The Lottery

...

CAMILLE: There's Don and Eva. Make them take their chance!

MEIL: Daughters draw with their husbands' families, Tessie. You know that as well as anyone else."

CAMILLE: It wasn’t fair!

RODEL: Of course it is fair. My daughter draws with her husband's family; that's only fair. And I've got no other family except the kids.

MEIL: How many kids, Bill?

RODEL: Three. There's Bill, Jr., and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me.

MEIL: All right then.

ALL GIVE BACK PAPERS. Put in the box.

CAMILLE: I think we ought to start over. I tell you it wasn't fair. You didn't give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that.

CAMILLE: LISTEN EVERYBODY!

SHE LOOKS AT AUDIENCE PA.

MEIL: READY?

HUTCHINSON FAMILY NODDED.

MEIL: Remember take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one

MEIL: Take a paper out of the box, Davy.

Davy (AIRISH) put his hand into the box and laughed.

MEIL: Nancy next

NANCY/ MEILEE WENT INFRONT.

MEIL: Bill, Jr.

BILL JR STOOD INFRONT AND GOT PAPER

MEIL: Tessie

She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her.

MEIL: Bill

RODEL GOT THE LAST PAPER.

AIRISH: I hope it's not Nancy

MEIL: All right OPEN THE PAPERS.

LITTLE DAVE/AIRISH OPENED THE PAPER AND SHOWED THE CROWD THAT IT WAS BLANK.

CROWD CLAPPED.

Nancy and Bill. Jr.. (MEILEE AND NICOLE) opened theirs at the same time and both

beamed and laughed turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads

CROWD CLAPS ONCE AGAIN

MEIL: TESSIE.

TESSIE DID NOT RESPOND.

MR. SUMMERS LOOKED AT BILL.

Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.

MEIL: It's Tessie. Show us her paper. Bill.

Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up and there was a stir in the crowd.

MEIL: All right, folks. Let's finish quickly.

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready.

The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles.

Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her.

CAMILLE: It isn't fair. It isn't fair, it isn't right.