Teens Emily, Tasha and Jason remember a bully who may not be so bad anymore.

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(EMILY, TASHA and JASON. Emily has her phone out.)

EMILY: He went full ninja.

TASHA: On the watermelon.

EMILY: He tried to go full ninja.

JASON: I have no clue what you're talking about.

TASHA: He screamed loud enough.

EMILY: I'd call it half ninja.

TASHA: Ninja in training. Real ninja doesn't slip on watermelon guts and face-plant.

JASON: When did this happen?

EMILY: (Finishing Tasha's thought:) At least not into the watermelon.

(Beat.)

TASHA: You really don't remember this?

JASON: I really don't.

EMILY: Seriously?

JASON: Seriously.

EMILY: Tasha?

TASHA: (Looking through her phone:) One sec...

(Finding the picture:)

This.

JASON: Ohhhh...

EMILY: Remember now?

JASON: How did I forget that?

EMILY: Seventh grade.

JASON: That explains it.

TASHA: Yeah. My seventh grade was a picnic compared to yours, and I still had to block out all of October.

EMILY: Only October?

JASON: Yeah. He made my life craptacular on a daily basis. Highlights: smearing dog poop on my copy of Romeo and Juliet, taking my lunch money ten days in a row—not counting weekends, of course—

EMILY: Of course.

JASON: —and dumping my clothes in the toilet while I was in the shower at gym. The unflushed toilet. Twice.

TASHA: But that face-plant.

EMILY: The watermelon did what all the kids who hadn't hit puberty wanted to do all year.

TASHA: Not a lot of heroes in the seventh grade.

EMILY: Except for that melon.

TASHA: It gave its guts to save us all.

JASON: Didn't make up for the toilet. Or the lunch money. Or Romeo and Juliet or feeding my math homework to his dog or pantsing me in the middle of the fire drill or—

TASHA: Better than nothing.

JASON: Maybe if it happened in May instead of September. Maybe the year wouldn't have been such a horror story.

EMILY: True.

(Beat.)

JASON: So why are we having Throwback Thursday on a Tuesday?

EMILY: Tasha saw him. He works at the library over in [name of a nearby town].

TASHA: Not works. Volunteers.

JASON: Why were you at the [name of nearby town above] library?

TASHA: 'Cause I like it. 'Cause I can study there without running into people I know and then not getting anything done.

EMILY: It's nicer than ours anyway. I should go there.

TASHA: Then we'd talk the whole time. Find your own weird library.

EMILY: Fine.

JASON: He didn't seem like the library type.

TASHA: He lives with his grandma since his parents split up. She gets really bad arthritis sometimes, so he does most of the cooking and the laundry and takes care of her garden.

JASON: He told you all this?

TASHA: He seems really...

JASON: What?

TASHA: Sweet. He was telling me about this story hour he does for the kindergarten every Friday afternoon.

JASON: So he's like a saint now. Who cooks and cleans.

TASHA: Didn't say he did the cleaning.

EMILY: He probably has to if his grandma's arthritis acts up.

TASHA: Probably. (Beat.) He says he blew up a copy of the watermelon picture and hung it over his bed.

JASON: That's a little weird.

TASHA: Anytime he gets angry about something, he just looks up at that pic of him facedown in a watermelon with half the seventh grade in the background crying they're laughing so hard...

EMILY: It's kind of cool he owned it.

JASON: I guess.

TASHA: Come on, Jason.

JASON: What?

TASHA: Let it go.

JASON: Do you want me to remember or let it go?

TASHA: Why can't you do both? (Beat.) You should meet him sometime.

JASON: And what—hug it out?

TASHA: Maybe.

EMILY: Or maybe you should bring him a big juicy watermelon.

JASON: I don't think there are enough watermelons in the world to make up for seventh grade.

EMILY: Gotta start somewhere.

JASON: (Beat. To Tasha, caving in:) Because you like him. Guess I'd be down for the watermelon.

TASHA: I think he'd be good with that.