*Stage Directors 1, 2, and 3 (SD1, SD2, SD3)
*Severine, the most powerful jumbie
Soucouyant, Lagahoo, and Douens 1 and 2, jumbies
*Corinne La Mer, a girl
Characters
Choose the character you will play.
*Starred characters have large speaking parts.
Illustrations by Antonio Javier Caparo
The Jumbies
They are watching.
By the editors of Scope | Based on the novel by Tracey Baptiste
From the December 2022/January 2023 Issue
Learning Objective: to explain how characters in the play misjudge one another
Complexity Factors
Lexile: 730L (captions only)
Featured Skill:
Character,
Other Key Skills: key ideas and details, inference, figurative language, theme, author’s craft
Common Core Standards
TEKS Standards
🍊Prologue🍊
The Forest
SD1: A forest of mahogany trees fills the darkened stage.
SD2: Strange creatures step forward from the shadows.
Severine: Hello, little humans. We are jumbies.
Soucouyant: We take many forms.
Lagahoo: I am a lagahoo [LAH-gah-hoo]. I can look like anything. I can even look like you.
Douens 1 and 2: We are douens [dwens].
Douen 1: We seem like small children.
Douen 2: But we are very old.
Soucouyant: I am a soucouyant [SOO-koo-yah]. I wear the skin of an elderly woman—but my true form is a fireball.
Severine: And I am Severine, the most powerful of all.
Lagahoo: If you see us, take care.
Douen 1: We can be very tricky!
Douen 2: Fooling humans makes us laugh!
Soucouyant: Do not listen to the stories that humans tell about us. We are not monsters. We are simply magical.
Lagahoo: And this forest, on this island, is our home.
Severine: But the humans are ungrateful. They take our trees for lumber. They clear our forests for cropland!
SD3: Just then, Corinne walks by, a short distance away.
Severine (sniffing): Who is this? That scent is familiar . . . Could it be? Could it be her?
SD1: Severine turns to face the other jumbies. They seem to fall into a trance, as if under a spell.
SD2: The lights gradually fade until all that can be seen are Severine’s yellow eyes, glowing in the darkness.
🍊Scene 1🍊
The Graveyard
SD3: The sun is setting as villagers walk to a graveyard.
SD1: Corinne and her father, Pierre, join the procession. They stop in front of a gravestone that reads Nicole La Mer.
Pierre: Do you remember what you asked me when we buried her?
Corinne: I asked how long it would take her to grow back.
Pierre: Not everything put in the ground returns to us. But this orange tree? It has never stopped blooming over your mama’s grave.
Corinne: Mama always said a seed is a promise. That I must plant it and watch it grow.
SD2: The villagers light candles. Soon, hundreds of flames flicker in the sea breeze.
Hugo (walking up): The spirits will be out tonight.
Pierre: Hugo, how are you?
Hugo: I am well. (to Corinne) It’s All Hallow’s Eve, and the jumbies will leave the forest to exact revenge on those who have wronged them. Aren’t you afraid?
SD3: Corinne touches the stone pendant on her necklace.
Corinne: I am not.
SD1: Hugo laughs merrily.
SD2: Suddenly, Corinne’s pendant seems to glow.
SD3: She looks up to see a pair of yellow eyes peering at her from the forest. Corinne gasps as the eyes disappear.
Pierre: What is it, Corinne?
Corinne: I thought I saw—Never mind. It is nothing.
SD1: Darkness falls, and the villagers leave one by one.
SD2: When the graveyard is empty, Severine emerges from the trees. She crawls on all fours to Mama’s grave.
Severine: Nicole, my sister, I have found you. But why did you choose humans over your own kind?
SD3: Muddy tears flow down her cheeks. When they reach the dirt, the tears burst into centipedes and scatter.
Why do you think Corinne’s pendant glows? What clue is it giving you?
🍊Scene 2🍊
The Market
SD1: The lights come up on a bustling market.
SD2: Chickens squawk and goats bleat.
SD3: Baskets overflow with fruits and vegetables.
SD1: Villagers go this way and that, haggling over prices.
Villager 1: Potatoes for stew ! Cheap for me ! Plenty for you!
Villager 2: Sweet figs! Get your sweet figs!
Villager 3: Mango! Mango! Get your mango here!
SD2: Corinne stands in front of a pyramid of stacked oranges. Her friends Dru, Bouki, and Malik walk up.
Dru: I like your necklace. You always wear it, but I’ve never asked where it came from.
