Greetings from Trinidad

This is a work in progress. It is not formatted properly So just give suggestions or whatever.It is my first screenplay ever.

GREETINGS FROM TRINIDAD





EXT. CITY BY A BAY- DAY
The streets of SAN FERNANDO are packed with midday traffic. Vendors crowd the sidewalks selling everything from toys, jewelry, clothes and flip flops. There is a store called GREETINGS FROM TRINIDAD. There are lots of Trinidad related souvenirs in the window. A t-shirt reads TRINIDAD A RAINBOW COUNTRY. A man who looks like a tourist looks at the sign and goes into the shop.

EXT. SCHOOL YARD – DAY

A flag flows at in the wind with the name ‘San Fernando HIGH SCHOOL’ printed on it.

INT. CLASS ROOM – DAY

At the front of the class we see no teacher present. The uniformed students are walking and talking loudly. NIREN SINGH, a hansom, East Indian guy in his early twenties has entered the room. He goes to his desk and sits. The students begin to quiet down slowly. The room is eventually in complete silence.

NIREN
I was beginning to wonder if I was in the wrong classroom because I was told that this is a class consisting mainly of seventeen year olds.

There are slight chuckles among the students. Niren goes into his file on the desk and takes out a piece of paper.

NIREN
Now I guess the only natural thing to do is a roll call. So instead of calling names and wasting time why don’t you just tell me who’s not here?

VIDIYA BALKARAN, a pretty East Indian girl, seated in the front of the class roles her eyes.

VIDIYA
Excuse me sir but I think the purpose of taking the role call is to get to know the names of the students.

NIREN
I know that but I really don’t care to know names. Just put it this way, if I don’t like you I won’t mark you unfairly because I don’t know your name. Okay.

VIDIYA
Okay.

NIREN
Now that we have that cleared up, why doesn’t someone tell me if anyone is absent?

VIN MAHARAJ, a plane looking East Indian boy raises his hand.

VIN
Janelle Burton.

Niren marks her absent and puts the paper back into the folder.

NIREN
I probably should have told you this first but I’m Mr. Singh. And yes I am very young, twenty-one if you were wondering. And let me be the first to say that I have never done this before, teach that is, and I’m not going to pretend that I’m good at it but I will try. Now I’ll be teaching you General Paper, which is not as easy as it may seem. So let’s see exactly how much work needs to be done here. Write for me, right now, an essay on anything you want. It can be about a TV show, drugs, anything, but note; this is going to be marked so get cracking.

The students take out notebooks and begin to write.

INT. CLASSROOM – DAY

The students are submitting their papers and leaving the room.

EXT. STREET – DAY

A brightly colored sign reads, ‘GREETINGS FROM TRINIDAD’. Niren parks his car outside.

NIREN (V.O.)
As you can see I wasn’t exactly the happiest guy alive but all that was about to change.

INT. GREETING CARD STORE – DAY

Niren walks in the store and goes to the birthday greeting section.

He begins to look at a blank card and goes for it. Someone else reaches for it. It is JANELLE BURTON, a very beautiful black girl of eighteen. He looks over to her; she smiles back but doesn’t release the card.

NIREN ( V.O.)
This was how we met. From the moment I looked at her I knew that she would be one of the most interesting people I would ever know. My next move was crucial.

NIREN
What are the odds of us reaching for the same card?

She smiles

JANELLE
Not very high.

NIREN
I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you this card if you tell me your name.

Janelle laughs and releases the card.

JANELLE
You can keep it.

Janelle walks away.

Niren walks up to meet her.

NIREN
Well you can have the card anyway.

He hands it to her. She takes it and smiles.

JANELLE (V.O.)
I was not impressed, or at least I told myself that.

She opens the card and reads inside.

JANELLE
Since I couldn’t find a card that puts to words what you mean to me I got this blank one. Happy Birthday.

NIREN
I’m sure that you’re boyfriend will love it.

JANELLE
It’s for my sister. I don’t have a boyfriend.

NIREN
Oh that’s a shame.

Janelle walks to the cashing counter. Niren follows her. She cashes for the card.

JANELLE
Are you following me?

NIREN
No I was just leaving myself. So how ‘bout that name.

JANELLE
Okay but don’t look it up in the directory. My name is Janelle Burton.

Niren smiles.

NIREN
That name sounds very familiar. Maybe we knew each other in a pass life.

Janelle smiles and walks away.

INT. JANELLE BURTON – NIGHT

Janelle is sitting on her bed looking at the card. She closes it and smiles.

JANELLE (V.O.)
A strange thing happened that night. When I got home I found myself still thinking about what happened at the card store. I had this itch to see him again. I just wished I had taken his number or at least his name.

INT. CLASSROOM – DAY

JANELLE (V.O.)
The next day I decided to show my face at school. It wasn’t that I hated school; I just was not interested in anything that was going on. But I liked to give the appearance that I was.

