How To Eat Fried Worms
Billy scene from How To Eat Fried Worms, practice script
- Men
- Playing age Teens
- 3 pages
- Two-person scene
- Comedy
A comedy scene from How To Eat Fried Worms for an actor, playing age teens (13–19), with Erika.
How To Eat Fried Worms: Billy scene
EXT. THE BACK YARD - DAY
A good distance from the target, Erika stands with a long bow, and a quiver of arrows on her back, and gloves, and a wrist guard, and Billy watches as she raises the bow, draws an arrow back to her ear, then lets it go. It zings through the air, Billy’s head whipping to watch it, and hits the target near the bull’s eye.
ERIKA
I see you, so quit hiding.
Billy shrivels with embarrassment. Then compensates by puffing up and swaggering out with his thumbs in his pockets.
BILLY
I was just goin’ to my house, and I thought you might wanna know that...I might be leavin’ this place.
ERIKA
You just got here.
BILLY
Yeah I know but--my plans are changing.
ERIKA
Your family’s moving again?
BILLY
Naw just me. Yeah, I’ll probably take off tomorrow or tonight. I like big cities. Gonna live with some friends of mine back in Pittsburgh.
He spits in the grass and looks around at the tree-tops.
ERIKA
Say I knew.
BILLY
Knew what?
ERIKA
About the bet.
Billy loses some of his swagger.
BILLY
You can’t know. You’re a girl.
ERIKA
Say I did though. Say I also know you’ve never eaten a worm in your whole life.
BILLY
How would you know that?
ERIKA
Because. Why would you?
She tosses her head so her braid, tied with its red rubber band, falls back. She draws the next arrow, lets it fly, then she marches off toward the target and Billy has lost all his cool. He trots behind her and his worries come pouring out.
BILLY
It’s tomorrow--did you know it’s tomorrow? --and can I tell you something? Promise you won’t tell anyone?
ERIKA
What.
BILLY
I have a really weak stomach. Really weak! There are a lotta foods I can’t eat, and I get motion sickness, and it takes nothing for me to throw up--nothing!--There are even smells that can make me throw up.
ERIKA
Like what?
BILLY
Like my whole grandmother.
Erika, plucking arrow out of the target, blurts out laughing and drops one. She picks it up and grins at him. Billy blurts out laughing too.
ERIKA
I have a grandmother in Florida that you can smell without even going to Florida.
BILLY
Don’t--cuz I can even get sick from laughing too much.
ERIKA
So then why did you make that stupid bet?
BILLY
Cuz I had to.
ERIKA
Why??
BILLY
Cuz I said I could do it.
ERIKA
Yes, but you can’t do it.
BILLY
I know, but I said I could and they were all there and I didn’t wanna seem like, you know, I dunno. I was just trying to go to the school and be a normal person.
ERIKA
Normal people don’t eat worms, Billy.
BILLY
That’s why I’m thinking of leaving.
Excerpt for study and audition practice. Watch the show or film for context.
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