by Dave Leys
to sit down right now or he would stop the bus and make them walk to school. Then there was their teacher, Miss Cadderley, who went red in the face and screamed at the class to ‘close your mouths quick smart!’
Sarah folded her arms, a sure sign she was serious. ‘We need to do something about it.’
‘Totally,’ said Alexa. ‘We need to cheer people up.’
‘A campaign,’ said Sarah, ‘to spread happiness.’
There was a pause and a cloud rolled over the sun, casting shadows around them. Then there was a gust of wind, the cloud rolled on and the sun came out again.
The two of them looked at one another, grabbed each other’s hands, and jumped up and down in the sunlight.
‘A Be-Happy Campaign!’ they squealed in unison.
There was not a moment to lose. When you have a plan as magnificent as that, a plan that will change humankind, there’s no point sitting around twiddling your thumbs, you have to take action straight away.
They ran back to Sarah’s house, rushed up to her mother and explained that they had a mission in life and it was to cheer everyone up, they had a name for it and everything. But Sarah’s mum was halfway through the vacuuming and couldn’t hear them above the noise; she only waved them away with a red face.
‘See?’ whispered Sarah as they crept to her room. ‘Everyone, even my mum, needs our help.’
Almost overcome with the enormity and importance of what they were about to do, they sat on Sarah’s bed.
‘Where do we start?’ asked Alexa.
‘A sign!’ said Sarah brightly. ‘We’ll make a beautiful sign telling people to be happy.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Alexa, swinging her feet back and forth, ‘and we’ll go from house to house and show them.’
It was so simple it was perfect. Half an hour later they had a large piece of white cardboard sticky-taped to a broom handle they had found in the garage and de-broomed (‘Dad won’t mind’ said Sarah) and printed on it in different coloured textas for each letter (Sarah had a lot of textas) was the following message:
COME ON YOU PEOPLE CHEER UP!!
THE SUN IS SHINING AND LIFE IS GREAT
Brought to you by the Be-Happy Campaign
Alexa held it and paraded up and down in the bedroom. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.
‘Brilliant,’ said Sarah. ‘I feel happier already.’
‘Now all we have to do,’ said Alexa, ‘is take it to the streets.’
‘Wait,’ said Sarah. ‘We’re still missing something.’ She rummaged around in her closet and came out holding an old wooden recorder. ‘Music always cheers people up.’
Alexa smiled. Sarah gave a toot and smiled back. They both felt virtuous and successful already.
They decided to start off next door at Mr and Mrs Prufrock’s house. Wandering up the path Alexa felt a little nervous and started to tug at her skirt but Sarah played a trill right into her ear and made her laugh.
They were still giggling when the front door opened. There stood Mrs Prufrock in her dressing gown.
‘What’s that noise?’ she snapped. She looked down at the two girls. Alexa held up the sign and waved it at her.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘We’re here to make things better.’
‘Better?’ rasped Mrs Prufrock. ‘What for? What are you talking about? And what on earth are you holding up in my face? I haven’t got my glasses on.’ She turned back down the hallway and called out to her husband. ‘Frank, Sarah from next door and her little friend are here. I think they’re collecting money for something.’
Mr Prufrock shuffled down the hallway out of the gloom of the kitchen. ‘No thankyou, girls, we only give to the Red Cross.’
‘No,’ started Alexa, ‘we wanted to talk to you about …’ But she didn’t have time to finish. Mrs Prufrock was closing the door, muttering something about having to hang the clothes on the line.
They stood there and looked at each other. It hadn’t quite gone the way they had planned.
‘Never mind,’ said Sarah. ‘Let’s go to the next house.’
They walked next door to an old red brick house and knocked on the door. Alexa put her best smile on and Sarah stood on one foot playing Ba Ba Black Sheep, the only tune she knew all the way through. There was the sound of boots on tiles and then the door opened. A middle-aged man with a beard looked out at them suspiciously.
‘What can I do for you?’ he asked.
Alexa started her speech again. ‘We’re here to make things better.’ She waved the sign.
The man leaned out and read the sign. He scoffed. ‘Cheer up?’ he said slowly. ‘Are you kidding? Haven’t you heard about global warming? Yes, the sun is shining, that’s the problem! It’s all getting too hot. The world is probably going to end in about ten years. And all of the rivers are polluted. Exactly what is there to be happy about?’
