“Then, after we made the bicycle-powered generator,” Cody is saying, “in seventh grade, for our science project, my friend and I made this wind turbine.” This would be another difference; in Sicilee’s dreams they talk about love and how wonderful each thinks the other is, not the environmental movement. “We figured that it was way cooler because we didn’t have to pedal. It wasn’t big or very sophisticated, but it worked just dandy.”

“A wind turbine! Wow. Really? That is so awesome.”

Sicilee has had several small successes in the past weeks – walking with Cody, talking to Cody, once even making him laugh with a joke she heard on the radio about how many Green activists it takes to change a light bulb (none, they use candles) – but this is the longest one-to-one Sicilee has ever had with him. It has ranged from endangered species to plastics to innovative solutions to our energy problems, but Sicilee’s part in it has consisted largely of words like wow, really and awesome – and a good deal of earnest head-shaking. Which is not the way it’s supposed to be. Indeed, to avoid this very situation, Sicilee has spent over a week sitting at home with only Lucy, her cat, for company, actually reading the books her mother bought her instead of hanging out with her friends and enjoying herself. The idea was that this would make it possible for her always to have something relevant to say to Cody or at least an intelligent question to ask. But instead, it has proved to be an endless, exhausting and, apparently, futile task. There is just too much to know. And most of it, as far as Sicilee can tell, is terminally boring. Statistics. Facts. Pages of information with footnotes and references. Bibliographies. Things only someone like Clemens Reis would want to know. She often falls asleep after only a paragraph or two. Even if she rehearses a couple of relevant comments and intelligent questions, she forgets what they were the minute Cody opens his mouth.

“After that we made a bigger one that we put on the roof of the garage, and we powered the light over our workbench and a radio with that.”

Sicilee’s smile goes into rigor mortis as she frantically rummages through the files of her mind for something Greener and more savvy to say than “Wow!” Something to show how much she knows about alternative sources of energy. Which, as it turns out, is not all that much (and largely based on a rant of her father’s about the cost of solar panels). “Obviously, it’s, like, so totally worthwhile, but they must’ve been really expensive to build.”

“Nah.” Cody shakes his handsome head. “It was pennies – even the bigger one – a handful of Lincolns. Most of it we made from stuff we got from the dump or found on the street.” He shakes his handsome head again, but this time in disappointment and disbelief. “It’s, like, so totally amazing what people throw out. Perfectly good, usable stuff. You’d think they’d never heard the Green mantra.”

This, of course, is Sicilee’s cue, but instead of reciting she simply smiles. She is smiling so much that her cheeks ache. It seems that, for all her reading, she has never heard the Green mantra, either.

“Reduce. Reuse. Recycle,” says a voice right behind them.

Cody raises his head. “Exacto!” he grins, sticking up both his thumbs. “The Three Rs.”

Sicilee’s teeth clench in irritation. She might have known that it was too good to be true. Maya Baraberra is another thing that never happens in Sicilee’s dreams. The girl must have him bugged.

Maya dumps her book bag between Cody and Sicilee and, with the agility and nonchalance of someone not wearing a tailored skirt, climbs over the back of the couch to join them.

“I’m so glad I ran into you two,” says Maya, looking at Cody. “I saw this awesome show on the Discovery Channel last night? And it brought up so much stuff that I really need to talk to someone about.” Now she looks at Sicilee with a smile like a dose of strychnine. “Someone who’s really clued up, you know?”

That, of course, is the last time either Maya or Cody actually looks at Sicilee.

Cody saw the programme, too. He’s been dying to discuss it. It really blew him away. Words and phrases Sicilee has either never heard or doesn’t remember hearing – clear-cut … oil shale … resource substitution … biodiversity … the three faces of power … primativists – fall from his and Maya’s lips like autumn leaves fall from the trees. Sicilee has no choice but to sit there and listen, looking fascinated and pretending to know what they’re talking about.

How does Maya know all this stuff? How does she remember it? And then a new question occurs to Sicilee: Why bother? Proving that Joy Marie Lutz is right and every cloud does have a silver lining – even the one that brought Maya into the lounge today – it is in the second that she asks herself that question that Sicilee has her great idea. It is an idea both simple and touched with genius. An idea that will grab Cody Lightfoot’s attention and shake it the way Lucy the cat pounces on and shakes her catnip mouse when she’s feeling really playful. This idea will knock that so-cool-I-rule smile from Maya Baraberra’s face for the next fifty years.

