by Holly Webb
“Our jumpers come from school, though,” Emily reminded her. “We have to order them from the office. They wouldn’t use manky factories, would they?”
Maya shrugged. “Do you think Mrs Brooker in the office knows about Fairtrade cotton and sweatshops? She’s usually more worried about tracking down people who haven’t paid their dinner money.”
“You’re probably right.” Emily suddenly looked worried. “Oh, no, it’s OK, we’ve definitely paid this week’s; I remember handing it in.” She sighed with relief. “And I bet it isn’t up to the school where the clothes come from, they just choose from a catalogue, or something. If they didn’t know to worry about Fairtrade, they wouldn’t even think about it, would they?”
“Nope. We could ask, though. Don’t you think that could be part of our project somehow? We could try and get school to use Fairtrade jumpers. Send a petition to Mrs Angel!” Maya’s eyes were sparkling. Finally, it felt like there was something they could do, even if it was only little.
“Mr Finlay did say to be creative. Think big…” Emily said doubtfully. “I’m not sure he meant go and harass Mrs Brooker, though.” She shrugged. “I’m up for it. It might be nice to be the one in Mrs Angel’s office for once. I bet she’s really sick of Toby and James.”
The girls hurried off the bus, and Maya saw Poppy over by the door to their classroom. She was trying to plait a daisy chain into her hair.
“We’ve got the most brilliant idea for our project!” Emily told her proudly.
“Oh good!” Poppy dropped the daisy chain, and looked over her shoulder. “Izzy’s over there,” she murmured. “I nearly went and sat with her, but she’s reading a book, and she looks really grumpy, so I didn’t want to interrupt her.”
Emily snorted, grabbed Poppy’s hand and towed her across to Izzy. “Me and Maya have got a really good idea for the project,” she snapped, dumping her bag at Izzy’s feet. Maya gave a tiny sigh. Emily clearly still wasn’t happy about the extra member of their group. But hey, at least she wasn’t trying to leave Izzy out.
Izzy practically dropped her book, and Maya felt really sorry for her. It was probably the first time anyone had come and talked to her before school in ages.
“The school bus went home past a new clothes shop,” she explained. “Selling Fairtrade clothes!” She’d lowered her voice to a whisper, and she glanced round to check the other girls weren’t hanging around. She really didn’t want anyone nicking their idea again.
Izzy was frowning. “How can you have Fairtrade clothes? Fairtrade’s for food.”
“That’s what we said!” Emily burst out, looking slightly annoyed at having to agree with Izzy. “Fairtrade and organic – it doesn’t sound like clothes, does it? But Maya looked it up, and you can. It’s to do with who’s making them, a bit like the chocolate. And loads of children make clothes too.”
“There were really sad photos,” Maya told them. “Then Emily had a brainwave on the bus – we don’t know whether our school jumpers were made in sweatshops – that’s what the really awful factories are called. So we could try and find out, as part of our project! And if they’re not Fairtade, we’re going to campaign that they ought to be.”
She looked anxiously at Poppy and Izzy. “What do you think? We didn’t mean to take it all over – it was just that we happened to see the shop.”
But Poppy was looking really excited. “That’s such a good idea! Do you think we could change the colour of our uniform at the same time?” she added hopefully. “I hate this blue. Green would be much better. Or purple!” She sighed apologetically as they all glared at her. “All right! I suppose that isn’t really the point…”
Maya looked at Izzy. She hadn’t said anything, and they hardly knew her. Maya really hoped she liked the idea. “What do you think?”
Izzy nodded. “It sounds good. I looked up Fairtrade last night, all the different things you can get, and I remember now it did say cotton, but I didn’t really take much notice of it. I was still thinking about doing something to do with food.” She glanced up at Maya hopefully. “I can find out about the organic bit, if we want to put that in too. My dad might know something, he’s really into growing organic stuff in the garden. He’d help me do some research, even if he doesn’t know to start with.”
Maya could have hugged her. She almost did, except that Izzy looked so prickly sometimes, Maya thought she might not like it.
