Edward Scissorhands
Written by Tim Burton and Caroline Thompson
Novelized by Maria Tommerdahl
~*Chapter 1*~
A Story about Snow
Delicate snowflakes fell gently past the window as an elderly woman stood looking out. She turned to her young grand-daughter. "Snuggle in, Sweetie," she said, walking over to the small girl's bed, "It's cold out there."
Her grand-daughter, practically swimming in blankets in a bed that was probably too large for her, looked out the window at the icy crystals frosting the window pane. "Why is it snowing, Grandma?" she asked innocently, "Where does it come from?"
"Oh, that's a long story, Sweetheart," the woman replied gently, adjusting the blankets.
"I wanna hear," the little girl insisted.
"Oh, not tonight," the woman said dismissively, turning away, "Go to sleep."
"I'm not sleepy," the girl persisted, pleading with not only her voice, but her eyes, as well, "Tell me. Please?"
"Well, all right," the woman relented, standing at her grand-daughter's bedside. A look of concentration, of trying to remember crossed her face. "Let's see…" She sat in a comfortable chair that was positioned next to the bed, in just the right place for story-telling. Settling into the chair, she continued, "I guess it would have to start with… scissors."
"Scissors?" the girl asked, seeming slightly confused. And who could blame her? What did scissors have to do with snow?
"Well, there are all kinds of scissors," the woman explained, "And once, there was even a man who had scissors for hands."
"A man?"
"Yes," the woman nodded.
"Hands, scissors?" The girl was growing more and more confused, but Kim, or Grandma Boggs, as the girl knew her, always told such wonderful stories, that she was sure it would all make sense in the end.
"No," the woman corrected, "Scissorhands." Then it seemed as though the story branched off in a different direction. "You know the mansion on top of the mountain?" she asked.
"It's haunted," her grand-daughter replied, a slight glint of fear appearing in her eyes.
"Well…" the woman proceeded, knowing the mansion was not haunted, at least not by an actual, dead ghost, "A long time ago, an inventor lived in that mansion. He made many things, I suppose. He also created a man. He gave him insides, a heart, a brain, everything. Well, almost everything. You see, the inventor was very old. He died before he got to finish the man he invented. So the man was left by himself – incomplete and all alone."
"He didn't have a name?" her grand-daughter interjected, feeling pity for this man she had not known existed until moments before.
"Of course he had a name," the woman said, a little bit admonishingly, "His name was Edward."
