by Sandy McKay
“Sorry, Lucky,” I muttered. It wasn’t his fault he was a cat.
Allie was in a strange mood. Maybe the chocolate in her bloodstream was helping her to see sense.
She not only asked me what I was up to (these days she rarely took any interest in her little brother’s activities, except to pass criticism) but when I told her I was making banners for the protest she actually offered to help.
I tell you, I was speechless – which she immediately took to mean ‘go ahead’.
I let her help – because for one thing, she’s a better artist than I am, and for another, we’d get it done in half the time.
Two hours later we had two banners made. One said ‘Re-Duce. Re-Use. Re-Cycle” with a great drawing of some guys chucking beer cans out the window of their green Mazda. And the other was of a landfill with stuff leaching into the ground. They both looked awesome. Allie was an excellent artist.
May the 12th was the day Paddy had to be off the premises.
Mr Sparrow was going to arrive with an eviction letter from the Council. Apparently, legally, it had to be delivered in person.
It was my job to ring the TV News, the local radio station and the Southsville Times to let them know something very newsworthy was about to happen. I had already sent a press release sort of hyping things up and suggesting that if they didn’t come along they’d be missing something very important. Peter Peat had shown me what to write.
“It’d be great if we had a stunt to perform,” he said. “You know – to make it more newsworthy.”
“What do you mean? Like tying ourselves to the gate or something?”
“Well, yeah, sort of. But something a bit more original.”
We’d talked about a ‘stunt’ but in the end, after flagging Allie’s suggestion of a hunger strike (wasn’t she on a permanent one anyway?), we decided the principal wouldn’t have it on. He was worried enough about his next golf game as it was. (His Mr Starling turned out to be the same man as our Mr Sparrow!)
May the 12th was frosty. It was cold and raw and our breath made smoke in the air. Allie, in her strange new mood, had managed to get permission to join our class and it was my job to get the food organised. I made peanut butter sandwiches and a flask of hot Milo with heaps of sugar for energy. I made sure I had a spare cup for Lizzie.
Mum wasn’t in a very good mood. Can you believe it, she was annoyed about me making banners out of her best double sheets?! I said how was I to know they were her best ones? And anyway it was saving on paper, which was good for the environment. She said she was sick of me doing whatever I liked and saying it was good for the environment. It was a complete waste of resources in her view. I said well, she could still use the sheets, couldn’t she? But that just made it worse.
In the end she stomped out of the house saying how she couldn’t believe her own family. We were all going on some dumb protest to try and save some dumb old tip BUT if Paddy’s place didn’t get closed down we’d all go hungry and be looking for somewhere new to live.
I’d heard it all before.
Dad told her there were principles at stake, something she didn’t know about and she said, well you can’t eat principles, can you? Then she said why was he wasting his time on silly protest marches instead of trying to find a job? Then Allie burst into tears and said she hated it when everyone was fighting. Even Lucky didn’t seem to want to hang around.
Mum ended up saying everyone could just go and get jumped on because she didn’t care what happened – she was going for a hang-glide. Dad said it didn’t look like very good hang-gliding weather because there was no wind. Mum said what would he know about it, anyway? And then we all left the house together. Dad and Allie and me in the old Bedford van Dad had recently acquired, and Mum in her purple Morris Minor with her hang-glider strapped higgledy-piggledy onto the roof.
“Great job that one,” said Dad, muttering about Mum under his breath – I think he meant how could Mum go hang-gliding when she was supposed to be working? That jealous streak of his seemed to be surfacing again.
We were supposed to meet at the Rubbish Rescue Centre at 9:30am. Dad, Allie and I lived the closest so we were getting there ‘under our own steam’, as Mr Read put it. Some of the others were getting rides and the rest were coming in Mr Read’s truck.
It was after ten by the time we were all organised. Paddy had some old beer crates for us to sit on and he handed around a tin of biscuits. Mr Read started things off with a song to keep the blood flowing. We definitely needed something. I was so cold. There was a drip on the end of my nose that had frozen solid which I didn’t think would be particularly appealing to Lizzie – who hadn’t turned up yet, anyway.
We started off with that old Seekers song ‘We shall not be moved’ to get us all in the mood. Then we did ‘Row, row, row your boat’ with us all coming in at different times. Then Byron started chanting “Give us an R”, “R”, “Give us an E”, “E”… “What have we got? Recycled!” Only Mr Read said we needed a bit of brushing up with our spelling, because we’d missed out the ‘Y’.
I was getting a bit nervous because Lizzie was still nowhere in sight. I hoped she hadn’t met up with some big old cat and had a fatal asthma attack on the way.
I didn’t notice them arrive. Suddenly they were just there! Eight members of the residents’ committee. The Orange Lipstick brigade, all dressed in golf shoes with immaculate hair cuts and hand bags and prissy little banners. They had matching fancy outdoor furniture to sit on. Green striped fold-up chairs. They weren’t worried about the planet, all they worried about were their property values and their fancy furniture. I bet they’d never recycled so much as a tea bag!
The question was… Who told them about the protest? Who told them we’d be here?
