As Cody rises, the movement of everyone else coming to attention and straightening up in their chairs sounds almost like a sigh of relief.

“Clem, man—” Cody shakes his head as though he’s been dazzled rather than dazed by Clemens’ speech. “That is sharp. That is really sharp. You’re like Radio Free Nature. The Voice of Freedom. A beacon of hope.”

Clemens, his mouth still open for the words that Cody cut off, blinks.

“I’m telling you,” says Cody. “I’m, like, blown away by the multitude of things you know.” Although his arms hang by his side, he somehow gives the impression that he is shaking Clemens by the hand. “Man, you’ve got it all down: chapter, verse and date of publication. It’s awesome. Totally awesome. Myself? I’m so inarticulate I’m lucky I remember my name when I’m trying to explain what I believe. But you? I can only salute a class-A pro.”

Clemens pushes his glasses back up his nose. “Well, the—”

“But, you know, before we get too deep into all the heavy, global destruction, and the who-does-what-to-whom stuff, there’s a couple of things I’d like to say. Or try to say.” Cody laughs good-naturedly. Everyone except Clemens smiles back. “You know, just about why I’m here and where I’m coming from – that kind of autobiographical-detail thing. Fill in my little piece of the big picture.”

Clemens says, “Well I—”

“I think some of you already know who I am…” When Clemens speaks, he focuses on a point over the heads of his listeners, but Cody spreads his smile around the room like butter over hot toast. No one is looking at their cell phone now. “But for those who don’t, I’ve been involved in the Green scene since junior high. Last year, at my old school, I was really active in our environmental club – we called it Mayday? – and I had a truly awesome time.” Cody was, in fact, the president of the club and receiver of a special personal achievement award from the EPA, but this is an autobiographical detail he chooses not to mention just yet. “Well, not just me – we all did. It was as incredible as walking on the moon. It was like opening the back door but instead of there being the deck and the grill and a couple of chairs, you walk out into the stars. And it wasn’t just life-changing, it was really fun, too.”

There is something about the way Cody speaks that makes his audience smile and nod in agreement, even when they have only a vague idea of what he’s talking about. “I’m not saying this isn’t a really important thing we’re doing here,” he continues. “It’s terminally important. And to tell you the truth, yours truly has a Green rap sheet, like, a mile long.” Cody’s laugh is infectious. “No, really,” he grins. “I’m, like, Mr Crunchy Granola.” Cody, though looking more like Mr Heart-stoppingly Gorgeous, turns out to be so seriously concerned about the environment that he buys a lot of his clothes second-hand and usually walks to school or rides his bike. He doesn’t patronize chain stores if he can help it. He’s a vegan. His parents buy organic and local as much as they can. Since it’s only birds who have to fly, he made the trip from California on a train. His mother drives a hybrid car. They reuse everything possible at his house, from jars and bottles to paper and envelopes, and what they can’t reuse, they recycle. One night a week, they even do without electricity. Cody grins self-mockingly. “And so forth.”

Even Ms Kimodo laughs.

“I’m not telling you all this to brag or anything. I just want you to know where I’m coming from.” Because of Clemens’ egalitarian principles, the chairs are always arranged in a circle at these meetings, but Cody has somehow drifted into the middle of the circle. “I don’t want you to think I’m just one of these weekend eco-warriors.” Several heads shake. They would never think that. “I’m, like, totally serious and committed. But lots of people think being Green is some kind of torture and punishment. They don’t get how much fun they can have.” In some miraculous, or possibly magical, way Cody manages to smile at every person in the room individually but at exactly the same time – as if each of them is sharing an intimate joke with him. “I’m telling you, man, a night without the lights on can be a very cool thing.”

An almost electric current of giggles and smiles runs through the room.

“Anyway, I don’t want to take up all our precious time talking about myself. I’ve got a lot of ideas I want to share with you guys – things we can do to get the school right behind us and have some real impact. But first I think we should hear about you. You know, just a few words about yourself so we know where you’re coming from.” Cody smiles back at all the faces smiling at him. “How about it?” He opens his arms, embracing the room. “Who wants to start?”

While the others are all glancing at each other to see who’ll be brave enough to go first, both Maya Baraberra and Sicilee Kewe leap to their feet as though tied together by invisible strings.

