Sophie Bennett Saves the Planet

by Meredith Badger

  Dad and Mum built our house themselves. It’s made out of straw – just like the first little pig’s house – but you can’t tell because the strawbale is all hidden away behind a layer of mud. Our house stands out in the street because it is so different-looking, but I love it anyway. It reminds me of a burrow or a cave because it’s cosy and warm inside. We have a huge garden, too, with lots of trees and a vegie patch.

  I leave my bike in the front yard, pick up the baby possum still bundled in the towel and hurry inside. There’s no-one in the house but I can hear voices drifting up from the backyard – Mum’s and Dad’s and also a third voice. I give a little inward groan because I know who this has to be: our next-door neighbour, Daphne.

  The house next to ours has had a steady stream of people moving in and out over the years. So many that I stopped paying attention to who they were. The latest lot are the Mitchells, Daphne and her three kids: two little boys and a girl called Eliza who’s a year above me at school. Pretty much from the moment they moved in, Daphne was over at our house, chewing my mum’s ear off and getting my dad to fix stuff for her.

  I don’t understand why my parents like Daphne so much. She’s the last person you’d expect them to be friends with. She drives a big car that must use heaps of petrol, she dumps all her rubbish in the same bin instead of separating it, and the TV is always on so loudly at her place that you can hear it from ours. But instead of marching over there and telling her to turn it off, which is what I’d expect my parents to do, Mum and Dad just close the window. Weird.

  Dad once told me that there was this woman in Greek mythology called Daphne who was turned into a tree – and my parents are very big on trees. That’s about the only thing they can have in common. But Daphne seems less like a tree and more like one of those weeds always trying to take over. What my mum calls an ‘invasive species’. She’s always asking my parents these super-personal questions, like, ‘Why aren’t you married?’, ‘Why don’t you eat meat?’ and ‘How do you manage without a car?’ It makes me squirm, but my parents don’t seem to mind at all. When I ask Mum about it, all she says is, ‘Daphne’s got a good heart, love.’

  Deep inside the towel I feel the possum stir. I take a deep breath. Go outside.

  Mum and Daphne are sitting on the back steps, drinking coffee. As they’re sitting there together, I can’t help comparing the way they look. Daphne sounds like an old person’s name but she’s younger than my parents. My parents are kind of old, though – Mum was forty when she had me and Dad was forty-five. They say they were too busy before then. Sometimes I wonder if they meant to have me at all. Maybe I was an accident.

  Daphne looks totally different to my mum too. She has long blonde hair and she’s always really made-up, with blusher and everything. I’ve never seen her wear any shoes other than high heels, even on the weekend. My mum never wears high heels and she hardly ever puts on makeup. She’s had dreadlocks for years and they’re pretty much completely grey. I’ve seen pictures of Mum when she was in her twenties and she had this beautiful long brown hair. Sometimes I wish she’d get rid of the dreads and dye it back to that colour. It’d make her look way younger. But I already know what she’d say if I suggested it. Hair dye is full of polluting chemicals and anyway, she’s not ashamed of having grey hair. ‘You can’t stop getting older, love. So why pretend to be something that you’re not?’

  See why I find her friendship with Daphne so weird?

  ‘Hi, love!’ says Mum as I walk over and give her a kiss. ‘How was the human soup today?’

  ‘Human soup?’ repeats Daphne.

  Mum laughs. ‘I mean the swimming pool.’

  But there are more important things to talk about right now than the pool. I hold out the towel bundle to Mum. ‘I found a baby possum,’ I tell her. ‘I think it’s dehydrated.’

  Mum swings into animal-rescue mode. We take the bundle into the kitchen where Mum carefully unwraps it. Daphne hangs in the background.

  ‘Oh, you’re just a tiny girl, aren’t you?’ Mum croons when the big-eyed baby is revealed. ‘Don’t worry, Poss. We’ll get you a drink.’ She fills a pipette with some sterilised water and offers it to the possum, who looks unsure at first, but then sucks a few drops down. I feel myself relax a little. It’s a good sign if it’s drinking.

  ‘Should I mix up some possum formula?’ I ask her.

  ‘There’s a special formula just for possums?’ Daphne says.

