It was Waneeda who interrupted the administrative assistant’s enthusiastic monologue. “Do you think we could use a photocopier?” she asked. “We have some more flyers we need to run off.”

Mrs Skwill glanced at Clemens. “Are you sure you want him with you?” she asked Waneeda. “You know he’s going to go on and on about all the health risks of photocopy machines and laser printers, don’t you?”

Waneeda said that she knew.

“He’s a very nice boy,” Mrs Skwill continued, as though Clemens had either gone deaf or left the room, “but he’s very depressing. Don’t breathe this … and don’t touch that… He never stops. I don’t know how you can stand it.”

Waneeda pulled on her hair and smiled.

Mrs Skwill would undoubtedly be surprised to learn that Waneeda doesn’t find Clemens depressing at all. Since she has been spending so much time with him, slouching through Clifton Springs with a clipboard and a stack of Save Our Trees petitions, Waneeda has discovered that there is more to Clemens Reis than saddle shoes and doom.

“I really appreciate this,” Waneeda tells him now as they start on their rounds. “It’d take me for ever to do it by myself.”

“Fair’s fair. You help me.” Clemens gives her a conspiratorial wink. “At least no one’s going to slam the door in our faces doing this.” Which is something that happens fairly often when you’re asking people to save ancient trees.

“I guess Joy Marie’s right.” Waneeda laughs. “Every cloud does have a silver lining.”

Clemens holds the flyers against the wall and Waneeda does the taping. And all the time they work, they chat as though there was never a time when the only words they ever exchanged were “hello” and “goodbye”. As though it was always obvious that they were meant to be friends.

“It’s funny about Maya, isn’t it?” says Waneeda, as they start on the first floor. “I used to think she was as deep as a puddle. But now I’m kind of changing my mind.” Waneeda slaps tape over the cartoon they’re putting up of a woman pouring the contents of her mop bucket down the sink, where it travels through the pipes and drains and ends up in a river full of dead fish. “Some of these are really good.”

Clemens shrugs. “They’re all right.”

“All right?” Waneeda’s eyebrows rise sceptically. “Hey, I know you weren’t too enthusiastic about the cartoon concept to begin with, but you have to admit that they’re better than just ‘all right’.”

“OK,” Clemens concedes, “so maybe I was wrong about her trivializing serious issues. Most of her cartoons are pretty right on.” He gives Waneeda a poke with his elbow. “But then you have to take back what you said about Sicilee.” What Waneeda said was that Sicilee telling people how to be Green was like the blind leading the blind – straight over a cliff. “She had a good idea, too.” He aligns the latest instalment of Twelve Easy Ways You Can Save the Planet next to the cartoon. “There aren’t as many dust-your-light-bulb type of suggestions as I expected.”

“OK, some of it’s not bad,” says Waneeda. “But can you actually see Princess Kewe following her own advice?”

“Well…” Clemens smiles mischievously. “Maybe not all of it, but she does walk to school now.” Indeed, she sometimes walks the last block with them. “And I can see her reading labels – I don’t think she’d have a problem with that. And she probably takes a shower now and then instead of baths. And even turns off lights.”

“OK, but can you see her swanning into the Salvation Army thrift store?” demands Waneeda. “The only things she’d wear that belonged to someone else would have to be made out of diamonds or gold.”

“The Salvation Army?” Clemens looks as though he is trying very hard to picture this unlikely event. “Sicilee in the Salvation Army…” It isn’t an easy image to call up: Sicilee strolling into the Salvation Army in one of her tailored suits and a string of pearls, looking for something to wear for a weekend on somebody’s yacht.

“Excuse me, my good woman, but do you work here?” mimics Waneeda in a high, gushy voice. “Can you tell me where you keep the Juicy Couture?”

Their laughter echoes down the empty corridor.

They are still laughing when they return to the lobby. Night has fallen over Clifton Springs. Outside, the snow that still remains on the lawn sparkles in the lights that line the drive, but the sky itself sparkles with stars. They stand by the glass doors, putting on their coats.

“It’s funny, I never really used to look at the sky before,” says Waneeda. “But now I look for the moon and the stars every night.”

“Me too,” says Clemens. “I’m always relieved they’re still there.” He opens the door and holds it for Waneeda. “You didn’t used to wear your hair down much, did you?” he asks as she walks past him.

“No.” Waneeda shrugs. “But … you know … it’s been so cold.”

“It looks nice,” says Clemens, and he follows her out.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Maya wins an argument with her mother

The lyricist Chuck Berry famously wrote that “you never can tell”. He was talking about teenagers. Teenagers, Mr Berry suggested, can really surprise you. Mr Berry never met Sicilee Kewe, but if he had he would have been tempted to point to her in her puffy, hooded coat and the sensible, flat-soled boots she’s been wearing to school lately and say, “See? That’s exactly what I meant!”

Previously walking no further than the length of the mall, Sicilee has amazed everyone. No matter how cold and blustery the day, Sicilee – cheeks rosy from more than her usual blusher – has been seen striding onto the campus, looking as though she was born on the hoof and has no memory of ever sitting in a plush and heated Cadillac, plugged into her iPod, a café latte in the cup holder beside her. And no one has been more amazed by this new development than Maya Baraberra. To make it even worse, Sicilee sometimes arrives with Cody Lightfoot (and Clemens, Waneeda and Joy Marie, but Maya, of course, barely notices them), gliding up the drive like a swan up a river.

“Look at her!” Maya raged. “Acting like she’s the first primate to climb down from the trees and walk around on her hind legs! It’s not just sickening, it’s physically impossible. That girl wouldn’t walk to the bathroom if she could drive there. She must be getting a ride from her mother to somewhere nearby.”

