Recycled

by Sandy McKay

I’d been thinking a lot about the chocolate and I’d come up with three possibilities.

  1. We could ship it off to Kosovo where there were thousands of refugees all hungry with not enough to eat, I’d seen them on tele the night before.

  2. We could take it to the Salvation Army and they could make chocolate bar food parcels. I know it’s probably not a balanced meal, but chocolate bars are supposed to give you energy and they might have raisins or something healthy in them as well.

  3. My last idea was to take the chocolate to school and let the PTA sell it as a fundraiser. Then they could buy the school a new computer or some fancy new playground equipment.

  Paddy thought the Salvation Army was the best idea. He wasn’t sure if it would travel well to Kosovo, and he thought if we gave it to the school, one of the parents was bound to know someone who worked at the Yum Yum Chocolate Factory and we might get found out. Southsville was a small place and you had to be careful. I still thought it was mad crazy that all this chocolate was going to waste, and that we’d get into trouble if we were caught digging it up when we’d only be trying to help people. I know what Robin Hood must have felt like.

  It sure was a strange sort of economy. If you produced too much food, the prices were too cheap and you had to get rid of it. Not a very intelligent concept, I thought. Surely the more cheaply you could produce food the better?

  There was something very wasteful about the whole thing. Why should companies making-a-profit be more important than people-going-hungry? Half of the world is on a diet and the other half is starving. And truck-loads of chocolate are being buried everyday. Chocolate and who knows what else. And last week there was a photograph in the paper of a guy chopping down apple trees because prices were so bad it wasn’t worth growing them. Weird!!!

  Paddy was busy cranking up the digger. It took a while to get started sometimes. He said it was all in the way you held your tongue.

  The digging operation didn’t turn out as well as we hoped. There was a container of oil buried down there and it must have leaked onto some of the chocolate. Also, when he was digging Paddy damaged some of it. The sharp part of the digger tore through some of the paper wrapping so a lot of the chocolate ended up covered in dirt or oil. Still, we managed to rescue quite a few hundred bars of chocky and I bet the Sallie Army wouldn’t turn their nose up at it.

  Neither did I when Paddy handed me a bag full of the stuff.

  “Here you are lad,” he said. “And don’t eat it all at once.

  “Hey, come and have a cuppa with me before you go. I’ve got something to show you.”

  I looked at my watch. 7:30. I still had some time before Dad was due to pick me up. I braced myself for another glass of Paddy’s milk. Actually, I was getting quite good at digesting that milk. I had developed a method of letting it slip down my throat without tasting it. All I had to do was tilt my head back and think of a nice creamy milkshake.

  The caravan didn’t look quite so grotty at night. With the light on, things seemed cleaner and cosier. The radio was going in the corner – some classical music was blaring away. On the table was a case. It looked like a guitar case. Very old and frayed.

  “Do you play the violin?” he asked. I nearly choked on my milk.

  “Not lately, no. I tried the piano once but the teacher says I’m tone deaf and should stick to rugby.”

  “Pity,” he said. “Do you know anyone who does?”

  I shook my head, tilted it back, thought of a creamy milkshake and swallowed.

  He opened the case. It was a violin, all right. Lying there, very dusty on a bed of tattered blue velvet. It smelled musty. It was nice though, in an old fashioned sort of way. Beautifully made with a curly end.

  Paddy put the instrument under his chin, lifted the bow, then used it to make a noise like fingers running down a blackboard, followed by the brakes of a car jamming on hard.

  We both laughed and he put it back in its case.

  “Found it in the landfill the other day. Guess I’ll find a home for it. Don’t think any of the lads here play, though.”

  The ‘lads’ were a group of unemployed school leavers Paddy had taken under his wing for a bit of ‘work experience’. They didn’t look like violin players, but – well – you couldn’t judge everyone by appearances.

  11

  “There are 500 million automobiles on this planet – burning an average of two gallons of fuel per day.”

  THE CHOCOLATE got me in to more trouble than I’d bargained for.