Janelle walks in a noisy classroom and sits in front next to Vin.

JANELLE (V.O.)
That’s Vin, my best and possibly only friend.

JANELLE
So how bad exactly, is this new teacher?

VIN
He just came in the class with a bad attitude.

JANELLE
Maybe we shouldn’t be sitting in front the last thing I want is an annoying teacher breathing down my neck.

VIN
To late he’s here.

Niren enters the classroom.

JANELLE (V.O.)
As I glanced to the door what I saw made my stomach do cartwheels. There he was the guy I was flirting with, he was my teacher. I wanted to hide my face and I did.

Niren goes and sits on the desk.

NIREN
Well I’m almost finished marking your papers and let me just say that you guys will need to work very hard to make up for all the marks you lost on this essay.

VIDIYA
What about Janelle, she wasn’t here. So she’s not going to loose any marks.

JANELLE (V.O.)
I wanted to throw a chair at her.

NIREN
Who?

VIDIYA
Right in the front of you, Janelle Burton, she wasn’t here yesterday.

Niren looks down at Janelle who is looking at him.

NIREN (V.O.)
There in the front row was the girl I was flirting with the day before, my student, Janelle Burton. I wanted to run out of the school and hop on a plane to China but I had to stay because I needed the money.

Vin looks at Niren and then to Janelle. Niren clears his throat.

NIREN
Well Janelle will have to complete and submit the essay by the end of the day.

Janelle looks at him.

JANELLE
What’s the title of the essay?

NIREN
Anything you want. Just write something.

JANELLE (V.O.)
I wasn’t in the mood to question his assignment so I just went along with it.


NIREN(V.O.)
The rest of the class was nothing short of torture. I couldn’t concentrate and I found that I was unable to be my usual mean self.

EXT. SCHOOL YARD – DAY

Janelle walks outside the class quickly with Vin.

VIN
That went surprisingly okay considering what happened yesterday. It’s a shame you weren’t here to see his attitude before.

JANELLE (V.O.)
I was going to tell him what happened but I decided against it because that was even too embarrassing to tell my best friend.

JANELLE
Yes it is a shame.

VIN
So what are you going to write about?

JANELLE
I have no idea.

INT. SCHOOL LIBRARY – AFTERNOON

Janelle is sitting in the library writing her essay.

INT. STAFFROOM –LATE AFTERNOON

Janelle walks in the staff room and looks around for Niren. She sees him at the far end of the staff room and goes over to him.

JANELLE (V.O.)
I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

JANELLE
I’m finished.

NIREN(V.O.)
At that moment I was thankful for the fact that all the other teachers had left already.

NIREN
Well I’m looking forward to reading it.

JANELLE(V.O.)
I had no idea what he meant by that that and I didn’t want to know.

JANELLE
Listen, about yesterday, I’m sorry if I…

NIREN
No I stated it, remember, besides it was really beyond our control. I didn’t know you were my student.

JANELLE
And I definitely didn’t know you were my teacher.

NIREN
Well I hope this doesn’t lessen you opinion of me as an authority figure.

JANELLE
No, not at all.

NIREN
Good, because I’m not going to treat you any differently.

NIREN (V.O.)
From the time I said those words I knew it was lie.

JANELLE
I don’t expect you to.

NIREN
So did your sister like the card?

JANELLE
She didn’t say if she did but I’m sure she liked it. Thanks for letting me have it.

INT. NIREN’S APARTMENT – NIGHT

Niren walks through the door and sighs.

NIREN (V.O.)
The house where I lived was a three-storey house. My grand parents lived at the bottom, my parents in the middle and I on the top floor. Each floor had a separate entrance for sanity sake. Coming from a traditional Indian family that was the norm, to stay at home. I hated being home. Sometimes I would just find places to go to avoid going home. In fact I really didn’t have a purpose for being in the card store the day before I just wanted to pass time.

There is a knock on the door. NEISHA SINGH enters carrying a wrapped plate of hot food.

NIREN (V.O.)
My mother and my father got married through an arranged marriage and seemed to think that I would be willing to do the same. When I said I wouldn’t they treated to disown me. So I never really dated. I just sat at home waiting for the evitable to happen.

NEISHA
Niren, how was work?

NIREN
It was interesting.

NIREN (V.O.)
In all honesty my mother is not that bad, it’s my father that’s the problem. I hardly see him, even though he lives downstairs and I have no interest in doing so. Sometimes I feel sorry for my mother that she was stuck with that ass for a husband.

Neisha sits and looks at her son eat.

INT. JANELLE’S BEDROOM – NIGHT

Janelle is lying on her bed staring up at the blank ceiling.

JANELLE (V.O.)
When my parents aren’t home, which is often I get a chance to think. This time I found myself thinking about Mr. Singh and I couldn’t stop. This had never happened to me before and it was a little scary.

