Just Grace Goes Green

by Charise Mericle Harper

  Gwen's parents have a company that sells doorknobs and coat hooks and stuff like that. Last year Gwen gave me some fancy glass hooks for my room. They are nice, but not really the best invention ever, because as soon as you use them you can't see how great the hooks look anymore. I didn't say that, though, because that's not polite and I knew it was much better to just say thank you.

  BEAUTIFUL HOOK

  NOW YOU CAN'T SEE IT

  WHAT SAMMY SAID

  When Sammy heard what Mimi and I were talking about he said, "I bet Gwen's parents work for a secret spy network and that's why they have to go to China." He said spies were always going to other countries to do their spy work. Usually they weren't allowed to bring their kids on missions, so that was probably why Gwen had to stay with Mimi's parents. Sammy thinks everyone is a spy. He even thought that Mrs. Witkins was a spy when I saw her climbing in and out of her basement window. Of course he was totally wrong.

  Mimi rolled her eyes and said she was pretty sure that her aunt JoJo was not a spy. Sammy couldn't ask her any more about it because Max came up to him and said they had to go. Max and Sammy are taking Tae Kwon Do lessons. Max said he and Sammy can chop wood in half with their bare hands but they aren't allowed to do it outside of the Tae Kwon Do studio. This made Mimi roll her eyes again. Max and Sammy are definitely not as tough as they think they are, but we didn't say that because it was much easier to just say "Un-huh."

  HOW TO MAKE SOMEONE FEEL WELCOME

  1 Make a big sign and put it on the front lawn. If your friend's mom won't let you put it on the front lawn, then hang it up on a door.

  2 Make sure the guest has some space to put her clothes, so empty out a few drawers and throw your friend's stuff in the closet.

  3 Make signs so that the guest knows where things are.

  4 Make the guest's bed nice and comfy, with pillows and stuffed animals that are cozy just in case she might have to cry.

  5 Buy her favorite snacks, even if they are the kind of snacks your friend's mom doesn't normally let her eat because they are not healthy and nutritious.

  6 Be cheerful and don't fight with the guest, even if she is wrong and you are right.

  Mimi and I did the first four things to get ready for Gwen. The number five thing Mimi said she was going to ask her mom about. The number six thing we were saving until she got there, and I was hoping that we were never going to need it. But it was smart of Mimi to put it on the list, just in case.

  SAVING THE WORLD AT HOME

  Of course Miss Lois gave us homework, so before I even got to do my one conservation thing and put it on the chart, I had to read a whole lot of pages about recycling. At first I was really grumpy about it, but in the end it was pretty interesting and probably important. Mom and Dad already do lots of recycling stuff, so it wasn't so easy to think of something new that I could do by myself.

  CONSERVATION THINGS THAT I DID NOT WANT TO DO

  1 Turn off the TV and read a book instead. Read the book with a flashlight to save the energy of lighting up the whole room. I could have said use a candle, but Mom would never in a thousand years let me use a candle all by myself, especially if I was holding paper at the same time.

  2 Wash my dishes by hand instead of putting them in the dishwasher.

  3 Save my half-eaten baked potato from dinner so I could have it for lunch tomorrow. We really need a dog so that I don't feel so guilty about throwing food away. Even though it wasn't in Miss Lois's notes, I'm pretty sure throwing away food is bad for the earth.

  EARTH COMPLAINING ABOUT WASTED FOOD

  MY ONE CONSERVATION THING

  Finally I just decided to walk around the house and turn off all the lights in the rooms that no one was using. At least it was something. I didn't know Mom was in the basement until she screamed in the dark. She was okay, though, and hardly got mad, even though she bumped her head on the low pipe in the laundry room.

  Turned off all lights in the house that were not being used by Mom, Dad, or me.

