women flashed thumbs up at the tornado.
VIVIAN
You know how much time you’ll
save doing laundry this way?
LIBBY 
-shaking her head-  
Seriously, tornadoes don’t get trapped in laundry rooms.
See, the cloud is vanishing. We are not telling anyone, okay.
Salomé́ ? Steven? People will make fun of us if we say anything, anything!
Agreed?
STEVEN and SALOMÉ shake their heads in agreement slowly, seeming disappointed, but  with eyes shining in disobeyance.   
LIBBY
I hear cars pulling up, it’s your parents.
I’ll see you next week 

SCENE 2
INT. NIGHT. LIBBY’S BEDROOM
 LIBBY threw the sheet aside, hearing the whooshing noise  in the laundry room, and stomps to the kitchen.  
EXT. CLOSED LAUNDRY  LOUVERED DOOR.
LIBBY pushes the door open. Like an iridescent spinning toy top in the dark, the little tornado spun at attention as if on night watch duty.  
LIBBY
Okay, out! Now!
She swished both arms like swords through the tornado. The cloud sliced apart and spread to all corners of the room.
LIBBY
Good.
LIBBY shuffled a victory dance in bare feet on the floor on the way back to bed. She pulled the sheet up to her neck and felt sleep creep in just as the whirring air blew the sheet off Libby’s bed.
She again stomped to the laundry room, and demanded the tornado to stop. Go away. Disappear. Vanish. Nevertheless, the little tornado spun and spun and spun. Libby squinted both of her eyes. She had an idea. 
She tiptoed to the kitchen and filled a bucket with cold water. Grinning, Libby snuck up on it and threw the water in the middle of the tornado. Like the worst rainstorm, Libby coughed, choked, and snarled at the tornado, which insisted she needed this invigorating icy bath.
LIBBY
Ahhhh! Why don’t you leave?
You’re driving me crazy!
She slammed the door to the laundry room and went to dry off in the bathroom.
 SCENE 3
INT. LIBBY’S HOUSE.  
Libby warmed up on the baby grand piano. She saw STEVEN and SALOMÉ  walk  up to the house. She stood to go to the door. When the doorbell rang, and when LIBBY opened the door, seven children popped into view.
STEVEN
They want to see the tornado.
LIBBY
What? You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone?
SALOMÉ
I told him not to, Libby.

LIBBY
Good for you, now all of you, go home!
(she pointed at the street)
No piano lessons today.
SCENE 4
INT. LIBBY’S HOUSE. DAY.
LIBBY lay in bed and thought about how to get rid of the little tornado. The phone rang and rang and she would not answer. She ignored the knocks on the door by her piano students. All she thought about was the embarrassment of having this oddity in her house.
LIBBY
-to self-
If I were a tornado,
what would chase me away?  
 She covered her eyes in disgrace and groaned. Thunder moaned from a dark blue cloud in the west. Peeking out between fingers, she saw a storm brewing and the wind blowing. Thunder exploded. Libby set up in bed.
LIBBY
          That’s it!
She went into the laundry room. The little tornado politely moved out of her way. Libby pushed up the small window and unhooked the screen. 
LIBBY
-pointing at window-
See that storm? That’s your mother,
and she has come for you.
LIBBY turned away from the unwanted guest and shut the door. 
INT. LAUNDRY ROOM. The little tornado’s eyes blinked sadly in the dark. 
INT. LIVING ROOM 
 LIBBY sat in the recliner, waited out wind driven rain, and hail the size of peas. She clicked on the TV to watch storm coverage. A short clip showed of survivors telling about looking through their damaged home when a tornado came through.
WOMAN
-voice-
I picked through rubble 
and I found the album of family pictures, unharmed.
MAN
-voice-
I couldn’t believe it, I looked down,
and there was my antique pocket knife.

 .
THE LITTLE TORNADO
-childlike voice- off screen
That’s the main rule of a tornado.
 Libby leaned in closer to the TV screen .   
LIBBY
What did he say?
THE LITTLE TORNADO
I said that.
LIBBY slowly turned her head to the right and saw the little tornado spinning delicately beside her. Its two glowing eyes blinked happily.   Papers and light objects blew to the floor.
LIBBY
I’m dreaming. I fell asleep in front of the TV.
I will wake up soon. Libby, get up and go to bed like
you should have an hour ago.
THE LITTLE STORM
This storm wasn’t my mother.
LIBBY stood. She dropped her face into her hands and shook her head side to side in bewilderment. She went to her bedroom and shut the door. The lock clicked.
THE LITTLE TORNADO
I just want to grow up and fight the big tornadoes.
 
