Title: MIRABELLE II
Featuring: Corvo Alpha
Date: Friday, May 10 2024
Location: The Cafeteria - 5th Period

LUCY:
Why wouldn’t you tell us about this?!

Mirabelle ignored the question. She ignored all of them, pushing the gluey macaroni and cheese around the lunch tray with her spork. She chose, in that moment, to focus instead on the noise of the cafeteria at large instead of the noise of her 3 friends encircling her at the table.

PIPER:
Maybe he isn’t any good?

TED:
No, he is. He’s a title holder, actually. A champion.

Mirabelle looked up from her “lunch” long enough to shoot Ted a pair of daggers. He wilted under the brief glare before she turned back to destroying her noodles.

LUCY:
Is he HOT?

MIRABELLE:
No! 

Lucy looked to Ted who just shrugged. Meanwhile, Piper was deep into her cell phone, mired in detective mode.

LUCY:
Where does he wrestle? It’s not HOW is it? My brother hates HOW. 

Ted just shook his head. Mirabelle flung a chunk of macaroni at him and he artfully swatted it away, blushing a little.

MIRABELLE: [to Ted]
I’m going to kill you.

TED:
Hey, I didn’t tell them about him! It wasn’t me!

MIRABELLE:
So who was it?!

Piper looked up from her phone for the briefest of moments.

PIPER:
The smelly kid in Gym told Mark, who told Julia. She and Chad were texting about it and somehow Carly found out. She told me.

MIRABELLE:
Awesome. And how did the smelly kid in Gym find out, I wonder?

Another withering glance at Ted, who carefully scooped up the slung macaroni from the table with a napkin - avoiding her dangerous gaze entirely.

PIPER:
Your dad is a pro wrestler, Mira. And you never told anyone, let alone your best friends, about it. Of course people are gonna talk.

LUCY:
Well, if he isn’t in HOW… then he must be in PRIME. Or DEF!

Our detective looks up from her phone to offer Lucy some skepticism.

PIPER:
You’re into wrestling?

LUCY:
Well, no. I told you. Rex is. [shifting her attention back to Mirabelle] Your dad’s gotta be in DEF. Ted’s reaction gave it away.

The contents of her stomach roiled. Mirabelle aggressively jabbed her spork in Ted’s direction.

MIRABELLE:
Not a word, or I swear, I’ll gut you with this thing!

PIPER:
That sounds like a dare.

Ted blushed again, deciding now would be a good time to walk Mirabelle’s macaroni mess over to the nearby trash can. Lucy rolled her eyes at the back of him before returning to her best friend.

LUCY:
What’s the big deal? Why won’t you tell us which one he is?

PIPER:
I’m pulling up the DEF roster now.

Pushing her lunch tray away from her, Mirabelle dropped her chin into her hand with annoyance, elbow crooked on the cafeteria table.

MIRABELLE:
I really don’t want to get into this, guys.

LUCY:
So, like… do you get free tickets and stuff?

Ted lumbered back to the table and sat down, his eyes showing some remorse.

MIRABELLE:
No. 

Eyes lighting up for a moment, Piper showed her phone to Lucy.

PIPER:
They were just in LA! 

TED:
Yeah, her dad was in the main event. It… was pretty badass.

Piper raised her eyebrows at that and sunk a little deeper into her phone.

MIRABELLE:
Ted, please knock it off. Piper, you’re not going to find him online. Just stop.

PIPER:
That also sounds like a dare.

LUCY:
Wait. How does TED know all about this and she and I don’t?

TED:
I, uh… saw her on TV.

LUCY & PIPER:
YOU WERE ON TV?!

MIRABELLE:
NO!

TED:
Well, you were, kinda!

Mirabelle fumed, exasperated and exhausted by all of this.

MIRABELLE:
I wasn’t on TV. My Gram brought me. And this was years ago.

TED:
She was on TV. A few times. In the crowd. 

LUCY:
Were you a storyline?!

Mirabelle twisted her face up at Lucy.

MIRABELLE:
nO, i wAsN’t a sToRyLiNe!

PIPER:
Wait… is this him?!

Piper shoves her phone in Mira’s face. Ted and Lucy lean in to look as well. Mirabelle doesn’t speak, but her answer is etched in her facial expression. 

The figure on the screen stands before a gritty red backdrop. Standing in a half-profile, his face is semi-obscured by shadow. Still, we can see it’s marked by a mask of canary yellow warpaint. Wide, squat and packed in, a smear of red paint marks his chest; angled from his heart down and across. A pink leather strap adorned in metal falls over one of his shoulders.

LUCY:
Whoa.

Piper took her phone back and squinted at it.

PIPER: [reading]
“Corvo Alpha”.

TED:
Uh-huh.

Her heart thumped in her throat. Mirabelle focused on the half-drank milk in front of her. Honed in on the little milk-bubble formed on the cardboard’s lip. Zeroed on the condensation beading on the outside of the colorful carton.

PIPER: [reading]
“Southern Heritage Champion”. Uh. That sounds problematic.

TED:
No, you don’t get it. That title has a rich history!

PIPER:
Mmm-hmm. Sure it does.

MIRABELLE:
Guys, can we really not right now?

By now, Lucy is also down the DEF rabbit hole on her own phone. Her eyes are wide.

LUCY:
What’s the story with the name?

MIRABELLE:
I… I don’t know.

PIPER:
You don’t know?

Ted and Mirabelle’s eyes met for just a fleeting moment.

MIRABELLE:
We aren’t really– My dad and I… we don’t talk. Much.

Lucy’s eyes lighten and she looks away from her phone, to Mira.

LUCY:
Oh… oh, I’m so sorry. I… I didn’t know–

MIRABELLE:
I know. It’s okay.

PIPER: [oblivious]
Their next big event is in PUERTO RICO?! You should TOTALLY go! 

Mira’s eyes rolled so hard they’ve fallen off the cafeteria table and careened out the door and down the hall towards the Library. 

Lucy, sucked back into her phone, had clicked on an ad. 

A somber classical score floats under the gravelly voice of a narrator who opines on the virtue of rebellion.

MIRABELLE:
That’s in July or something. I spend every summer with my Aunt and cousins in California… and my Aunt Mimi hates wrestling, despises my dad and… 

Mira sank in her seat.

MIRABELLE:
…she’s just never gonna let that happen.

Piper made a face that said “what a bitch”. 

TED:
Never?

MIRABELLE:
She would never let me go.

Lucy’s phone continued to play, her eyes watching it closely. The music swells.

V/O: [playing on Lucy’s phone]
“In a time ripe for revolution…”

Mirabelle glanced at the phone in her friend's hand in time to see her father step into frame. His mystifying eyes stared back.

V/O: [playing on Lucy’s phone]
“How DEFIANT will you be?”

The moment hung in the air for the foursome. Lucy set her phone down gently.

PIPER:
That… also sounds like a dare.

---

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