ROLE PLAY/INTERVIEW

Bethany's Interview with Holden Caulfield:

Bethany: Hey there, everyone! Welcome back to Catching Up with Bethany. Today, Holden Caulfield has come to visit us. Glad to have you Holden.

Holden: Thanks, it’s good to be here.

Bethany: So tell the audience a little bit about yourself.

Holden: Well, I have just recently been expelled from Pencey Prep and no one really knows about it right now. I have a younger sister

named Phoebe who is 10 and I used to have a younger brother, but he passed away a while back. Got an older brother, D. B., who's a writer, too.

Bethany: I’m so sorry for your loss. What was his name?

Holden: his name was Allie and he used to play baseball with me all the time. He had a special lefty mitt, too. He wrote all kinds of poems

on them so that he wouldn’t get bored during the game.

Bethany: We have a couple of questions here that your fans have sent in via Twitter. The first question reads: Hey Holden, why did you get

kicked out of Pencey?

Holden: Haha, that's a complicated topic. You see, I didn't get nothing out of that school. It is full of cliques that only stick to their own

group. For example, there's the Catholics and there's the basketball guys. No way are they going to hang out one day. Also, I was failing

tremendously. None of my teachers seemed to be able to get through to me because all of their words seemed like gibberish. I got kicked

out because of my marks. They only let a certain amount of people through to the higher grades because they want to keep their

academic rating nice and high.

Bethany: That's tough...

Holden: Not really. I have been kicked out of 4 schools before this one, so it doesn't really faze me.

Bethany: Alright, well our second question comes all the way from Australia and reads: You talk about Phoebe a lot. Why is she so

important to you?

Holden: She is my baby sister. I know she is already 10 years old, but she is the only sibling I got left. Ever since Allie passed away, she has

been copying what I used to do as a kid. Like she goes to the skate-park on Sundays and she goes to the Museum of Natural History with

her class and all. To show her how much I appreciate her, I bought old Phoebe the "Little Shirley Beans" album by some down Broadway

guy. She loves these things because she is so smart for her age. She's like Allie. Smarter than she should be, red-haired, and she is very

clever.

Bethany: How sweet! I wish my brother loved and cared about me that much. Our third question comes from Ilyra and she asks: Would

you be comfortable with telling us a little bit more about Allie?

Holden: I guess I could tell you a bit, but I don't like much getting choked up in front of people, so excuse me if I stop.

Bethany: Whatever you are comfortable with, Holden.

Holden: Thanks. So like I said before, Allie was a baseball player and he got diagnosed with leukemia at an early age. He passes away in July

of 1946, fighting harder than he ever had. He was 11 then, and I was 13. The poems he wrote on his glove were written in green ink

because he thought that blue and black were much too overused and green should get more recognition. He was such a nice kid. He

would always be willing to talk to you even if he was tired. He was the nicest kid that you could have ever met. But that was 3 years ago...I

still talk to him sometimes, though. I'm always talking to him even when people are around. He's like my guardian angel. I just miss him so

much.

Bethany: Thank you, Holden. You are a very strong 16-year-old man. That wraps up our show today, folks. Thank you for your time today,

Holden.

Holden: No problem, it was my pleasure to be here.

Melissa's Role Play as Holden Caulfield:

My name’s Holden Caulfield. I’m seventeen and I go to Pencey Prep – or used to go to Pencey anyways. I was kicked out. I guess you could say it was my own fault and all considering I flunked my classes. Now here I am, walking to a train station at two in the morning. I couldn’t stand Pencey. It made me feel sad and lonesome and all. Before you start judging me, give me a chance to explain myself.

Now I don’t want to get all mushy and emotional and personal and all, so I’ll just start from yesterday evening. My roommate, Stradlater, went out on a date with Jane Gallagher and he asked me to write his composition. I don’t know why I agreed to do it, but I did. It was supposed to be a descriptive composition and all so I wrote about my brother’s baseball glove. My little brother, Allie, died of leukemia when he was eleven and I was thirteen. Anyways, his baseball glove was special. He covered the glove in poems and he wrote them in green ink. He did it so he could have something to read when he wasn’t doing anything on the field. Allie was pretty damn intelligent even though he was younger than me. I miss the kid and his red hair.

It was just like any other Saturday evening. We ate the same dry steak and mashed potatoes every Saturday night. It was me and Mal Brossard and Ackley. We went out that night and had a snowball fight and watched a movie. But Ackley already saw the goddam movie so we just ate some hamburgers. I didn’t want Ackley to be there, but that sonouvabitch didn’t do anything on Saturday’s but stay in his room and squeeze his pimples. Gross, huh?

When I got back, everything went a little too crazy. Stradlater got back from his date but he wouldn’t say a word about it. Then he yelled at me for the composition I wrote him. Long story short, he knocked me flat on my back. I was bleeding a lot. Then I went to Ackley’s room next door and planted myself on his roommate’s empty bed. It didn’t take long for tension to rise between me and Ackley. So, I left.

