At exactly 3.45 p.m., Clemens gets to his feet (knocking Joy Marie’s pen and notepad to the floor and stepping on the pen) and calls the meeting to order.

“Hi,” says Clemens. The paperclip holding his glasses together seems to wave in greeting as he adjusts them. “Firstly, I’d like to thank you all for coming.” Today, in honour of the occasion, he is wearing another of his homemade T-shirts: Trees Don’t Grow on Money. “It’s a gratifying turnout.” He removes a red bandanna from his pocket and blows his nose. “I see a lot of unfamiliar faces, so for the benefit of all our new members, I’d like to start the meeting by saying a little about the club and why we set it up and what it hopes to achieve and so forth.”

Chairs scrape and feet shuffle. The old members glance at the clock and sit back, resigned. The smiles disappear from the faces of the new members, to be replaced with looks of concern. Only Cody, who, of course, was not here for the Christmas diatribe or the infamous Earth Day Speech, smiles back as though he thinks this is a pretty awesome idea and can’t wait to hear what Clemens has to say.

Reassured by Cody’s smile, the others all relax again, prepared to believe that this won’t be as bad as they fear it will be. But sadly, like so many beliefs, this one is ill-founded. Clemens “saying a little about the club … and so forth” includes a list of the crises facing the world. It’s a very long list.

Within only minutes, Sicilee is so done that if she were a cake in the oven she’d be burning. She cups her hands over her mouth as if she’s giving every word that Clemens utters serious thought, but really it’s so Cody doesn’t see her yawn.

Up until now, the most soul-destroyingly boring experience Sicilee ever had was the summer her father decided they should do a family road trip instead of flying to a foreign beach with cabanas and waiter service for their summer vacation. The car broke down approximately two million miles from nowhere in some Podunk mountains. And because they were in some Podunk mountains, the cell phones didn’t work. Nor did the entertainment system, the AC or the radio (though that was not the fault of rural America, but whatever was wrong with the car). It was over two hours before help arrived, and during that time there was nothing to do but sit by the side of road, looking at trees and, for a change of pace, the sky. Sicilee thought she would die. Listening to Clemens yammer on about how we’re killing the planet and consuming our way to oblivion, however, is much, much worse. What can all of this depressing stuff about dwindling forests and melting glaciers and polluted rivers possibly have to do with her? Merciful Mother, she’s not in the Amazon. And she’s definitely not about to be stranded on a chunk of ice with the last polar bear or go fishing in some toxic river, either. There is only one thing that prevents Sicilee from galloping from the room – and you would be wrong to think that that one thing is Cody Lightfoot.

It is the presence of Maya Baraberra perched like a vulture on the other side of Cody that keeps Sicilee sitting there as if she’s been cemented into her chair. There’s no way she’s leaving now. She wouldn’t give Maya the satisfaction. She wouldn’t give her the opportunity. Sicilee swings one foot back and forth, almost brushing Cody’s leg. She might have known Maya the Barbarian would be after the best-looking boy ever to walk the streets of Clifton Springs. Indeed, she should have known. Really. She really should have known. As soon as Maya strolled through the door with that you-can-start-now-I’m-here look on her face, a series of images from the past week flashed through Sicilee’s mind like a slide show. Maya lurking in the corridors. Maya hanging around outside classrooms. Maya skulking along the hallway where Cody’s locker is. Maya, just this afternoon, hurling herself into the cafeteria clutching her phone as if she knew Cody was near the door. How could she have been so blind? Sicilee’s teeth grind away behind her inattentive smile.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Cody, Maya keeps herself awake by remembering how much she loathes and detests Sicilee Kewe. Indeed, her first thought when she walked into Room III and saw Sicilee, aloof from everyone else like a visiting princess, was: Gott im Himmel! Barbie and the troglodytes! She was tempted to take a picture to post on the Internet. Her second thought was: No boy is worth this. I’m out of here. But then Sicilee’s perpetual smile, cold as the back of the freezer, fell on her like a dead hand.

And all at once, as though someone had turned on a projector in her head, Maya saw a moving montage of scenes from the past few days. And in every scene was the blindingly monochromatic Sicilee Kewe (in orange, in yellow, in mauve and in turquoise), teeth gleaming like miniature glaciers as she sashayed past Mallory’s locker as if she was on patrol … strolling along with her hair swinging and her eyes moving down the corridors like heat-seeking missiles … loitering in the lobby at the end of the day as though she was waiting for a bus. She was everywhere Maya was; everywhere Cody was likely to be; hunting him down as if she was the sheriff and he a wanted man.

Which was when Maya had her third thought: She’s here for the same reason I am.

After that, of course, Maya wouldn’t have gone home for the chance to show her paintings in a gallery in New York. The last time she and Sicilee wanted the same thing was in the sixth grade. Then it was Sicilee who won the lead in the class production of The Sound of Music. This time, however, Sicilee is so going to lose. There is no way Maya plans to stand by and watch Sicilee Kewe con Cody Lightfoot into believing that they have anything more in common than species and language. It’s totally ludicrous. She is so awesomely not his type. As if! As if someone so devastatingly cool might possibly be that dumb. Does she think he’s not going to notice her fur coat and her mother’s Cadillac Escalade? Does she think he’s not going to notice that Sicilee doesn’t care about anything besides her self-centred self? That she has a carbon footprint the size of the footprint of a Yeti? Or that the girl never wears anything twice, never mind second-hand?

