“What have I been saying?” Joy Marie grins when the door shuts for the last time.

Clemens and Waneeda, who are setting down a desk, both look over at her.

“Never say die?” guesses Clemens.

“Miracles do happen?” ventures Waneeda.

“Well, kind of.” Joy Marie snaps a chair into place. “What I meant was, I said that the club was going to be saved and it is! We’re out of the woods.”

Clemens brushes something invisible to the human eye from the top of the desk. “Maybe.”

Joy Marie puts her hands on her hips. “Maybe?” she repeats. “What do you mean, maybe? We have all these new members… We have this great plan… We’re actually going to have Dr Firestone with us instead of against us, which should make a nice change…”

Clemens’ mouth shrugs. “I just mean … maybe. As in, maybe we’re not out of the woods. Maybe we’re just in a clearing.” What Clemens means is that he’s afraid from the speed with which things have already changed that they could lose their focus. Making the club viable is one thing; making it unrecognizable is something else. “It’s only day one, you know.”

Waneeda pops another chocolate caramel into her mouth and stuffs the wrapper in her pocket. “Things can still go wrong,” she says.

“Oh, thanks, Waneeda. That’s really helpful. I bet Columbus wished he’d had you with him when he set sail for the West Indies.” Joy Marie’s face flushes with annoyance. “You don’t say anything throughout the whole meeting, and now you’ve decided to be all negative as usual.”

“I’m not being negative.” She is. As it happens, this is partly because she agrees with Clemens. Although her own motives are not beyond reproach, Waneeda can see that there’s a difference between one person joining the club because of Cody Lightfoot and twelve joining for the same reason. It’s a little like building your house on sand. Or a lake. The foundations are bound to shift in time, to crumble and collapse. But Waneeda’s negativity also owes something to Sicilee and Maya. The state of bliss with which the meeting began for Waneeda ended as soon as she realized that there was going to be no way of ignoring the two of them. It was hard trying not to notice them sitting on either side of Cody like particularly self-satisfied bookends, but it was possible. When they popped up together like slices from a toaster, carrying on so much that Cody wound up going back to his seat, Waneeda knew that there was no way of pretending they weren’t there. She could see that every meeting was going to be dominated by them out-Greening each other. I’m Greener than you are… No, I’m Greener than you are… No, I am… No, I am… Well, I’m so Green that I’m going to change my name to Chlorophyll… Oh, yeah? Well, I’m going to change my name to Spinach! Which means that every second of happiness given by her proximity to Cody and his smile is going to be soured by their presence. “I’m only saying…”

“Well, don’t.” Joy Marie grabs another chair. “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.”

“But Waneeda’s right.” Clemens looks up from the task of straightening the desk so it is perfectly aligned with the one in front of it, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “OK, so there were a lot of new people—”

“Which is what we wanted,” Joy Marie reminds him. “Remember what Dr Firestone said? Expand or die?”

“How could I forget?” Although it is a talent that Clemens keeps fairly quiet, he can do an impersonation of Dr Firestone that is so accurate you’d swear he was wearing one of the principal’s lurid ties. “But what I started to say was that I don’t think that most of them are very serious. They didn’t seem to know very much. I’m not sure how committed they really are. Like those two girls…” There is no need to specify which two girls he means. “Didn’t the one with the short hair and the nose ring come to a meeting last year?”

“Uh huh.” Joy Marie slips two more chairs into place. “But she didn’t come back.”

“And who thought she would?” asks Clemens. “She slept through the whole thing.”

“You were lucky,” mutters Waneeda as they lift another desk. “She’s a lot more fun asleep than awake.”

“OK, but why did she come today if she’s not really interested?” Clemens is looking at Joy Marie. “That’s what I mean. What was she doing here?”

Joy Marie looks at Waneeda.

Waneeda is looking at the ceiling. If he figures it out for himself, fine. But if he doesn’t, she’s definitely not going to be the one to tell him why. He’s in advanced maths, for Pete’s sake. He can add one and one and get two.

“Well, you know…” Apparently, it also isn’t going to be Joy Marie who explains to Clemens why this particular dawn has broken and this miracle has occurred. This is not to protect Waneeda, of course, but the club. Clemens has so many principles that he might kick out all the new members if he discovers the truth. “People change.”