Once I left Ackley’s room I wanted to stop by my pal Mal Brossard. But then, something came over me. I didn’t want to see Mal at all. I wanted to get the hell out of Pencey. I couldn’t wait any longer. Even though I got kicked out, I’d have to wait ‘til Wednesday to leave. There was no way in hell that I’d be able to survive in that place for one more night. I was desperate. I went back to my room and packed whatever was left of my stuff. Now I’ll be honest. Packing got me a little depressed.

Here I am, walking to a train station at two in the morning. It’s too late to call for a cab and the train station isn’t too far away, I guess. At least I’m somewhat warm. Besides, I liked how quiet and calm it was out here. It was relaxing and all. At this point you might be thinking about what my next move is or if I even have enough money. Don’t worry about it. My grandma sends me wads of money all the time and I plan to take a very inexpensive hotel room in New York until Wednesday. Then we’ll see how my parents react. I’m just glad that I’m finally out of that hellhole. I’ve already been kicked out of four schools. What could possibly go wrong now? Oh man, I’m feeling pretty good. Especially because my last words at Pencey were, “Sleep tight, ya morons!” I really hope I woke up all those bastards.

Amarjot's Interview with Holden C.

Amarjot: Welcome back to Advice Hour, I am Amarjot Kang and today we have a special guest. Please welcome Holden Caulfield a teen from Pennsylvania. Without further ado let’s jump into the interview and advice session.

Okay Holden why don’t we start with you telling us a bit about yourself.

Holden: Thank you everyone. Well I am Holden Caulfield, 16 years old from Pennsylvania.

Amarjot: We’ve already covered that how about you tell us about your family?

Holden: I have a younger sister Phoebe who is 10 and extremely smart, unlike me. She’s got red hair like Allie. Oh yeah Allie is my younger brother who passed away at the age of 10 from leukemia, he also had red hair. He had a baseball mitt with poems written on it and he also enjoyed playing baseball. Lastly I also have an older brother who is a writer and currently lives in Hollywood, his name’s DB.

Amarjot: Wow it seems you have a very talented family! Also my condolences to you and your family about Allie.

Holden: I guess everyone’s talented besides me.

Amarjot: And why is that so?

Holden: Well let’s be honest here, I’ve been kicked out of 3 schools, currently failing 4/5 of my courses and I do not apply myself at all. I try to act tough but the truth is I am yellow.

Amarjot: Come on Holden think positive! You are not so bad.

Holden: I guess.

Amarjot: How about you tell us some of your plans for the future?

Holden: I do not know what to do, I just flunked my way out of Pencey making this the fourth school I’ve gotten kicked out of. My roommate got together with my old childhood friend that I cannot get out of my mind. To top things off I just got in to a physical fight with my roommate. Everything’s a disaster and I just want to leave.

Amarjot: I understand but I do not think running away from your problems will help you.

Holden: I just really couldn’t care less. I am not applying myself now and don’t plan on doing so. I’d rather be hanging out at bars with girls then deal with this madman stuff I call life.

Amarjot: Well it seems like someone woke up on the other side of the bed. If you are not willing to take advice and sort your life out you will end up in more trouble. Anyway this is all the time we’ve got ladies and gents! Tune in next time when we attempt to connect with Holden’s departed brother Allie!

Anita as Holden Caulfield:

All you really need to know is that my name is Holden – Holden Caulfield. I’m seventeen years old, I live in Agerstown, Pennsylvania and I just got kicked out of Pencey Prep. No big deal or anything, I hated it there. The goddam school was filled with phonies.

For Chrissake, you should of seen these guys. It would have killed old Phoebe to see them. This one guy, Ackley is goddam crazy and Stradlater, don’t even get me started on Stradlater, the goddam bastard is a real ladies man and all. Stradlater used to give girls the time while I was in the front seat with a date for chrissake. To tell you the truth I was a virgin.

Phoebe’s my ten year old sister, she’s real smart. Smarter than me, almost. She’s got a knack for spelling. And Allie, my brother. Or well he was my brother. He died on July 18, 1946 in Maine. Died of leukemia, poor guy. He was the smartest and all in the clan of Caulfield’s. He was a goddam red head too. For God’s sake he’s probably the nicer than everybody combined at Pencey Prep.

Man, was I depressed. Some nut job wrote “Fuck you” on the wall of old Phoebe’s goddam school. Who the hell does that. To tell you the truth, it was probably some bastard that broke into the school in the late of night to take a piss.

You should have seen Phoebe when we went to the zoo this one day. She kills me. All tiny and all. It was raining like hell, and I was watching old Phoebe on the carousel. Trying to grab the ring and all while sitting on her horse. I got a bang out of that, she looked so damn happy I was bawling.

You would probably want to know more, but I’m not feeling it right now. That’s all I’m probably gonna tell you, talking about people makes me goddam sad. For Chrissake, you’ll miss them too much.