The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love by Dyan Sheldon Page A

thing.”
    An almost electric current of giggles and smiles runs through the room.
    “Anyway, I don’t want to take up all our precious time talking about myself. I’ve got a lot of ideas I want to share with you guys – things we can do to get the school right behind us and have some real impact. But first I think we should hear about you . You know, just a few words about yourself so we know where you’re coming from.” Cody smiles back at all the faces smiling at him. “How about it?” He opens his arms, embracing the room. “Who wants to start?”
    While the others are all glancing at each other to see who’ll be brave enough to go first, both Maya Baraberra and Sicilee Kewe leap to their feet as though tied together by invisible strings.
    “I’d love to start,” says Maya before Sicilee can. Her smile bobs back and forth between Sicilee and Cody. “I know it’s going to sound kind of weird, but I’m a lot like Cody, really.” Maya, it seems, has been into the environment for as long as she can remember, possibly because of her artistic nature and her love of animals. “And I’ve been a vegetarian for practically eons, and I decided over the holidays that it’s time to go vegan. You know, because of all that Christmas carnage?”
    “Me, too,” interrupts Sicilee. She can’t seem to decide who she’s looking at, either. “You know, into the environment? I believe we can change our ways. Like my parents? My parents wanted to go skiing over Christmas, but I insisted we stayed in town – so we didn’t have to take a plane?”
    “Oh, and of course I ride my bike everywhere. I only go in the car when there is no other choice.” Maya edges forward, slightly blocking Sicilee from Cody Lightfoot’s view. “And obviously I wear vintage clothes. And I recycle everything.”
    “Well, I’ve been doing the Green thing for, like, ever now,” says Sicilee, sliding to the left. “The bottles … the light bulbs … the whole vegan scene … I believe that we all have a responsibility. You know, to the polar bears and the trees and everything?”
    “ Gott im Himmel , you know what?” Laughing as though she can’t imagine how she forgot about this, Maya moves in front of Sicilee again. “I actually once had a sit-in, you know, all by myself, in this tree they were going to cut down?” But doesn’t mention that the tree was in her backyard and the “they” who were cutting it down were her parents.
    “But the whole point of a club like this is that no one’s an island.” Sicilee shifts to the right this time. “I believe that it’s not about one person doing one thing every now and then. We all have to pull together. Then we’ll be able to save the planet!”
    “Well, of course. That’s why we’re all here today.” Everybody knows that, Sicilee . The unspoken words shimmer on Maya’s smile. “Isn’t that right?”
    This last question is meant for Cody, and both Maya and Sicilee, who have slightly forgotten about him in their attempts to outmanoeuvre each other, turn to him now.
    Only to discover that he’s no longer there.

Chapter Seventeen

Warrior greens
    As a further example of things they have in common, both Maya Baraberra and Sicilee Kewe imagined that they would be leaving the meeting with Cody Lightfoot. Each of them was prepared not just to walk all the way home, but to walk all the way to someone else’s home if it meant she walked with him.
    But neither of these scenarios happened. Somehow, when Cody stood up at the end of the meeting, Maya and Sicilee were left looking at each other across the space where he’d been. Sicilee tossed her hair and shrank her smile so small that she seemed about to spit. Maya stared back unblinkingly. If looks were curses, Maya would have been turned into a toad and Sicilee would have vanished completely, and probably for ever.
    By the time they picked up their things and stood up themselves, Cody was walking out of the room with Ms