Corinne: Thank you. It was my mother’s.
Bouki: Those oranges look incredible.
Malik: You’ll have lots of customers today.
Corinne: I picked them from my grove this morning. It’s the best soil on the island.
Dru: True, but it’s next to the mahogany forest. Everyone knows that forest is dangerous. It’s where the jumbies live.
Malik: How can you go into the forest and survive?
Corinne: They say that the jumbies live in the forest, but has anyone actually seen a jumbie? Maybe they don’t really exist.
SD3: Suddenly, the market falls quiet.
SD1: The kids turn to see what everyone is looking at: a tall woman dressed in fine cloth the color of forest leaves.
Corinne: Who is that?
Malik: I don’t know. But she moves as if gliding on a ribbon.
Dru: Maybe she’s a jumbie. I heard they take potions to look like us.
Bouki: Where is she going?
SD2: The tall woman walks to the edge of the market and stops in front of an ancient woman with striking white hair.
Corinne: She’s come to see the witch!
🍊Scene 3🍊
The Witch’s Stall
SD3: The woman and the witch speak in low voices.
Severine: I need something from you.
Witch: I know you’ve already stolen one of my potions. You’re using it to fool everyone into thinking you’re a regular woman.
Severine: I need something else.
SD1: Severine looks at the witch’s potions, stacked neatly in the stall.
Witch: I will not help you. I cannot help one side at the expense of the other.
Severine: No? But you already take sides by selling your potions to these humans.
Witch: That is different. I know what you are after. It is not what Nicole would have wanted. She loved them.
Severine: She was tricked.
Witch: Return to the hole you came from.
SD2: Severine starts to leave, and the witch turns to her next customer.
SD3: With the witch distracted, Severine snatches one of the bottles and vanishes.
What Is a Jumbie?
A jumbie is a mythical creature in many Caribbean folktales. There are many types of jumbies. There is the lagahoo, a shapeshifter that feeds on the blood of cows and goats and carries a coffin. There are the douens, who lure children into the forest. And there is the soucouyant, who can turn into a fireball and fly.
🍊Scene 4🍊
Corinne’s House
SD1: Pierre sits at the kitchen table.
SD2: Severine stands over a pot of stew.
SD3: She hums to herself as she tosses ginger and cilantro into the pot.
Pierre: This is the worst storm I have ever seen on this island.
SD1: He gazes out the window, shaking his head. But the sky is clear and blue.
Pierre: What if I had taken my fishing boat out in this lashing rain and deadly lightning? If Corinne were left alone—
Severine: Family is everything, isn’t it?
SD2: Pierre’s expression changes to worry.
Pierre: Corinne should be home from the market by now.
SD3: Severine opens the bottle she took from the witch. Inside is a strange root.
SD1: Smiling wickedly, she drops the root into the stew and stirs.
Pierre: That stew smells delicious.
SD2: Just then, Corinne walks in.
Corinne: Blech! What is that stench?!
SD3: Covering her nose, she rushes to the windows and flings them open.
Corinne (seeing Severine) : You! You were at the market.
Pierre: This is Severine. I offered her shelter from this terrible storm.
Corinne (confused): What storm?
SD1: Severine ladles the stew into a bowl for Pierre. He begins eating it.
SD2: The more he eats, the cloudier his eyes become and the faster he gulps the stew, until he’s eating like a greedy animal.
Corinne: Papa?
SD3: He doesn’t respond.
Corinne: What have you done to him?
Severine: He can’t protect you now.
SD1: Papa stares off, as if in a daze.
Corinne: Get out of my house.
Severine: Your house? This is my island.
Corinne: I know what you are, jumbie.
Severine: You are bright, aren’t you?
SD2: Severine holds out a bowl.
Severine: Here, have some.
SD3: Corinne knocks it to the floor.
Severine: Is that any way to treat your auntie?
Corinne: You are not my auntie.
Severine: Oh, but I am. Nicole, your mama, was my sister.
Corinne: But that would make me . . . half jumbie.
Severine: You must have known you were different. You can go into the forest and make it out alive. Even your oranges have magic in them.
Corinne: But why are you here now?
Severine: I caught your scent when you were in the forest, and I followed you. You led me to my sister’s grave. And it was your papa who killed her!
Corinne: What are you saying?!
Severine: We jumbies cannot live among humans. It kills us, eventually. Your mother fell in love with your father and chose to stay anyway. But don’t worry. He will soon be a jumbie. And so will every human on this island.
