Dyan Sheldon - The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

“Forget it,” says Joy Marie. “I’m sorry I said anything. I’m happy you’re coming.” And she charges up the stairs to stop any further argument.

Waneeda smiles to herself as she lumbers after her.

Ms Kimodo looks at her watch as she leaves the office and heads to Room III.

Ms Kimodo is running late.

Unlike being the faculty advisor for the school newspaper or the Drama Club (both of which have won state and national recognition and are enthusiastically supported by local businesses), being the faculty advisor for the Environmental Club has no kudos attached to it. The only time the club got any outside attention was last spring, when it tried to have the soft-drinks machine in the cafeteria replaced with a water fountain – and even then it was the mass protest by the student body, not Clemens Reis’s scrupulously well-reasoned arguments, that received the coverage. None of its small but significant successes – the school’s recycling programme (modest and largely ignored), the free showing of a landmark documentary on climate change (unfortunately scheduled for the same night as a basketball game – a detail Clemens could never be expected to know) and its campaign to persuade the administration to use energy-saving light bulbs wherever possible (victorious but largely unnoticed) – has done anything to improve the club’s image. Everyone, except the four or five stalwart members who actually show up for meetings, regards it as the club of either whining nerds or fanatical activists.

Clemens doesn’t help. Indeed, Clemens can probably be held responsible for this negative image. He is a very passionate and committed young man, with no interest in spin or in sparing people’s feelings. Last year’s major campaign to get people to eat less meat – You Are What You Eat – can be cited as an especially painful example. (Just the memory makes poor Ms Kimodo flinch.) Featuring photos of horribly distressed and mutilated animals plastered all over the school – even on the insides of the stalls in the toilets – as well as the screening of a documentary on industrialized farming that emptied the viewing room in a matter of minutes, the You Are What You Eat campaign alienated far more people than the one person it converted (Ms Kimodo wouldn’t eat meat now if she was starving). Ms Kimodo doesn’t allow herself to remember Clemens’ infamous Earth Day address.

Ms Kimodo stops in front of one of the dozens of flyers with which Joy Marie with her daunting efficiency has more or less papered the walls of the school. (Joy Marie doesn’t help much, either.) Next to the exhortation, “Come on, gang! Let’s save the planet!” are several penned comments (I’d rather have a date… Try and make me… Your planet or OURS?…). Ms Kimodo rips it off the wall, sticks it in her bag with the others she has found throughout the day, and hurries on.

It has to be said that, though not a glamorous job, being the faculty advisor of the Environmental Club is not a demanding one either. Clemens and Joy Marie are both far more knowledgeable about ecological issues and have much better organizational skills than Ms Kimodo (not, given the low membership and even lower attendance, that there is much to organize). All Ms Kimodo has to do, really, is show up for meetings and try to talk Clemens out of his more alienating ideas. The least she can do, she feels, is be on time.

Ms Kimodo is running late today because Dr Firestone wanted to have a word with her. In fact, Dr Firestone wanted to have several words with her, none of them particularly good. “I thought, perhaps, as we start this new year, that I should remind you of the conversation I had with young Mr Reis before the holidays.” It may be Clemens whom he holds responsible for the club’s “extremism”, but it is Ms Kimodo whom he holds responsible for Clemens. After all, it was she who suggested that he and Joy Marie start the club in the first place. Dr Firestone would have preferred it if she’d chosen students who were less serious and intense (students, for example, like Maya and Jason, who could be counted on not to give him a hard time).

Ms Kimodo assured him that she hadn’t forgotten.

“Well, someone has.” Ms Kimodo isn’t the only person to rip Joy Marie’s posters from the walls. Dr Firestone had half a dozen in front of him. He picked one up. “Have you seen these?”

“Of course I have. They’re—” began Ms Kimodo, but broke off with an, “Ah…” Quickly she added, “No, I haven’t noticed any like that.”

Someone had also written on the flyer in Dr Firestone’s hand. But it wasn’t a rude or sarcastic remark. What it said, in red, was: “We will be discussing phase two of our ongoing campaign to protect our primordial oak trees from senseless slaughter.” The flyer dropped back to the desk. “I told him to forget about the trees.” Dr Firestone has a deep, resonant voice that (especially at times like this) always makes Ms Kimodo think of God talking to Abraham. “I told him that it’s time to get his priorities straight. If he wants to do something really useful – such as plant some flowers or hang up bird feeders or raise some money to adopt a rainforest or an orangutan, anything of that ilk – well, then, the whole school would be right behind him.”