“This is going to be so good!” she said, and compromised by giving Izzy the most enormous smile.
“I really want to see this shop,” Poppy said. “I bet if I told my mum that we had to go and see it for a project, she’d take me. She might even take all of us, if I asked really nicely. And I’ve got some birthday money I could spend.”
“Do you think your mum and dad would let you come too, Izzy?” Maya asked.
“I just live with my dad,” Izzy muttered. Maya stared at her feet, feeling embarrassed. She hadn’t known that. But when none of the girls asked Izzy why, or where her mum was, even though they all wanted to, she gave them a nervous smile. “He won’t mind. And he owes me weeks of allowance. Maybe I could buy something too.” She looked as though she was expecting to be told that she certainly couldn’t, Maya thought. She really had been properly squashed by Ali’s lot.
“A shopping trip!” Emily beamed. “And not with Toby and James hiding under the clothes rails, so Mum goes into a panic. I’m definitely coming. Although we’re not really going just to shop, of course,” she added, her voice suddenly serious. But she was trying not to laugh.
“Of course not,” everyone chorused, trying to sound as though they weren’t excited at all.
Maya got her phone out, without thinking, and Izzy’s eyes widened. “You’ve got your own mobile?”
Maya looked up from the screen. “Oh. Um, yes. It was a present. My parents are away a lot – they send me texts. I was just going to put your number in it, so that I could call you, let you know when we’re going to meet up to go to the shop.”
Izzy nodded, but she was still looking at Maya curiously. “Why didn’t you say you had a phone when Ali was going on and on about hers last week? Yours looks a lot nicer.”
Maya shrugged. She could hardly say that she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.
Poppy giggled, and scrabbled in her bag for a notebook. “The rest of us just use a bit of paper. Give us your number, Izzy. I’ll get my mum to call your dad, if she says yes to taking us.”
Izzy nodded, pink-cheeked. “I’d really like to go,” she said quietly, as she wrote her phone number down. Maya had a feeling that, for Izzy, it was a big commitment to make. If she was brave enough to say that sort of thing, someone could turn round and laugh at her, and tell her she wasn’t wanted.
“They had such nice stuff in the window,” she told Izzy encouragingly. “I tried to have another good look this morning. There was a blue T-shirt, wasn’t there, Emily? I think you’d look good in pale blue.” Maya eyed the sleeve of her school jumper and sighed. “Poppy is right. This doesn’t really do much for anyone.”
Izzy didn’t say anything, and when Maya glanced back at her, Izzy was looking like a rabbit caught in some headlights. It was as though she was expecting Maya to turn her perfectly normal comments into some sort of horrible, backstabbing nastiness any second.
“You see! It would be a brilliant chance to get a better uniform!” Poppy folded her arms triumphantly. “If we want to change the jumpers anyway. But I can’t see Mrs Angel going for it. She’s always saying how smart we look.”
Mr Finlay gave them all some time after break to talk about what they’d found out, and Maya tried to describe the stuff she’d been looking up.
“You’re all very quiet.” Mr Finlay perched on the edge of their table, looking at them all staring at Maya’s page of notes. “Did you not find much? I liked your idea of doing something different.”
Emily shook her head. “It isn’t that. Maya’s got loads of stuff for the pr
oject. We just don’t know what to do with it yet. And it’s kind of miserable.”
“We have got your brilliant idea,” Poppy reminded her. “But that’s a bit secret,” she told Mr Finlay apologetically. “We need to work out how we’re going to do it first.”
“Well, as long as you’re working on something, that’s fine.”
“Would you be able to make an appointment for us to go and see Mrs Angel? Maybe at the beginning of next week?” Maya asked him hopefully, and Mr Finlay stared at her. “I suppose so… As part of your project?” he asked, rather doubtfully.
The girls all nodded at him, and Mr Finlay looked slightly worried, as though he wasn’t sure what he’d let himself in for.
Poppy’s mum was keen on the idea of a shopping trip too, and she said she didn’t mind picking all the girls up. Maya was waiting outside her house for ages before they arrived – she’d been up really early, picking out what she wanted to wear, and trying not to put on anything that came from one of the shops she’d read about.
