The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

It is because she spent 45 minutes getting dressed this morning that Maya is now hurrying down the hall. In her rush to leave the house on time, she forgot her homework for history. Ms Kimodo made her stay after class to explain why.

Her phone starts to shiver as she nears the cafeteria. It’s Alice. HURRY. C AT BCK. Maya runs the last few metres, and yanks open the door with so much force she fairly shoots into the room.

Chapter Ten Waneeda, at least, is used to being ignored

Unlike Sicilee and Maya, Waneeda hasn’t spent so much as a second brooding, plotting, scheming or wondering why Cody Lightfoot ignores her. There would be no point. And as much as she would like Cody to talk to her and smile at her in the real world, that isn’t really necessary either. Just his presence is enough. Waneeda keeps the knowledge of her crush on Cody locked in her heart, happy enough to have the secret of it, like something rare and special just for her. For Waneeda, being sweet on Cody makes her feel warm and content the way watching a movie in which everyone is beautiful and funny and endearing and guaranteed a happy ending does. It comforts her. It’s light entertainment.

Excited that she is about to have the chance to see Cody Lightfoot for a matter of minutes rather than seconds, Waneeda emerges from the lunch queue with her loaded tray, her eyes automatically scanning the room. She and Joy Marie, belonging to no group, sit right outside the kitchen with the other landless peasants, flanked by vending machines, garbage cans and the recycling bins that everyone ignores, but instead of crossing those few metres to their table, Waneeda stops suddenly in the exit, transfixed by something on the left side of the room. There, sitting with Clemens and his oddball friends, is Cody Lightfoot, laughing and talking and, of course, eating.

Joy Marie, though not really interested in boys or campus gossip, has nonetheless mentioned Cody Lightfoot several times in the course of the past week, in an I-hear-he-did-this, I-hear-he-did-that type of way, but Waneeda never brings up his name lest she give herself away and end up with scorn and ridicule heaped on her head. Now, however, as she finally takes her seat across from Joy Marie, Waneeda says, “Do you see what I see? Cody Lightfoot’s eating lunch with the Brotherhood of the Nerd!”

Joy Marie finds this piece of news so totally unnoteworthy that she doesn’t so much as glance behind her.

“Didn’t I tell you that he talks to Clem?” Joy Marie removes her cheese on wholewheat sandwich from the reused plastic bag she’s wrapped it in. “What did you think I meant?”

“I thought you meant that he asks him things like what he got for question three in the maths homework. Not that he hangs out with him.”

“Well, that’s not what I meant. I meant that they’re friends.” Joy Marie takes a bite of her sandwich. “Clemens says he and Cody have a lot in common.”

This seems so unlikely that Waneeda laughs. “That must be a nice change for Clemens.”

“I’m serious.” Joy Marie helps herself to the bowl of salad on Waneeda’s tray. Waneeda doesn’t really do vegetables. “Clem said that he and Cody are more or less on the same page. You know, about the environment and stuff like that.”

“Oh, come on!” Waneeda picks up her burger. “I know you don’t notice that kind of thing, but Cody is seriously attractive and—”

“And what?” Joy Marie stabs a piece of tomato with her fork. “He’s good looking so he must be shallow?”

“And pretty much the anti-nerd,” finishes Waneeda. “Boys who look like Cody don’t hang out with boys who look like Clemens.”

Joy Marie groans. “Oh, not you too.”

It’s not easy to look indignant with a cheeseburger dripping ketchup in your hand, but Waneeda pulls it off with considerable panache. “Not me too, what?”

“Not you have a crush on Cody Lightfoot too.” Joy Marie points the speared tomato at her. “You do realize that practically every girl in this school has a thing about him, don’t you?”

“No, I didn’t realize,” says Waneeda. “I didn’t want to tell you in case you got upset, but I’m actually totally blind.”

“I was only saying—”

“And I was only stating a simple fact – not swooning with lust,” snaps Waneeda. “Forget I said anything.” Now would be a good time to change the subject, before she reveals anything else. She bites into a French fry. “So what’s happening with the club? Isn’t it your big meeting today? You think old Firestone will really shut you down if you don’t get any new members?”

Joy Marie shrugs. “I don’t see how he can,” she says. “I mean, you have to look at all the ramifications and issues.” And she starts explaining what she sees the ramifications and issues to be.

Waneeda feels herself start to drift off – the way she does during classes that are especially boring, lectures from her mother and conversations with Joy Marie when she’s in serious, earnest mode. She’s thinking about what it would be like to sit at the same table as Cody – to ask him, for instance, if he’d like a couple of fries. She is imagining him coaxing her to eat her salad – Come on, Waneeda, vegetables are really good for you – when she notices something out of the corner of her eye. It is Cody Lightfoot, the real Cody Lightfoot, gliding up the far aisle so smoothly that his feet don’t seem to touch the ground.

Almost level with their row, Cody turns and heads towards their side of the cafeteria, edging his way between tables. Where is he going?

Waneeda glances behind her, but there is no one there except Sicilee Kewe, rummaging through the cutlery, and Miss Artsy-fartsy, Maya Baraberra, looking as if she doesn’t know why she’s there. Waneeda turns to her right, but there is no one there at all now, just a tabletop covered with crumbs and spills to show where the other girls had been.

“You know what I mean,” Joy Marie is saying. “Lots of schools are starting to get on the bandwagon now – it would look pretty dumb if Clifton Springs suddenly got off.”

Waneeda kicks her under the table.

“Ow!” Joy Marie scowls. “What did you do that for?”

But Waneeda, of course, can’t answer. Cody Lightfoot is only thirty centimetres away. Twenty. Ten.

“Hi,” he says, those tropical-sea eyes aimed at Joy Marie. “You’re Mary Jo, right? Clem’s friend?”

She blinks. “I’m Joy Marie.”

“Right. And I’m Cody. Cody Lightfoot.” He holds out his hand, and Joy Marie, still looking as nervous as a cat on a raft, takes it. “I just wanted to introduce myself. You know, before the meeting.”

Joy Marie smiles uncertainly. “The meeting?”

“Yeah. The Environmental Club meeting? Clemens said you’re the vice-president and the secretary? He said you’re looking for new members.”

“Yeah.” Joy Marie nods. “Yeah, we are.”

“Right,” says Cody. “Well, I wanted you to know that you can count me in. I was totally committed to the movement in my old school – we did some real cool stuff – and I want to keep it up. You know, different space but same place, right?”

Joy Marie nods.

“So I’ll see you this afternoon,” says Cody. And suddenly his smile is on Waneeda. “See you later.”

Looking at Cody, it’s actually possible to believe that you’ve never seen anyone smile before. “Yeah,” says Waneeda. “See you later.”

Chapter Eleven “Come on, gang! Let’s save the planet!”