My mind started to wander again as I imagined being part of something so radical. Each person in that picture looked so ordinary. But each one cared enough about the trees to stand up to the big rich forestry companies that were cutting them down. Working together, the protestors had found a way to have their voices heard.
“Can you guess how many people were arrested?” When Mr. Vandermeer’s voice changed, I snapped back to attention. I knew he had asked a question. Everyone was silent.
“Brianna?” Mr. Vandermeer asked.
“Um, ten?” I guessed, thinking again about the people in the picture.
Mr. Vandermeer laughed. No one else did though, so I knew my answer hadn’t been totally stupid. “Almost a thousand,” he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide so that everyone would understand what a big deal this was, “even though the activists were protesting peacefully.”
Mr. Vandermeer showed more pictures. There were tons of people carrying signs that said things like Ban Old-Growth Logging, Save the Ancient Forests and Clear-Cutting Kills.
“In the end, the protestors were successful. Premier Michael Harcourt’s decision to allow logging in Clayoquot Sound was overturned. To this day, the Clayoquot Sound protest is considered a major victory for the environmental movement.” The bell rang just as Mr. Vandermeer finished with his slide show. He was still talking, but no one heard the end of the story.
That’s when the idea hit me.
I caught up with Sarah as every student in the class tried to jam through the door at the same time. “I think I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” Sarah asked.
“I’m going to organize a protest.”
“Clayoquot Sound has already been saved.” Sarah ran her tongue over her braces and reached into her bag for a granola bar. “Weren’t you listening?”
“No, not Clayoquot Sound. Cedar Grove, silly,” I said.
Sarah stared at me as she ripped open her snack.
“I’ll get all the kids of Cedar Grove together to protest the tree-climbing bylaw!” I didn’t wait for Sarah’s response. I just waved my hand in her direction as I sprinted toward home. I couldn’t wait to get my protest started.
Chapter 9
“I now call this meeting to order. Thank you for coming,” I said, doing my best impression of Ms. Matheson, Neighborhood Council President. I looked around. There were at least twelve kids sitting on the grassy hill behind Cedar Grove. No one was paying much attention to me though. They were all too busy munching on gummy worms. News about the meeting had spread fast thanks to my promise to provide candy.
Even Tyler was there, probably just to make sure no one listened to what I had to say. Of course that didn’t stop him from chowing down on all the goodies Dad had picked up for me at Costco.
“As I’m sure you know,” I continued, “tree climbing is now illegal in Cedar Grove.”
I waited for a response. Everyone just looked at me. Then Sarah shouted, “Boo! Hiss!”
I’d brought Sarah along for support, even though she doesn’t live in Cedar Grove. I was pretty sure Tyler liked her. And I suspected she might even like him back. Maybe not like like. But she didn’t think he was as disgusting as I did.
Anyway, I was superglad Sarah was there. I hadn’t thought I would need her help so soon. A couple of the older kids joined in on the booing and hissing. The younger ones started squirming around, their sweet tooths temporarily satisfied. Sammy chewed on a blade of grass.
“Exactly,” I said over the noise. “It isn’t fair, and I think we should do something about it.”
“I thought you already tried, Bree,” Tyler said.
“I met with the Neighborhood Council,” I said slowly, “to let them know I didn’t like the bylaw. But one voice is not enough. We have to speak out against this rule together.”
“I think we should follow the rules.” This came from Ashley. Surprise, surprise. Then she added, “Tree climbing is obviously dangerous.”
“Besides,” Tyler sneered, “you’re the only one who cares about tree climbing, Bree.”
I scanned the crowd for Peter. My stomach sank as I realized he wasn’t there. And neither were any of the other kids who really liked to climb trees.
I took a deep breath and went on, ignoring Tyler’s comment. “Tree climbing is no more dangerous than basketball,” I said, looking directly at Tyler because basketball was his sport. “What if they ban that next?”
“They would never ban basketball,” Tyler replied.