					SCENE 5
INT. BEAUTY SALON. DAY.
LIBBY stepped into the beauty salon only to hear laughter silence. She sat and looked at the faces of the women who tried to hide their jokes behind jewelry party catalogues. She squinted, suspicious they were all talking about her. She found an empty chair and sat. The music on the radio stopped and the announcer alerted listeners of a tornado warning two counties west.  All eyes bounced back and forth from Libby to the radio to the clouding sky. LIBBY rolled her eyes, perturbed they were associating this storm with her predicament at home.
BEAUTICIAN
Libby, come on over.
-ad lib-
LIBBYsat in the parlor chair where the beautician released it down. The BEAUTICIAN combed Libby’s hair and applied the hair dye. The BEAUTICIAN sang to the song on the radio. 
The radio announcer interrupted the music once more to warn of a tornado on the ground traveling east at five miles per hour. LIBBY looked at her watch. The BEAUTICIAN set the timer for her hair color treatment. LIBBY looked at the darkening sky, and at the timer. She tapped her fingers on the chair’s armrest.  
The weather warnings on the radio came in minutes apart, and soon a continual report described a mile wide tornado toppling trees and ripping vegetation out of the ground.    
BEAUTICIAN
She handed a magazine to Libby.
I hate summer.
LIBBY
I’m beginning to dislike it myself.
 
 Dark blue, green, and black clouds colored over the robin’s egg blue sky. Libby tapped her finger on the chair, trying to hurry the timer.   
BEAUTICIAN
-on phone-
It’s five minutes away from us now.
LIBBY
(sarcastically)
Great.
LIBBY watched the timer tick down to the last second and chime at the same time the warning siren blasted out over the town. 
 The BEAUTICIAN  had the supply room open. The other beauticians helped their clients into the backroom. The howling wind beat the hail onto the windows and roof.   The roar of the tornado drowned out the siren’s blare and the radio announcer. The suction of the tornado banged the doors of the salon open and shut many times. 
INT. SUPPLY ROOM. 
The lights dimmed and the room turned dark and still.  

CUSTOMER
This is going to be bad now.

CUSTOMERS and  BEAUTICIANS ad lib smelling rain, dirt, feeling cold. 
 Seconds of calm settled in until the hail and wind roared once again. Then sunshine seeped under the door.  
BEAUTICIAN
It must be over.
BEAUTICIAN opened the supply room door and everyone returns to the parlor chairs. The other BEAUTICIANS look outside to see what had happened.
LIBBY returned to the parlor chair to let the beautician rinse out the dye.
Cell phones sang at the same time, and the women announced they were coming home at once. They walked out with phones to ears. Libby paid her beautician as the radio crackled on.     
RADIO ANNOUNCER
A small tornado chased the large tornado
and when it tried to set down,
the small tornado darted under it,
 the weather watcher said. The mile wide tornado bobbed up
and tried several times to set down, but was tackled by the small one.
LIBBY exits the beauty shop.

EXT. STREET. 
Broken branches littered the streets and water gushed down the gutters.  She threw the few branches off the car, and spun tires on the hail towards home.
EXT. DRIVEWAY. LIBBY’S HOUSE.
LIBBY unlocked the house and ran inside to find her laundry room empty.  
LIBBY
Oh, no …
 She went to the window and watched the storm breaking apart in the west, and sunshine blazing through the holes in huge thunderheads.
EXT. DRIVEWAY.
Viv drove up. Children piled out of her car and they chattered excitedly.  
LIBBY exited the house and stood on the porch. She smiled as they approached.
GIRL
We saw the little tornado chase away the big tornado.
 It was cool!
                                                                   BOY
Yeah, he kept the big tornado in the sky.
VIVIAN
It was coming straight to our house, Lib,
and the little tornado jumped out in front of it.
We landed in the basement, but nothing. 
We never heard anything of a tornado,
just the wind and hail hitting the house. 
The little tornado saved our house.
 SALOME  and STEVEN popped out of a car. 
SALOMÉ
We saw it, Libby!
The little tornado took on the big tornado.
STEVEN
It was awesome!
LIBBY
-smiling-
I wish I could have watched it.
LIBBY stepped forward to hug SALOMÉ and STEVEN.  Her shoe crunched down on an object underneath the small hail. She swept ice away to read her silver name. Libby gasped.   
VIVIAN
Oh my gosh!
LIBBY
(surprised)

The little tornado said the number one rule
is to keep safe what is the most precious thing to you.
SALOMÉ
Libby? What do you mean? 

LIBBY
You see, when Viv and I were in high school,
our house was blown away by a tornado.
The only time we had met our grandmother
was when she gave us these broaches. 
None of the other presents she mailed
to us meant as much. She lived a long way from us,
 
STEVEN
(reaching for broach_
Let me see that.
He shook sand out of the hollow ‘y’.
STEVEN
I say it has been buried in a sandbox all these years.
                                                                LIBBY
That just might be true.
My sweater it was pinned to had been
found wrapped around a volleyball net.
SALOMÉ
(frowning)
That’s scary.
LIBBY
It was, Salomé. Vivian and I cried for a week,
but our parents and we were safe.
But enough bad memories,
I say it’s time for piano lessons after ice cream!
The children ran inside the house. VIVIAN pinned the broach on LIBBY’S shirt. They looked up at the sky. A perfect rainbow congealed in the rainy peaceful sky. They entwined arms and walked into the house.
FADE OUT