CHARACTERS
GRETCHEN, sixteen
SHELLEY, twelve, her sister
MOM, heard on the telephone and the answering machine
THE RADIO

SETTING: The kitchen of a house in a small town in Kansas. A table with three chairs. A counter. A telephone on the wall with a long, tangled cord, and an answering machine beside it. A refrigerator with a note stuck to it under a magnet. Upstage, a window, through which we see snow falling. On the table sits a cardboard box, taped shut, with KITCHEN — MISC. written on the side in old-fashioned handwriting.

TIME: About seven-thirty on a weekday morning in January.

(Lights up slowly. Snow drifts past the window. SHELLEY is kneeling on a chair at the window in pajamas, a stocking cap and moon boots, holding a little transistor radio to her ear.)

THE RADIO: ...is closed today. Again, all schools in the county are closed today. Roads are snow-packed and slick, and the highway patrol is asking folks to stay home if they can.

SHELLEY: (Jumping off the chair, arms in the air.) YES. Yes yes yes yes yes. (She runs to the door, stage right, and yells off.) GRETCHEN! SNOW DAY!

GRETCHEN: (Off, muffled.) I heard. The whole state heard.

SHELLEY: Get up!

GRETCHEN: (Off.) It's a snow day. The whole point of a snow day is you don't get up.

(SHELLEY goes to the refrigerator, finds the note, and reads it.)

SHELLEY: There's a note.

(GRETCHEN enters, wrapped in a comforter like a cape, hair everywhere, and goes straight for the cereal.)

GRETCHEN: There's always a note.

SHELLEY: (Reading.) "Girls. Gone to the closing at the title company. Back by noon if the roads are okay. Do NOT open Grandma's box. I want to go through it myself. Love, Mom. P.S. Shovel the walk." (Beat.) She underlined "not" three times.

GRETCHEN: She underlines everything three times. She underlined "milk" on the grocery list.

SHELLEY: (Looking at the box.) The closing is today?

GRETCHEN: Yep.

SHELLEY: So after today it's not Grandma's house anymore.

GRETCHEN: (Pouring cereal. A shrug.) It hasn't been Grandma's house since October. It's been a house with a sign in the yard.

(Pause. SHELLEY looks at the box.)

SHELLEY: We should make snow ice cream.

GRETCHEN: No.

SHELLEY: Grandma always made snow ice cream on snow days.

GRETCHEN: Grandma isn't here.

(Beat. It came out harder than she meant it. She tries to fix it.)

GRETCHEN: I mean, you're twelve. It's snow with sugar on it. You can get ice cream at the store that doesn't have air pollution in it.

SHELLEY: The store's closed. Everything's closed. It's a snow day. (Beat.) And she let me stir.

GRETCHEN: She let everybody stir.

(GRETCHEN eats. She glances at the phone. SHELLEY watches her. GRETCHEN glances at the phone again.)

SHELLEY: Why do you keep looking at the phone?

GRETCHEN: I'm not.

SHELLEY: You've looked at it four times.

GRETCHEN: It's a phone. It's on the wall. Where else am I supposed to look?

SHELLEY: (Delighted.) Is somebody going to CALL you?

GRETCHEN: No.

SHELLEY: Is it a BOY?

GRETCHEN: Go shovel the walk.

SHELLEY: It's still snowing. You don't shovel while it's still snowing. That's like brushing your teeth while you're still eating Oreos.

GRETCHEN: (Beat.) I hate that that's smart.

(The phone rings. GRETCHEN lunges for it, comforter and all, and knocks over a chair. She gets there just as the answering machine clicks on.)

MOM: (On the machine, very cheerful.) Hi! You've reached the house. We can't come to the phone right now, but please leave a message after the beep, and have a blessed day!

(SHELLEY mouths every word of this along with it, with the hand motions, rolling her eyes. Beep.)

MOM: (On the machine, not cheerful.) Girls, it's Mom. Pick up. I know you're there. I can hear the cereal.

(GRETCHEN picks up. The machine squeals.)

GRETCHEN: Hi, Mom.

SHELLEY: (Loud, at the phone.) She thought you were a BOY.

GRETCHEN: (Into the phone.) She's lying. (Listens.) Yeah, we heard. (Listens.) No, we haven't touched it. (She glares at SHELLEY, who has one finger on the box.) How long? ... Okay. ... Okay. Be careful. ... I know. "Not." Three times. Bye.

(She hangs up.)

