The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

“It means that you’re not looking at the bigger picture.” Cody himself is looking at Clemens again. “There’s more at stake here than a couple of trees.”

“Fifteen,” says Sicilee. Fifteen trees that were old when her great-great-grandfather, just a child, was getting on the ship to America.

“Fifteen trees that can never be replaced,” adds Waneeda.

“What bigger picture?” says Clemens. Cody’s face gazes up at him like a reflection in a pool, but it isn’t the reflection of anyone Clemens recognizes. It’s certainly not a reflection of himself. “These trees are symbolic of the thousands of trees being cut down every day all over the world. How much bigger can the picture get?”

“Think of the club, man,” Cody urges. “Think of Earth Day. All the work we’ve done … all the goodwill and support we’ve built up … all the publicity. Everybody loves us.”

Some people are starting to love him a little less.

“Loves us?” sneers Maya. “What happened to loving the planet? When did we ditch that?”

“Earth Day?” repeats Sicilee. “The bigger picture is Earth Day? I thought the bigger picture was the Earth.”

Waneeda doesn’t tap Cody’s shoulder this time. She thumps it. “What are you talking about, all the work we’ve done? You haven’t done any work. All you ever do is talk. Just like you’re talking now.”

It’s as if Waneeda has knocked down the first domino in the wall that made Cody seem perfect.

“Goodwill? Support?” Sicilee’s laugh is stretched and high. “It’s me and Maya and the others who’ve gotten all the support. All the goodwill. I didn’t see you trudging all over town getting donations.”

“And I got just as much publicity as you,” says Maya. “I’m the one who had her picture on the front page of The Clifton Springs Observer.” Supporters Rally Around Plastic Girl. “I’m the one who was ridiculed and almost arrested.”

But it’s as if all their words are no more than the rustle of leaves.

“Can’t you see that it’s going to mess up everything if you don’t get down from there?” Cody pleads. “You’re making us all look like a bunch of lunatic Earth Libbers, Clem. You’re making us look bad.”

Clemens gives a strangled laugh. “No, you’re making us look bad.”

Cody ignores him. “We’re going to lose everything here.” He has never sounded so passionate nor so sincere. “Dr Firestone’ll shut us down faster than you can say, ‘ecological disaster’. Don’t you care about the club?”

“Don’t you?” asks Maya. “OK, maybe you don’t want to get up there with Clemens, but you could at least give him some moral support.”

“Like what?” Cody’s laid-back charm has started to fray. “Hold hands around the tree with you guys, singing ‘We Shall Overcome’?”

“Don’t worry, you won’t be holding hands with me.” Although Waneeda has been described as a large and lumpen girl whose movements bring to mind the bear more than the chimpanzee, she suddenly grabs the lowest branch and swings herself into the tree.

“Or me!” Maya scrabbles after her.

“You guys aren’t leaving me down here.” Sicilee, the girl guaranteed to be voted most sophisticated of her graduating class, hauls herself up after the others in her one hundred per cent organic linen designer suit. The floral platform shoes fall to the ground, narrowly missing the head of Cody Lightfoot, the only one left standing under the tree.

“That’s it!” Dr Firestone comes running towards them, waving his cell phone. “Now you’ve really gone too far. I’m calling the police.”

“That’s fine by me,” says Sicilee.

“Me, too,” says Maya.

Each of them already holds her own phone in her hand.

“For God’s sake,” groans Clemens, “can’t you two go a few minutes without calling someone? What are you going to say? That you’re in a tree?”

Sicilee ignores him. “I’m calling my mother.” Her voice is loud and clear, and her smile is lodged on Dr Firestone like a laser beam. “She knows a lot of people in the media.”

“And who are you calling?” Dr Firestone demands of Maya. “Don’t tell me that your mother knows a lot of people in the media, too.”

“No, not one,” says Maya. “But her brother’s a lawyer.”

Chapter Forty-Four The spell’s been broken

It is a bright and unseasonably hot afternoon. The sun shines down from a cloudless sky, making the noisy crowds below seem to shimmer. The blue and green balloons and flags that decorate Clifton Springs High School on this special day sway in a well-mannered breeze, and the sounds of people celebrating the existence of their planet fill the air.

Sicilee, Kristin, Loretta and Ash sit together at one of the tables set up in the courtyard, talking and laughing excitedly – and often at the same time. In honour of the occasion, each of them is wearing one of Clemens’ handmade T-shirts, and they all look as if they’re enjoying themselves. They are best friends again.

Cody Lightfoot was wrong. His prediction that the tree protest would destroy the Environmental Club, cause Earth Day to be cancelled and heap ridicule, embarrassment and derision on Clemens and anyone foolish enough to join him turned out to be so far from the truth it was in another country. Ms Kimodo, on the other hand, was right. Ms Kimodo, also summoned by the principal, arrived only minutes after Sicilee, Maya and Waneeda joined Clemens in the tree. Ms Kimodo, unlike Cody, immediately gave the tree-sitters her support. “I’m sorry, Dr Firestone,” said Ms Kimodo, “but not only do I feel that these students have both legal and moral right on their side, I think you’ll find that the community as a whole will stand behind them too. I know I certainly do.” Which is what happened. Thanks, in large part, to Mrs Kewe’s many friends in the media and Maya’s Uncle Fabio, the protest forced the tree-cutting to be abandoned, and made celebrities of Maya, Clemens, Sicilee and Waneeda.

The press arrived before the police – setting up their cameras and recorders, pulling out notebooks, sticking microphones in the faces of anyone who didn’t move out of the way. Dr Firestone, as unprepared for them as he would have been for the ghost army of Genghis Khan, was surprised to find himself cast as the villain. He was no longer, apparently, anyone’s pal. He was a man who broke promises. A man who tried to have students who had Law and Right on their side arrested. A man who showed no respect for either history or the environment. An Unlikely Group of Eco Warriors Puts Principles Ahead of the Principal read one headline. Brought Together by Love not Dogma read another. Clemens, Waneeda, Sicilee and Maya were treated as heroes – photographed, interviewed and even singled out for special praise by the governor of the state for their courage and character. Sicilee herself was featured on the six o’clock news, leaning comfortably against an ancient trunk and looking (as the reporter pointed out) not like a fanatical environmentalist but a model on a magazine shoot. “Is this the face of anarchy?” asked the anchor as he introduced the story. “Or is this the face of the next generation, demanding its right to a future?” All of which has made Sicilee even more popular than she was before. Celebrities are forgiven a lot.

At the moment, Sicilee is sipping an organic tea, Kristin is finishing her veggie burger, Loretta is rearranging her environmentally friendly shopping and Ash is nibbling a vegan cookie that, against all predictions, doesn’t taste like sand.

Earlier, they watched the day’s first screening of a documentary on climate change, presented by Clemens (who everyone agreed was a lot nicer and far less creepy than they’d thought).

“That movie really makes you think, doesn’t it?” says Ash. “I never knew all that stuff about the glaciers and the polar bears and everything.”

Sicilee makes a face over her cup, though there is nothing wrong with her tea. “At least the polar bears weren’t hanging by one foot from a meat hook being clubbed.” Sicilee was on the committee that chose the films to