“They might if someone got hurt,” I said. “And what about street hockey? Kids get hurt playing street hockey all the time. And Mrs. Leary is always screaming that someone’s going to break her window.”
A look of fear crept into Michael’s eyes. It was enough to make me hopeful that my strategy just might work. I needed to make everyone realize that the next bylaw could take away their favorite thing.
“The Neighborhood Council would never ban street hockey,” Tyler said. The squirming had stopped. Everyone was listening now.
“The Neighborhood Council just keeps passing more bylaws,” I said. “They’ve taken away the jungle gym, the weight room, the storage locker, the parking garage, and now they’ve taken our trees. We have to stop them before it gets any more out of control.”
“Nothing’s out of control,” said Ashley. “The council is just trying to make sure we are safe.”
“What’s next?” I went on. “Skipping?”
“Why would anyone ban skipping?” Salina, one of the Cedar Grove Girly-Girls, asked.
“It’s loud. It’s dangerous. Someone could trip over the rope and break something.”
“You’re blowing this out of proportion,” Ashley said. “They would never go that far.”
“How do you know how far they will go?” I looked her straight in the eye and pulled out my ace. “When I was at the council meeting they were talking about banning dogs.”
Ashley gasped. A couple of the other kids looked at me in alarm.
“We have to let them know that they can’t ban everything. We have to take a stand. Starting now. Starting with the tree-climbing bylaw.”
“How?” Ethan asked.
“We need to organize a protest,” I said.
“A protest?” Tyler looked surprised.
“Pro-test. Pro-test. Pro-test,” Sarah chanted.
“This Saturday”—I raised my voice—“we’ll march through Cedar Grove.” Some of the kids nodded, so I decided to say something inspirational. Something I’d read on one of the protest signs in Mr. Vandermeer’s lesson on Clayoquot Sound. “Together we can make a difference!” I yelled.
“The Neighborhood Council won’t care. They’ll just think we’re playing some silly game.” Tyler again.
“Pro-test. Pro-test. Pro-test,” Sarah was still chanting.
“We’ll sing songs. We’ll make signs. We’ll make sure that everyone knows how we feel!” I hoped my enthusiasm was catching on.
“Sounds like fun,” Salina said. “I like marching and singing.”
“Good! You’ll be in charge of songs.” I really hoped she wasn’t going to suggest skipping rhymes.
“But I don’t know any protest songs.”
“They don’t need to be protest songs; we just need to make noise”—I waved my hand toward Sarah— “like Sarah is doing now.”
“Pro-test. Pro-test. Pro-test,” Sarah continued, louder than ever.
“I’ll help. We’re good at making noise,” Ashley said, gesturing toward the other Cedar Grove Girly-Girls.
“And I’m good with signs,” said Michael, ignoring Tyler’s glare. “I always help my Mom with her protest stuff. I think the signs we made for Mother’s Against the Metric System are still in the garage.”
“Awesome! Michael, you get a group together to make signs.” If Michael was on board, this protest might actually happen! But I still needed Tyler. Everyone listened to him.
“This is stupid.” Tyler scowled.
“I think we should have snacks,” Ashley suggested.
“Okay. You do snacks,” I said, even though I didn’t think it was necessary.
“How about drums?” Salina asked.
“Drums?”
“Yeah, you know, to help make noise.”
“Oh, sure, drums would be great.” I hadn’t thought of that.
“I’ll bring some of Sammy’s toy instruments.”
“Good idea,” I said. “If anyone has anything that can be used to make noise bring it along.”
Sarah changed the chant. “No more rules! No more rules!” Some of the other kids joined in. The momentum was definitely building.
But then Tyler spoke up again. “It’s never going to work,” he said, dashing my hope that this was going to be easy. Some heads nodded in agreement. If Tyler wasn’t going to join the protest, I was in trouble. “Why would the council listen?”
Sarah stopped chanting. “They can’t listen if you don’t say anything.”
As Tyler turned toward Sarah, the scowl on his face suddenly disappeared.
“You have to make them listen,” Sarah continued.