“Guess what I found out!” Emily told her proudly, as soon as Maya got in, squashing up between Emily and Izzy in the back seat with a tiny sigh. They’d been sitting as far apart from each other as they possibly could.
Maya shook her head, trying to wriggle enough room to do her seat belt up. “What?”
“There’s a whole campaign about Fairtrade school uniform! I looked it up, when Dad finally let me have the computer. It’s called Wear Fair. I printed this off. It’s a petition we can get everyone in school to sign, to say we want Fairtrade uniform!”
“Wow…” Maya looked at the sheet. “To the chair of the school governors… Do we have those?”
Izzy nodded. “My dad’s one. I’ll make him say yes!”
“And there’s lots of other stuff on the website too. If Mr Finlay would let us have an assembly, there’s a video we could play. Lots of things.”
“A whole assembly of just us?” Poppy asked doubtfully.
“I bet we could,” Emily shrugged. “Why not?”
“They’d probably say we had to do just a bit of it, so all the groups can say something,” Maya pointed out. “But at least we’d have time to ask everyone to sign this.”
“I think we’re nearly there, aren’t we?” Poppy’s mum asked, glancing at the map print-out that Poppy was holding up for her in the front seat.
Maya looked up from the petition. “Oh yes. It’s the next left. The main road through Appleby.” She peered excitedly out of the window as Poppy’s mum drove along slowly. “There it is!”
The shop looked just as good close up as it had from the school-bus window, and the girls hurried to get out of the car without squashing each other.
“Such nice things,” Poppy sighed, practically pressing her nose up against the window. “And organic essential oils too!” she said to her mum, who was quite interested in alternative therapies, though not as wholeheartedly as Poppy was.
“We could just go in…” her mum pointed out, laughing at them. “You don’t have to act like you’re starving to death in front of a cake shop.”
Maya shivered. Her mum had a saying about a goose walking over her grave, and she could feel the funny little feet right now. Poppy’s mum hadn’t meant anything, but she’d reminded Maya about all those children harvesting cocoa, who probably never ate a chocolate bar. We’re trying to help, she told herself firmly, following the others in.
She almost forgot the strange feeling when she finally got inside the shop. It was so beautiful. The walls had little daisies on them here and there, and the cute stuffed dogs from the window were scattered around too. One of them had a basket in his mouth, holding the hairbands Emily had told her about.
A friendly-looking dark-haired woman was reading a book behind the till, but she smiled delightedly at them as they piled in.
“Hello! The girls’ section is mostly in the next room. Just let me know if you need any help, won’t you?”
The back room had even more flowers, and a sky painted with little clouds and butterflies. And the clothes were amazing, even better than they’d looked in the window. “I wish I hadn’t bought all those DVDs in the Easter holidays,” Emily said. “I think I can only have one thing. But look at this skirt! And these jeans are even nicer, almost…” She was ferreting through the racks eagerly, and sighing with longing.
“But the thing is, Ems, if you’re only having one thing, is it better to only try on one thing so you don’t fall in love with lots of things, or should you try on everything in the shop to make sure you get the absolute best thing there is?” Poppy wondered, holding up an embroidered gypsy skirt, and flouncing out the ruffles.
“You lost me after the second ‘thing’,” Emily told her. “But I think I know what you mean. Definitely try all of it.”
“I think so too.” Maya nodded, which was quite difficult given the size of the pile of clothing she was holding.
“Look on the bright side,” Izzy said, raising one eyebrow, “at least you don’t have to try on the hairbands, since your mum already got you some. But don’t forget there were bags in the other room. And jewellery.”
Emily sighed. “You are so not helping!” But at least she didn’t glare at Izzy this time. “Aren’t you going to try anything on?” she asked, staring at her in surprise.
Izzy shrugged a little. “I don’t know…” She looked a bit embarrassed.
“You’d look really nice in this.” Maya passed Izzy the pale blue T-shirt she’d told her about before. “Really. It’s the same sort of colour as your eyes.”