“The whole school’s right behind him now,” murmured Ms Kimodo. “By at least ten years.”

Dr Firestone’s fingers tapped a tune on the edge of his desk, which might have been why he didn’t seem to hear her. “But you know what he’s like. He doesn’t listen. All he does is argue. He doesn’t understand how to win friends and influence people. He upsets them with his extremism and left-wing ideas.”

Ms Kimodo leaned forward, trying to make out the tune.

“Are we talking about the drinking-tap-water idea or the not-sticking-electrodes-in-the-heads-of-monkeys idea?” she asked.

But Dr Firestone has not got where he is today by being hampered by a sense of humour.

“You know what we’re talking about, Jocelyn. The sports centre has the approval of the town council and the school board. It’s about progress, not global warming. It has nothing to do with the environment.”

“Well… The trees… I believe Clemens feels…” began Ms Kimodo.

“He’s being unreasonable. I’ve told him that we’ll plant three trees for every one we take down. What more does he want?” Dr Firestone got to his feet. “The bottom line is that your club has six members, Jocelyn – and that’s on a good day. If it doesn’t have at least a dozen by the end of January, I’m afraid that’s it. The school can’t be squandering its resources on lost causes. Am I making myself clear?”

“You couldn’t be clearer if you were made of glass,” said Ms Kimodo. She said this with a smile.

Now, Ms Kimodo finally reaches the door of Room 111 and pulls it open. The first thing she notices is that there are more people inside than usual. Many more. Even Waneeda Huddlesfield, who has never been known to join anything except the lunch queue, is sitting next to Joy Marie.

And then Ms Kimodo sees Sicilee Kewe, smiling as though delighted to be there, but standing off to one side as though also afraid that she might catch something. Today is a pink day for Sicilee. Ms Kimodo would be far less surprised to be told that every soldier in the world has put down his or her weapons and taken up needlepoint than to see Sicilee Kewe at an Environmental Club meeting. Not only is she the unofficial poster girl for over-consumption, but she did once come fairly close to threatening Clemens Reis’s life as well. This can’t be the right room. Her talk with Dr Firestone has discombobulated her. Ms Kimodo takes a step back to check the number over the door and bumps into someone behind her.

Ms Kimodo looks around.

“Cool, man,” says Cody Lightfoot. “I was afraid I was late, but it hasn’t started yet.”

Ms Kimodo smiles the way she does when she is given an unexpected present. But by the time she takes her seat, Ms Kimodo’s smile has vanished. There is obviously going to be a blue moon tonight, thinks Ms Kimodo. Either that or the world is going to end. Ms Kimodo’s pessimism is based on her discovery that not only has Sicilee Kewe shown up today, but Maya Baraberra is there as well. Maya is also standing off to one side (the opposite one to Sicilee), looking bored and not smiling. It is fairly common knowledge that neither Maya Baraberra nor Sicilee Kewe would join anything – not even the last lifeboat off a sinking ship – if the other was in it. And then she sees Sicilee and Maya – cleverly able to glare at each other while looking elsewhere – insert themselves into chairs on either side of Cody Lightfoot as though they’re bodyguards protecting an important politician.

Ms Kimodo’s smile returns.

You might think that, confronted with this sudden surge of interest in saving the planet, Clemens would be a little nonplussed – or at least surprised. Where did all these girls come from? he might wonder. Why are they here? Are they lost? Drunk? Hypnotized? Is someone playing a joke?

But Clemens (unlike some people I might mention) has fewer sides than a circle. It is part of his charm that he is so sincere in his own beliefs and motives that he assumes the same of others. Which means that, in this instance, after months of mockery and hostility, he takes it for granted that the Clifton Springs Environmental Club is experiencing the first packed meeting in its history simply because his fellow students are listening to him at last. They’ve woken up and smelled the toxic waste. They’ve seen the light pouring through the gaping hole in the ozone layer. They finally realize that it’s better to have a few very old trees at the edge of the campus than a state-of-the-art sports centre with an Olympic-size pool. Clemens looks around the crowded room and smiles. Gloating isn’t really in his nature, but oh how he wishes that he could see Dr Firestone’s face when he hears about this.