“She’s right. We have to do something! Before they ban hockey,” Michael said.
“Or pets!” Ashley added.
“But how do we make them listen?” Tyler asked. The challenge was gone from his voice. He was almost smiling.
“You protest,” Sarah said. “Loudly.”
“It’s not enough. We have to do more,” Tyler said.
“Like what?” asked Michael.
I thought. Hard. But as much as I wanted to have an answer, I couldn’t come up with one on the spot. I thought about the Clayoquot Sound protestors blocking the tree-destroying machines. Physically stopping them from clear-cutting the old-growth trees. Tyler was right; we needed some kind of leverage.
There was a long pause. Everyone looked at each other anxiously.
It was Tyler who broke the silence. He surprised us all, but mostly me, by answering his own question. “None of us will take a bath until they change the bylaw.”
There was silence again while everyone thought this over.
“Can we shower?” Ashley finally asked.
“No. We get dirtier and dirtier until they are forced to listen.”
“I’m not sure I like that idea…” Ashley frowned.
“Yippee! No bath!” Sammy shouted as he threw a big handful of grass in the air.
“But my Mom will just make me bathe.” Ethan looked worried.
“She can’t make you do anything,” Tyler said firmly.
“Yeah. You can’t force someone to take a bath,” Michael said, doing his best to get back on Tyler’s good side.
Ethan looked doubtful, and I kind of had to agree with him—his mom probably could make him take a bath.
“No trees, no bath! No trees, no bath!” Sarah chanted. Michael joined in. Sammy and his sister joined in. Soon everyone was chanting, even Ashley. My strategy had worked!
I smiled at Tyler and started chanting too. Tyler didn’t smile back. He was still looking at Sarah as his voice joined the others. “No trees, no bath! No trees, no bath!”
We had ourselves a protest.
Chapter 10
“No trees, no bath! No trees, no bath! No trees, no bath!” There were over twenty of us chanting and marching in unison. Almost every kid in Cedar Grove had come out to protest the tree-climbing bylaw— and some of them, like Peter, hadn’t even been at the meeting. A few of them even brought friends. Sarah was at the front helping the Cedar Grove Girly-Girls lead the chant. Not that we needed any help.
We were loud.
We were also very visible.
Michael had found a bunch of picket signs in his garage. The night before, we’d covered the old blue and white slogans and replaced them with our own.
The new signs read, Trees are meant for climbing and If we can’t climb, we won’t bathe and No More Rules. On Michael’s sign, he’d written the word RULES in the middle of a big red circle with a line through it. Like the No Smoking signs you see all over the place. Tyler’s sign was the same except that, instead of RULES, he’d drawn a bathtub in the middle of the circle. He was really into the no-bathing thing.
On my sign the words Need to be free to climb a tree were written in bright green. I held it high and marched at the back, making sure everyone stayed in line. Cedar Grove isn’t very big, so we made the same loop over and over again.
It wasn’t long before we started to get some attention.
Mrs. Leary leaned out her window and yelled, “I can’t hear Coronation Street!” Then she added, “There are bylaws in Cedar Grove, you know!” Of course, that made us all laugh. She obviously had no idea what we were doing. Poor old Mrs. Leary. Had she ever been a kid? It was hard to imagine. We moved quickly past her house.
Dad stood at the corner with a couple of the other parents, drinking coffee. He smiled as we marched by. When I’d told him about the tree-climbing protest, he’d gone on and on about how proud he was of me and about how much he’d admired the hippie protesters he grew up with. He always wanted to join them, but he never had the time to do anything but play hockey.
Mom wasn’t exactly supportive of the protest, but she said it was good that I was doing something. Lucky for me, she was at an engineering conference, so I didn’t have to deal with her disapproval.
Our message was obviously being heard by some residents of Cedar Grove, but I hadn’t seen Ms. Matheson or anyone else I recognized from the Neighborhood Council. I started getting a little anxious. I’d been so busy planning the protest that I hadn’t really thought about the possibility that it might not work. It had to work.