INT. CLASSROOM – AFTERNOON

Janelle is sitting next to Vin in the front of the class. The entire class is noisy but Janelle is sitting in silence staring at the door.

JANELLE(V.O.)
Two days had passed and I didn’t have a class with Mr. Singh. I almost went insane. I had to face the frightening reality that I had a crush on him.

Niren walks in and his eyes meet with Janelle’s.

JANELLE (V.O.)
But what was even scarier is that he most likely felt the same way. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Niren takes out some papers out of his folder and holds them up.

NIREN
These are your papers and they’re all marked.

He hands the papers to Vin.

NIREN
Pass these out.

Vin gets up and begins to distribute the papers. Janelle gets hers and smiles.

VIDYA
Sir, what was the highest mark?

NIREN
Well no one got a perfect twenty but the highest was eighteen, which is the highest I’ll ever give because there’s always room for improvement.

Janelle looks down on her paper, she has the highest mark. She frowns.

JANELLE(V.O.)
There I was thinking I was getting merit for good work.

NIREN(V.O.)
I had spent the last two days thinking about her. Her writing was like a gateway to her soul; it was unlike anything I had ever read before. I read and reread her paper and I tired to find someway to mark her down but I couldn’t. She did have the best paper.

VIDIYA
Who got it?

NIREN
I think it’s up to the person who got it to tell you but as a teacher I can say that her writing shows maturity that is beyond her years.

Vin takes a seat next to her and looks in her paper. He sees her mark and looks at her surprised.

JANELLE(V.O.)
I had never been so embarrassed in all my life.


INT. STAFFROOM – LATE AFTERNOON

Janelle walks in the staff room and goes over to Niren, he is the only on there.

NIREN
Why is it that you’re always here so late?

NIREN (V.O)
I asked this question knowing that I wasn’t staying back because I loved my job so much. This was another way of avoiding home.

JANELLE
I have a lot of time on my hands.

NIREN
You have a habit of putting me in situations where I have to be alone with you.

JANELLE
And you have a habit of embarrassing me.

NIREN
How did I do that?

JANELLE
You gave me a higher mark than everyone else and Vin noticed.

NIREN
I thought you said you didn’t have a boyfriend, so why should Vin care.

JANELLE
He’s not my boyfriend. He may start to suspect something.

NIREN
Are you suggesting there’s something to suspect.

JANELLE
No, it’s just that people will think there’s something to suspect if you keep treating me differently.

NIREN
Do you talk to all of your teachers like this?

JANELLE is silent
NIREN
I guess you’re treating me differently as well.

NIREN(V.O.)
I had no idea what was wrong with me and why I was doing this. In truth I was very attracted to her and I have been to many other girls like her but far be it form me to act on it. I knew this would lead to nowhere, so what was the point of me chasing her.

NIREN
Janelle the reason why you got that mark and only reason why is because you’re a good writer. You wrote about the break down in family life while most of the others wrote about their favorite TV show.

JANELLE
So you didn’t give me that mark because you are attracted to me.

NIREN
I am but you really did deserve it.

JANELLE
Well thank you, sir.

NIREN
Niren is my name. I mean it’s a little odd when you call me sir.

JANELLE
Now you want me to call you by your first name.

NIREN
You can if you want to.

Janelle smiles and shakes her head.

NIREN
If I wasn’t your teacher and we met again and I asked for your number would you give me it?

JANELLE
Maybe I would. But you are, so…

Niren nods.

NIREN
Yeah I get it.

INT. JANELLE’S HOUSE – NIGHT

Janelle walks in the front door. NELSON BURTON and LISA BURTON are sitting in the living room.

JANELLE(V.O.)
Now something strange happened when I got home that day. My parents were actually there.

NELSON
You know what time it is?

JANELLE
I think it’s a little after six.

NELSON
Right it’s after six. Why you now comin home?

JANELLE (V.O)
When my father started to talk in Trinidadian dialect this meant that he was angry.

JANELLE
I was in the school library. I didn’t realize so much time had passed.

NELSON
I must be look like a jackass eh? When d school does close.

JANELLE
I don’t know I never stayed until they forced me out.

NELSON
Janelle you staying out with some boy?

JANELLE
No. I was in the library. You know I don’t talk to anybody except people in school.

NELSON
I know girls your age get dense when some dootish lowlife on the street tell yuh all kind a nonsense.

JANELLE
I know that, I’m not going to end up like Jenny.

LISA
Go to your room. Your father and I will talk about this.

Janelle walks quickly to room.

INT. JANELLE’S ROOM - CONTINUOUS

Janelle walks in the room and slams down her books.

JANELLE(V.O.)
I hated it. I must have been the only eighteen-year old who wasn’t allowed to even talk to any guys. Not that I desperately wanted to but I wanted the option to be open. But what was really frustrating was that I was really in the library. If they thought I was doing it with some guy, maybe I should find some loser to shack up with.