Dyan Sheldon - The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

“Dead right. That’s why I always bring my lunch from home.” Cody’s eyes are still on the carnage on her tray. “I guess you checked the roll, too,” he says.

Why can’t he just flirt with me? Maya silently fumes. That’s all she wanted, just a few minutes of harmless flirtation. Did he think she’d stopped so she could drown him in pea soup made with the blood of lambs? Did he think she’d gone over to him so he could give her a crash course in veganism for airheads?

“Oh, yeah,” says Maya. “Of course I did.”

It is only when she picks up her tray to beat a hasty retreat that she notices Sicilee, loitering a metre or so away by the garbage cans. Sicilee’s smile brightens as she mouths the word, “Touché!”

Humans tend to be creatures of habit, and Waneeda Huddlesfield is no exception to that rule. Every day for as long as anyone can remember, Waneeda came home from school, dumped her backpack on the sofa, grabbed a snack and spent the rest of the afternoon watching TV. Then she sat at the dining-room table with her parents and shared a meal whose conversation was largely provided by the television set. After that, she watched some more TV (and snacked some more), until it was time to do her homework while she watched TV. (If she could have watched TV while she was sleeping, she probably would have.) If she got bored with TV, she played games on her computer instead.

But all that has changed.

Now, Waneeda goes to her room as soon as she gets back from school and does her homework. She emerges only briefly to eat with her parents in the glow of the television screen, and then she immediately goes back to her room, locking the door behind her (though the possibility of her mother getting off the couch and barging in on her is as remote as the return of the wood bison).

“What are you doing in there?” Waneeda’s mother asks every night as Waneeda puts her plate in the sink. “That’s what I’d like to know. What are you doing in there? Always in your room. Do you see your daughter, Oscar? She’s always in her room. It isn’t normal.”

And every night, Waneeda says as she makes her escape, “What do you think I’m doing? I’m building a plane.”

Obviously, it isn’t true that Waneeda is spending her evenings constructing a light aircraft in her bedroom. It’s much too small to hold even a glider.

What Waneeda does in her room is explore her new interest in the trials and tribulations of the third planet from the sun. As we know, Sicilee and Maya’s new interest in the planet and its problems is due to love, but, although Waneeda did join the club because she wanted to be near Cody Lightfoot, her new interest owes much more to Sicilee and Maya than to him. And to Joy Marie’s crack about Maya and Sicilee knowing more about being Green than Waneeda.

It was then that Waneeda made her decision. It was going to be bad enough to have to sit through meetings dominated by the Deadly Duo – the Cool Fool with her dumb badges like she’s going to forget what she believes if it isn’t written down, and the Living Barbie la-dee-dahing around like the rest of humanity only exists to feel bad that they aren’t her – without knowing in her heart that they really do know more than she does; and every day probably know a little more.

And that is why, that night after supper, Waneeda sat down at her computer and typed in the words “global warming”. On the second site she visited, she took a quiz: How much do you know about climate change? The answer turned out to be less than even she would have guessed. The answer turned out to be: just about nothing. Waneeda stayed at her computer till one in the morning.

It was all pretty overwhelming. There were over nearly five hundred million responses when she typed in “pollution”. Over eighty-six million for “carbon emissions”. Sixty-three million for “endangered species”. And nearly two million for “hole in ozone layer” alone. When you know nothing, Waneeda realized, you don’t even know where to start. You have no idea what information might actually prove of some use, or what information is less useful than a golfball to clear up an oil spill. The enormity of the task before you exhausts you before you begin. It was the kind of situation that would normally cause Waneeda to give up without a fight. But this time she couldn’t. Not with the smug smiles of Sicilee and Maya burned into her brain. She knew that she needed help, but she couldn’t very well ask Joy Marie – not after ignoring everything she’s said for the last year-and-a-half – so the next night she was up until one again, and up until one the night after that, too. Waneeda figured there was a real danger that her brain might implode.