After an hour we stopped and had some snacks. Cookies and juice supplied by Mrs. Williams. It seemed strange that she was supporting us, given that she was a member of the council. Was it possible that she was afraid Mrs. Leary could convince the council to ban pets? Whatever the reason, I was glad Ashley had suggested snacks. Protesting was tiring.
It was hard to get everyone going again after the break. Some of the kids had had enough.
But then Sarah and Ethan started chanting, “We want to climb! We want to climb! We want to climb!”
Sammy and Salina brought out a bunch of noisemakers—toy drums and maracas and a tambourine. Tyler and Michael started banging on metal garbage lids with hockey sticks. Soon everyone was marching again, and we were louder than ever.
We must have passed Ethan’s house about a hundred times. I’d almost given up hope when Ms. Matheson suddenly appeared on the doorstop. “Okay,” she shouted above the noise, “what’s it going to take to make you stop?”
Almost immediately, everyone stopped marching, chanting, rattling and banging.
Knowing that she had our full attention, Ms. Matheson used her principal’s voice to say, “This kind of behavior is not acceptable.” She glared at Tyler, who just happened to be standing right in front of her.
“It was Bree’s idea,” Tyler said. Coward, I thought.
“Brianna?” Ms. Matheson said, rubbing her forehead. “What’s this all about?”
“We’re protesting the Cedar Grove bylaw against tree climbing,” I said, trying to sound confident and official.
“What you are doing,” Ms. Matheson said, still rubbing her forehead, “is disturbing everyone.”
“It’s a peaceful protest, Ms. Matheson,” I said. “We want to make sure everyone in Cedar Grove knows how we feel.”
“I think everyone has heard you loud and clear.” As Ms. Matheson said this, she scanned the group, trying to make eye contact. A principal trick, for sure. Poor Ethan. “Now why don’t you use those hockey sticks the way they are meant to be used,” she said to Tyler and Michael.
“We’re not done protesting, ma’am,” Michael responded.
“How long do you plan to go on?” Ms. Matheson asked.
She glanced at the other parents. There was a big group of them now. Dad had brought out a bunch of lawn chairs and set them up in front of our garage. They were drinking coffee and eating Timbits. They were acting like we were entertainment. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“We’re not bathing until the bylaw is changed,” Tyler said, confident now that Michael and I had spoken up. “Or showering,” he added. Just to be clear, I guess.
“Good luck with that,” Ms. Matheson said sharply. She turned around and closed the front door behind her. Ethan stood trembling next to Sarah.
“Now they’ll probably make a bylaw against protests,” someone said. Everyone laughed, but it was nervous laughter.
We marched a little more, this time chanting, “No more rules! No more rules!” But the protest didn’t last much longer. The enthusiasm was gone.
I should have known that was a sign of things to come.
Chapter 11
At first, the no-bathing thing was no big deal. But on day five I started to feel dirty and discouraged. After social studies, I stayed behind to ask Mr. Vandermeer how long they’d protested in Clayoquot Sound before the clear-cutting stopped. Mr. Vandermeer laughed and said, “Years.” I didn’t think that was very funny. There was no way I could go years without climbing or taking a bath.
When I got home from school, Tyler and Michael were out playing basketball. They asked if I wanted to shoot some hoops with them. I couldn’t climb trees, which is what I really wanted to do, and I wasn’t about to start skipping or reading, so I decided to join them.
Bad idea. I got my first whiff of bo as I tried to block one of Tyler’s shots. He ended up scoring on me because I was gasping for breath. What a smell! Michael wasn’t quite as bad but he still stunk. Boys are so disgusting.
“PEEUW!” I yelled after a few more minutes of torture. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What’s your problem?” Tyler asked as he sank another layup.
“You stink.”
“Duh,” said Tyler. “What did you think was going to happen when we stopped bathing? That’s the whole point. Our ‘stink,’ as you call it, is what forces our parents and the Council to take action and change the bylaw.” He obviously wasn’t bothered by it at all.
Trouble in the Trees Page 4