SD1: A sliver of light bounces off Corinne’s pendant onto Severine, and she flinches.
SD2: Her skin shrivels like old tree bark. Centipedes, cockroaches, and beetles swarm over her.
SD3: Corinne rips off her necklace and waves it at Severine, trying to drive her away. But Severine is too fast. She snatches it out of Corinne’s hand.
Severine: I have your father. Now I have your mother too! All I need is for you to join me. Together, we will be more powerful than any family on this island!
Corinne: I will never join you!
SD1: Corinne turns and runs out the door.
Severine (shouting): My jumbie army is coming! The time of the humans is over!
🍊Scene 5🍊
The Beach
SD2: Dru, Bouki, and Malik are sitting on the beach when Corinne races up to them.
Corinne: That woman from the market—she did something to Papa. He doesn’t recognize me. She stole my mama’s necklace. And she says the island belongs to the jumbies!
Dru: Why would she take your necklace?
Corinne: I don’t know. It has some kind of power.
Malik: Look—over there, across the water.
SD3: Squinting, they see the necklace shining at the top of a cliff across the bay.
Bouki: Why would she hang your necklace there?
Dru: Maybe it’s a trap.
SD1: Just then, shouting erupts in the distance.
Corinne: The jumbie army. It’s starting, just like she said.
Bouki: We have to stop them.
Dru: How?
Malik: We could ask the witch.
Dru: She’ll never help us.
Malik: Do you have a better idea?
🍊Scene 6🍊
The Village
SD2: Corinne, Bouki, Malik, and Dru race through town.
SD3: A fierce battle rages between jumbies and villagers.
SD1: Broken glass, tree branches, and other debris litter the streets.
Douen 1: Come here, children.
Douen 2: Come with us into the forest.
SD2: The kids dart past the douens and come to a woman lying in the road.
Soucouyant: Please, please help me!
Malik: Grandmother, here, take my hand.
SD3: He reaches down to help her up, then recoils.
Malik: Ow! Your skin . . . it’s burning hot!
Soucouyant: Heeeeeeeee!
Lagahoo: I am hungry!
SD1: They turn to see a lagahoo loping toward them, its claws outstretched.
SD2: The kids run, darting through the chaos, until finally they reach the witch’s hut and burst inside.
🍊Scene 7🍊
The Witch’s Hut
SD3: The kids stand inside the witch’s hut, which is dark and filled with strange herbs and potions.
Witch: What do you want?
Corinne: Severine put a spell on my papa.
Witch: Ha! Good luck.
Corinne: Don’t you hear the fighting? Their kind are trying to take over !
Witch: Their kind, your kind. What’s the difference?
Dru: They’re trying to kill us!
Witch: They belong here.
Corinne: But they’re not like regular people.
Witch: I’m not like regular people either. I’m as different as you are, Corinne.
SD1: Corinne freezes.
SD2: The others look at Corinne, confused.
Witch (to the others): I see she hasn’t told you. Corinne’s mother was a jumbie.
Corinne: We don’t have time for this. Can’t you help us with your magic?
Witch: Magic is just work. It comes from your head and your heart. Let me show you.
SD3: The witch places a seed on the table and splits it open with a cleaver.
Witch: What’s inside this seed? Nothing. But put the seed in the ground, water it, give it what it needs? Something extraordinary happens.
Corinne: I don’t understand.
Witch: You will. Now, Severine’s magic will take hold by sunrise tomorrow. You have until then to save your father, or he will be a jumbie forever.
SD1: Corinne notices the others looking at her strangely.
Corinne: What? Now you’re scared of me? Because I’m half jumbie?
SD2: Dru takes Corinne’s hand.
Dru: We’re in this together.
Malik: Yes. We stick together.
Witch: Corinne, Severine knows you have special power. She wants to use it to take over the island, just as she is using the jumbies.
Malik: She is controlling the jumbies with her magic?!
Corinne: How can we stop her?
Bouki: The pendant! We saw it on the cliff across the bay. Didn’t you say it seemed to have some kind of power?
Witch (to Corinne): You know where you must go. But you must go alone. She will be waiting.
🍊Scene 8🍊
The Cliff
SD3: Corinne reaches the top of the cliff. Far below, waves crash violently against the rocks.
SD1: Corinne sees her necklace hanging on a branch. As she gets closer, the pendant glows and rattles.
Witch (from offstage) : Look what’s inside.