But the following morning, she happened to emerge from her street at the same time that Clemens emerged from his. It was as if her guardian angel had suddenly shown up to answer her prayers. Clemens Reis – who better? Even Cody said that Clemens’ knowledge is awesome – and there’s nothing Clemens likes better than to share information. Besides which, although he is undeniably peculiar, Clemens has always been nice to Waneeda. Once, at the beach when they were little, she’d dropped her ice cream in the sand and Clemens had immediately given her his.

“Clemens!” screamed Waneeda. “Clemens, wait up!”

Unused to anyone actually asking him to explain things, Clemens, of course, was only too happy to help. He suggested books to read and loaned her documentaries on DVD. He gave her several pages listing websites that cover everything you ever wanted to know about environmental degradation but didn’t know whom to ask – from air, ground and water pollution to deforestation and plastics. Waneeda’s been going through it systematically, making notes and asking Clemens the next day any questions that she has.

Tonight, Waneeda sits down at her computer and turns to the page headed: Reasons not to eat meat. There are several sites listed, but beneath them, underlined in red, Clemens has scrawled: Watch that DVD I gave you. You will be tested! Waneeda laughs. It’s going to be another long night.

“So, fairest Sicilee,” says Rupert once they’re all settled at a table at the back of Uncle Tony’s. “What exciting, five-star, life-changing things have been happening in the wonderful world of Kewe lately?”

Sicilee looks over at Rupert. Up until this moment, she has been having a really good time. These days, she is usually in a state of at least mild stress at school and, when she hasn’t drifted off into one of her lovelorn reveries, anxiety at home – always worried about what to wear and what to say (or what she’s going to wear and going to say), but tonight, going to the movies with her friends, she’s actually managed to forget about Cody Lightfoot for more than two consecutive hours. Which these days is a record. But there is something in the inane way Rupert’s grinning at her that makes her think that brief idyll is about to end. Possibly in an ugly way.

“Nothing.” She shrugs off her new parka (made from ethically sourced materials and trimmed in fur that has never been closer to an animal than Sicilee’s head) and picks up her menu. “Same old, same old, really.”

“That’s not what we heard,” says Abe.

“That’s right,” agrees Davis. Rupert’s inane grin seems to be as contagious as measles. “We heard that you were boldly going where no one’s boldly gone before.”

“Risking isolation, destruction and possible certain death,” chips in Chris.

Sicilee clamps her teeth together to hold her smile in place. Somebody’s told the boys about her new extracurricular activity. Somebody with a mouth the size of Lake Michigan. Which one of them was it? She glances at Kristin, Loretta and Ash, all of whom are gazing at their menus as if they haven’t eaten enough pizza here to feed half of Sicily. She’ll find out later.

“Well, you heard wrong.”

Davis leans across Kristin to brush something from Sicilee’s arm. “Oh, sorry.” He might sound more sincere if his smile was less jubilant. “I thought there was some bark on your sleeve.”

Loretta, Ash and Kristin all bite back their smiles, but the boys laugh uproariously.

Following the example of her friends, Sicilee is gazing at her menu. “You know, I don’t think I’ll have any pizza tonight,” she says, as though this thought has just occurred to her. “I think I’ll just have a salad.” There is no way she can eat pepperoni pizza in public. What if Maya Baraberra and her friends walk in? What if Cody does?

“Salad?” hoots Rupert. “But we always get pepperoni pizza with double cheese.”

“And am I stopping you?” Sicilee speaks so sweetly that it might be wise for Rupert to remember that sugar kills. “But I’m having a salad. I don’t want anything too heavy this late at night.”

Chris leans towards her earnestly. “So what’s the deal, Miss Kewe?” He waggles his eyebrows. “An eager world hangs on your every word. Is it true that all of a sudden you’ve decided to be born-again Green?”

Sicilee takes a sip of water. “If you’re referring to the fact that I’ve joined the Environmental Club, Christopher,” she says evenly, “no, it doesn’t mean that I’ve been ‘born-again Green’. It just means I’m taking an interest in my country and in my planet.” She sets her glass back on the table very carefully. “As all good citizens should.”

“Well, it sounds to me like you’ve been born again Green,” says Chris. “I mean, look at you. You’re dressed like you live in Arizona.” Tonight, Sicilee is in muted earthy tones – beige and umber, sienna, ochre and terracotta. “And you’re eating salad.”