The Substitute (Milo Murphy's Law)

Zack: Uh oh. We got a substitute.

Milo: What's the matter with a substitute?

Zack: Nothing per say. It all depends on what type you get.

Melissa: What'd you mean?

Zack: Well, you got your try-too-hards.

(Zack opens his book to show a sketch of a try-too-hard substitute)

Try-too-hard: Have some candy. Please like me.

(Zack turns the page)

Zack: And your drill sergeants.

Drill Sergeant: You! I’m gonna call you Brooklyn. You from Brooklyn?

Drawn Student: No sir!

Drill Sergeant: That’s why it’s gonna stick!

Melissa: Well lets see what we got this time.

Ms. Baxter: Good morning students. I'm Ms. Baxter, your substitute teacher. But can I really call myself a teacher? Will I be able to teach you in this brief interval where our live overlap? And if I did, how would I ever know?

Zack: Oh. I forogot the third one, the discouraged burn-out.

(Zack holds up a drawing of Ms. Baxter in his book)

Melissa: Nice likeness.

Zack: Thanks.

Milo: You know...I never thought about it before, but being a substitute must be hard. Maybe if I...?

Melissa: Careful Milo. Remember the last time you "maybe-if-I"-ed? They have to call in the national guard.

Milo: I know. I got to hold a grenade launcher.

Ms. Baxter: Today I’ll show you this moderately accurate movie about exothermic reactions.

Milo: Excuse me, Ms Baxter. Out school doesn’t have the most up to date audio visual equipment. Do you have anything that’ll play on this? (Milo spins a zoetrope with a jumping monkey) It’s called a zoetrope. We also have a horse jumping and one of a fish.

Melissa: And no one can figure out what this one is.

(Melissa spins a zoetrope with a jumping magical old timey bathing suit in it)

Ms. Baxter: Well, I guess that means I’ll have to teach... You there, boy with the kind eyes. You’re my teacher’s aid for the day.

Milo: Cool. These glasses really work.

(Milo takes off some glasses with pictures of kind eyes on the lenses)

Amanda: Um, Ms. Baxter? You might want to put on your safety goggles and take a step back.

Bradley: Like, maybe all the way to Canada.

(A flash emanates from the classroom closet)

Cavendish: Ah! We’re here. Do you have the special Pistachio tree fertiliser from the future?

Dakota: Yeah I got it. It’s heavy too.

(Dakota puts down the tin next to a chemical absorbent tin)

Cavendish: Now all we have to do is find that pistachio plant... Why are we in a closet?

Dakota: I don’t know. The quantum localiser must have glitched again.

(The quantum localiser shuts off)

Cavendish: Hm. It’s dead. Now we don’t know where we are, or when. How are we going to recharge this? Go outside and see if they’ve discovered electricity yet.

(Dakota peaks through the closet door)

Ms. Baxter: And that is how a zoetrope works, apparently.

Dakota: You’re not going to like this.

Cavendish: What?

Dakota: I think we’re in the eighteen hundred’s.

Cavendish: What!

Dakota: They gotta zoetrope out there. But, you know, they also have fluorescent lights so maybe we’re just in a public school.

Cavendish: Alright, it’ll only take a minute to charge, so let’s find an outlet. But we must not call attention to ourselves.

Ms. Baxter: Well the next thing I’m supposed to "teach" is the three phases of matter. Solid...

(Cavendish and Dakota hide behind a very squeaky board. Everyone stops and looks at it as they move around the room to a power outlet.)

Ms. Baxter: The three phases of matter: Solid, Liquid...

(Everyone turns again to watch the two noisily make their way back to the closet door)

Ms. Baxter: Solid, liquid, and gas. To demonstrate, Milo will mix together baking soda, a solid, and vinegar, a liquid, to produce carbon dioxide gas.

Milo: Ok everyone. Goggles on.

(The class puts on their goggles)

Ms. Baxter: Right, you don’t need goggles, for this.

Milo: Flak vests too.

(Everyone puts on flak vests)

Milo: Ok. Let’s get started.

(The rest of the class hides behind their tables. Milo opens a stand and places the textbook on it, opening it to the appropriate page. He then follows the instructions and puts in the vinegar and baking soda. The trolley he’s working on top of then completely collapses. The flask then shoots across the room, propelled by the carbon dioxide produced. Everyone ducks behind their table as it ricochets everywhere.)

Student 1: Duck and cover!

Cavendish: Now’s my chance to retrieve the quantum localiser. It should be charged by now.

(Cavendish momentarily ducks behind the door as the flask flies by. He then crawls across the room as everyone else screams as they evade the flask. After hastily retrieving a device, Cavendish crawls back. The flask finally settles on top of the broken trolley but suddenly bursts into flames.)

Ms. Baxter: Vinegar and baking soda can’t catch on fire. That’s impossible, it’s endothermic.

Melissa: Yeah uh, strange things happen around Milo.

