Keys and marks

Keys

Start a panel with

In a name

Title: Moon’s Purpose
Series: Vongfai
Issue: 1
Writer: Nor Sanavongsay
Artist:
Letterer:

# EXT. RIVER ROAD - DAWN

[Keep the bundle out of frame until page three.]

## WIDE. Mist sitting on the water. A bus older than anyone riding it comes down a road that runs level with the river.

CAPTION:	The bus leaves once a day, and it leaves before the sun does.

## JANIDA, 15, stands at the roadside with a cloth bundle held against her chest. She is not flagging the bus down. She is deciding.

## The bus stops anyway. The DRIVER leans out of the window, unhurried.

DRIVER:	You getting on, or growing roots?

## DETAIL. Her hand closing tighter on the bundle.

JANIDA (THOUGHT):	Grandmother said I would know when.

# INT. BUS - CONTINUOUS

## Janida moves down the aisle past crates of chickens, sacks of rice, and a monk asleep against the window.

SFX:	rattle rattle rattle

## She stops at a seat. JANMANI, 12, has claimed both halves of it with her knees.

JANMANI:	Taken.

JANIDA:	By what?

JANMANI:	My legs. They are long.

JANIDA:	They are twelve.

## Janmani moves her legs. Slightly.

JANMANI (SMALL):	Half taken.

## SILENT. The two of them side by side, not talking, the river sliding past the window behind them.

# INT. BUS - LATER

## WIDE. Sun up. The bus has climbed away from the water and the road is dust now.

CAPTION:	Two hours, and neither of them had said anything else.

## Janmani looks at the bundle in Janida’s lap.

JANMANI:	What is in it?

JANIDA:	Nothing.

JANMANI:	It moved.

## INSET. The bundle. Moving.

SFX:	thmp

## BIG PANEL. Janida looks straight ahead, at nothing, holding very still.

JANIDA:	Do not tell anyone.