Shenny at the Movies Challenge: My Fair Penny
1. Rewrite a scene from a movie for Sheldon and Penny. Or summarize a movie with them as leads. Yes
2. Only one chapter long. Yes
2. Anything up to 2,500 words. Exactly 2500
3. We must be able to recognise the characters. I hope so!
Author's Note: I've been in love with Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady since I was a little girl, and I've always been fascinated with the complex relationship between its leads, Eliza Doolittle and Professor Henry Higgins. When I started watching The Big Bang Theory I noticed the parallels between the street-wise but not book-smart Penny and Eliza and. the intelligence but totally lacking in social skills of Sheldon Cooper and Henry Higgins. It's been a dream of mine to adapt the musical to the Big Bang universe for a while now. So I'm pleased to offer this one scene for the Shenny at the Movies Challenge. Most of the dialogue is lifted straight from the screenplay with minor alterations to make it more in-character. Spoilers abound for those who have not seen any version of this story!
SCENE: MARY COOPER'S HOTEL ROOM in PASADENA
The day after the Nobel Prize ceremony. Penny was a sensation at the event, convincing everyone in her path that she not only was a college graduate of Cambridge but that she has two PHDs in Theoretical and Experimental Physics, and was one of the lead designers of the Hadron Collider, consequently proving Sheldon's experiment that he could pass of a "common, ignorant girl" from Nebraska as a genius scientist. Sheldon, in typical fashion, did not acknowledge Penny's own part to play in his experiment. More upsetting was the fact that Sheldon's friend from India, Raj, did not give Penny any credit either. Angry and hurt, Penny ran off in the middle of the night, but not knowing where else to go, she ended up at Mrs. Cooper's suite.
MARY [pouring some tea for the both of them]: Do you mean to say that after you'd done this wonderful thing for them without making a single mistake, they just sat there and never said a word to you, never thanked you?
PENNY: Not. A. Word. They just sat there congratulating each other on how marvelous they were; and the next moment on how glad they were it was over and what a bore it had all been.
MARY: This is simply appalling. I wouldn't have just yelled at him. I would've thrown his Batman cookie jar at him!
There's loud knocking at the door. Mary goes to the peep hole to see who it is.
PENNY [taking a sip of tea]: Who's that?
MARY: Shelly. I knew it wouldn't be too long. Remember, you not only fooled a ballroom full of geniuses last night, you are a scientist, diplomas be hanged!
SHELDON [bursting through the door]: Mother, the most confounded thing has happened! Do you ...
Sheldon spots Penny.
SHELDON [shocked]: You!?
PENNY [coolly]: Good afternoon, Dr. Cooper. Are you quite well?
SHELDON [speechless]: Am I...?
PENNY: You look upset! Would you care for a hot beverage?
SHELDON: Don't you dare try that game on me! I taught it to you! Now you come home and stop being a fool. You've caused me enough trouble for one morning.
MARY [sarcastically]: Very nicely put indeed, Shelly bean. No woman could resist such an invitation. Penny came to see me early this morning, and I was delighted to have her; and if you don't promise to behave yourself then I must ask you to leave.
SHELDON: What? Do you mean to say that I'm to treat her with the respect that is reserved for one of my colleagues at CALTECH rather than like the corn-fed hick she truly is?
MARY [sighing]: However did you learn anything with my son around?
PENNY: It was very difficult. I should never have learned anything useful, if it hadn't been for Rajesh. You see, Mrs. Cooper, apart from the facts and figures you can fill your head with, the difference between a genius and an idiot is not what they know, but how they are treated. I'll always be a common ignorant girl to Sheldon, because he always treats me like one, and always will. But I'll always be a genius to Koothrappali, because he always treats me like one, and always will.
Stricken, Sheldon sinks into an armchair.
[Mary, sensing an opening]: I need to get a bellboy to help me pack my doodads. Be back in a jiffy. She exits, but not before giving Penny an encouraging nod.
SHELDON [glowering]: Well played, Penny. You've turned my life into turmoil for the last three hours. Now, have you had enough and are you going to be reasonable, or do you want any more?
PENNY: You want me back only to stroke your ego and put up with your tempers and sing you "Soft Kitty" when you're sick.
SHELDON [haughtily]: Now, I didn't say I wanted you back at all.
PENNY [not buying it]: Oh, really?! Then what are we talking about?
SHELDON: Well, about you, not about me. If you come back you'll be treated as you've always been treated. I can't change my nature, and I don't intend to change my manners—My manners are exactly the same as Raj!
PENNY: That's not true. He treats a country bumpkin as if she were a genius.
