Dawn Saves the Planet

  “Garbage? You mean, like tin cans and stuff?”

  “No.” Melody shook her head. “Garbage you can eat. Like orange peels — birds love that. And bread crusts.”

  “You can also make bird snacks by filling a pinecone with peanut butter,” Bill pointed out.

  “Pealut butter!” Skylar yelled.

  “Skylar loves peanut butter,” Melody whispered. “Now that we mentioned it, I think you’ll have to give her some. Mom puts it on a graham cracker.”

  While Kristy went to the cupboard, Melody continued to explain her tree feeder. “You can tie strings around the pinecones, or bread crusts, or orange peels, and hang them from a tree.”

  “Outside your window is a good place,” Bill said, pointing to an evergreen that was framed by their big kitchen window. “That way you can watch the birds eat. You can also tie strings around peanuts.”

  “Sounds like decorating a Christmas tree,” Kristy observed.

  “Only this tree is alive,” Bill said. “We’re saving the birds and the trees at the same time.”

  “Did you learn this in Dawn and Stacey’s class?” Kristy asked.

  The kids nodded.

  “We’ve been learning how to protect the animals,” Melody added. “Even the yuckiest worm or spider.”

  “How can you protect the spiders?” Kristy asked as the timer went off on the kitchen stove.

  “Well, the next time you see a spider crawling up the wall or across your kitchen counter, don’t squish it,” Bill said. “You’re supposed to take them outside and let them go.”

  “Really?” Kristy said.

  “Spiders are great,” Melody added. “Without them we’d be overrun with bugs.”

  “Did you know that the bugs spiders eat in one year weigh as much as all of the people on the earth?” Bill said.

  Kristy wrinkled her nose in disgust. “That’s a lot of bugs.”

  Kristy opened the oven and inspected the pizza. After the talk about bugs taking over the planet and squishing spiders, she had lost her appetite. But she didn’t want the kids to know that. Instead she said, “This looks delicious. Okay. Sit down at the table. I’ll serve the pizza, and you can tell me more about saving the earth’s birds.”

  She put heavy emphasis on the word bird, hoping to steer the kids away from the subject of squashing bugs and spiders. It worked. Kristy was finally able to choke down a piece of pizza (even though the black olives on the pizza looked a whole lot like little beetles).

  After dinner Kristy moved Skylar to her playpen and the kids spent another two hours making bird houses. Kristy had brought her Kid-Kit with her and it contained a set of water colors and a box of crayons. Bill built the bird houses and she and Melody decorated them. By the time Mrs. Korman came home, they had completed fifteen.

  “Mom! Look what we did!” Bill shouted. “My booth is going to be the best one at the fair.”

  Melody hopped in a circle around her mother shouting, “Can Kristy come back tomorrow? I’m making some more signs for my booth. And I’m going to finish making the evergreen trees into tree feeders. Can Kristy come back and help? Can she?”

  Mrs. Korman gave Melody a hug. “Of course she can, but I’ll bet Kristy is pretty busy.”

  Kristy had enjoyed working on the bird houses. Since she had the next afternoon free, she said, “I’d love to help you, Melody. But I’ll do it on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” Melody asked.

  “If you promise that we don’t talk about squashing bugs while we’re working.”

  Melody solemnly put one hand over her heart. “I promise. No bugs.”

  “And no tats,” Skylar called from her playpen.

  Kristy picked her up and gave her a squeeze. “Then it’s a deal. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

  Wednesday. Three days before the Green Fair. It seemed as though we still had a million things to do before Saturday. I rode to the BSC meeting with posters and fliers and name tags filling the basket on my bicycle. Mary Anne had baby-sat for the Marshalls that afternoon and she met me on Claud’s front porch.

  “Need some help?” she asked.

  “Yes!” I exclaimed. “The editor at the newspaper needs to be called, the booths still aren’t ready, I’m not sure if all the kids have finished their projects, and I’m going to need someone to videotape the event.”

