by Holly Webb
They sat silently for a moment, listening to everyone else planning excitedly, and Maya felt guilty. Maybe she had spoiled everything by letting Izzy join their group.
“Everyone’s doing their project on chocolate,” Izzy said, after a minute or so.
“Of course they are!” Emily snapped at her. “We’re supposed to.”
Izzy shrank back in her chair a little, and Maya winced. This was going to be a disaster.
But Poppy leaned forward, shooting Emily a quick look. “No, Mr Finlay said anything to do with Fairtrade. We could do a project on bananas instead. Then that would be different from everyone else.”
“I hate bananas,” Emily said grumpily.
“But Izzy’s right.” Poppy looked at Emily sternly. “Everyone’s doing chocolate, so let’s be different. It doesn’t have to be bananas. I bet we could find something else. Sugar, we said, didn’t we?”
Maya shook her head, noticing that Izzy had gone pink again, but this time because she was pleased. “I don’t know. A project about sugar doesn’t sound very exciting.”
“That’s because nothing’s as exciting as chocolate.” Poppy sighed. “I’ll go home and look at what Mum’s got in the kitchen. She gets lots of Fairtrade stuff.”
“I suppose bananas would be all right if we can’t find anything else. I don’t have to actually eat the bananas, just write about them,” Emily said, but her voice was so gloomy that everyone laughed, even Izzy.
“You all need to go and change for PE in a minute, so just a couple of things to remember. This project is going to be most of your homework for the next couple of weeks,” Mr Finlay explained. “And there’ll be time to work on it in class. But for tonight, please try and start doing some research at home.”
“We’d better decide what we want the project to be about then,” Izzy pointed out. She sounded almost enthusiastic. “We can’t do research if we don’t know what we’re researching.”
Mr Finlay heard her, and looked pleased. “You’re doing something else, not chocolate? That’s great, girls. Don’t worry, Izzy. There’ll be plenty of time. Just use tonight for coming up with ideas.”
“We’ll find something better than bananas,” Poppy whispered to Emily.
“Thanks,” Emily muttered back. Maya could tell she was feeling guilty about being bad-tempered. Emily was like that – she said mean things, sometimes, and then regretted them minutes after. Maya had got used to it. But she still wasn’t even looking at Izzy. The stupid thing was that if she and Emily could get over their spat from last year, Maya had a feeling they’d get on really well. But for that to happen, they were actually going to have to talk to each other…
“I hate PE,” Izzy sighed, as they got changed next to each other, and Maya nodded.
“Me too. But maybe we can keep thinking about the project. It’ll be athletics again. Loads of waiting around. Maybe we’ll have a brilliant idea.”
Izzy looked at her sideways, and Maya giggled. “You never know.”
“Are you catching the bus today?” Emily asked Maya as they packed up their stuff after PE.
Maya nodded. “Someone’s going to have to pinch me when it’s time to get off, I’m so tired after all that running.”
Maya and Emily both lived in villages outside Millford, and they usually caught the school bus that wound all round the town dropping people off. It was one of the things Maya liked about Park Road. When she’d been at Graham House, everyone drove to school, and hardly anybody lift-shared. There was always a line of huge cars blocking up the road outside the school, even though half the children were boarding.
She loved the journey in and out of all the little villages, and the extra time she had for chatting with Emily. Quite often in the mornings Maya would see her and Toby and James pelting down the hill, racing the bus to the stop. They were almost always late, and Mr Green, the driver, would moan and threaten to go without them, but he never did. Everyone on the bus would bang on the windows, and cheer when Emily and her brothers finally climbed up the steps. And then Emily’s mum would come panting after them, apologise to Mr Green and promise to be on time the next day, and Emily would slump in the seat next to Maya to tell her that Toby had poured two Weetabix and half a pint of milk on James, and then James hadn’t got any more clean shirts, so Mum had had to dry him with a hair dryer. There was always something. Maya knew how much Emily got annoyed with her mad family, but it still sounded a lot of fun – more fun than eating breakfast on her own like she usually did, anyway.