(Chad emerges from under Melissa’s table)

Chad: Spooky things. Other worldly...

Melissa: Chad. What have I told you about rising up from under my desk?

(Milo uses a fire extinguisher to put out the fire)

Chad: Not to do it?

Cavendish: All charged up. Time to save that pistachio plant.

(Cavendish turns on the device in his hand. Melissa’s phone turns on and a message from Lydia plays)

Lydia: Hey Melissa. Let’s hit the new mall after school. I hear it’s totally steep.

Cavendish: I... don’t think this is our quantum localiser.

Dakota: So where is it?

(The quantum localiser makes a weird sound. Melissa looks at it and unplugs it from the wall.)

Ms. Baxter: Young lady. Just because you have a substitute doesn’t mean you can text during class.

(Ms. Baxter takes the quantum localiser off Melissa and starts pressing buttons on it)

Melissa: That’s not my phone. That just made a weird noise.

Ms. Baxter: Who do you turn this thing off?

(A portal opens behind Ms. Baxter and sucks her in. Ms. Baxter finds herself floating though ever changing regions of space.)

Singer: Substitute science teacher in spaaaeaaace

Can you teach them in the brief interval where your lives overlap?

(Multiples of the zoetrope Monkey jump around Ms. Baxter’s head as her colour and texture change)

How will you ever knooowow?

(The magical old timey bathing suit joins the monkey)

How will you ever knooowow?

(The zoetrope animals go away and she returns to her normal colour)

Science teacher in space

(Another portal opens and Ms. Baxter flies though it very quickly)

Ms. Baxter: Wooooooow!

(She eventually exits it in the exact position she started at in the classroom in a shocked state)

Zack: Uh, Ms. Baxter? Your uh… Your hair’s a little messed up.

(Ms. Baxter wordlessly puts the quantum localiser down, picks up the textbook and moves back to the front of the class)

Melissa: Really? That’s what jumped out at you about that whole thing?

(Ms. Baxter gives the textbook to Milo)

Ms. Baxter: You’re in charge.

(Ms. Baxter sits down at Ms. Murawski’s desk and leans back with sunglasses over her eyes)

Milo: Ok. Polymerization. That sounds advanced. I’m gonna need an assistant. Any volunteers?

(Everyone looks at Zack)

Zack: ... Everyone’s looking at me, aren’t they.

Cavendish: Ok, as soon as the coast is clear we’ve got to switch it back for the quantum localiser.

Dakota: And... we’ve got to check out that new mall, apparently.

Cavendish: Give me that!

(Cavendish takes Melissa’s phone)

Milo: Ok Zack, just one more thing.

(Zack stands next to the chemical trolley with a helmet, goggles, gloves, a pillow tied to his torso, bubble rap around his arms and an arms-length claw for handling the chemicals)

Zack: Duck and cover?

Milo: Actually, that’s two things so... I guess three more things. We need to add six grams of diamino-hexane. Careful it’s very volatile.

(Zack pours some diamino-hexane into a prepared solution)

Zack: uh oh. This isn’t diamino-hexane is it?

Milo: I just said it was.

Zack: I though you said diamino-hexene. Diamino-hexane makes me sneeze.

Melissa: How could you possibly know that.

Zack: When I was a kid I had this chemistry set and I achoo!

(Zack bumps the beaker with the solution in it and a drop flies out of it. The class gasps.)

Melissa: Noooo.

(The drop lands on the floor. Milo and Zack look at it.)

Zack: Chemical spill! Everyone panic! I’ll start.

(Zack throws away his safety equipment and starts running around the room. All the other students start panicking.)

Ms. Baxter: Just pour some chemical absorbent on it. There’s probably some in the closet.

Milo: I’ll get it.

(Milo opens the closet and finds Cavendish and Dakota staring back at him. As he looks back at them he grabs the pistachio tree fertiliser next to the chemical absorbent and slowly edges out of the closet.)

Dakota: Do you think he noticed us?

(Milo dumbs the fertiliser on the spill)

Melissa: Ms. Baxter, I don’t think it’s working.

(The fertiliser turns into a bubbling goo)

Ms. Baxter: The chemical absorbent will neutralise the spill.

(The goo starts to spread and grow)

Melissa: Uh. Does neutralise mean the same thing in science class that it does in English class?

(The students climb onto their tables as the blob covers the whole floor of the classroom)

Zack: Oh, this can’t be good.

(One section of the blob forms a hand like appendage and waves it in front of Ms. Baxter’s face with no reaction)

Milo: Maybe it’s a friendly blob.

(The blob grabs Chad and throws him across the room)

Chad: Waa! Oof.

Zack: Hey Milo?

Milo: Yeah?

Zack: It’s not a friendly blob.

(Milo is grabbed by his ankle and slammed against a locker)

Joni: It’s got my pony tail!

Karo: Joni. That’s just a pencil sharpener.