SHELDON: Well, I treat a genius as if they were a country bumpkin.
PENNY: Oh, I see; the same as everybody.
SHELDON: Exactly! You see, the great secret, Penny, is not a question of good manners or bad manners, but having the same manner for everyone. The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you've ever seen me treat anyone else better.
Penny, floored at his audacity, starts pacing.
PENNY: I don't care how you treat me. I don't mind you're lecturing me. I wouldn't mind if you swore at me. But I won't be passed over!
SHELDON: You talk about me as though I were a train.
PENNY: So you are a train! All stop and go, no consideration for anybody. But I can get along without you. Don't you think I can't!
SHELDON [sinking into a chair with some satisfaction]: I know you can. I told you you could.
Penny rolls her eyes.
SHELDON [awkwardly with feeling]: You've never wondered, I suppose, whether... whether I could get along without you.
PENNY [taken aback]: Well, you have your videos from our sessions. When you feel lonesome without me you can turn them on. It has no feelings to hurt.
SHELDON [quietly]: I... I can't turn your soul on.
PENNY: Ooh, you are a bastard. You can twist the heart in a girl the same way some fellows twist her arms to hurt her! What am I to come back for?
SHELDON: For the fun of it! That's why I took you on.
PENNY: And you may unfriend me tomorrow if I don't do everything you want me to?
SHELDON: Yes! And you may walk out tomorrow if I don't do everything you want me to.
PENNY: And return to Nebraska?
SHELDON: Yes, or go back to the Cheesecake Factory. Or would you rather marry Raj?
PENNY [spitefully]: I wouldn't marry you if you asked me, and you're more my type than what he is!
SHELDON [unfazed at the insult]: Than he is.
PENNY [discomfited]: I'll talk as I like; you're not my teacher now. She calms down and sits on the sofa. That's not what I want and don't you think it is. I've always had enough boys wanting me that way. Leonard texts me multiple times a day!
SHELDON [jealously]: Oh! In short you want me to be as infatuated about you as he is, is that it?
PENNY [too quickly]: No, I don't; that's not the sort of feeling I want from you. She flounders, not sure how to express what she truly feels. I want a little kindness. I know I'm a 'common ignorant girl,' and you're a certified genius, but I'm not dirt under your feet. What I did was not for the fame and glory, but because we were….. pleasant together; and I ... I came to care for you ...
Sheldon startles, and she hastily continues before she loses the nerve.
PENNY: You don't have make love to me, but couldn't we be more…. friendly-like?
SHELDON: Well of course; that's how I feel ... He leans towards her, then realizes he's betrayed too much. And how Raj feels…and Penny you're a fool.
PENNY: That's not the proper answer to give me!
SHELDON [upset]: It's the only answer you'll get until you stop being a plain idiot. You find me cold, unfeeling, selfish, don't you? Well, be off with you to the sort of people you like. If you can't appreciate what you've got, you'd better get what you can appreciate.
PENNY [rises to her feet]: I can't talk to you. You always turn everything against me. But don't be too sure that you have me under your feet to be trampled on and talked down. [Twisting the knife]: I'll marry Leonard, I will, as soon as I'm able to support him!
SHELDON: Leonard! That imbecile who wouldn't understand string theory if it bit him in the nose? Woman, don't you understand, I've made you a genius! A genius to solve scientific quandaries for Kings!
PENNY: Leonard loves me, that makes him king enough for me! I don't care if he's an idiot. I can support us both. I'll go be a teacher.
SHELDON: What would you teach, in heaven's name?
PENNY: What you taught me. I'll teach advanced physics.
SHELDON [loses it]: Ha, ha, ha!
PENNY: I'll offer myself as an assistant to that brilliant Barry Kripke. You should have seen him at the reward ceremony yesterday. He was falling all over himself to talk to me.
SHELDON: What! That impostor? That toadying ignoramus? My arch nemesis? Teach him my methods, my discoveries? You take one step in that direction and I'll hog-tie you, you hear?
Sheldon rushes at Penny in a sudden fury, but Penny merely simpers at him saucily.
PENNY: What do I care? I'll have you on the floor, begging for mercy before you lift a finger.
Sheldon sinks to the sofa, defeated. Penny beams with new-found self-worth and assertion.
PENNY [singing]:
What a fool I was!
What a dominated fool!
To think you were the earth and sky.
Now my reverberating friend,
You are not the beginning and the end!
SHELDON: You impudent hussy! There's not an idea in your head or a word in your mouth that I haven't put there.
PENNY [singing]: Without your pulling it, the tide comes in;
Without your twirling it, the earth can spin.
Without your pushing them, the clouds roll by.