Probably Diana Vial’s relation. We still hadn’t worked out who it was. But it couldn’t be Louise, because she was here with us. Her dad had dropped her off in the BMW.
The residents’ committee sat down and a big-bosomed lady in a purple coat passed around a packet of Oddfellows. It was like they were all here for a show or something. A bit of entertainment. With thick lip-sticked mouths, they sucked viciously on Oddfellows and chatted quietly amongst themselves. You could tell they didn’t give a hoot about the environment. You could tell they had wardrobes full of fur coats and pantries full of over-packaged goods. I bet they never wore anything second-hand or used unbleached loo paper on their soft little bottoms. Nothing but the whitest and the brightest for these ladies. I bet they had three cars that used heaps of petrol and I bet they ate takeaways every night.
Their banners were pathetic too.
‘Respect Roseview – Keep It Clean.’
‘Shut Down The Tip’, another one said.
Orange Lips was giggling nervously and her lips were doing that stretchy thing across her teeth again. She was chatting to someone who’d sat down next to her, and when I saw who it was, I nearly fell off my beer crate. Guess who?
Lizzie Bennett! I couldn’t believe it. Lizzie must be Orange Lips’s niece!!!
Luckily, at that very moment a blue car pulled up and out popped G. Sparrow like a bird from a nest.
He looked a bit scared but quickly adjusted his expression and pretended he wasn’t.
Then it got exciting.
Mr Read was amazing. He stood in front of G. Sparrow and blocked his way. I thought he was going to punch his lights out, but no, he kept his cool.
“Excuse me,” said G. Sparrow not quite sure what he was going to do next. “I’ve got a letter to deliver and if you don’t let me past I’ll ring the police.”
Mr Read was great. He puffed out his chest and said, “You’re not going through that gate until you listen to what we have to say.”
Then we all started cheering and chanting. “Reduce, Re-use, Re-cycle.”
“Give us an R”, “R…”, “Give us an E”, “E…”, “Give us a C”, “C…”, “Give us a Y”, “Y…”, “Give us a C…, L…, E…”
“What have we got… RECYCLE!!!”
It was great.
No-one had come from the TV or the radio but there was a man from the community newspaper. He was coming up really close and taking photographs of the two men, locked in battle, with us all cheering and waving banners and the residents’ committee sitting neatly on their stools with their legs crossed. ‘Shut Down The Tip’, said their banners.
Mr Read was in full flight just like that day when he brought the rubbish bag to school and then in the middle of it all something terrible happened…
17
“EARTH DAY IS APRIL 22.”
IT’S HEAD TO HEAD combat with Mr Read and G. Sparrow fighting to the death and the community newspaper man clicking madly on his camera when suddenly Paddy comes flying over. He’s ranting and raving about something, he’s hysterical, and I’m thinking the stress has got too much and he’s flipping his lid.
Paddy’s cap has fallen off to reveal a very odd patch of fluffy red hair I’ve never seen before, and he’s shouting, “turn it off, turn it off”. And we all look over and the shredder that shreds the compost is going flat tack, chewing through bits of tree and stuff. On top of the pile is what looks like a huge bird with giant wings flapping madly. I’ve never seen a bird that size in my whole life. It looks kind of prehistoric, like those old dinosaur birds.
The man operating the shredder can’t hear Paddy so he climbs up and turns the shredder off. Then Dad lets out a deafening shout and leaps over the gate with the newspaper man in hot pursuit, click, click, clicking.
Pretty soon there are people rushing everywhere. Dad looks to be in a state of shock and the big bosomed purple-coated residents’ association woman has her arms around him and he doesn’t even care.
Then someone yells, “Get an ambulance.”
In the distance, already, I can hear the siren.
The doctor said six weeks in plaster should do the trick. One broken arm, a broken leg and a few bumps and scratches were a lucky escape considering the height she’d fallen from.
Dad was right – it really wasn’t a good day for hang-gliding and if Paddy hadn’t turned the shredder off just in the nick of time, it could have been very nasty indeed. It was pretty nasty anyway.
The thought of poor Mum being shredded up and sold off as compost made me shudder. I wanted a RECYCLING mother not a RECYCLED one!
“How am I going to sell houses in this state?” she said, lying there in hospital, surrounded by flowers and cards with her plastered leg hanging up high in a brace. Dad said she should have thought of that before she chucked herself off the hill in the first place. He sounded grumpy but I knew the accident had frightened him, and Mum and Dad were actually being very nice to each other for a change. He’d even bought her some roses – from a proper shop – not from the dairy. You should have seen Mum’s face when he gave them to her.
“So this is what it takes to get flowers,” she said.
Paddy reckoned they’d both had a nasty shock.
“When something like this happens you realise what’s important in life,” he said.
Anyway, Dad told Mum not to worry about work, because he had a couple of gardening jobs lined up that should see us right for a couple of months. Also, it was only a matter of time before the recycled lawn-mowers took off. But Mum said she was getting withdrawal symptoms from being away from her cellphone… if she didn’t do some work soon, she’d go barmy. Dad said, okay, he’d bring the cellphone in, and then he gave her a cuddle and Mum laughed and cuddled him back and Allie looked so happy I thought she was going to burst into tears.