  HOW TO SAY GOOD NIGHT TO YOUR BEST FRIEND

  Mimi and I have our bedrooms right across from each other, so we are especially lucky best friends. Most nights we flash our lights at each other to say good night. Tonight when I looked out my window, Mimi was pointing to her stuffed squirrel, Willoughby. We have a secret stuffed animal code so we can tell each other how happy or not happy we are. We used to do flashlight Morse code to tell each other stuff, but it was too confusing and not fun so we stopped.

  MIMI'S CODE

  HAPPY

  NOT SO HAPPY UNHAPPY

  UNHAPPY

  Willoughby

  Pig-Pig

  Bunny

  MY CODE

  HAPPY

  NOT SO HAPPY UNHAPPY

  UNHAPPY

  Chip-Up

  Rachel

  Fluffy

  Mimi was probably happy because Gwen was coming the next day for her visit. Our moms weren't going to let us stay home from school so we could meet her—that's why we had to make all the signs for her. That way even though we weren't there, she would still know that we were thinking about her and were happy that she was visiting. I don't know why, but it was way more fun to be thinking about Gwen and saving her than it was to be thinking about saving the earth.

  WHAT I LEARNED AT SCHOOL THAT I DIDN'T KNOW BEFORE

  Miss Lois said that if all the garbage regular people throw away in our country of America was a big disgusting pie, this was how it would look.

  GARBAGE PIE

  She said only a little bit of this pie gets recycled or reused—most of it just gets thrown away. Miss Lois said there are two ways to get rid of garbage once it has been collected by the garbage men.

  1 Burn it in an incinerator—a big furnace made specially to burn garbage.

  2 Bury it in a landfill—a big hole in the ground where you dump garbage.

  She said both of these are not great solutions to the garbage problem, but it was all there was.

  Robert Walters said, "What's wrong with burning stuff up? That sounds like a fun job. Wow! I bet you get to use one of those fire guns like the kind the guys use on TV to kill aliens. That would be so awesome!" Miss Lois said she did not know anything about killing aliens on TV but she was 100 percent sure that the people who worked at the incinerators did not use fire guns or any kind of weapons.

  COMIC STRAIGHT FROM THE BRAIN OF ROBERT WALTERS

  Even though I know I'm not supposed to doodle or draw comics in class, I couldn't help myself. I just have to be more sneaky and not get caught, is all. With Miss Lois being all passionate about the earth, it was a little bit easier because she was not watching us as closely as usual. Miss Lois had a lot more stuff to say about incinerators and landfills, which was good because it gave me time to finish my drawing.

  I'm lucky that I can draw and listen at the same time. That way even if I got surprise-tested with questions I would still know the answers, and Miss Lois would have to be impressed. Miss Lois would suddenly know how amazing I was at paying attention and she would feel bad that she had been thinking not-paying-attention thoughts about me.

  When this happens to someone it's called eating crow. You don't actually have to eat a crow. It's just a saying that means you have to say sorry for what you did or said, and probably sometimes doing that kind of thing might be as hard, or as gross, as eating a real crow.

  We just finished reading a play in class last week, so now I know all about how they work. If I were in a play with Miss Lois right now, this is how it would go.

  MISS LOIS EATS GROW

  A PLAY

  (The scene takes place in a classroom just like ours, but the desks are fancy and new and definitely don't have gross stuff stuck on the bottom of them.)

  (Miss Lois looks mean and grumpy.)

  MISS LOIS: Just Grace, are you not paying attention again? Can you tell me why incinerators are still not the best way to dispose of garbage?

  (I look up at her happy and smiling, n
ot at all scared, because I know the answer.)

  ME: Well, Miss Lois, when you burn up garbage, the smoke from the fire is full of pollution, and that is bad for the earth. Plus, when everything is all burned up, you still have to bury all the black gross ashes from the fire and that is bad too.

  (Miss Lois looks a little surprised.)

  MISS LOIS: Just Grace, I don't suppose you know what is wrong with burying garbage in a landfill?

  (I smile sweetly, not sneakily.)