SD2: Corinne takes a breath, then smashes the pendant with a rock. A shriveled orange seed spills out.
Corinne: How will this save us?
Severine: I knew you’d come.
SD3: Corinne whirls around to see Severine. Beside her is a wolflike beast, its fangs bared.
Corinne (whispering): Mama, what now?
SD1: The seed trembles.
Corinne: Like you always told me, Mama . . .
SD2: Corinne pushes the seed into the rocky soil.
Corinne (whispering): Grow.
SD3: A sapling rises from the ground.
Severine: You’ve figured out your mother’s magic I see. You are capable of even more. Come with me, and I will show you. Or choose to be human and I will destroy you.
Corinne (louder): Grow.
SD1: The tree reaches Corinne’s head, then higher.
SD2: Its branches reach out to Severine.
Severine: Stop it!
Corinne (shouting ): GROW!
SD3: The tree lifts Severine off the ground.
Severine (screaming): NO!
SD1: The tree tears away from the cliff and spirals into the ocean, taking Severine with it.
Severine: AHHHHHhhhhhh . . .
SD2: Corinne turns to the beast.
Corinne: Papa?
SD3: The beast snarls. But then, he gradually transforms back into Pierre.
Pierre: Corinne?
Corinne: Papa!
SD1: Pierre wraps Corinne in a hug.
🍊Scene 9🍊
The Village
SD2: Corinne and Pierre stand before the villagers.
SD3: The witch and Bouki, Malik, and Dru are in the crowd.
SD1: Behind the villagers is the forest, where the jumbies watch from the trees. They are no longer under Severine’s spell.
Bouki: How did your pendant save your papa?
Corinne: It wasn’t the pendant. It was the seed inside.
SD2: Corinne holds up an orange seed.
Corinne: Grow.
SD3: The seed splits, and a green sprout appears.
SD1: The villagers gasp, astonished.
Malik: Is Severine gone?
Corinne: Gone forever.
Dru: What about the other jumbies?
Villager 1: They will kill us!
Corinne: No. That was all Severine—she was controlling them with her magic.
Villager 2: I don’t believe it. We must get rid of them.
Corinne: They are not monsters. And this island was theirs before it was ours. We have to find a way to live together.
SD2: The witch smiles at Corinne.
SD3: Corinne and Pierre hand out the seeds. Everyone pushes them into the ground.
Corinne: Grow!
SD1: Orange trees shoot upward, forming a lush green wall at the edge of the forest.
Villager 3: That won’t keep the jumbies in the forest.
Corinne: It’s not to keep them in. It’s to keep us out.
It will remind us: The forest is their home.
SD2: The orange trees grow skyward.
Corinne: And this island belongs to us all.
Adaptation based on The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste, © 2015 by Tracey Baptiste, published by Algonquin Young Readers, an imprint of Workman/Hachette. Used with permission.
Writing Prompt
To misjudge someone is to have a wrong opinion of them. How do the humans misjudge the jumbies? How does Severine misjudge the humans? Answer both questions in a short response.
This play was originally published in the December 2022/January 2023 issue.
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Step-by-Step Lesson Plan
Close Reading, Critical Thinking, Skill Building
Essential questions: How can different communities live together peacefully? What makes a good leader? How can we overcome conflict? What shapes our views of others?
1. PREPARING TO READ (15 MINUTES)
Do Now: Anticipation Guide (5 minutes)
Project the Theme Anticipation Guide on your whiteboard or share the Google Forms version with each student (both available in your Resources tab). Have students decide whether they agree or disagree with each statement, then discuss. After reading the play, ask students to share whether any of their answers have changed and, if so, why. You could also have them complete the Theme Anticipation Guide as one of the characters.
Preview Vocabulary (10 minutes)
Project Vocabulary: Definitions and Practice. Review the definitions as a class. Highlighted words: haggling, exact, loping, lush, pendant. Optionally, print or share the interactive link directly to your LMS and have students preview the words and complete the activity independently beforehand. (Audio pronunciations of the words and a read-aloud of the definitions are embedded in the interactive slides.)
2. READING AND DISCUSSING (45 MINUTES)
Have a volunteer read the As You Read box on page 22 of the magazine or at the top of the digital story page.
Break students into groups to discuss the following close-reading and critical-thinking questions.