Joni: Oh.

(Emery swings a broom at it but the blob moves out of the way)

Emery: Ugh! Ugh!

(Just before he make a third swing a section of the blob takes the broom out of his hands and starts swinging at him.)

Emery: I’m already pretending this didn’t happen.

(Emery dodges two swings and nearly falls off his table but another section of the blob stops him from falling)

Emery: Thank you.

(The section of the blob proceeds to give him a wedgy. Another section is now turning the pencil sharpener, causing Joni’s hair to be pulled in.)

Joni: But now look! Now! Guys!

(Next to Amanda the blob has formed a near human form and is using a phone)

Amanda: Ms. Baxter. It’s texting in class.

(Mort grabs an appendage of the blob)

Zack: Nice head lock Mort.

Mort: I hope this is it’s head.

(A new appendage grows behind Mort and grabs him. Another appendage smacks his butt.)

Student 2: Is this one of the three states of matter?

(The blob creeps up the closet door)

Cavendish: If we don’t retrieve the quantum localiser we’ll never be able to save that pistachio... (There is a knock at the closet door) Excuse me. (Cavendish opens the door to find a sentient blob at the door with the studentw screaming in the classroom beyond. Cavendish closes the door.) Ah yes.

Dakota: Who was it?

Cavendish: It was a sentient blob.

Dakota: A sentient blob? That’s impossible. You’d need to mix diamino-hexane with pistachio tree fertiliser from the future... like the one we just brought... (Dakota sees that the pistachio tree fertiliser is gone) Oh.

(The sentient blob kicks down the door and throws Cavendish and Dakota out of the closet. They land near the quantum localiser and Cavendish grabs it while they hide behind a table)

Cavendish: I have the localiser. Let’s go.

(They quickly exit through the door but a tentacle grabs Dakota’s leg as he gets through the door)

Dakota: Oh no! It’s got me! Let go!

(The blob grabs the sunglasses off Ms. Baxter. Ms. Baxter looks up at it and tries to run, but it quickly catches her and holder her upside-down.)

Ms. Baxter: Aaaaaah! Wow! What is it?

Zack: We don’t know. It’s not quite a liquid and not quite a solid.

Milo: Wait a minute. The three phases of matter. We can turn it into a solid.

(Milo grabs a fire extinguisher and quickly shuts the door, cutting off the tentacle around Dakota’s foot. Cavendish and Dakota fall over as the severed section is catapulted onto an air duct that it seeps through.)

Milo: Hey blob! (in a deep voice) Chill.

(Milo fires the fire extinguisher at a section of the blob and it quickly freezes)

Milo: Here Zack.

(Milo passes a fire extinguisher to Zack with his foot. Zack grabs it and starts freezing the blob. As Milo and Zack freeze many components of the blob, one section sneaks up behind Zack.)

Melissa: Get down.

(As Zack ducks Melissa uses a fire extinguisher to freeze that section)

Dakota: Well that could have gone better.

Cavendish: Ugh! I do not remember science class being so action packed.

(A sounds comes from the quantum localiser)

Cavendish: Oh no. According to this, the danger to our pistachio plant is getting closer! Quickly Dakota! To the courtyard!

(In the courtyard Diogee wonders up to the pistachio plant and prepares to pee on it)

Cavendish: Up! Dwup! Yup! No no no no no! Get out of here you beast!

(Cavendish shoos Diogee away)

Cavendish: Well, there you go. Our first successful mission.

(Dakota taps him on the shoulder and looks down at the pistachio tree. Cavendish sees that he has stepped on it.)

Cavendish: Oh nuts.

(Milo and Melissa freeze the last of the blob)

Milo: Now every thing’s cool.

Melissa: You gonna keep talking like that?

Milo: ''Thinking about it. I’m sorry that today... (Milo clears his throat and returns to his normal voice)'' I’m sorry today was so terrible Ms. Baxter.

Ms. Baxter: Milo, I went through a worm hole into deep space and I was juggled by a sentient blob. Terrible isn’t the word for it.

Milo: Yeah, I guess not.

Ms. Baxter: Awesome is the word!

Melissa: Really? Why?

Ms. Baxter: Because you actually learnt the three phases of matter in my class!

Singer: Solid, liquid and gaaaaeaaaas!

(Zack, Milo, and Melissa look around questioningly as Ms. Baxter beams up at the roof)

Ms. Baxter: I taught you something!

Milo: Well, it’s just like my dad says: "All’s well that ends with a sentient blob making a teacher remember why she loves teaching."

Ms. Baxter: Wow. Your dad’s sayings are weirdly specific.

(The severed section of the blob falls out of an exterior vent and makes it’s way across the courtyard. When it reaches the crushed pistachio tree it is absorbed into the ground. The tree suddenly shoots upright and grows new leaves that turn red. A central leaf starts glowing yellow. The final screen reads: "The end ?")

It’s my world and we’re all living in it