  ME: Actually, Miss Lois, I do. Just because garbage is buried and we can't see it that doesn't mean it disappears. The garbage under the earth just sits there for hundreds of years, and sometimes all the bad poisons from the rotting garbage go into the earth and then get into the rivers and the lakes. This is bad for people and animals and it can make us all sick.

  (Miss Lois is shocked. She has her hands over her mouth. She cannot believe that the 100 percent perfect answers have come out of my mouth.)

  MISS LOIS: Just Grace! I can't believe I ever doubted you! I'm so sorry! You have been paying the most perfect attention ever! I think it's time to change someone's name in the attendance notebook.

  And then she would erase the Just part of my name in the notebook and we would smile all happy-like at each other.

  THE END

  HOW TO NOT GET CAUGHT

  Miss Lois asked Valerie Newcome, who was sitting right in front of me, a question about plastics and then I knew I had forgotten to be paying attention the whole time I was thinking about Miss Lois eating crow. I didn't even know we were talking about plastic. I thought we were still talking about garbage.

  Sometimes when you shrink low in your seat Miss Lois will know that you are trying to disappear, so she will pick you out on purpose, because kids who are trying to disappear probably have not been paying attention and don't know the answer. It's really hard to sit up straight and pretend you know what is going on when that is not what is true, but you have to do it because that is the only way to save yourself. It's kind of like what people are supposed to do when they meet a bear. Your body doesn't want to do it, so your brain has to take over and force it even though it is scary and it doesn't feel right.

  HOW TO SAVE YOUR LIFE FACING A BEAR

  HOW TO SAVE YOUR LIFE FACING MISS LOIS

  Valerie Newcome did not know the answer, and I could tell that right away because she was slouching even more. Miss Lois said that if Valerie had been paying attention she would know that Americans use over two million plastic bottles every hour and that most of those were thrown away and not recycled. This was unbelievable, but not as unbelievable as what happened next.

  Valerie put her hand up and said, "I'm sorry, Miss Lois. I'm having trouble paying attention because I'm just so excited about my superheroes of conservation project. I already started on it and I can't wait to show everybody. Can I show everyone now what I've done?" Miss Lois looked surprised too. Valerie is not always the best worker, and she does a lot of not paying attention.

  What Valerie showed us was for sure not what Miss Lois was expecting, because she looked even more surprised than before.

  Valerie held up two of her Barbie dolls dressed as superheroes. She showed us the picture she had drawn too, so everyone could see what a good job she had done making the actual real-life costumes.

  VALERIE'S SUPERHEROES

  ENVIRO-GAL

  GOTTA-GO-GREEN-GIRL (GGGG)

  Miss Lois said that all the boys had to stop laughing immediately. I think boys sometimes laugh because they are embarrassed about liking girl stuff. Even though I'm too old to like Barbie dolls anymore, I thought Valerie's superheroes were pretty good. Miss Lois put them on the table at the front of the class so that everyone could have a closer look at lunchtime. And that was how I didn't get caught not paying attention.

  LUNCHTIME

  Mimi was so impressed by Enviro-Gal and Gotta-Go-Green-Girl that she said we had to make real superheroes too. She said we could make a whole scene out of clay and craft stuff, and it could show our superheroes coming to help save the red panda, which is perfect because that is our endangered animal mascot. Mimi loves clay or any kind of supplies to make stuff that stands up on its own. She doesn't like drawing very much but she makes really fun, cool model projects all the time.

  WHAT MIMI MADE FOR ME LAST WEEK

  At lunchtime Mimi told me about all the things I had missed when I had not been paying attention and was instead thinking about my excellent play with Miss Lois and me as the big star.

  FOUR THINGS I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT PLASTIC

  1 Polyester carpet is made from recycled plastic bottles. That means one day I could be standing on a carpet made from a bottle I had a drink from and not even know it.

