Merlinsky: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Connie rises five feet in the air, and lies there horizontally. Her mouth drops open, Jake's mouth drops open, and Socrates looks appalled.

  SOCRATES: Now you've done it.

  CONNIE: He certainly has! Jake, come over here.

  Jake walks nearer; Connie takes his head in her hands and kisses him tenderly. Jake is slightly stunned, and looks blankly around.

  JAKE: Maybe I should try again, and see if that was a fluke.

  SOCRATES (deadpan): Fabulous idea.

  Jake CHANTS the words slightly quicker, and... he floats up beside Connie. They LAUGH and nervously hug each other. In the clinch, Jake drops the book.

  JAKE: Uh oh.

  Both make comical, but futile, swiping motions at the floor; their bodies remain at the five-foot level.

  CONNIE: Does this mean we can't get down?

  JAKE: Let me see if I can remember what Harry said to lower the couch.

  Jake tries a series of CHANTS, changing one phrase at a time, but nothing is working. At one point, the couch rises up to their level.

  CONNIE (giggling): Looks like you have the levitation spell down pat.

  Jake frowns, and tries a few more CHANTS. On the third one, Socrates and his perch float up into the upper reaches of the room.

  SOCRATES (giving up): This is sublime.

  JAKE (hopefully): Maybe the spell will wear off.

  SOCRATES: Harry once had all of the furniture up for a week, while he cleaned and dried the carpet.

  Connie and Jake look helplessly at each other, then decide to make the best of it.

  CONNIE: Maybe we can move around by flapping against the air.

  SOCRATES (ironic): Novel technique.

  Connie tries a swimming motion, and starts moving toward the kitchen.

  CONNIE: All right!! This works! Jake, I'll get us all some food, and you keep trying to remember the reverse spell.

  EXT. HARRY'S MANSION - THAT NIGHT

  Harry hurries up the walk, his fedora jammed down tight. In the picture window, Connie and Jake perform a water ballet in mid-air. They swoop, turn, do somersaults, and wind up in a dreamy kiss. Harry smiles to himself, and opens the door.

  INT. HARRY'S MANSION - CONTINUOUS

  Connie and Jake are oblivious to Harry's entrance; they're still locked at the lips. Almost every object that is not nailed down is floating in mid-air with them.

  HARRY: Ahem!

  Jake and Connie hurriedly break their embrace. They both go spinning across the room... Connie runs into the floating couch, and Jake bumps into Socrates, causing an explosion of owl feathers. Connie regains her poise first:

  CONNIE: Mr. Merlinsky, Jake learned how to use the levitation spell.

  HARRY: I can see that...

  Jake tries a hopeful smile, indicating all the floating objects.

  JAKE: And I've been practicing.

  HARRY: No kiddin'.

  Harry picks up the dropped book, and puts it on a shelf.

  SOCRATES: Harry, would you mind getting me back down?

  HARRY: Logged enough flight time today, have ya?

  SOCRATES: Harry, please, I've lost an abundance of dignity already.

  Harry CHANTS a phrase; Socrates and all the other hovering items in the room, except Jake and Connie, drift to the floor.

  JAKE: Something tells me we're not going to get off easy.

  HARRY (soberly): Jake, ya have a knack for this... I could tell as soon as ya got off the trolley. But after today, we don't have a heckuva lotta time to teach ya all ya gotta learn.

  JAKE: What do you mean... after today?

  HARRY: There was some pretty heavy-duty sorcery at Arcana...

  Harry's voice drifts away... he's lost in thought.

  JAKE: Harry, I hate to bring this up...

  HARRY: What's eatin' ya?

  JAKE (cautiously): Can you bring us... down, now?

  HARRY (light-hearted again): Okay, but when I walked in, you guys looked pretty happy with your predicament... sorta like you were walkin' on air!!

  Jake and Connie exchange embarrassed smiles. Harry CHANTS a phrase; Jake and Connie slowly return to the floor.

  JAKE: So what is it that I have to learn?

  HARRY (suddenly serious): Look, I gotta teach you one spell immediately, just so you can stay alive.

  JAKE (gulps): To stay alive? Harry, I don't think...

  HARRY: Connie, keep Socrates company. Jake, come with me.

  Harry pulls Jake through the kitchen, and out the back door.

  EXT. HARRY'S BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS

  Harry and Jake hurry into a huge yard, overgrown with weeds. It's a bright, moonlit night, and a run-down gazebo stands in the far corner, a hundred yards away.

  JAKE: What's this all about?

  HARRY: You hafta learn telekinesis.

  JAKE: Tella whatsis?

  HARRY: It's how you move yerself around, in case you're attacked. Now watch closely...

  Harry CHANTS a phrase, and disappears, with a POPPING sound.

  JAKE: Harry?

  HARRY (O.S.): Over here, Jake.

  Harry is standing by the gazebo, in the far corner of the yard. He CHANTS a phrase, almost inaudibly, and Jake disappears.