Mr Peat was most impressed with the publicity stunt.
“How did you wangle that one?” he said to me afterwards. “You’ve got quite a talent there. You should think about going into Public Relations. Great idea that – a hang-glider soaring over the protest. We should have organised a bit of signwriting. Pity your Mum didn’t quite pull it off. Still, all publicity is good publicity, aye!”
I didn’t let on I had nothing to do with it, nor did I let on that Mum wasn’t exactly on our side. I decided to wait until the results of the appeal were known and if we lost, well, they’d probably find out sooner or later, anyway.
18
“One-third of the world’s population uses more than four-fifths of the world’s resources.”
THE TRUTH WAS, when Mum made her crash landing she didn’t know it was Paddy’s Rubbish Rescue Centre. She made a bad decision – tried to circle in a thermal, lost it, stalled and plummetted headfirst into the compost pile. From the air it looked like something soft to land on.
She didn’t see the shredder!!! Not until she was almost on top of it.
It was all quite dramatic. And very embarrassing.
I’ll never forget the sight of poor Mum being loaded into the ambulance, covered in compost and moaning incoherently about what would happen to her hang-glider.
And having her photograph on the front page of the paper wasn’t Mum’s idea of good publicity.
The headline read: ‘Strange bird interrupts rubbish protest’. Mum reckoned she’d never be able to live it down. She even got some flowers from the boss at work, with a card saying – ‘Get well, strange bird’. It wasn’t a good professional look, Mum said.
There was good news and bad news. The good news was that Mum was on the mend and she and Dad were back to normal. The bad news was that the Council refused to back down on its decision.
The rezoning was going ahead and Paddy would have to be off the site in six months.
He showed me the letter.
Dear Mr McTavish,
Your appeal has been unsuccessful. The rezoning will go ahead. The council appreciates your efforts and would like to offer you a position at the Grabmore Landfill site. Details will follow.
Your loyal servant,
G. Sparrow
Paddy didn’t look too thrilled about the prospect but he thought he’d probably take the job.
“A bloke’s gotta make a living somehow,” he said.
He tried to put on a brave face, but I knew he felt defeated.
I felt pretty bad myself and didn’t want to hang around. Besides, I had plenty to do now with Mum out of action. Tonight I was on cooking duty.
“And don’t forget,” she said. “Nothing out of a can. We don’t want any unnecessary waste now, do we?” Wink. Wink.
She still managed to order everyone about and the cellphone kept ringing and Allie was going to help her with the ‘Open Homes’. It’d be good experience for her, Mum reckoned – give her some options in case the modelling thing didn’t work out.
Now that Mum was flat on her back, Dad seemed to have taken on a new lease of life. He was doing some signwriting work on the van.
He’d written ‘Bob Kennedy – Recycled Wreckages’ along the side in lime green letters with a picture of a lawnmower in the background, and he’d even had some business cards printed.
Of course, Mum was still on about him doing a course in business management, but the difference was Dad said he just might consider it now that things were up and running. The good thing was he had a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye.
Peter Peat arrived at school one morning to give us a ‘debriefing’.
He told us we’d organised a good protest and not to worry about the result. (Which was all right for him to say, not so good for Paddy). The important thing was to stand up for what you believed in, he said. “Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Stand up for yourself. That’s what a democracy is all about.”
He said it was only a tiny battle and the war wasn’t over yet. Then he gave us all a real cool T-shirt with pictures of footprints on a beach and declared us all honourary Greenpeace members – except for Lizzie Bennett, who wasn’t at school that day.
Six months later:
Guess what?
We got an A for our recycling project. That’s the first A I’ve ever had. Dad said that proved I could do anything
I put my mind to. Mum said I’d be better off concentrating on maths or science because that was where the jobs were. Typical!
Mum didn’t change her mind about the unbleached loo paper. But she did start shopping at the pack-your-own place once a fortnight, which was better than nothing. My compost bin was going really well and in another month it could go straight on the garden.
Also… I’d relocated my worm farm outside which suited everyone a lot better. This week our rubbish for the whole family weighed only three kilos which is a vast improvement. They seem to be putting in a lot more effort these days. I think I’ve made them more environmentally aware. Either that or I’ve worn them down completely. Anyway, I’m feeling positive that we’ll be a ‘waste-free’ family in no time.
As for Southsville, well it’s early days, yet.
I went to a Greenpeace meeting last week which was interesting. We’re going to help on a campaign called the ‘SNUB’ campaign. It stands for ‘Say no to unwanted bags’. Apparently, it’ll involve a lot of standing around in supermarkets.
Allie is getting involved as well. You wouldn’t recognise her these days. She’s taken on a new lease of life, too.
She saw a programme on TV about how beagle puppies are used to test long-life lipsticks and decided the beauty industry sucked. So she’s going to throw in her fledgling modelling career and dedicate herself to saving animals instead.
At least she’s eating fish and chips again (well, chips anyway) which Mum and Dad are pleased about.
Mum’s insurance company agreed to pay out for the hang-glider, which is a relief. Mum is definitely easier to live with when she’s flying – her narrow escape from life as a bag of compost has done nothing to dampen her enthusiasm.