Maya smiled to herself. That morning she’d actually had breakfast with her mum and dad – and two make-up artists, a stylist, the photographer, his assistant and the journalist writing the interview. Anna had been in her element; she’d been fussing about it for days, and throwing wobblies because she couldn’t get exactly the right sort of flour for her maple syrup pancakes. Maya had eaten so many practice ones, she was a bit sick of pancakes now. And it would probably be leftover croissants for tea. Hopefully all the magazine people would have gone by the time she got home.
She and Emily managed to get the back seat of the bus, and Maya slumped down with a sigh.
“Are you still feeling ill?” Emily asked sympathetically. “You should have got your mum to give you a note for PE.”
Maya looked at her blankly for a second, and then remembered her excuse from the morning and crossed her fingers in the folds of her skirt. “No, it’s OK. It isn’t a really bad cold. I’m just sleepy.”
Emily nodded. “At least we haven’t got loads of homework tonight. I still can’t think of anything brilliant for this project, though. I’ll have to go home and look up Fairtrade stuff on the net like Mr Finlay said.”
Maya was staring thoughtfully out of the window. “There must be something better than bananas. I suppose if we did sugar we could do some cooking like Poppy wanted, but we might have to do that at home.” She frowned at her reflection in the glass. She’d love to invite Poppy and Emily round to make stuff at hers. Izzy, too, even. Sooner or later she was going to have to. It helped that she caught the bus, so it was a bit trickier to arrange things like that. It gave her a good excuse. For her birthday she and her dad had taken Poppy and Emily to the cinema in Millford, and then to Maya’s favourite café for tea, instead of having a sleepover or anything like that.
They were trundling through Appleby, the first of the villages on the way home, when the bus stopped in traffic and Maya suddenly leaned forward, rubbing away the mist she’d breathed on to the window. “Emily, look at that new shop.”
“Hey, that looks good.” Emily leaned over her to see. “Daisy. Cute name. And it’s definitely not just stuff for adults. I love that yellow dress.”
“I know, it’s really nice.” But Maya was frowning at the window display, where the clothes were surrounded by enormous flowers and life-size toy dogs with signs round their necks. “Look at those signs. There’s a Fairtrade logo on the window! And it says organic, underneath. Do you think it sells food too? Like a café in the back, or something? It doesn’t look like it.”
Emily shook her head. “It doesn’t. And that sign the little brown dog’s got on says Fairtrade Fashion. But you can’t have organic clothes, can you? That’s stupid. Oh, we’re moving…”
The bus pulled away, and even though the girls tried to peer back at the shop out of the rear window, they couldn’t really see.
“I wonder if my mum went into Appleby today,” Emily said excitedly. “She said she had shopping to do and she might have gone and had a look in there. I’ll ask her.”
Maya nodded. She was sure if she asked her mum or dad they’d take her to look – although people in the shop might recognise her mum. But she was still thinking about the Fairtrade thing. “If it is Fairtrade clothes…”
Emily beamed at her. “That would be a brilliant project. Way better than chocolate.”
“Exactly! And hopefully nobody else will think of it.” Maya looked sideways at Emily. “Ali and Lucy
would be so jealous.”
“Mmmm.” Emily smiled happily. “Kicking themselves.”
“Emily! Come on!” Toby was standing in front of them, pulling Emily’s arm.
“Oh, I have to get off. See you tomorrow! Hey, do you realise we’ve just done our homework?” Emily called back as she hurried down the aisle.
Maya laughed, and waved goodbye to her as the bus set off again. She loved clothes, and spent a lot of her allowance on her favourite websites. Even if she didn’t like dressing up to be photographed any more, she still enjoyed planning her outfits just as much as her mum did. The bad thing about Park Road School was its horrible uniform – a bright blue jumper that made Maya’s red hair look gingery. Maya always changed as soon as she got home.
Luckily, because she was the only person who got dropped in her tiny village, the bus stopped outside her house and Mr Green would let her off if he could see someone waving from the front door. Maya hurried down the steps, wanting to go straight in and ask her mum if she’d spotted the new shop.
“I’ll make you a snack,” Anna called, as she turned to head back into the kitchen.