  2 You can make one grown-up person's fleece jacket out of just twenty-five recycled bottles. Of course, they have to do special stuff like grind the bottles up, but still it's pretty cool that you could one day wear your bottle.

  3 Even though it's good that you can recycle plastic bottles and use them to make other stuff, it's still not great, because when you finish using the other stuff, you have to throw it away and it has to go in the garbage because it can't be recycled again.

  4 It takes about five hundred years for a plastic bottle to break down and dis; into the earth.

  I found out all these things from Mimi after she said, "Don't you feel bad?" when I was throwing my plastic water bottle into the recycling bin in the lunchroom. Mimi had learned it all when she had been paying attention in Miss Lois's class. Mimi said she was going to keep her bottle and use it for lunch again tomorrow. That way she wouldn't have to feel guilty about throwing it away. Of course my bottle was gone and it was too late, so I got to feel guilty about polluting the environment all by myself. It was not a good feeling!

  After lunch, we learned some more things about recycling.

  FOUR THINGS I DID NOT KNOW ABOUT PAPER

  1 It takes 500,000 trees to make the paper for all the Sunday newspapers each week.

  2 The average person in America uses seven trees a year in paper, wood, and other stuff made from trees.

  3 If all newspapers were recycled, we would save about 250,000,000 trees a year.

  4 Every ton of recycled paper saves seventeen trees.

  Miss Lois was full of excitement and energy about being green. I did not feel that way. My empathy power was feeling sad for the earth, for the trees, and for the world!

  REGULAR LEARNING

  After telling us all about paper recycling, Miss Lois said it was time to talk about our regular schoolwork again. How could she do that? How could she not know that saving the earth was 100 percent more important than studying clouds, or fractions, or even cursive writing, which I like and is fun because it's kind of like drawing! Superheroes can't suddenly turn off their hero energy to learn about cumulus clouds. That's the difference between real superheroes and pretend ones, and the difference between Miss Lois and me.

  MIMI AND ME

  When school finally ended Mimi and I were feeling the exact same way. Tired of it! Me because I wanted to use my energy to think of a really great way to help save the earth, and Mimi because she didn't like cursive writing and fractions and could hardly wait to get home to see Gwen.

  When she said that I couldn't believe that I had forgotten all about Gwen. My superpower is like that: once it starts working I can't even think about anything else at all, except if I have to go to the bathroom. I never forget about that. It must be the same for all superheroes, because none of them ever wear diapers, even though you never see them going into bathrooms. Astronauts are the only grown-up people who sometimes wear diapers, and it's easy to know why. There's no other way.

  MIMI AND I BEING SEPARATE

  Mimi wanted to walk home super fast. It was hard to talk about our recycling project because she was too looking forward to seeing Gwen to concentrate on anything else. When you are excited about something it can be frustrating if you are in that excited pl
ace all by yourself, especially if you are trying to have a conversation with someone else.

  GWEN

  Gwen was so amazingly happy that we were home. She was waiting outside at the end of Mimi's sidewalk. That way she could look all the way to the corner and see us as soon as we turned onto our street. She must have been at Mimi's house all day, because all her stuff was put away and it looked like she had lived in Mimi's room with Mimi forever.

  Of course we had to stop talking about our project as soon as we saw Gwen. Sometimes it's hard to change over to some thing new when you are still really full of energy about the old thing. Because of this happening I was a little grumpy at Gwen for about a minute ... but I got over it pretty fast.

  Once we had all talked for a while, Mimi was a little more excited to be thinking about our superheroes of conservation project. Gwen said that she had done a recycling project about plastic bottles last year. I was pretty surprised that Miss Lois's great idea about doing projects to save the earth was also someone else's idea too. Gwen said everyone in third grade did projects about recycling and conservation. Sometimes she knows more about stuff than we do, but that is only because she is a year older than us. As soon as Gwen said "plastic bottles" Mimi said, "We have to do our project about plastic bottles too!"