But Alice, who (to be honest) is as tired of hearing about Sicilee Kewe as she is of hearing about tofu and Cody Lightfoot, is less emotionally involved and therefore able to be more objective. “I don’t think so,” said Alice. “Haven’t you noticed her coat or the state of her boots? If she’s getting a ride, it’s in the back of a pick-up.”

Which, of course, left Maya with no choice. If she had to endure even one more day of watching Sicilee sashay up the drive – with Cody or without him – or one more meeting in which Sicilee says, loudly, “Well, those of us who walk…” or “Well, when you walk like I do…” Maya might have to move in with her aunt in Spokane or risk losing her mind.

It took Maya several days to find her abandoned bicycle, buried at the back of the cellar, flat on the floor with an old toy chest and several boxes on top of it, and even longer to clean it and pump up the tyres, but today is the day of its maiden voyage.

Maya’s mother glances nervously out of the kitchen window at the dark, cloud-crowded sky and the backyard trees bending in the icy wind. “Why don’t you let me drive you?” she asks. “I don’t think this is very good weather for cycling to school. It looks to me like it’s going to snow again.”

“That’s one of the big problems with our society,” says Maya. “We fear nature when we should embrace it. We want to control everything … to manipulate the moon and stars … to have things all our own way.”

Mrs Baraberra sighs. “I’m not trying to manipulate anything, Maya. I just don’t want you to get caught in a storm.”

“Um, duh… In case you haven’t noticed, Mom, snow is a natural phenomenon. We should celebrate it, not hide from it. It’s cars that aren’t natural. Why aren’t you worried about all the carbon dioxide we’re pouring into the air and my lungs?”

Rather than get into long explanations about why she shows so little concern about the degradation of the atmosphere and her daughter’s lungs by the burning of fossil fuels, Mrs Baraberra says, “Fine. You take the bike.”

It’s a testament to the strength and depth of female friendship that Alice, hunkered into a plaid hunting jacket and matching bomber hat, is actually waiting for Maya at the end of the street, her mittened hands gripped so tightly around the handlebars of her own bicycle that it’s difficult to tell if she’s holding it up or if it’s holding up her.

Alice squints into the morning glare as Maya walks towards her, pushing her bike. “What is that?”

“It’s a portable missile launcher. What does it look like?”

“But it has a fringe and it’s pink and, like, pizza-parlour blue,” says Alice, whose own bike is a mature and tasteful silver. She narrows her eyes even more. “What’s that on the handlebars? Is it a cow?”

“It’s the horn.”

“When was the last time you rode this thing?” Alice looks as though she thinks the bike may bite her.

Maya stamps her feet with impatience as much as cold. “I told you. A couple of years ago?”

Alice is less than reassured by this information. “But you’ve given it a test drive, right?” She leans her head to one side, judging. “It looks a little small.”

“Of course I tested it.” It didn’t occur to Maya even to ride it up and down the driveway. And then, because lies like company as much as people do, adds, “The size is fine.” It’s at least two inches too small.

“You know, it’s not too late to change our minds,” says Alice. “My mom said she’ll take us.” She shivers to emphasize how cold she feels already. “She thinks we’re totally nuts cycling to school in weather like this. She says we could get really sick.”

“She’s wrong.” Maya watches her breath float in front of her like tiny clouds. “This is the sane and healthy thing to do. I even read that scientific research has proved that the car culture not only contributes significantly to climate change, but also to obesity, heart disease, alienation and crime.”

“My mom is wrong,” says Alice. “Only one of us is totally nuts.” There are no points for guessing which one she means.

Maya laughs.

“I’m not kidding. I think all that tofu’s affecting your brain.”

“No it isn’t. It—” Maya breaks off and, like Alice, looks up at the sky. Tiny crystals of frozen water are suddenly hurtling towards them so thickly that it looks as if someone’s dropping a curtain over their heads.

Alice looks over at Maya. “Did you know it was going to snow today or are we just really lucky?”

Maya sighs. Obviously, the only luck she’s having this morning is that the snow isn’t accompanied by gale-force winds. “It’s no big deal,” she declares with a confidence she doesn’t feel. “We’ll be there before it starts to stick.”

“Well, I definitely will.” Alice pulls her phone from her pocket. The strength and depth of female friendship only goes so far. “I’m calling my mom.”

“Alice, please,” pleads Maya. “It’s not like we’re crossing the Alps. We’re just riding to school. And I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Anything. My original ’77 Led Zep T-shirt. My firstborn. Anything. If you need someone to ride down the Mississippi with you on a raft, all you have to do is ask.”

Alice hits the number for Home on her phone. “All I want is a ride to school in a car.”

“What happened to the pioneer spirit that made this country great?” asks Maya.

“My ancestors never left Manhattan,” says Alice.

“Well, mine did!” cries Maya, and she sets off into the falling snow.

As a matter of fact, Maya’s ancestors, though they did leave Manhattan, didn’t go any further than Brooklyn. Which is a lot further than Maya is ever likely to get. The road is wet and slippery and filled with large vehicles that drive too fast and far too close, so Maya rides on the sidewalk, pedalling slowly and cautiously. Maybe she should have listened to Alice. She hasn’t gone more than a couple of blocks when she realizes how incorrect the phrase “just riding to school” is – making it sound as easy as strolling into the kitchen for a snack as opposed to, for example, crossing a significant mountain range on an old bicycle that is two inches too small for you. The bike is even more difficult to manoeuvre than she remembers. It wobbles and emits strange sounds that make her worry that something is about to fall off. Her legs ache after only a block or two. She is afraid to go too fast in case she skids. Maybe, besides listening to Alice, Maya should have listened to her mother, and waited for a day when it isn’t snowing for her first ride. Maybe she should have taken a spin around the block once or twice for practice. Perhaps she should have worn ski goggles so she could actually see where she’s going.