Waneeda sits on the other side of the circle, her face turned towards Clemens as though she’s the king listening to Scheherazade tell her astonishing stories, but her eyes constantly move to Cody. Except for this afternoon when he came over to talk to Joy Marie, this is the closest she’s ever been to him, and the longest she’s ever had just to look at him. She could sit like this for ever – watching him scratch his head, watching him cross and uncross his feet, watching him twine his fingers together and then untwine them again, watching expressions of agreement and outrage cross his face like shadows and sunlight. And, as an added bonus, any twinge of guilt Waneeda may have felt about Joy Marie’s questioning of her reasons for coming this afternoon disappeared the second Sicilee and then Maya stepped through the door. She kicked Joy Marie, glancing at her with a smirk on her lips and one eyebrow raised. So what do you think their motives are? Are you going to ask them why they came?

“But there’s a serious crisis happening right here, in our own backyard,” continues Clemens.

And then he starts talking about trees.

Chapter Sixteen

Climate change

A certain restless tension shimmers in the growing gloom of the afternoon. More yawns than Sicilee’s are being stifled. Butts are shifting in seats. Feet are scraping on the floor. Songs are being hummed under breaths. Several heads are discreetly bending to check for phone messages or to see if time has actually been stopped in its tracks. Waneeda is surreptitiously searching in her pockets for something made of chocolate. Ms Kimodo is in danger of nodding off.

Clemens, of course, is oblivious to the fact that he is now in the midst of people who would rather be stranded in a desert in a sandstorm with a pregnant camel than stuck in this room listening to him.

Cody, on the other hand, is well aware that in a mere matter of minutes (though, clearly, it seems a lot longer) Clemens has begun to undermine all his hard work. Over the last week, while seeming to ease effortlessly into his new life like a foot into a slipper, Cody has actually been tireless in his efforts to persuade all these girls to come to the meeting. Sicilee and Maya may have heard about Cody joining the club by sheer chance, but the others were all charmed into coming, lured by that break-your-heart smile. Why? Cody would say that he did it because he was raised to be Green, and because he likes Clemens and wants to help out a brother and kindred soul. All of which is true. But what is also true is that, like an immigrant opening the first Chinese restaurant in town, Cody saw a gap that he could fill. In thousands of schools across the nation, environmental clubs are the cool “in” thing – as popular as pizza. They’re guaranteed to make everybody feel good and look even better. But not in Clifton Springs. Cody plans to change all that. He’s going to make the club hip. He’s going to give it a higher profile than the football team. And in the process transform himself from being an outsider to being at the heart of campus life – and all without stepping on anybody’s toes.

“Those trees remember what we’ve forgotten,” Clemens is saying. “Do you know what they’d say if they could talk?”

Someone near Cody groans.

Someone else mutters, “Yeah. Shut the hell up.”

It is then that Cody suddenly gets to his feet, surprising Clemens so much that the club’s president stops speaking.

As Cody rises, the movement of everyone else coming to attention and straightening up in their chairs sounds almost like a sigh of relief.

“Clem, man—” Cody shakes his head as though he’s been dazzled rather than dazed by Clemens’ speech. “That is sharp. That is really sharp. You’re like Radio Free Nature. The Voice of Freedom. A beacon of hope.”

Clemens, his mouth still open for the words that Cody cut off, blinks.

“I’m telling you,” says Cody. “I’m, like, blown away by the multitude of things you know.” Although his arms hang by his side, he somehow gives the impression that he is shaking Clemens by the hand. “Man, you’ve got it all down: chapter, verse and date of publication. It’s awesome. Totally awesome. Myself? I’m so inarticulate I’m lucky I remember my name when I’m trying to explain what I believe. But you? I can only salute a class-A pro.”

Clemens pushes his glasses back up his nose. “Well, the—”

“But, you know, before we get too deep into all the heavy, global destruction, and the who-does-what-to-whom stuff, there’s a couple of things I’d like to say. Or try to say.” Cody laughs good-naturedly. Everyone except Clemens smiles back. “You know, just about why I’m here and where I’m coming from – that kind of autobiographical-detail thing. Fill in my little piece of the big picture.”

Clemens says, “Well I—”

“I think some of you already know who I am…” When Clemens speaks, he focuses on a point over the heads of his listeners, but Cody spreads his smile around the room like butter over hot toast. No one is looking at their cell phone now. “But for those who don’t, I’ve been involved in the Green scene since junior high. Last year, at my old school, I was really active in our environmental club – we called it Mayday? – and I had a truly awesome time.” Cody was, in fact, the president of the club and receiver of a special personal achievement award from the EPA, but this is an autobiographical detail he chooses not to mention just yet. “Well, not just me – we all did. It was as incredible as walking on the moon. It was like opening the back door but instead of there being the deck and the grill and a couple of chairs, you walk out into the stars. And it wasn’t just life-changing, it was really fun, too.”

There is something about the way Cody speaks that makes his audience smile and nod in agreement, even when they have only a vague idea of what he’s talking about. “I’m not saying this isn’t a really important thing we’re doing here,” he continues. “It’s terminally important. And to tell you the truth, yours truly has a Green rap sheet, like, a mile long.” Cody’s laugh is infectious. “No, really,” he grins. “I’m, like, Mr Crunchy Granola.” Cody, though looking more like Mr Heart-stoppingly Gorgeous, turns out to be so seriously concerned about the environment that he buys a lot of his clothes second-hand and usually walks to school or rides his bike. He doesn’t patronize chain stores if he can help it. He’s a vegan. His parents buy organic and local as much as they can. Since it’s only birds who have to fly, he made the trip from California on a train. His mother drives a hybrid car. They reuse everything possible at his house, from jars and bottles to paper and envelopes, and what they can’t reuse, they recycle. One night a week, they even do without electricity. Cody grins self-mockingly. “And so forth.”