  Mary Anne’s mouth fell open. “I meant, do you need help carrying those posters upstairs?”

  “Oh. Sure.” I would have been embarrassed if it had been anybody but Mary Anne. Instead I chuckled. “I thought you were talking about the Green Fair.”

  Mary Anne helped me carry my posters and fliers up to Claud’s room and then I passed them out as quickly as I could.

  “Nice artwork!” Kristy said as she read the poster I handed her.

  I gestured grandly to Claudia. “We can thank Ms. Kishi for that.”

  Just then the digital clock changed from 5:29 to 5:30. Kristy leaned back in the director’s chair and announced, “All right. The BSC is officially called to order. Is there any club business we need to discuss?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve just given you each five posters, twenty fliers, and a name tag.”

  Jessi held up her poster. “What are we supposed to do with these?”

  “I want you to put them up around town. There are seven of us, so we can put up thirty-five posters. And Mary Anne, if Logan can take five, that’ll be forty.”

  “You want us to put them in grocery store windows, and places like that?” Claud asked.

  “Right. Now I’ve made a list of places for each of you to take the posters. You have to have them up by tomorrow afternoon or —”

  “Hold it!” Kristy interrupted. “I can’t. I’m busy tomorrow.”

  “What?” I dropped my arms to my sides. “Kristy, I was counting on you. You’ve got to put your posters in the library and the art museum.”

  “How could you count on me when you never talked to me about this before?” Kristy protested.

  “Oh, never mind. I’ll just do yours myself.” I took back her posters and tossed them on the bed.

  Kristy shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. But I didn’t know anything about it.”

  Stacey leaned forward from her seat on the bed. “Don’t worry, Kristy,” she began. “We’ll —”

  “Talk about it later?” I finished in an irritated voice. “We don’t have much time. A client could call at any moment.”

  “Sorry.” Stacey pressed her lips together and leaned back against the wall.

  “Now I want you all to be sure to wear these name tags on Saturday,” I said, pointing to the labels I’d carefully lettered in colored markers.

  “Why do we need to wear name tags?” Mal asked.

  I sighed. “Because,” I said, overemphasizing each word, “you’re all going to be helping at the fair, aren’t you?”

  Mal and Jessi looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Then Jessi said, “Nobody told me about it.”

  “What?” This time I turned to Stacey and practically shouted, “I thought you were going to give them their assignments.”

  “Correction,” Stacey said through clenched teeth. “I was going to ask them if they would like to help us on Saturday.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Well, of course they want to help us. They’re our friends, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, and friends ask friends first,” Stacey shot back. “They don’t order them around.”

  I turned to the rest of the club members. “I’m not ordering you around, am I?”

  For a few moments everyone was silent. No one looked me in the eye. Finally Kristy said, “Yes. You’ve been firing orders at us since the meeting started.”

  “That’s not true,” I huffed.

  “Oh, yes it is,” Stacey declared, raising up on her knees. “And furthermore, you’ve been barking orders at me ever since we started this whole stupid ecology project.”

  “Oh, I get it,
” I said sarcastically. “You think ecology is stupid? Well, no wonder you haven’t been doing your share of the work.”

  “How could I?” Stacey retorted. “You’ve been doing it for me. You think you’re the only one who knows anything about pollution.”

  “Well, I have done a lot of research.”

  “So have I,” Stacey pointed out. “We take the same science class, remember? We’ve read the same books. Who suggested we use the book 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth? Me. I read it first.”

  “Yes, but —”

  “To hear you talk, you’d think I wasn’t even involved in this project. Or worse, that I was just one of the kids in our class. You’ve been bossing me around from the beginning and I’m tired of it.” Stacey folded her arms firmly across her chest. “And I’m not going to let you boss our friends around.”

  “I don’t boss people around,” I protested.

  “Yes, you do,” Claud said from across the room. “Ever since you started this ecology project you’ve been telling me what to eat.”

  “And telling me what kind of paper to buy, and how much to use,” Mary Anne added.