“Thanks, Anna.” She gave her a hug, which she didn’t always. “I’m going to see Mum, and then I’ve got to do some stuff on the computer for homework.” She headed back into the hallway.
Almost all the signs of the photoshoot that morning had disappeared. The big living room at the back of the house was still frighteningly tidy when she peeped into it, and the extra pots of flowers that Mum had hired to brighten up the garden were still there, but that was it. Maya had a feeling the photographer had taken all the shots from the garden side anyway, so the pots had been useless.
“Mum!” she called.
“Upstairs,” a muffled voice came back, and Maya raced up the stairs to find her.
“I’m just going to change,” she told her mum, sticking her head round the door. “See you in a minute.”
The yellow dress in the window of the new shop was still in Maya’s mind, so she found herself grabbing a yellow T-shirt and a denim skirt. Then she hurried back to her mum’s room.
“Mum, did you go into Appleby today at all?”
Her mum looked up from the computer. She was lying on her sofa reading emails on her laptop, and she looked tired, but she brightened up when she saw Maya.
“No, that interview went on for ages, and then I’ve had lots of work stuff to catch up on. Why?”
“There’s a new shop.” Maya perched on the edge of the sofa, leaning against her mum’s shoulder. The stylist that morning had raved about their hair, how it was exactly the same colour, and she was right, Maya noticed, seeing her own next to her mum’s. She could hardly tell the difference. “A clothes shop, a really cool one. It’s called Daisy. I spotted it when we were on the bus on the way home. There was a gorgeous dress…”
“Oh, I’ll have to go and have a look.” Her mum smiled. “Maybe buy you a present. They had girls’ clothes, did they?”
“Yes, but have you ever heard of Fairtrade clothes, Mum? The window display said they sold Fairtrade, and it was all organic, too.”
Her mum frowned. “That sounds a bit strange. More your kind of thing than mine.” She shuddered a little. “It’s probably all woven out of tree bark, or something.”
Maya’s mum wore much more designery stuff than Maya. She’d even modelled for a photoshoot years and years ago in a fur coat, which made Maya furious just thinking about it. Maya’s mum teased her about looking like a hippy.
“It wasn’t all tie-dye and long skirts, Mum. It looked great. But I can’t work out the Fairtrade thing. If it really does mean Fairtrade clothes, it’s the best timing. We have to do a project on it. The whole class is doing theirs on Fairtrade chocolate – we want to have something that’s just us. This would be perfect!”
“It sounds much better than most school projects. No junk modelling?”
Maya gave her a Look. Maya’s recycling bug had hit her in Year Two, when they’d had a teacher who was very concerned about the environment and did lots of work on green issues with the class. Maya had really got enthusiastic about it – so much that she had her only major fight with Macey, over Macey’s junk model of a space station, which had been made out of plastic bottles, loo rolls and all sorts of odd bits. And a lot of silver paint.
Maya had gone a bit over the top with the class recycling competition, and several bits of space station had mysteriously vanished, including the astronauts’ living quarters. Macey hadn’t spoken to her for three weeks. They’d made up eventually, but Maya never stopped being into recycling – and solar power, and electric cars, and composting, and organic food. Her dad had said once that he felt like anything that was fun was bound to be “wasting the earth’s resources” somehow. That was after Maya had argued with him for a solid hour about his new car.
“And we can do anything we like – Mr Finlay said to be imaginative. Maybe we could go and talk to the people who run the shop about where they get the clothes from? Like a TV interview,” Maya said thoughtfully. “We could even video it! But I don’t know anything about Fairtrade fashion. I suppose I could just search for it online.”
Her mum frowned. “Actually, I do remember reading something about it. Emma Watson, you know, the actress from Harry Potter, she’s designed clothes for an ethical fashion company. We should look her up.”
“Ethical fashion? Is that something else like Fairtrade?”
Her mum was nodding as she typed. “Mmm. No child labour.”
“That happens with clothes too?” Maya asked anxiously. “Mr Finlay was showing us pictures of children harvesting cocoa beans today.”