  ‘Of course!’ says Mum. ‘Possums are lactose intolerant so cow’s milk is no good.’ She smiles at me. ‘Sure, that’d be great, Soph. It’ll be good for Poss to have some later, once she’s rehydrated a bit. I’ll call Julie and see if she can look after her.’

  ‘But can’t we look after her?’ I say, surprised.

  Dad wanders into the kitchen then, holding a bright purple laptop. It has to be Daphne’s. He and Mum exchange a look. There’s something going on and I can tell from her expression that even Daphne knows about it.

  ‘Honey,’ says Mum. She’s using the same voice she uses for injured animals. Calm and gentle. ‘You know how Dad is going away for a couple of days with that forest action group to set up their computer network?’

  I nod. It’s not the first time Dad has gone and helped an environmental group with their technology stuff. But I don’t see what this has to do with Poss.

  ‘Well, they rang today and asked if I could possibly come too,’ Mum continues. ‘They want to train up some of their members in the basics of rescuing injured wildlife. I said I’d talk to you about it. It would mean I’d have to leave tonight, with Dad. But we’d be back on Saturday morning.’

  It’s still really sunny, but I suddenly feel cold. ‘And what would happen to me? Would I be here alone?’

  I see Mum’s eyes flick over to Daphne and I suddenly guess what they’ve cooked up.

  ‘Daphne’s very kindly offered to have you stay at her house for the week,’ Mum says.

  Everyone looks at me expectantly.

  ‘I really don’t want you to go,’ I say. But Mum must have known I’d say that.

  ‘It’s just a week, love,’ she says.

  I think quickly. ‘What about the rally next weekend?’

  ‘We’d be back for the rally,’ she says. ‘But it’s okay, Soph. If you really want me to stay, I will.’

  Then Dad joins in. ‘Well, let’s discuss it a bit more, shall we?’

  Daphne coughs and stands up. ‘I’d better head home,’ she says. ‘The boys are probably tearing the place apart by now.’ Then she smiles at me. ‘If you change your mind, you’re more than welcome to come and stay with us. And the possum too, if you like.’ Then she goes and I hear her heels clacking down our front path.

  Mum looks at me hopefully. ‘Daphne said you can take Poss,’ she says. ‘Does that make any difference?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. It’d be dangerous for Poss at her place. Those little boys are maniacs.’

  Mum puts up her hands. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I won’t ask again.’ She gets up and walks into another room, leaving me in the kitchen with Dad.

  Dad starts washing up the coffee mugs. He always thinks a lot before he says anything and I can feel him thinking right now. I know it’ll be about letting Mum go. But I’m not going to back down on this. There’s no way I’m staying next door.

  ‘Your mum is really good at what she does, Soph,’ Dad says after a few minutes. I know this, of course, and I’m proud of her. ‘But there’s only so many animals she can help,’ Dad goes on. ‘She can’t be everywhere, all the time.’

  Poss accepts another couple of water droplets from the pipette. She’ll be ready for some milk soon. And then I think about how if it wasn’t for Mum teaching me how to take care of animals, Poss would probably be dead by now.

  There’s still a part of me that wants to say, ‘Can’t someone else teach them? Why does it have to be my mum?’ But I know this isn’t fair. I bundle Poss back up in the towel and go and find Mum.

>   ‘Mum?’ I say. ‘Can I borrow the pet carrier for Poss? I’ll need it if I’m going to take her with me to Daphne’s.’

  Mum’s face glows with delight. ‘Really? Are you sure, Soph?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ I say. I even manage a smile.

  Mum puts her arm around me, careful to avoid squashing Poss. ‘Thanks, love. It means a lot.’

  The next half-hour is a frantic rush to get everything packed. I fling some stuff into my school bag – uniform, socks, undies, PJs. I grab supplies for Poss too and I find the special fur-lined pouch that Mum keeps small animals in, which you can wear around your neck.

  It happens so fast that I can’t quite believe it when the taxi arrives to take my parents to the bus station. We take all our stuff outside and when Mum hugs me, I can tell she’s having doubts.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay with this, Soph?’ she says. ‘You won’t get homesick?’

  ‘Of course she won’t,’ says Dad. He bends to hug me too and whispers in my ear, ‘I’m proud of you, honey.’

  I start to choke up but I swallow it down. ‘Thanks, Dad,’ I gulp.