GRETCHEN: The roads are bad. The other people are running late. It'll be at least eleven. And don't open the box.

SHELLEY: I'm not opening it. I'm reading it. (She reads the side of the box.) "Kitchen, misc." That's her writing. Look. She always made her K's like that, with the little curl.

(GRETCHEN looks, in spite of herself.)

SHELLEY: The yellow bowl's probably in there. The snow ice cream bowl. And the recipe. It was on a card, with a grease spot shaped like Oklahoma.

GRETCHEN: It's snow and sugar and milk and vanilla. You don't need a card.

SHELLEY: How much sugar?

(GRETCHEN opens her mouth. Closes it. She doesn't know.)

SHELLEY: See?

(SHELLEY picks at the edge of the tape.)

GRETCHEN: Shelley. Mom said...

SHELLEY: Mom said don't open the box. She didn't say don't open the top.

GRETCHEN: That is literally the same thing.

SHELLEY: Then you can tell her you told me not to. (She rips the tape.)

(GRETCHEN does not stop her. In fact, she moves closer. SHELLEY lifts things out one at a time and sets them on the table: a bunch of cookie cutters tied on a ribbon, a dented tin recipe box, and a big yellow mixing bowl. SHELLEY holds the bowl over her head like a trophy.)

SHELLEY: HA.

GRETCHEN: Okay. Fine. That's the bowl.

SHELLEY: (Flipping through the recipe box.) Snow ice cream, snow ice cream... "Snickerdoodles." "Cherry Jell-O Salad." "Funeral Ham." She had a recipe called Funeral Ham!

GRETCHEN: Everybody's grandma has a funeral ham.

(Beat. That lands on both of them.)

GRETCHEN: Keep looking.

SHELLEY: (Pulling out a card.) "Snow Ice Cream." (She holds it up.) Oklahoma.

GRETCHEN: (Squinting at it.) That's more like Nebraska.

(SHELLEY goes back into the box. At the bottom is a thick bundle of envelopes tied up with red yarn. A tag hangs from the yarn.)

SHELLEY: There's something else. (She lifts it out and reads the tag.) "Snow Days."

(She hands it to GRETCHEN. GRETCHEN unties the yarn. The envelopes are every size and color, some of them made out of folded construction paper. She opens the top one.)

GRETCHEN: These are... these are ours. These are our letters. (She reads.) "Dear Grandma. Today is a snow day. It snowed six inches. Shelley ate snow that a dog was on. Love, Gretchen, age eight."

SHELLEY: I did NOT. That is slander.

GRETCHEN: It's in writing. That's libel.

SHELLEY: (Grabbing another one.) Why did we even write her letters? She lived six blocks away.

GRETCHEN: Because the mail still runs on snow days. Remember? She'd call first thing in the morning and say, "The mail still runs, girls. Write me a letter." And you'd draw a horse.

SHELLEY: I drew amazing horses.

GRETCHEN: (Holding up a drawing.) This is a potato with legs.

SHELLEY: (Reading her own.) "Dear Grandma. I love you. I love snow. Snow is spelled S-N-O-E." (Beat.) That's adorable. I was adorable.

GRETCHEN: Was.

(SHELLEY opens another, reads it to herself, and gasps with pure joy.)

SHELLEY: Oh. Oh, no. Oh, this is the best day of my life.

GRETCHEN: What?

SHELLEY: (Reading, slowly, with tremendous drama.) "Dear Grandma. Today is a snow day. I am ten now. I have decided I am never going to like boys, ever. Boys are disgusting and they smell like hot dogs. Love, Gretchen." (Beat.) "P.S. Except maybe Brian."

GRETCHEN: Give me that.

(SHELLEY runs around the table. GRETCHEN chases her, comforter flying, and trips on it.)

SHELLEY: Brian! Brian who smells like hot dogs! Is THAT who's going to call?

GRETCHEN: Nobody is going to call!

SHELLEY: (Stopping dead.) It is. It's Brian. You've liked Brian since you were TEN.

GRETCHEN: (Giving up. She sits.) He said he might call. If school got called off. To see if I wanted to go sledding on the hill at the golf course.

SHELLEY: (Sitting across from her, chin in her hands.) Grandma would have loved this.

(Beat. They both look down at the letters.)

GRETCHEN: She kept every single one.

SHELLEY: She wrote back, too. Every time. She'd mail it the same day, and we'd get it the next day, and it would say, "Dear Shelley, thank you for the beautiful horse."

GRETCHEN: "Potato."

