View Passage | Disable Passage Scrolling
Saving the Thrift Store: A Drama
Lee Washington

Characters:
ROSA
LOUIS
EDDIE
EDDIE’S OLDER BROTHER

Scene 1

1 (EDDIE’S front porch, a Sunday morning. EDDIE and ROSA sit on the swing. LOUIS sits on steps.)

2 ROSA: Eddie, I don’t recognize the shirt you’re wearing. When did you get it?

3 LOUIS: It doesn’t look as disheveled as the soccer shirts you wear all the time.

4 EDDIE: Well, I’m not going to tiptoe through the soccer field to keep my clothes neat. (LOUIS playfully aims a soccer ball at EDDIE. ROSA deflects it.)

5 ROSA: What I was trying to say is that the shirt looks really good. (LOUIS wanders over to the morning newspaper that is still sitting on the front lawn. He leafs through it while EDDIE and ROSA talk.)

6 EDDIE: Thanks! It was my older brother’s. He always lets me have clothes that don’t fit him anymore.

7 ROSA: It’s a shame that I’m the youngest in my family, since I’d be happy to pass my old clothes to kids who wanted them.

8 LOUIS: (holding up a newspaper article) Look at this! A pipe burst, and the thrift store on Market Street was severely flooded.

9 EDDIE: Check out those torrents of water in the picture.

10 LOUIS: (reading from paper) A deluge of water drenched the clothing on lower displays. Employees attempted to salvage some items, but the majority of the merchandise was destroyed.

11 EDDIE: People contributed most of those clothes after spring-cleaning. The store lost all of its recent donations!

12 ROSA: That thrift store had a great selection of inexpensive clothes. Postponing a reopening is bad for the families that rely on that store.

13 LOUIS: Can’t they just dry off the clothes?

14 ROSA: After so much exposure to moisture, they have probably begun to reek.

15 EDDIE: I don’t even like gross, smelly clothes for sports! They should smell clean and fresh just like fabric softener. (EDDIE smiles dreamily, imagining fluffy clothes right out of the dryer.)

16 ROSA: I’m sure Eddie’s not the only one who appreciates clean fabric. We should try to help restock the store.

17 EDDIE: I’ll design pamphlets to encourage people to donate! We can distribute them in school tomorrow.

Scene 2

18 (A week later. ROSA, EDDIE, and LOUIS struggle to unload full bags from EDDIE’s BROTHER’s truck in front of the thrift store. A bag from EDDIE’s house falls out the door and spills open.)

19 LOUIS: Eddie, I hope you didn’t test out any of these clothes on the soccer field.

20 EDDIE: All of my donated clothes are perfectly clean. Actually, I’d say Rosa is our star athlete today.

21 ROSA: (balancing two enormous bags of clothing over her shoulders) We have an amazing assortment of clothing in some of these bags!

22 EDDIE’S BROTHER: My girlfriend and I helped collect a lot of those clothes. She saw a few of Eddie’s pamphlets around our house and made copies of them. I helped her pass them out at the baseball game last weekend. We let people drop off extra clothes at the high school.

23 LOUIS: So we managed to bombard two schools with fliers! Designing them was a brilliant idea, Eddie.

24 ROSA: Tomorrow we can come back and sort all these clothes. I don’t think the employees were expecting business to start up again so soon!

25 EDDIE: (marches valiantly to the store with a bag of clothes over his shoulder) Our clothes crusade rescues a thrift store in distress!

Read the passage on the left to answer the following questions:

2)
The BEST word to describe Eddie’s relationship with his brother is
A) competitive.
B) discouraging.
C) helpful.
D) hostile.
3)
The BEST word to describe the kids’ relationship with each other is
A) encouraging.
B) mean-spirited.
C) professional.
D) strained.
4)
Based on the character of Rosa, what can the reader infer regarding the author's unstated meaning?
A) The author wants the reader to admire Rosa's selflessness.
B) The author wants the reader to question Rosa's hidden motives.
C) The author wants the reader to condemn Rosa's self-righteousness.
D) The reader has no solid basis for making any inferences about the author's unstated meaning.
5)
In line 5, which point is Rosa making when she says Eddie’s shirt looks good?
A) The store must have new merchandise.
B) Rosa is jealous of Eddie’s new shirt.
C) Eddie must have done his own laundry.
D) Eddie often wears old, tattered shirts.