Sicilee is so happy she fairly shimmers. She’s been going about this all wrong. It’s like buying a new outfit. In order to buy a new outfit, you don’t need to know how to design and sew a dress, cobble a pair of shoes, make socks, knit a sweater or fashion glass and gold into an attractive necklace with matching bracelet. All you need is a credit card and a ride to the mall. Saving the planet is exactly the same.

Put another way, you don’t have to know the words to be able to hum the tune.

Chapter Twenty-Six

One great idea deserves another

Maya leans back in her chair, her legs casually stretched out in front of her (so that every time Sicilee glances at the floor, she will see Maya’s environmentally friendly feet and be annoyed), and lets Cody’s sweet, warm voice pour over her like sunshine over a verdant field. Her soul softens; her heart melts; her thoughts dissolve into stardust. Cody, standing in the centre of the circle as usual, is talking about stalls and sponsorship and fundraising, but that, though interesting in its way (and certainly relevant to the meeting), is not what Maya hears. Maya hears: Baby, you know that I dig you. Maya hears: You’re incredible, I’ve never known anyone like you. Maya hears: I’m begging you, just give me one more kiss. Sighing softly, she feels rather than sees the drill-like eyes of Sicilee Kewe fall on her, and looks over to find Sicilee smiling superciliously across Cody’s empty seat. Enjoy yourself, you poor, dumb cow, because you won’t be smiling for much longer, thinks Maya, and returns her own eyes to the middle of the room without giving Sicilee the satisfaction of making any response.

Maya is feeling pretty pleased with herself. It has taken much longer than she expected, but, finally, she is making some real progress with Cody. And, once more illustrating the relationship between silver linings and clouds, she owes it all to the cafeteria’s pea soup. Maya’s study of vegan websites – and her new understanding of things like whey, sugar-refining, the true meaning of “natural sources”, and the many uses of fat taken from the stomachs of pigs – has given her a new confidence and authority. Which, in turn, has made her conversations with Cody longer and more personal. They discuss what cookies they can eat and the barbaric slaughter of cattle. He swapped her half his non-dairy cheese sandwich for half her non-meat salami. He told her where to buy a non-toxic water bottle. She made him laugh with a joke about plastic bags. He recommended a shampoo. She gave him a recipe for vegan cupcakes. And yesterday, in a moment that will forever be held in her memory like a fly in amber, she balanced a notebook on her arm while Cody, leaning against her, his breath as soft as the stroke of a feather against her face, jotted down the names of some documentaries that he thinks she might be interested in. “I haven’t had a chance to watch them all myself yet,” said Cody, “but Clem says they’re really good.”

The business of the afternoon drifts around her. Usually Maya is tense and watchful through these meetings – waiting to see what Sicilee will say, trying to guess what Sicilee’s next move will be, ready to pounce on any show of weakness and undermine any show of strength – but today Maya has more important things on her mind. She is about to make her move. As soon as she can get him alone, Maya is going to ask Cody if he wants to come over to her house one evening to watch one of the documentaries he recommended. How can he refuse?

Maya is now imagining herself and Cody in the Baraberras’ living room, side-by-side on the sofa with a bowl of chips balanced on the narrow gap between their legs. The lights are out, the door is shut and her family has gone to visit some suitably distant place like Norway and won’t be back for hours. Totally engrossed in the movie, they are silent as they watch, but as soon as the credits begin to roll, Cody takes the chip bowl and puts it on the coffee table in a meaningful way. He turns to Maya, his arm slipping over the back of the couch, leaning towards her. “Maya,” he whispers, his mouth almost touching her ear. “Maya… Maya, I—”

“I have an idea!”

Maya returns to Room III with a start.

Sicilee is on her feet, swinging her hair and rattling her bracelets as if she’s about to announce that she’s discovered the Meaning of Life. “I know we’ve been getting some really excellent feedback about Earth Day and everything,” Sicilee is saying, “but I was thinking that maybe we’ve been concentrating too much on that. You know, not doing anything about educating people like we said we would? I think we need to make them aware so they’ll care even before they get to the fair.”