High schoolers Zeta, Will and Aaron have been assigned a group project in French.

(Warning: Using this scene without permission is illegal, as is reproducing it on a website or in print in any way.)

(Zeta and Will are in the library after school.  Will is relaxed, Zeta is anxious—pacing, shuffling papers, checking her watch, etc.)

ZETA: Let's start without him.  It's 4:30.  And it's my mom's birthday, so I have to go out to dinner with my family tonight.  And I have a Bio test tomorrow.  When am I supposed to find the time to write a dialogue "using at least three verb forms, including the subjunctive" en Français?  I wish they wouldn't give us group assignments.  No one ever shows up.
WILL: It's only Aaron who hasn't shown up yet.  I'm here.

ZETA: Which is kind of surprising actually since you're almost never in class.  I don't think I even know what your French class name is.

WILL: It's Guillaume.

ZETA: Guillaume?  That's French for William?  That's weird!

WILL: No weirder than Zeta.  What's that French for?

ZETA: For nothing.  I mean there's no French for Zeta.

WILL: Oh, so your name is really Zeta.  I mean, in English?  I didn't know that.

ZETA: See what you miss when you don't come to class?  Maybe you should come more often.  You might learn something.

WILL: Maybe.

(Aaron enters.  Zeta sees him first.)

ZETA: There you are!  Finally.

AARON: Sorry.

ZETA: Listen, I don't have a whole lot of time right now, so why don't we just friend each other on Facebook and chat online tonight.  But I can't do it until around ten.  Is that okay?

AARON: Um.  I don't have Facebook.

ZETA: Really?  Okay.  How about MySpace then?

(As Aaron and Zeta converse, Will shifts focus away from them.  He appears to be utterly distracted, staring into space or at the page in front of him, doodling.)

AARON: Actually, I don't have internet access.

(Zeta shoots Aaron an unbelieving look.)

ZETA: What, are you grounded?  Tell your parents it's for a school assignment.  Let them look over your shoulder so they know you're not visiting porn sites.

AARON: No, I mean at my house.  We don't have internet.

ZETA: Oh, I'm sorry.

AARON: It's not like we can't afford it or anything.  My dad just doesn't approve. (Pause.) I could meet before school tomorrow.

ZETA: I have Crew practice before school and then zero period lab.  So, maybe we can just write a really quick draft now and I'll run it through the translation program tonight.

AARON: The what?

ZETA: English to French translation program.

AARON: The computer will do that for you?

ZETA: Yeah, if you have internet.  (Pause.) You really didn't know that?  Jeez, it must take you forever to do your French homework.

(Will suddenly looks up and speaks with some excitement.  Aaron and Zeta are startled.)

WILL: Hey, how about this?

ZETA: What?

WILL: For the play.  We could write about a family.  And the different tenses could be different members of the family.  I mean, each person would speak in their own tense.  Like, Grandpa could speak only in the passé composé, and the baby could be the imperative, you know, like "Donnez moi!  Donnez moi!  Donnez moi!"

(Will acts like a baby, pounding his fists on the table and shouting.)

AARON: Shh.  The librarian.

WILL: Or maybe Gramps should speak in the imparfait, 'cause that's the ongoing past tense, right?  And the grandfather would be living in the past all the time.

(Will starts walking around like an old man leaning on a cane and speaking in a gravelly voice.)

When I was a young man back in the blazing hot summer of '69, we were living in an old broken-down VW bus on the mountainside and every day from sun up to sun down, we slaved away in the marijuana patch...

(Aaron can't help watching and giggling.  Will straightens up and speaks normally.)

Or would that be the passé composé?  "We slaved away"?  Would that be passé composé?  Or imparfait?

ZETA: What are you talking about?

WILL: The play.  The play using three tenses.

ZETA: A dialogue!  Not a play.  A school assignment!  For our third period class tomorrow.  Which means we can't even meet during lunch.  And it's "Verb forms!"

AARON: Huh?

ZETA: "Verb forms," not tenses.

AARON: What's the difference?

(Zeta waves the assignment sheet in front of their faces.)

ZETA: I have no frickin' idea.  But it says "a dialogue using three verb forms..."

AARON: I thought they were the same thing.

WILL: Hey, I just figured something out.  Passé composé?  That's the "composed past."  The completed past.  Over and done with.  Unlike the "imparfait," which...hey, that means "imperfect," doesn't it?  So...

AARON: Yep.  That's pretty much how Madame Clark explained it.

WILL: Yeah, well.  I probably wasn't there that day.

ZETA: (Rolling her eyes) Yeah, you probably weren't.  Or on the six other days when she repeated the same explanation.

WILL: Exactly!  Who wants to listen to the same boring crap sixteen times?  I'd rather figure it out for myself.

ZETA: Fine.  Whether you come to class or not is your problem, but right now, could we focus?  I need to catch the 5:00 bus and French is not my best subject, okay?  I'm getting a B in Biology, that's bad enough.  But at least it's an AP, so it counts as an A.  Anyway, what about the subjunctive?  We have to use the subjunctive and I don't even have any idea what it is.

(Pause.  Zeta is nearly in tears.  Will and Aaron look at each other.  Will shrugs.)

WILL: Sounds like a disease.  Subjunctivitis.  Acute subjunctivitis, a disease of the liver.