  I stand and wave until the taxi has gone. Then I sling my bag on my shoulder, pick up the pet carrier (which is empty, because I have Poss in the pouch) with one hand and grab my bike with the other. Then I slowly wheel my bike over to Daphne’s house.

  Daphne’s place is about as different to ours as she is to my mum. It’s sort of like a huge doll’s house. It’s big and fancy, but there’s something not very solid about it, like if you gave it a push the whole thing would fall down. And while we have a really big, lush garden that my parents spend all their free time in, Daphne’s yard just has a couple of scraggly bushes and a metal shed. The rest is mostly concrete. I lean my bike against the side of the house and go and ring the doorbell.

  When Daphne opens the door, it’s like I’ve been hit in the face by a sledgehammer of noise. Every single gadget in the entire house seems to be on maximum volume. To top it off, the two boys are running around yelling at each other. I feel Poss burrow down deeper into the pouch.

  ‘Thomas, stop chasing your little brother with the flyswatter. He’s a boy, not a bug. And Oscar, stop screaming!’ Daphne calls over her shoulder. Then she beckons to me. ‘Come in, Soph! I’m so glad you decided to stay with us!’

  ‘Thanks for having me,’ I mumble as I walk in.

  I suddenly remember something Dad said to me once. When I’m somewhere I don’t want to be, I pretend to be an anthropologist – someone who studies humans. I watch the way people act and behave. It turns it into a game. I decide to give it a go.

  If the outside of Daphne’s place is empty, then the inside definitely makes up for it. There’s stuff everywhere. Toys. Clothes. There’s a huge pile of junk mail on a coffee table in the lounge room. This tribe likes to hoard printed materials, I think, in anthropologist mode.

  ‘Eliza! Sophie’s here!’ says Daphne to the couch and it’s only then that I see Eliza lying there, reading a magazine and eating chips. I decide I’d better make an effort. After all, I’m going to be here for six nights.

  ‘Hey, Eliza,’ I say. ‘Thanks for letting me stay.’

  ‘Hi,’ Eliza grunts back without even looking up.

  I make another mental note. The teenage female avoids eye contact.

  ‘Let’s put your stuff away,’ says Daphne. She takes my schoolbag and leads me up the hallway, her heels clopping on the wooden boards. She stops in front of a closed door. ‘Eliza’s really excited about having you share with her,’ Daphne says. I seriously doubt this is true. The door may as well have a ‘Keep Out’ sign on it.

  I’d suspected that Eliza and I had nothing in common, and her room proves me right. From the band posters stuck on the walls to the TV beside her desk, nothing in there is anything like me. I think about my own room, with my books and the rainforest mural Mum’s friend Julie painted on the wall. On Eliza’s floor is an inflatable mattress with a faded Barbie doona lying across it. Daphne must’ve been pretty confident I’d change my mind about coming to stay.

  ‘I’ll leave you to settle in,’ says Daphne. ‘Do you need anything for the – ah – pup? I mean, what do you call a baby possum?’

  ‘A joey,’ I say. ‘But thanks, I have everything I need.’

  I take out my PJs and put them on my bed. There’s no room for any of my other things so I just leave them in my bag. I look longingly at the book I brought, wishing I could lie here quietly and read it for a while, but that would probably be rude. So slowly, reluctantly, I head back to the lounge room.

  The boys have started fighting. Really fighting. The smaller one, Oscar, has the bigger one, Thomas, around the waist and Thomas is clonking Oscar on the head with his fist. Oscar is yelling, ‘I hate you! I hate you!’ and Thomas is screaming, ‘I hate you more!’ It’s horrible. People are always feeling sorry for me because I’m an only child, but right now siblings don’t look so great to me.

  ‘Boys!’ says Daphne, running in from another room to break them apart. ‘Behave yourselves. We have a guest.’

  They both stop and stare at me. ‘She’s not a guest,’ says Oscar. ‘She’s just the girl from next door. The one with the funny bike.’

  ‘Sophie is our guest for the next few days,’ says Daphne.

  ‘Why?’ asks Thomas. They are both staring at me curiously and I feel myself go from being the anthropologist to the person being studied.

  ‘Because her parents have gone away for a couple of days,’ explains Daphne. ‘They’ve gone to help some people save a forest.’

  ‘Why do they want to save a forest?’ says Thomas, his nose wrinkled. ‘Forests are just trees, and trees are dumb.’