“Mountains change faster,” says Clemens. “And anyway, what about the other girl? The pink one?” Clemens, shuffling backwards, looks over his shoulder. “Isn’t that the girl who threatened me that time?”

Waneeda swallows the last morsel of caramel. “She’s a witch. You’re lucky she didn’t turn you into a toad.”

Joy Marie slams a chair down very close to Waneeda’s feet. “Well, I guess she’s changed, too,” she says brightly. “That was last year. She must’ve matured.”

Clemens looks doubtful. “Besides threatening me, she told me to stuff my campaign up my finite resources.”

“I’d like to stuff her up a finite resource,” mumbles Waneeda.

“You know, you two don’t have to be so down on them,” says Joy Marie. “They’ve joined, that’s what’s important. And they and all the other new ones seem pretty excited. Why can’t you just leave it at that? We have a chance to start all over with these new members and really do some good.”

Clemens smirks. “You mean if all these new members come back.”

Joy Marie and Waneeda exchange a corner-of-the-eye look.

“Oh, they’ll be back,” says Waneeda.

You couldn’t keep any of them away with dogs.

And that, of course, includes Waneeda.

Chapter Nineteen

Seen to be Green

Some girls might be daunted by the idea of changing from a fur-loving carnivore into a recycling vegetarian more or less overnight, but Sicilee saw no problem.

Kristin, Loretta and Ash all thought she’d lost her mind.

“You mean you’re going Green?” Kristin hadn’t looked so horrified since her last bad haircut. “I know he’s gorgeous and everything, Siss, but you can’t be serious.”

Loretta and Ash agreed. “Maybe if he was a big movie star or something,” said Loretta.

“Or a prince,” said Ash.

“Sweet Mary!” Sicilee moaned. “Do you guys read the words or do you just look at the pictures? Watch my lips! I am not really going Green. I’m just going to act like I am.” What could be easier? “You know, like wearing tinted lenses or a wig. It’s only for show.” She may look like an angel, but she thinks like a politician.

“So you’re not really scarfing tofu and hugging trees?” checked Ash.

“Of course not. The only thing I want to hug is Cody and I’m only meat-free when I’m at school. I’d rather give up water than give up meat.”

Giving up water would probably be easier.

Sicilee decided that, since Cody always brings his lunch from home, she should bring hers, too – forging yet another link in the chain of love that will eventually join them. How could he not go out with a girl who carries her lunch from home in a Green, insulated bag? Unfortunately, the Kewe’s refrigerator contains a lot more to drink that isn’t water than things to eat that didn’t once walk, swim or fly. Today, for example, the only vegetables Sicilee could find (unless you count the bean sprouts in the leftovers from last night’s takeout) were some limp leaves of lettuce, a small tomato and a carrot that had been in the chill drawer so long it could almost bend.

Having to put something together for lunch is one of the reasons that (unknowingly following the treacherous path forged by Maya Baraberra) Sicilee has been running late all week. The other is that, now she’s in competition with Maya, Sicilee has to look not only more perfect than she usually does (a fairly impossible task without major surgery), but more environmentally friendly as well. She spends at least an extra half hour on her make-up every morning, so that she looks completely natural and smells like something made by God rather than a lab. She spends even more time scouring her wardrobe for clothes with some kind of plant or animal motif to show that she cares about more than designer labels. Today, however, she’s left the floral tops and cat socks at home and is wearing brown, the colour of soil.

Her lunch bag artistically poking out of her backpack, Sicilee hurls herself from the Cadillac, slamming the door behind her. In fact, she’s been running so late that Kristin, tired of hanging around waiting for her every morning, got a ride from her mother today. “You know, school’s not just about classes,” Kristin informed her. “I need to have some interactive time with my friends, too.”

Oh, tell me something I don’t know, thinks Sicilee. As if interactive time isn’t just what she wants herself. Desperately. Interactive time with Cody Lightfoot. Hanging out in the hall before homeroom. Laughing and talking. Comparing notes on Brussels sprouts. But getting Cody by himself is like trying to get an audience with the Pope. If he isn’t mulching along with a gang of boys, he’s being escorted by a guard of grinning girls – Maya often just feet behind him, waiting for her moment to pounce.