  First of all with Allie. When I handed her five giant-sized, honey coated Yum Yum chocolate bars, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. I half expected her to say ‘No, thanks, I’m on a diet,’ and then go off for a few extra kilometres on her exercycle. She was always saying she only has to look at chocolate for the pounds to go on. So I just kind of casually waved them under her nose and she pounced on them like a cat on his Jellymeat.

  Then she lay on the bed sniffing them. Allie said she’d been on a diet for so long that she’d forgotten what chocolate smelled like. She was looking very strange – like a drug addict or something. I said I’d just leave her to it and if she needed me for anything, anything at all, I’d be in my bedroom finishing off my homework. I was worried about that girl.

  The sight of my 14-year-old sister lying on her bed sniffing chocolate bars was a bit scary. I hurried off in case whatever was wrong with Allie was catching.

  I finished my long division and opened up my recycling project book. This project was getting more difficult than I thought it would be. My family weren’t trying hard enough. They weren’t getting into the spirit of it. They were sloppy and careless and not taking the future of our planet seriously at all. For example, yesterday I found three glass jars chucked out in the rubbish. One black currant jam, one spicy pepper pasta sauce and another thick and creamy salad dressing. I’d had a word with Mum about it but it was like talking to a brick wall.

  There were two issues at stake.

  My first concern was that these jars should be washed and put into the glass recycling container provided outside the kitchen door, right next to the container for kitchen scraps. My other concern was that Mum should be making these things herself. Black currant jam, pasta sauce and mayonnaise couldn’t be that hard to make, could they? I mean, mothers are supposed to be good at that sort of thing, aren’t they?!

  I suggested this to Mum and had to duck when she threw a jar straight at me. Lucky for me she was a bad shot. It could have been nasty. I could have lost an eye or had to get stitches.

  She apologised later. She said things were getting on top of her and I explained that things were getting on top of me as well, especially as far as my project was concerned. Then I said I’d found a good jam recipe that she might like to whisk up at the week-end. That was when she stormed out and told me to go make my own jam. I think we were right back to square one, because after that I caught her biffing a peanut butter jar in the bin and she didn’t even look guilty.

  “And don’t you dare tell me to start making my own peanut butter because I won’t,” she said defiantly.

  I was making some more of my ‘STOP. CAN I BE RECYCLED?’ labels when Allie came bursting into my room in a state of obvious distress.

  She flung her chocolate wrappers at me. “You did it on purpose, you creep! You want to make me fat. Well, I hope you’re satisfied. I ate your crummy old chocolate and now my pants won’t do up. So I hope you’re pleased with yourself, Mr Eco-warrior!” She was bawling and blubbering and going completely off her head. Must have been something in those chocolate bars. Perhaps that was why they’d been dumped. Perhaps they’d been laced with some sort of drug that made people go off their heads. She should be feeling happy with a full tummy for once.

  But no, she just raved on and on, calling me a scumbag and saying I did it on purpose. Did what on purpose?

  “You knew I was on a diet and you gave me that chocolate just to torment me. You ruin everything. With a
brother like you I’ll never get a career as a model.”

  I wanted to tell her that modelling was a dumb idea anyway. If it meant having a life where you couldn’t eat a chocolate bar when you felt like it – what sort of life was that? But I kept my mouth shut, because, well, maybe keeping your mouth shut was best, especially where females were concerned. I’d made a hash of things with Mum by not keeping my mouth shut.

  It took a lot of will power not to say anything. I just let Allie rave on and then she slammed out the door and I simply carried on with my letter. I think this made her even more mad which was exactly what I’d hoped.

  The kids at school wouldn’t take it like that. Free chocolate bars would mean friends for life. If I gave the teacher one I was sure to get a week off homework. If I gave Lizzie one, well who knows what might happen? It might be just what I needed to get the relationship onto a more formal footing. Maybe! It was worth a try.