Alexa gulped. She didn’t really know how to argue about science. Sarah crept behind her back and let out a low-pitched squeak. The man glared at them.
‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘Just as I thought.’ With that he turned and went back inside his house.
The two of them slunk back to the footpath. ‘This is going to be more difficult than we thought,’ said Alexa. Sarah gripped her instrument tightly and nodded.
They decided to skip a few houses and go right up to the corner, where there stood a double storey, blue house with three cars parked out the front. As they inched up the driveway they heard a dog barking furiously in the backyard, and the closer they got the louder he got, until they were right at the door and he sounded like he was barking himself insane. They heard shouting from inside and finally the dog went quiet. A minute later a woman dressed in a silver skirt, red blouse and pearls swung open the door.
‘Hi,’ started Alexa. She almost forgot what to say and so it came out like ‘mumble, mumble, help!’ The sign wavered by her side.
The woman put her hands on her hips. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said in an icy voice.
Alexa took a deep breath and started again. ‘We’re here to help. We’d like you to cheer up. We think you should be happy, that is, we think everyone should be happy.’
The woman took a step forward and put her hands on her hips. ‘How dare you,’ she said.
‘What?’ said Alexa, feeling her arms go numb.
‘How dare you tell me how to feel.’ The woman’s mouth was small and she began tapping her left foot up and down. ‘I’m perfectly happy, really, really very happy already, thankyou very much, and I don’t need you to tell me otherwise.’ From the inside of the house there was the sound of the dog starting up his barking again, and she turned and screamed back, ‘Stop that barking now before I put you in the kennel!’ The barking stopped to be replaced by a whimper, and she faced the girls again. ‘Well?’
The girls froze. Neither of them could think of anything to say, so Sarah bravely stepped forward and began piping and tooting. The woman’s eyes widened for a moment at the sight of Sarah hopping up and down as she tried to find the right notes. The woman snorted, exhaled a nasty laugh and slammed the door shut.
The girls walked down the path back to the street, Alexa dragging the sign behind her.
‘That woman was so rude to us!’ she said. ‘I don’t believe it.’
Sarah pouted for a moment. ‘Maybe we’re doing something wrong.’
‘No, it’s not us, it’s them!’ said Alexa.
‘Let’s swap,’ suggested Sarah. ‘You’re a better recorder player than I am anyway.’
So they walked up to the next house with Sarah in front waving the sign and Alexa playing Greensleeves, which sounded quite pretty. They got closer to the door and they could hear the sound of kids laughing and running up and down inside.
‘That’s a good sign,’ said Sarah over her shoulder, and she knocked with a big smile on her face while Alexa continued to play.
The
door opened almost immediately and out rushed three small children with big eyes followed by a young woman holding her purse. She stopped suddenly when she saw the two girls.
‘Ummm,’ she said uncertainly.
‘Cheer up,’ said Sarah in her nicest voice. ‘Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up.’ Her approach was more direct than Alexa’s.
The woman looked first at Alexa, then at Sarah, then at Alexa again. ‘Oh no,’ she said. Her kids, having rushed out, were now creeping back into the house.
‘What is it?’ asked Sarah with concern.
The woman pushed her hair back tiredly and put the purse back in her pocket. ‘When I heard Greensleeves I thought it was the Mr Whippy van. I was coming out to buy ice creams for …’ and here she looked back inside the house, ‘ … them. You see, I’m babysitting them and they’re driving me nuts.’ She stopped for a moment and read the sign. She looked puzzled. ‘Cheer up?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Sarah, motioning to Alexa to stop playing. ‘It’s part of the Be-Happy Campaign.’
The woman sighed. ‘Oh girls, that’s very sweet of you,’ and here she paused as she heard the sound of the children scuffling inside, ‘but I had really better go.’ She smoothed her hair down wearily and went back into the house.
Alexa and Sarah stood there for a moment and then, shoulders slumped, walked back out to the street. Alexa was fuming.
‘That’s it!’ she said in a voice full of feeling. ‘Stupid adults. I give up. They can feel however they want from now on.’ She grabbed the sign from Sarah, put it down on the ground and pulled a red texta out of her