Maya’s mum made a face. “Lots of clothes companies have been in trouble about it recently. There’ve been reports of children working in awful conditions, in India especially, and then the clothes they make being sold here really cheaply. Oh, here you are, look! This is the website.”
“You’re a star!” Maya hugged her, and started to read the webpage. “Wow. Jewellery as well. And look at all those other links. Mum, can you send me this? I need to go and make some notes to show Emily and Poppy and Izzy tomorrow.”
“Who’s Izzy?” her mum asked.
“She’s in our group for the project,” Maya explained. “It was just going to be me and Emily and Poppy, but she didn’t have anyone to work with…” Maya sighed. “I hope it’s going to be OK. Emily was really annoyed with me for asking Izzy to be with us.”
“Emily’s sort of like that, though, isn’t she? From what you’ve told me, anyway.” Maya’s mum looked a bit wistful, and Maya felt guilty. Her mum missed seeing Maya’s friends too. She loved it when Macey came round for a sleepover. She never, ever moaned about it, but it was easy to see she wished Maya would have her new friends over sometimes.
“Mmm. Izzy’s nice. She’s very shy, I think. She doesn’t get on that well with anyone in our class, and Ali’s lot hate her.” Maya laughed as her mum made a sort of disgusted growling noise. “What?”
“It’s probably a good thing you won’t let me pick you up from school, Maya. I’d quite happily strangle that Ali. She even looks like a little horror in your school photos. Something about those ponytails. And that smirk…”
“She’s definitely the evillest person in our class. Izzy pretends it doesn’t get to her, but she was really upset last time they were having a go at her.” Maya stroked the ribbons sewn on to one of her mum’s mad cushions. The sofa was covered in them. “I suppose we ought to have been nice to her before.”
Her mum sighed. “Maybe. But you haven’t had the easiest time, joining the school so late, and not knowing anyone. You do know how impressed Dad and I were, don’t you? Most girls would have loved all the attention you got at Graham House.”
Maya stared at her. “You didn’t act impressed! You tried to make me stay!”
“I know we did. I wasn’t sure if it was just a whim. You know, that you’d had another fight with Macey, and you we
re having a bit of a sulk. Then we realised you were really serious about it. Although I still think you’d be better off at Graham House, to be honest. All the computers, the music studio…”
“The horrible girls all gossiping and back-stabbing all the time,” Maya put in.
“OK, OK.” Her mum sighed. “Listen, Maya, thank you for this morning. Did you hate it?”
Maya wrinkled her nose. “I used to love the dressing up, and everyone fussing over me, but it’s so fake, isn’t it?”
Her mum shrugged.
“I’m not being nasty,” Maya said quickly. “It just seems a bit pointless, that’s all. Next week they’ll be going on about somebody else’s gorgeous house, and telling people they ought to have carpets like theirs instead.”
“You didn’t enjoy it even a little bit?” her mum asked, as though she found it hard to believe Maya hadn’t. Maya could tell she was disappointed. Her mum would love it if Maya took after her as a singer, or an actress, but sometimes Maya felt like she didn’t have a showbizzy bone in her body.
“Oh well,” her mum murmured quietly. “It’ll be very good for this new travel programme. Sorry, Maya. It’s one of the downsides of the job.” She hugged Maya close. “You looked lovely in the photos, though. That’s the nice bit for me.”
“I didn’t look like me with all that make-up on,” Maya muttered. “Which is good. I just hope no one from school recognises me. And if I ever do it again, Mum, no false eyelashes. They hurt.” She fluttered her own short eyelashes and scowled, trying to cheer her mum up.
“I promise,” her mum said solemnly, but she was almost laughing again. “I couldn’t believe how grown-up you sounded in the interview bit. She was impressed with you, the writer from the magazine. I suppose you’re going to be a brilliant campaigner for something when you’re older.”
“Maybe.” Maya was pretty sure that her mum would prefer a starry daughter, someone who danced as well as Emily, perhaps. Maya had seen her friend dance in the school play, and thought she was amazing. Still. Her mum was good at not forcing her into that kind of thing. She could cope with the odd photoshoot here and there.