“I’d love to start,” says Maya before Sicilee can. Her smile bobs back and forth between Sicilee and Cody. “I know it’s going to sound kind of weird, but I’m a lot like Cody, really.” Maya, it seems, has been into the environment for as long as she can remember, possibly because of her artistic nature and her love of animals. “And I’ve been a vegetarian for practically eons, and I decided over the holidays that it’s time to go vegan. You know, because of all that Christmas carnage?”

“Me, too,” interrupts Sicilee. She can’t seem to decide who she’s looking at, either. “You know, into the environment? I believe we can change our ways. Like my parents? My parents wanted to go skiing over Christmas, but I insisted we stayed in town – so we didn’t have to take a plane?”

“Oh, and of course I ride my bike everywhere. I only go in the car when there is no other choice.” Maya edges forward, slightly blocking Sicilee from Cody Lightfoot’s view. “And obviously I wear vintage clothes. And I recycle everything.”

“Well, I’ve been doing the Green thing for, like, ever now,” says Sicilee, sliding to the left. “The bottles … the light bulbs … the whole vegan scene … I believe that we all have a responsibility. You know, to the polar bears and the trees and everything?”

“Gott im Himmel, you know what?” Laughing as though she can’t imagine how she forgot about this, Maya moves in front of Sicilee again. “I actually once had a sit-in, you know, all by myself, in this tree they were going to cut down?” But doesn’t mention that the tree was in her backyard and the “they” who were cutting it down were her parents.

“But the whole point of a club like this is that no one’s an island.” Sicilee shifts to the right this time. “I believe that it’s not about one person doing one thing every now and then. We all have to pull together. Then we’ll be able to save the planet!”

“Well, of course. That’s why we’re all here today.” Everybody knows that, Sicilee. The unspoken words shimmer on Maya’s smile. “Isn’t that right?”

This last question is meant for Cody, and both Maya and Sicilee, who have slightly forgotten about him in their attempts to outmanoeuvre each other, turn to him now.

Only to discover that he’s no longer there.

Chapter Seventeen

Warrior greens

As a further example of things they have in common, both Maya Baraberra and Sicilee Kewe imagined that they would be leaving the meeting with Cody Lightfoot. Each of them was prepared not just to walk all the way home, but to walk all the way to someone else’s home if it meant she walked with him.

But neither of these scenarios happened. Somehow, when Cody stood up at the end of the meeting, Maya and Sicilee were left looking at each other across the space where he’d been. Sicilee tossed her hair and shrank her smile so small that she seemed about to spit. Maya stared back unblinkingly. If looks were curses, Maya would have been turned into a toad and Sicilee would have vanished completely, and probably for ever.

By the time they picked up their things and stood up themselves, Cody was walking out of the room with Ms Kimodo.

And so, against all the odds, Maya Baraberra and Sicilee Kewe ended up leaving the school side-by-side.

“You know, you really are incredible,” Maya says as they cross the main hall. She puts on an exaggerated, shrill and girly voice. “Ooh, I’ve been doing the Green thing for, like, ever now … the bottles … the light bulbs … the whole vegan scene!”

“Oh, listen who’s talking!” Sicilee fumes. “You made it sound like you and Cody were virtual twins.”

Maya’s laugh will later be described by Sicilee as sounding like the squeal of a panicked pig. “At least everything I said was true!”

Naturally, Sicilee had been prepared to embroider the truth a little – to claim she turned off lights and things like that – but how could she with Maya standing there looking like the cat that had swallowed every pigeon in the park? She had no choice. What was she supposed to say? That her mother gives her old clothes to the church thrift store and, every time he gets the electric bill, her father stomps around the house turning off lights? She had to lie. Boldly. Baldly. The worst thing was that once she got started, she couldn’t seem to stop. By the time she was done, she’d altered the truth so much that it wouldn’t have been able to recognize itself.

Sicilee yanks open one side of the glass doors. “Are you saying that you don’t believe me?” she asks as she sails through.

“Oh, heavens to Betsy! I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.” Right behind her, Maya catches the closing door with her hip, her expression sour as she pushes through. “I am so sure you’re Greener than grass.” She leans her mouth close to Sicilee’s ear. “Like not!” If the planet thought it had to count on Sicilee to save it, it would shoot itself now. “If there was one word of truth in anything you said, it was the word ‘I’.”