If they can do without you, buster, so can I!
I shall not feel alone without you.
I can stand on my own without you.
So go back in your shell,
I can do damn well without you!
SHELDON [rising to his feet]: Penny, you're magnificent. Five minutes ago, you were a millstone around my neck, and now you're a tower of strength, a consort battleship. I like you this way. He flashes a rare Sheldon-smile.
PENNY [sadly, but with resolve]: Goodbye, Dr. Cooper. You shall not be seeing me again.
She exits the room, just as Mary comes back in.
SHELDON [screaming]: Mother!
MARY: What is it, Shelly? What's happened?
SHELDON [quietly, bewildered]: She's gone.
MARY: Well, of course, dear, what did you expect?
SHELDON: What... what am I to do?
MARY [feigning indifference]: Do without her, I suppose.
Sheldon [with heightened resolve]: And so I shall! If the Cooper oxygen burns up her little lungs, let her seek some stuffiness that suits her. She's an owl sickened by a few days of my sunshine. Very well, let her go, I can do without her. I can do without anyone. I have my own mind! My own spark of intellectual fire! Sheldon storms out.
Mrs. Cooper [with a knowing smile]: Bravo, Penny.
Cut to Sheldon stomping down the sidewalk, getting more and more agitated with each step.
SHELDON:Tarnation, Darn it, dang it, DAMN! He stops in mid-step as realization dawn. l've grown accustomed to her face!
[singing]
She almost makes the day begin.
l've grown accustomed to the meals,
She always smugly steals.
Her smiles, her frowns,
Her ups, her downs,
Are second nature to me now,
Like breathing out and breathing in.
l was serenely independent and content
Before we met.
Surely I could always be that way again!
And yet …
I've grown accustomed to her looks,
Accustomed to her voice,
Accustomed to her face.
Sheldon enters his apartment complex. He pauses on the first step as Penny's words ring in his ears
SHELDON: "Marry Leonard"? What an infantile idea. What a heartless, wicked, brainless thing to do. But she'll regret. She'll regret it! It's doomed before they even take the vow!
[singing]: I can see her now, Mrs. Leonard Hofstadter
In a wretched little flat above a store.
I can see them now, no cash to account for
And a bill collector beating at the door.
She'll try to teach the things I taught her,
And end up on the street instead.
Begging for her bread and water,
While her husband has his "breakfast" in bed.
In a year, or so, when she's prematurely grey,
And the blossom in her cheek has turned to chalk.
She'll come home, and lo! He'll have upped and run away
With a bleach-blond bumbling bimbo from New York!
Poor Penny! How simply frightful! How humiliating! Sheldon rubs his hands together and skips up the stairs. How delightful!
How poignant it'll be on that inevitable night
When she hammers on my door in tears and rags.
Miserable and lonely, repentant and contrite.
Will I take her in or hurl her to the streets?
Give her kindness or the treatment she deserves?
Sheldon pauses to consider.
But I'm a most forgiving man;
The sort who never could, never would,
Take a position and staunchly never budge.
SHELDON [with a vindictive glint in his eye]: But I shall never take her back,
If she were crawling on her knees.
Let her promise to atone;
Let her shiver, let her moan;
I'll slam the door and let the demon freeze!
Marry Leonard! HA!
Sheldon turns to unlock the door to his apartment, but stops in despair.
SHELDON [singing]: But I'm so used to hear her say, "Good morning" every day...
Her joys, her woes,
Her highs, her lows,
Are second nature to me now,
Like breathing out and breathing in.
I'm very grateful she's a woman,
And so easy to forget!
Rather like a habit one can always break.
And yet…
I've grown accustomed to the trace
of something in the air...
Accustomed... to her... face.
Sheldon goes over to his laptop and boots it up. He selects the first video from the "Gorilla Experiment," when he first started to teach Penny how to be a scientist, and starts playing it.
Video Sheldon: All right, let us begin. Where's your notebook?
Video Penny: Um... I don't have one.
Sheldon: How are you going to take notes without a notebook?
Penny: I have to take notes?
Sheldon: How else are you going to study for the tests?
Penny: There's gonna be a test?
Sheldon: Tests.
Suddenly, Sheldon hears a voice speaking over the video—a voice coming from the sofa seat that is close enough to the radiator in the winter that he's warm yet not so close that he sweats and that is in the direct path of a cross breeze created by opening windows during the summer.
PENNY: Fig Newtons were named after a town in Massachusetts, not the scientist.
SHELDON: Penny?
He smiles, happy that Penny has decided to stay, but quickly arranges his features in a fake frown and swivels around in his desk chair.
SHELDON:You're in my spot.