  I waited until playtime. Then, just when we were sorting out the wickets to play cricket I handed them round. Two each for every boy on the team. Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads. When the principal came strolling over I thought he wanted one too.

  “What have we got here?” he demanded.

  Byron spoke first. “Chocolate, Sir,” he said. “Would you like some?”

  “I would like the lot,” he said. “And I would like to know who the lucky lotto winner is who so kindly donated it.”

  I stepped forward – modestly accepting his compliments. But…

  Chocolate does strange things to people. The next thing I knew, Mr Spittle was going off his head. Saying where did the chocolate come from and I must have pinched it and go and stand outside his office, and the whole time he’s looking at me with his eyes all narrow and mean like I’m a criminal.

  Then things went from bad to worse in a big hurry. Remind me next time I come into some chocolate to keep it for myself. Or to send it overseas where at least it’d be appreciated. This was too much. You’d think I was giving away $100 notes or something.

  Mr Spittle rang home and asked for Mum who wasn’t there so he spoke to Dad instead. Dad didn’t know anything about where I’d got the chocolate from, so Mr Spittle said if I didn’t tell him where I got it, I’d have to go to detention.

  I couldn’t tell him where it came from, could I? That would have got Paddy in for trouble. Besides, he probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway. Not in the mood he was in. So he carried on thinking I’d stolen it and I went to detention after school instead. It was awful.

  Flynn O’Brien spent the whole time making paper darts and flying them about the room when the detention teacher wasn’t looking. She thought it was me and every time she turned around she gave me a dirty look.

  Things got even worse when I got home. Talk about a grilling. I felt like a well done lamb chop by the time they’d finished with me.

  “Where did you get the chocolate from, Col?”

  “Sorry, I couldn’t say.”

  “Colin Kennedy! Where did you get the chocolate from?” That was Mum.

  “This is your last chance. Where did you steal that chocolate from?” That was Dad.

  “I didn’t steal it. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “Well, we don’t.”

  “Well, thanks a bunch.”

  And didn’t the family have enough problems, said Mum, without me adding to them? Dad was out of work, Allie was starving herself to death, and now I had decided to become a thief.

  “And when your mother’s not yapping on her cellphone, she’s jumping off cliffs,” added Dad quietly so Mum didn’t hear.

  I was fed up. The detention was bad enough but all this stuff about me becoming a thief was just too much.

  I rang Paddy who said he’d come down to the school himself and explain about the chocolate. “Besides,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to catch up with your Mr Read.”

  12

  “Fifty acres of rain forest are destroyed every minute of every hour of every day.”

  I FELT BAD causing all that trouble for Paddy. After all, he had enough on his plate with the Council breathing down his neck and Diana Vial on his back-doorstep.

  But the whole episode turned out to be a blessing in diguise. Paddy and Mr Read got on like a house on fire. Paddy arrived wearing his ‘Save the Hoiho’ T-shirt and Mr Read had on his ‘Waste of Energy’ with a cartoon drawing of ten cars and heaps of smoke belching out.

  We were in the middle of a lesson about ‘worm farms’ which is something Mr Read had become very excited about lately.

  They had a bit of a chat about ‘worm farms’, got the chocolate business sorted out and then turned to more important things like recycling facilities and the trouble with landfill and the lack of a good local glass recycler and how we should go back to using glass milk bottles and banning cans. By the time they’d finished… well, they both felt like they’d known each other forever.

  Paddy ended up telling Mr Read (“Call me Rufus”) about his problems with the Council and Diana Vial. Apparently Mr Read got so incensed about it all that he offered the services of his pupils to stage a protest and help Paddy.

  It would tie in nicely with the recycling project and be a great experience for the kids, Mr Read reckoned.

  Saturday May the 12th. That’s when the lease expired and that’s when the Council said Paddy had to be off the premises. Our class was going to be there – all of us. It was going to be part of the recycling project. We would make banners and stay all night if we had to. Chain ourselves to the gates. I couldn’t wait. I had a sudden vision of Lizzie Bennet and me chained to a gate together with her saying ‘Move over’ in that charming witty way of hers and me saying ‘Move over yourself, Lizzie’. Wow!!!

