“And now there’s no way he can shut us down. Especially not after today.” Joy Marie leans forward on her elbows. “I mean, can you believe how many people have shown up? I figured that all our parents would come and people like that, but it looks like most of the town’s here.”

“That’s thanks to Clemens, too,” says Waneeda. If Clemens hadn’t climbed into that tree – and if he hadn’t given such an eloquent interview about trees and their memories to the local paper (reprinted in every major newspaper on the Eastern Seaboard, including The New York Times) – there is little doubt that there would be far fewer people at the Earth Day celebration and that most of them would be relatives of club members, friends of relatives of club members and Mr Huddlesfield’s bowling team.

“I think that’s a little unfair…” Joy Marie gives her a sideways glance. “Cody had something to do with it, too, Waneeda. He was the one who got it all started, you know.”

Waneeda harrumphs. “You mean that he got everybody else to get it started.”

“I think he did a little more than that,” argues Joy Marie. “He won over Dr Firestone … and he got the electric company to sponsor Earth Day and—”

“Anything Cody did, he did because it made him look good,” cuts in Waneeda. “Cody Lightfoot’s like fireworks. All show and no substance.”

Joy Marie doesn’t quite manage to stifle a spasm of laughter.

Waneeda glares. “What’s so funny?”

“You are. You used to be a member of the Cody Lightfoot fan club. Remember?”

“No,” says Waneeda. “No, I don’t. I remember saying that I thought he was attractive, but you’d have to be blind and in Toledo not to notice that.”

“Really?” Joy Marie sips at her own iced tea. “I could’ve sworn you joined the club because of Cody.”

“I joined because you were pressuring me. That’s why I joined.” Waneeda straightens the stack of T-shirts in front of her. “And anyway, as soon as I got to know Clemens…” She shrugs. “Well, you know…”

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear that Cody’s not shedding any tears because you’ve found somebody else,” says Joy Marie.

Waneeda turns in the direction Joy Marie is looking. Cody Lightfoot is standing at the solar heating stall, surrounded by a giggle of girls.

For the life of her, Waneeda can’t remember what she ever saw in him.

Chapter Forty-Six

All systems normal

Maya’s friends – all of whom have been having a great time at the Earth Day celebration – have stopped by to see her. With Alice’s help, Maya’s been running the children’s workshop. Making art out of junk. To inspire them, she set up a stall with the whirligigs and mobiles she made out of things she rescued from the recycling centre. The result is a cross between an invention by the cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who specialized in drawing complicated machines to perform simple tasks, and Aladdin’s cave.

“Man, this is so cool…” Brion whistles. “You’re selling these things, right? My dad would love one for the backyard.”

“I always knew you were talented, Maya,” says Mallory, “but I never knew you were this talented.”

Maya smiles shyly. “It’s more inspiration than talent. Once I started, I just couldn’t seem to stop.”

“But when did you make all this stuff?” asks Shayla. “It must have taken hours and hours.”

Maya doesn’t say that she made it in those dark days after her Be Kind to Our Planet Night, when she kept pretty much to herself for a while. Maya, like Sicilee, is happy to have her friends back. Especially since it was they who came to her and not the other way around. A certain way of dressing might make you cool. A certain kind of music might make you cool. Reading certain books might make you cool as well. But nothing does the job as well as having a photo of you being led away by a policeman published in the daily paper with the headline: Clifton Springs Students Climb up for the First Amendment. There’s no making fun of her now. Celebrity is, indeed, forgiven a lot.

“Well, you know…” Maya shrugs. “I kind of stopped watching so much TV, so I did this instead.” She gives them all a big smile. “You know what they say: use less … reuse … recycle.”

“Maybe we should all give up TV.” Finn laughs. “These are totally amazing.”

“Man, this rules so bad.” Jason’s eyes move back and forth as though he’s committing the pieces to memory. “Has Zin seen it? He’s got to give you an A for this.”

Maya looks at her watch. “He’s supposed to be here at three – to judge the Junk Art competition.”