Izzy looked even more embarrassed now, but a smidge pleased as well. “You think so?” she muttered shyly. “I wasn’t going to buy anything – I did bring some money, but I thought I’d just look at the labels, see what they said about where they were made.”
“But we’re going to do that as well!” Maya told her, laughing. “It doesn’t mean we can’t all have fun trying the clothes on first. I even brought my mum’s little recorder thing, so we could ask the lady out the front if she wouldn’t mind being interviewed.”
Izzy sighed. “I’m just not very good at shopping.”
“I’m sure this lot could give you lessons.” Poppy’s mum snorted with laughter. “But don’t boss Izzy into something she doesn’t want, girls.”
“Oh, we won’t!” Maya promised. But she was frowning. How could Izzy not like shopping? She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt – actually, they all were, only Maya’s jeans were green, and Poppy’s were super-short frayed cut-offs, with stripy leggings underneath. Izzy’s were pretty plain, but she didn’t look like somebody who didn’t care what she wore.
“Mostly I get my clothes out of catalogues,” Izzy explained. “Dad doesn’t really like going to clothes shops. He tries! But I can tell he’s feeling embarrassed. And it’s fun getting the parcels…” But she was looking at the rails of clothes wistfully.
“Catalogues are great,” Maya agreed. “But it’s nice to try things on too. Hey, we should take turns! Like a fashion show! Everyone put on an outfit, and then we’ll all help each other choose.” She sighed at her pile. “I definitely need help. Actually, Izzy, this skirt would look good with that blue T-shirt too.” She edged it off the top of the pile. “That’s better. Now I can actually carry it all.”
Poppy glanced around. “The changing rooms are over here, look. Two of them. You’d better go first, Emily, you’ve got loads.”
“I know, I just liked it all.” Emily sighed. “Anyway, that’s a huge pile you’ve got, you’d better start trying on as well.”
Emily’s first outfit, a little flowery dress, was a definite no. “I’m not sure about this,” she told the others, as she came out of the cubicle. “It’s too cutesy.”
“It doesn’t look like you,” Maya agreed. “Try the denim skirt on instead.”
“Your go first, remember?” Emily pointed out.
Maya nodded. “Or you, Izzy. Do you want to try those on?”
&n
bsp; “Izzy can have this cubicle,” Poppy said, pulling back the curtain and stepping out. “What do you think?”
“Oooh!” Maya sighed admiringly. “So nice!” It was the gypsy skirt Poppy had been admiring, in flounces of spots and stripes, and it looked fab.
“Yeah, I like it too.” Poppy twirled, giggling as the skirt whirled round. “Really like it… Go on, Izzy, try your things on, I need to think. This is going to take almost all my birthday money.”
Izzy went hesitantly into the cubicle, and Maya and Poppy exchanged a worried glance. Maya hoped they weren’t forcing her into dressing up. She looked round for Poppy’s mum, wondering if they should ask her advice, but she’d gone into the other room to look at the bags.
But when Izzy sidled out a couple of minutes later, she looked half-pleased, half-frightened.
“Why are you looking like that?” Emily demanded, not bothering to be tactful, as usual.
Poppy stepped in quickly. “It’s great. It really suits you!”
Izzy stared at her, as though she was waiting for something else.
“It does look nice, Izzy,” Maya promised. “Don’t you believe us?”
Poppy frowned. “Did someone say mean stuff to you in a shop, or something? You look like you think we’re going to be rude about you.”
Izzy glared at the floor, hugging her arms around the pretty blue T-shirt. “Ali. The last time Dad really made an effort to take me shopping was for my birthday. It was just bad luck that she happened to be in the same shop. She was so horrible…” Izzy’s voice filled with tears, and she gulped. “I can’t cry on the clothes!”
Maya hugged her. She didn’t care if Izzy didn’t look like a hugging person. “It doesn’t matter, because you should buy that T-shirt anyway. It looks so good. I mean it. And Ali has a nose like an ugly dog, Izzy, just remember that when she’s being mean.”