  ‘They’re not dumb,’ I tell him. ‘Trees produce oxygen. That’s the stuff we breathe. If there are no trees then there’s no oxygen and then we all die.’ Okay, so maybe that’s simplifying things a bit, but at least it shuts the little twerp up. Both of them, actually.

  There’s a ringing noise from the kitchen.

  ‘Ah, the oven timer!’ Daphne says, clopping off towards the sound. ‘Dinner’s ready, guys!’

  The boys run to the couch and reach for the remote.

  But Daphne grabs it first and whisks it away. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Tonight we’re going to sit together at the table.’

  ‘Why?’ says Eliza, from the couch.

  ‘Because that’s what you do when you have a guest,’ says Daphne.

  Three sets of eyes turn to me and glare. Oh great. Now I’m the dinner-wrecker too.

  Dinner is pizza and salad. When Daphne serves me a slice, I notice little pink cubes on it. Ham. But I’m not about to create any more fuss, so I start discreetly picking the ham bits off and hiding them under a lettuce leaf. Then Daphne spots me, and slaps her hands to her face.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Sophie!’ she says. ‘I forgot you’re vegetarian. I’ll go and find you something else.’ She starts to get up but I hastily stop her.

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ I say. ‘I’ve got all the ham off now.’

  ‘Well, there’s plenty of salad at least,’ says Daphne.

  ‘Yes,’ I agree. I don’t tell her that the salad tastes strange to me. Sort of like plastic. I guess I’m used to the salads at home, where most of the ingredients come straight from our garden.

  ‘Why don’t you eat ham?’ asks Thomas.

  ‘Because I love animals too much to eat them,’ I tell him. It’s my standard answer.

  Thomas laughs. ‘Ham doesn’t come from animals,’ he says. ‘Ham comes from the supermarket.’

  ‘Ham is made from a pig, dummy,’ says Eliza. It’s the most I’ve heard her say since I arrived.

  ‘Don’t call your brother a dummy, Eliza,’ says Daphne. ‘But yes, Thomas. Ham comes from pigs.’

  ‘I’m eating a pig?’ says Thomas, staring at his pizza slice in surprise.

  ‘Yep. A tasty, tasty pig,’ says Eliza. She takes a big bite of pizza and looks at me, like
she’s hoping I might burst into tears or something.

  I can’t wait for this meal to be over so I can go and feed Poss. She’s starting to get restless in her pouch, which I’ve hidden on my lap under the table.

  ‘I know! Let’s play a game,’ says Daphne suddenly. ‘Let’s tell each other about the best thing that happened to us today.’

  Eliza groans. ‘Mum! No!’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ says Daphne. ‘It’ll be fun! I’ll start.’ She taps her chin with her finger before saying, ‘The best thing for me about today was opening the front door and seeing Sophie standing there.’

  The boys go next. They have the same best thing – winning on Wii Super Mario Galaxy Adventure. But then they get into an argument about whether Oscar did actually win or not.

  ‘What about you, Sophie?’ says Daphne. ‘What’s the best thing that happened today?’

  Best to just get this over with, I decide. I wonder if Daphne’s hoping I’ll say, Finding out I was coming to stay with you guys! But there’s no way I’m saying that. ‘Meeting my friends at the swimming pool,’ I say. And it was good, especially if I block out the Nelson stuff.

  Daphne beams. ‘How lovely!’ she says, clearly thrilled that I’ve gone along with her game. ‘Now it’s your turn, Eliza.’

  Eliza slouches down into her seat and rolls her eyes. ‘There was no best bit,’ she says. ‘Just lots of worst bits.’ I can tell that me being here is one of them.

  ‘Oh, come on, Lize,’ pleads her mum. ‘Tell us the least-bad bit then.’

  Eliza sighs and starts to speak in a bored monotone. ‘The least-bad bit was talking with Nelson this morning and arranging to meet up with him in the afternoon –’

  She’s cut off by the boys, who start up a sing-songy rhyme. ‘Lizie’s got a boyfriend. Lizie’s got a boyfriend.’

  Daphne quietens them. ‘Go on, Lize.’

  ‘But that,’ continues Eliza, ‘turned bad because Nelson had to cancel, because he forgot he had soccer practice.’