Close-Reading Questions (15 minutes)
At the beginning of the play, how do jumbies and humans view each other? (key ideas and details) Humans view jumbies as strange and dangerous monsters. Even humans who have never seen a jumbie fear jumbies and the mahogany forest, where the jumbies live. Jumbies do not view themselves as monsters but as “simply magical.” They believe that the island where they and the humans live belongs to them, the jumbies. They view humans as ungrateful creatures for destroying the island by cutting down trees for lumber and clearing forests for cropland.
In Scene 4, why does Pierre believe there is a storm even though the sky is clear and blue? (inference) You can infer that Severine has used her magical powers to make Pierre think he sees a storm outside. She does this to trick Pierre into inviting her into his home. Once she is inside, she is able to slip the potion that will turn him into a jumbie into a pot of stew.
Why does Severine want to turn all the humans into jumbies? (key ideas and details, character) Severine wants to turn all the humans into jumbies for several reasons. She wants to exact revenge on Pierre for her sister’s death; her sister died as a result of falling in love with a human (Pierre) and living among humans for too long. Severine also wants to be more powerful and have the most powerful family on the island, and she thinks turning Pierre and Corinne into jumbies will give her the powerful family she desires. Lastly, she wants the time of humans to be over and for jumbies to take back the island.
In the final scene, why do you think the witch smiles at Corinne? What does the witch help Corinne come to understand about herself? (inference) Just before the witch smiles, Corinne states, “They [the jumbies] are not monsters. And this island was theirs before it was ours. We have to find a way to live together.” The witch’s smile is a smile of approval. She wholeheartedly agrees with Corinne’s statement. The witch has never taken sides in the conflict between humans and jumbies, believing that neither group is superior. She smiles at Corinne because Corinne has come to share this point of view. The witch helps Corinne come to understand that Corinne is a good and powerful person, and that she is more connected to her mother than she knew.
Consider what Corinne says in Scene 1: “Mama always said a seed is a promise. That I must plant it and watch it grow.” Why is this line important in the story? How is a seed a promise? (figurative language, theme) This line is important to the story on multiple levels. Seeds are what connect Corinne to her mother’s memory; she grows trees from the seeds of the orange tree that blooms over her mother’s grave. Also, the pendant Corinne wears contains a magical orange seed that grows into a tree that destroys Severine and, as a result, breaks the spell over Severine’s jumbie army. Finally, Corinne shares seeds with the humans on the island that they plant along the edge of the mahogany forest as a promise of peace between humans and jumbies. A seed is a promise because in planting it, you are making a promise to nurture and protect it and, at the same time, the seed contains a promise of new life—of a plant that will grow if the seed receives what it needs.
- What genre of literature would you place this story into besides drama? Which elements of the story make you say so? (author’s craft) The play is a work of fantasy, as it is full of magic—imaginary creatures, a witch, and magical potions and seeds. The play also contains elements of horror: It’s full of suspense and fear around a wicked character’s actions. The darkness of the woods, Severine’s glowing yellow eyes, and her tears that burst into centipedes all contribute to a creepy mood. Another moment of horror comes when light bounces off Corinne’s pendant onto Severine, and Severine’s skin shrivels like old tree bark while centipedes, cockroaches, and beetles swarm all over her. Students may also note the elements of adventure and folklore present in the story.
Critical-Thinking Questions (5 minutes)
Severine says that Corinne has more power than she knows. In addition to her magical powers, what character traits make Corinne powerful? Students may say that Corinne is brave, loyal, adventurous, selfless, and a good leader.
How do you think life on the island will change now that Severine is gone? How do you think Corinne’s life will change? Answers will vary. Students may say that the jumbies and humans will live together peacefully and learn to share the land now that the jumbies are no longer under Severine’s spell and Corinne has encouraged the humans to respect the jumbies. Corinne will probably continue to use her magical powers to do good on the island. She demonstrated strong leadership skills, particularly at the play’s end, when she explained to the villagers that the jumbies are peaceful and planted orange trees as a reminder that the forest is their home. It seems likely that she could become a leader in her community.
Does Corinne remind you of any characters from other stories you’ve read or movies you’ve seen? If so, in what way? Answers will vary.
3. SKILL BUILDING AND WRITING (30 MINUTES)
Have students complete the Writing Planner: Jumbies and Humans. This activity will help them organize their ideas in preparation for the writing prompt on page 27 in the printed magazine and at the bottom of the digital story page.
Alternatively, have students choose a culminating task from the Choice Board, a menu of differentiated activities.
4. CONNECTED READING
Text-to-Speech