  But first, there was lots we had to do. I was in charge of publicity so I had to ring the radio stations and the TV people and tell them what was going to happen. If we planned something really outrageous we might even make it onto the six o’clock news.

  Paddy seemed quietly optimistic. At least he wasn’t going down without a fight and who knows, he might not have to shut the place up after all. Not if we did our job right. The principal even apologised for giving me a detention and said I should have been open from the start but he could understand why I didn’t want to say anything. So school is cool once more. I only wish things were as cool at home with Mum and Dad.

  13

  “If you throw away two aluminium cans, you waste more energy than one billion of the world’s poorest people per day.”

  TO BE HONEST things hadn’t been cool at home for a while.

  Mum was working most of the time and Dad still didn’t have a job despite trying very, very hard. But instead of them both pulling together, they seemed to be going in opposite directions. Mum spent her spare time leaping off hills in a hang-glider and Dad hung out in his garage a lot. Then there was Allie. The way she carried on about that chocolate was really weird and there had been other weird goings on as well. Like she was always pottering round in the bathroom. Sometimes she was in there for hours. I don’t know what she did but she didn’t eat her meals with us any more and her lunches still ended up in the bin.

  Anyway, Mum and Dad were worried and came up with this barmy idea of having a family conference. Mum’s idea, inspired by a Real Estate friend of hers who’d been doing a course in ‘family counselling’. The object of the exercise was for us all to get together and talk about what had been happening in our lives, what was bugging us and stuff like that. The only rule was you couldn’t speak until it was your turn and you had to shut up when it was someone else’s turn. Which all sounded pretty impossible to me.

  Mum started the ball rolling. We were sitting in the lounge and she turned the TV off, which was pretty frightening. Then she cleared her throat and started telling us what was happening in her life. She said her job was very stressful right now. If Paddy’s appeal was successful, she could lose the deal. That would mean she hadn’t earned anything
for the whole month and then we’d have trouble paying the mortgage. Then she said it was hard going to work, doing all the housework and most of the cooking, and she knew she got crabby sometimes but she just couldn’t help it.

  She said if she didn’t have her hang-gliding she didn’t know what she would do. Dad said he helped out when he could and he didn’t see what use hang-gliding was to anyone.

  Mum looked quite hurt and tried to explain. “I can fly away from all my worries,” she said. “Up there in the air like a bird – it’s fantastic. You realise how insignificant we all are, how beautiful life really is and how we get caught up in such silly little problems.” Her voice trailed off and then it was Dad’s turn.

  He said he was getting fed up trying to find a job and sometimes he wondered if he’d ever work again. That was all he wanted to say.

  Allie said, at this point, she didn’t have anything to say and she might just go up to her room.

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Mum. “Everyone’s got to have a say. It’s only fair.”

  So Allie sat there and looked at the ground and then she burst into tears. Mum went and got some tissues and sat with her arm round her. Lucky started purring round her legs and I thought here she goes again. Getting all the attention as usual. Then Allie, after some coaxing from Mum started blubbering on about how she wanted to be a model but everyone thought she was too fat, yet when she tried to go on a diet she didn’t get any support, and why did she have to put up with a brother like me who kept shoving chocolate bars under her nose when he knew she was trying to be good?

  Mum threw me one of her dirty looks and then looked at Dad who shrugged his shoulders. I don’t think either of them knew what to do.

  This was the break in the conversation I had been waiting for.

  So I said that while Allie was trying to stop crying, I may as well have my turn. I used my turn to have my say about recycling. I really socked it to ‘em. I said I thought we were all missing the most important point – which was that the future of our planet was under threat. I said all these problems were minor compared to the possibility that we might soon disappear under a mountain of rubbish unless we started to take recycling seriously. Then I said that this family wasn’t taking it seriously at all. We should be composting our vege scraps, recycling plastic, and using unbleached loo paper.