SHELLEY: "Beautiful horse." (Pause.) I didn't keep any of hers.

GRETCHEN: (Quietly.) Me neither.

(SHELLEY picks up the last envelope from the bundle. It's different from the others: plain, white, newer. The handwriting on it is the same curly handwriting as on the box.)

SHELLEY: This one's from her. (She reads the front.) "For Gretchen and Shelley. To be opened on the next snow day." (She turns it over.) It says February on the back. Last February.

GRETCHEN: She knew. Last February she already knew.

(SHELLEY holds it out. GRETCHEN doesn't take it.)

GRETCHEN: Mom said...

SHELLEY: Gretchen. It's a snow day. And it's addressed to us.

(A long beat. GRETCHEN takes it. She opens it and unfolds one page. She reads it silently at first. SHELLEY tugs on her sleeve. GRETCHEN reads it aloud.)

GRETCHEN: "Dear Gretchen and Shelley. If you are reading this, it is snowing, and school is out, and your mother has sold my house. Good. It was too big for one old woman, and the furnace was mean, and the upstairs toilet ran whenever it felt like it. Don't you two be sad about that house. A house is only where you keep the things you love, and the things I loved best never lived in it. They came over on snow days."

(She stops. She can't go on. SHELLEY gently takes the letter from her and keeps reading.)

SHELLEY: "Here is what I want you to do today. Get my yellow bowl. Go out in the backyard, past where the dog goes, Shelley..."

(GRETCHEN laughs through her tears.)

SHELLEY: "...and fill it with the clean snow off the top. One cup of milk, half a cup of sugar, one teaspoon of vanilla. Stir until your arms get tired, and then let your sister stir. Eat it right away. It doesn't keep. That's the whole point of it."

(SHELLEY looks up. GRETCHEN nods: keep going.)

SHELLEY: "Gretchen, if that Brian is still around, don't sit by the phone. Your grandfather never would have called me in a hundred years if I hadn't called him first. Shelley, keep drawing horses. They have gotten much better. All my love, every snow day there ever is. Grandma."

(Silence. Snow falls past the window. SHELLEY folds the letter. GRETCHEN wipes her face on the comforter.)

GRETCHEN: She remembered Brian.

SHELLEY: She remembered everything.

GRETCHEN: (Laughing and crying at the same time.) "They have gotten much better."

SHELLEY: They have.

GRETCHEN: They're still potatoes.

SHELLEY: They're better potatoes.

(The phone rings. Neither of them moves. It rings again. GRETCHEN gets up and answers it before the machine can.)

GRETCHEN: Hello? (Beat.) Hi, Mom. (She listens.) Okay. (Listens. Quietly.) Okay. (To SHELLEY.) It's done. It's sold.

(SHELLEY nods.)

GRETCHEN: (Into the phone.) Yeah. We're okay. (Pause. A breath.) Mom... we opened the box.

(A long pause while GRETCHEN listens. Her face changes: surprise, and then something close to a laugh.)

GRETCHEN: She did? (Listens.) She actually said that? (Listens.) Okay. Yeah. Drive careful. Love you too.

(She hangs up and just stands there.)

SHELLEY: Are we grounded?

GRETCHEN: Grandma told her to tell us not to open it.

SHELLEY: What?

GRETCHEN: Last February. She gave Mom the letters and said, "When you sell the house, put these in the kitchen box, and tell the girls not to open it." (Beat.) "Because that's the only way they'll do it."

(A long beat. SHELLEY starts to laugh. Then GRETCHEN does. They laugh until they have to hold on to the table.)

SHELLEY: She got us.

GRETCHEN: She got us from... she got us.

(SHELLEY picks up the yellow bowl and holds it out. GRETCHEN looks at it for a moment. Then she lets the comforter drop.)

GRETCHEN: Get your coat.

(SHELLEY whoops and runs off. GRETCHEN pulls on a pair of boots by the back door. She looks at the phone. She takes a breath, picks it up, and dials.)

GRETCHEN: (Into the phone.) Hi. Um, is Brian there? (Beat.) It's Gretchen. (Beat. She smiles.) Yeah, I know it's a snow day. Listen. Do you like ice cream?

(SHELLEY runs back on in her coat and mittens, grabs the bowl and the recipe card, and goes out the back door. GRETCHEN, still on the phone, laughing at something, follows her out. The door closes behind them. The lights narrow slowly to the kitchen table: the open box, the letters spread across it, the window, the snow still falling.)

(Lights down.)