  Kristy nodded. “And you acted as if I committed murder when I accidentally threw away a soda can.”

  “But that’s only because it’s so important to recycle if we want the planet to survive.” I looked from Kristy to Claudia to Mary Anne. “Someone has to tell people what they’re doing wrong.”

  “We know that,” Claudia said. “But you’ve gone from being a teacher to being a police-woman. You expect everybody to be perfect, and you make us feel like criminals.”

  “And it’s really not very pleasant,” Mary Anne added.

  “In fact,” Kristy said, “it’s obnoxious.”

  There was that word again. The same one I had heard Cokie Mason use the day of the elections. I couldn’t believe my ears. My very own friends were turning against me.

  A lump began to form in the back of my throat but I was determined not to cry. Luckily, the phone rang and I didn’t have to say anything right away.

  Mal answered it. Mrs. Newton needed a sitter for Jamie and Lucy on Saturday morning. Mary Anne checked the record book. “Stacey and Dawn are busy with the Green Fair,” she said, “and Mal and Jessi are sitting for the Pikes, so that leaves Kristy, Claud, or me.”

  “I’ll take it,” Claud volunteered. With a sideways glance at me she added, “But don’t worry, Dawn. I’ll be sure and bring the kids to the Green Fair.”

  I tried to smile but I was still reeling from what everyone had said to me. I knew I had been pretty insistent about recycling but I never dreamed anyone would think I was bossy and obnoxious. If my best friends felt that way about me, no wonder the kids at school had voted for Mrs. Gonzalez.

  After Mal called Mrs. Newton back to tell her that Claud would be sitting for her, the room was silent once more. I knew everyone was waiting to hear my response to what they had said.

  I couldn’t look at anybody. I just stared down at my hands and murmured, “I had no idea you guys were so upset with me.”

  Mary Anne touched my arm gently. “Look, Dawn, we know you meant well but you can’t force people to think like you do.”

  “Mary Anne’s right,” Claudia added. “Nobody likes being told what to do.”

  I thought about the things I’d said to people, at home, at school, and at the BSC meetings, over the past few weeks. I realized I had been awfully pushy.

  “I — I’m sorry, you guys,” I stammered. “I never —”

  “Wait a minute, Dawn,” Mary Anne interrupted. “We’re not finished.”

  I bit my lip and waited for her to tell me what else I’d been doing wrong.”

  “We want you to know,” Mary Anne continued, “that even though Mrs. Gonzalez has done a great job of pulling together the recycling project, we think you should be in charge.”

  “But only if you change your attitude,” Kristy added. “You know, approach it like a sane person.”

  “Yeah, not like the eco-maniac you’ve been,” Claud joked.

  Everyone giggled at Claud’s words. Even me. “I guess I have been a little overbearing.”

  “A little!” Stacey repeated. “You’ve been like a bulldozer, mowing down everyone who’s ever used a plastic bag or had a drink from a Styrofoam cup. Which, I might add, is practically everybody.”

  I had to admit it, Stacey was right. I had spent the last few weeks feeling angry with everyone because they wouldn’t shape up immediately. And I had been unfair to Stacey, taking over our classes as if she weren’t even involved, and then ordering her around.

  “Stacey, I’m really sorry I’ve been so awful to you.”

  “That’s all right,” Stacey said. “I should have told you how I was feeling a long time ago.”

  “Look,” I said, “I know there are only three days left before the Green Fair, but I promise to make those three days fun and not be a bossy jerk. Okay?”

  Stacey grinned. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Then are we still friends?”

  I stuck out my hand and Stacey shook it.

  “We’re still friends.”

  “Great.” I flopped on the bed next to her. “Then we should start work on our report for Mrs. Gonzalez’s class. I’ve made an outline —”

  “Dawn!” everyone shouted.

  I nearly fell off the bed. “What?” I asked.

  “You’re doing it again!” Claudia said.

  “Oops.” I covered my mouth with my hand. “I guess I should have said, when would you like to start work on our report?”