“Well, that’s not long.” Jason leans over her shoulder, also looking at her watch. “Why don’t I hang out with you? Give you a hand here?” There are a few small children still glueing bits and bobs on painted boxes and tying plastic bottles together with coloured string. “I want to see his face.”

“That’s OK. I’m here,” says Alice.

“Don’t you want to look around?” asks Jason. “You’ve been stuck here all day.”

Alice blinks. It’s never before occurred to her to think of Jason as being especially thoughtful. “Well, I…” She glances at Maya. Maya has an oh-my-gosh expression on her face. “Yeah,” says Alice quickly. “That’s cool. I’ll see you guys later.”

After the others leave, Jason says, “I guess that wasn’t very subtle, was it?”

“What?” Maya starts walking through the junior artists, picking up discarded containers and scraps and putting them back in the bins. “Practically telling Alice to go away?”

Jason grimaces. “I wanted to get you alone. You know, so I could apologize for the way I’ve been acting.”

Maya retrieves a handful of old CDs from the grass. “You mean being rude and obnoxious and torturing me? You want to apologize for that?”

“Yeah.” He kicks a cork towards her foot. “You know, because… I know it’s going to sound crazy, but I think I was jealous.”

“You were jealous? What of? Me eating lentils? Or me riding my bike to school?”

“Lightfoot.” Jason is scouring the grass for more corks and he is mumbling. “I thought, you know… I thought you had the hots for him.”

“Me?” It is a testament to how much things can change in a short period of time that Maya isn’t acting at all. “You thought I liked Cody?”

“Yeah, well, you know… He is pretty good looking.”

“Do you think so?” asks Maya.

It is another testament to how much things can change in a short period of time that although, at this very moment, Cody Lightfoot is walking past them, smiling that smile that not so long ago would have turned her toenails to glue, Maya doesn’t even see him.

Acknowledgements

As the characters in my novel discover, it is sometimes easy to feel very alone when you decide to “go Green”. You look around and everybody’s eating hamburgers and filling their plastic shopping bags with things that aren’t very friendly to the environment. They may love their dogs and cats – give them names and personalities and dress them up for major holidays – but they don’t spend much time worrying about the life of your average battery chicken. They may accept the fact of climate change, but they don’t think a lot about trying to at least slow it down.

When I did the research for this novel, however, I realized that there are a lot of concerned and aware people and groups, eager to share information with the world – and even more eager to try and save it. And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for being out there. Thank you.

In addition, I thought I’d like to mention some of the many books, films and websites I found that helped me the most.

Books: The Last Green Book on Earth? by Judy Allen, illustrated by Martin Brown (Red Fox, 1994); What’s in this Stuff?: The Essential Guide to What’s Really in the Products You Buy in the Supermarket by Pat Thomas (Rodale, 2006); Endgame v. 1: The Problem of Civilization and Endgame v. 2: Resistance by Derrick Jensen (Seven Stories Press, 2006); How it all Vegan, Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002); Not On the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate by Felicity Lawrence (Penguin Books, 2004) and Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (Penguin Books, 2002).

Websites: www.vegansociety.com; www.vegsoc.org; www.peta.org.uk; www.revbilly.com (web home of the dynamic – and very funny – Reverend Billy and The Church of Life After Shopping) and www.seashepherd.org (official site for the dedicated Captain Paul Watson and crews of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society).

Documentaries: Food, Inc. (directed by Robert Kenner); An Inconvenient Truth (directed by Davis Guggenheim); What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire (directed by Timothy S. Bennett); The Age of Stupid (directed by Franny Armstrong); Whale Wars (from the Animal Planet series) and The Witness (directed by Jenny Stein about the Brooklyn animal rights champion, Eddie Lama). The Witness, though thought-provoking and very moving, was probably the most entertaining. Some of the documentaries I watched, I have to honestly say, were pretty distressing. One of the best, Earthlings (directed by Shaun Monson), is the film Clemens shows that turns Ms Kimodo into a vegetarian in my novel. I closed my eyes a lot when I screened it.