  ANGLE ON HARRY AND THE GAZEBO

  Jake appears suddenly next to Harry, with a loud POP.

  JAKE (confused): What happened?

  HARRY: Telekinesis! You were over there; now you're over here.

  JAKE: Hey, that's pretty neat...

  Abruptly, a bright flash of light illuminates the entire backyard, and the whole scene turns negative. Harry pulls Jake quickly to the ground.

  ANGLE ON HARRY'S MANSION

  The building implodes, with a great ROAR. Flames and bright lights shoot out of every crack that appears; this is not your everyday detonation.

  ANGLE ON HARRY AND JAKE

  They lie on the ground, uncover their heads, and look up toward the wreckage. Their expressions are mixtures of horror and sorrow.

  JAKE (continuing): Connie!

  HARRY: Connie, and my old friend Socrates...

  JAKE (in a rage): Who did this?

  HARRY (hopeless): That wizard I told ya about... his name is Laszlo. We gotta get outta here before he finds us.

  JAKE (stubborn): We should stay and fight.

  HARRY: If we don't scram in ten seconds, we'll be mincemeat.

  A bright flash of light turns their faces negative. Jake is terrified.

  JAKE: Let's go!

  Harry quickly CHANTS a spell.

  EXT. DESERT - CONTINUOUS

  Jake and Harry POP into the middle of a vast expanse filled with otherworldly-looking Joshua trees. The twenty-foot tall plants look oddly like misshapen old men in the bright moonlight. However, the most significant change from the previous scene is the background din; here there is no sound. The desert is almost completely noiseless, but for a slight WIND. Stately granite monoliths act as silent sentinels.

  HARRY: Why just get outta town, when ya can go to another planet?

  JAKE: Where are we?

  HARRY: This is the Mojave Desert. That's Lost Horse Mountain, and my Uncle Ralph's cabin is over here.

  JAKE: The wind is the only sound...

  HARRY: Sometimes it gets so quiet up here, ya find yourself strainin' to hear a noise... any noise. Listen!

  After fifteen or twenty seconds, Jake looks puzzled:

  JAKE: I'm starting to hear this roaring in my ears.

  HARRY: Yeah... I talked to a sawbones about that... he says it's the sound of blood pumpin' through yer veins. Ya listen long enough, you'll start hearin' yer pancreas.

  JAKE: The wind doesn't just blow through your hair up here, it blows through your soul. God, I miss Connie... (pause) why was she in that house, and not me?

  Jake's face contorts, as he starts to sob. Harry puts an arm around him.

  HARRY: I know who did it, and I'm gonna make him pay.

  JAKE (sniffling): So it was that Laszlo guy?

  HARRY: Yeah, he's bee
n doggin' my tracks for too long. He's lookin' for a tussle, and I'm gonna give him one. (pause) But he's a mighty powerful wizard... I'm gonna need your help.

  JAKE (fiercely): After what he did to Connie, you can count on me.

  HARRY: Now we know you have the power, it's high time you started your real apprenticeship. For now, let's hit the sack... you begin tomorrow mornin', bright and early.

  They head toward Uncle Ralph's shack.

  INT. UNCLE RALPH'S CABIN - NEXT MORNING

  "Plants of the High Desert" is the title of a book Jake is flipping through. Behind him, the door is open, shining light on Harry's sleeping face. Harry rubs his eyes, squints at the door, and wrinkles his nose from side to side, with MUSICAL SFX. Abruptly, the door SLAMS shut. Jake jumps, and looks suspiciously over at Harry, who has again closed his eyes and is smiling.

  JAKE: Did you do that?

  HARRY (mumbles sleepily): Musta been the wind.

  JAKE: There's no wind today... get up, you lazy bum... there's a whole forest of Joshua trees waiting to wave to you.

  Jake opens the door again... an enormous desert vista unfolds, full of the strange-looking plants. Harry crawls out of bed, yawning and scratching his butt. He carefully dons his fedora; his boxer shorts have playing cards printed on them.

  HARRY: I don't see 'em movin'... looks like they've been waitin' for thousands of years.

  JAKE: It says in this book that they're members of the lily family.

  HARRY: They remind me of my great-uncle Ralph, when he was gettin' old and crippled.

  Harry hunches his body, mimicking the nearest tree.

  JAKE: So this is Ralph's cabin?

  HARRY: Yeah, he left it to me when he kicked. I come up here every now and then just to bark at the moon.

  JAKE (kidding): When does my first lesson start, oh great Merlinsky?

  HARRY: Don't get uppity, kid. You'll wind up as snake bait.

  Harry nods his head, and Jake turns into a kangaroo RAT. The rat hops warily out the door, and is greeted by HISSING and RATTLING.

  EXT. UNCLE RALPH'S CABIN - JAKE/RAT'S VIEW - CONTINUOUS

  A sidewinder RATTLESNAKE looms enormous, coiling his body sideways toward the CAMERA.

  ANGLE ON