  Stacey grinned at me. “As soon as we can. I’ve written an outline, too. Let’s put them together and see what we come up with.”

  “Perfect!” I declared. I threw my arms around Stacey. Behind me I could hear Jessi whisper to Mal, “Don’t you just love happy endings?”

  “Save a tree!”

  “Write the President!”

  “Kids care!”

  It was Saturday, the day of our Green Fair, and you could hear the kids calling from their booths all the way down the street.

  I’d slept at Stacey’s the night before, so we could get up bright and early to make sure the booths were ready. We’d set the alarm for six o’clock but we were wide awake before that.

  The fair was scheduled to begin at ten. At five to, Stacey clutched my arm in a panic. “What if nobody comes?”

  That was something I hadn’t even considered. For one brief second my pulse raced with fear. Then I said, “We’ve got thirteen kids involved and they all have parents who are coming. Then there’s the BSC — they promised to be here.”

  “What if too many people come?” Stacey gasped. “My yard isn’t that big!”

  I draped my arm over her shoulder. “Stop worrying. Things are probably going to go wrong, but if we stay calm we can handle them.”

  Moments later I had to eat my words as a gust of wind lifted the Kids Care button booth four feet in the air and dropped it in a heap around Karen, Andrew, and Suzi.

  “Help!” Karen cried. “We’ve been smushed.” The booth, which was really just a couple of cardboard refrigerator boxes stapled together, had ripped apart. Large pieces of cardboard lay on the ground.

  “Our booth is ruined,” Suzi Barrett wailed.

  “No, it’s not,” Stacey said.

  “Yes, it is.” Andrew grumbled as he dragged the button making machine out from under the cardboard. “No one will want to come to it.”

  “Now what kind of an attitude is that?” I said as I tried to prop the booth back up. “All we need is a little tape and a staple gun, and this booth will be as good as new.”

  Fortunately for us, Mallory and Jessi entered the yard just as the accident happened. Mal overheard me and shouted, “One staple gun and a roll of tape, coming right up.” She sent Byron back to their house for the supplies, then brought the rest of her brothers and sisters over to join us.

  “Wow!” Mal cried
to Karen, Suzi, and Andrew. “I saw that wind lift your booth off the ground and spin it around. It looked like The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy’s house flies through the air.”

  “The Wizard of Oz?” Suzi’s blue eyes widened. “Really?”

  Jessi nodded. “Absolutely. It looked like magic.”

  “Magic!” the kids repeated. Then they turned to look back at the battered booth.

  “It did feel sort of magical,” Karen whispered to the others. “One second the air was still and the next a strange gust of wind lifted us up to the clouds.”

  “Yeah,” Andrew answered in a hushed voice. “We were flying.”

  “Flying?” Adam Pike scoffed. But before he could say another word, Mal cupped her hand over his mouth.

  “Our booth must be the most special one at the fair,” Suzi Barrett concluded.

  By this time Byron was back with the supplies and the kids could hardly wait to repair their “magical” booth.

  I mouthed a grateful thanks to Mal, who shrugged and said, “It was nothing.”

  While Stacey helped to fix the button booth, I glanced around to make sure none of the other booths had blown over. Stacey’s backyard was already starting to fill with people. I noticed Claudia Kishi standing with Jamie and Lucy Newton in front of Linny and David Michael’s demonstration booth. Linny was using grand gestures as he talked, when suddenly he stopped speaking and shouted, “Oh, no!”

  I hurried across the lawn to see what had gone wrong. By the time I arrived the two boys were involved in a heated argument.

  “I thought you were going to bring it!” David Michael said.

  “No, you were supposed to bring it,” Linny replied.

  “Hey, you guys, cool down,” Claudia said. “There’s no need to fight.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  David Michael poked his finger at Linny. “He was supposed to bring the celery for our It Came from Underground demonstration.”

  “I was not,” Linny said, shaking his head violently. “He was supposed to bring it.”