earthgirl

by Jennifer Cowan

  “Not to mention a cheesy, faggy cliché,” Eric added.

  Man, was this guy ever not sarcastic and snarky?

  “We definitely shouldn’t sit on this too long,” Finn said thoughtfully. “Too much chance for intervention or fucking up.”

  I nodded, as if what they were saying made complete sense. As if they were talking about booking another gig for their band or finding a summer job on a tree-planting crew. Except they weren’t. We weren’t.

  “I took a look at the advance forecast,” Vray said, pulling a piece of paper off his desk. “There’s a warm front coming in next week and it’s good to wait till the snow melts. Otherwise there’s too much reflection and light.”

  “The full moon was two days ago, so it will be darker out, too,” I said.

  “Good thinking,” Finn nodded. “Also less snow, less footprints.”

  “And a weeknight. Tuesday or Wednesday really late,” Eric added. “Weekends leave too much chance of people passing by, getting suspicious.”

  “I don’t know if I can get out on a school night,” I said. “I mean, in the middle of the night?”

  “Well, if you can’t manage something as simple as that, maybe you’d better not bother,” Eric snapped.

  Even though I knew Eric was a smug idiot, the comment still made me feel incredibly stupid. And young. And useless. Maybe their parents didn’t have a clue where they were half the time, but mine still occasionally monitored my comings and goings.

  “Don’t worry,” Vray said softly. “We’ll park down the street so they don’t see or hear the car. You’ll be back in bed before they even notice you’ve been gone.”

  “Definitely the cars on the back lot,” Finn said. “No point breaking into the showroom. The video and alarm risk is too high. Besides, the SUVs inside have empty tanks and no batteries, they won’t go up anyway.”

  “Exactly,” Eric agreed. “The cars outside will have gas traces in their tanks and it’s that vapor we need to catch.”

  “How do you even know that?” I asked, impressed and terrified by everything they knew and I hadn’t even thought about.

  “Chemistry,” Eric said as if I was stupid. “Don’t you know anything about chemistry?”

  “Gloves at all times, balaclavas and black clothes. Socks, too,” Vray said. “Stuff you don’t care about because we’re going to torch it later. Shoes, too. Can’t risk bringing home any whiffs of gas.”

  “I’ll funnel fuel out of cars on the street,” Eric said. “I’m probably being paranoid, but we can’t risk getting traced back to some gas station surveillance system.”

  “Maybe we’ve got this all wrong,” I blurted, as my body filled with anxiety.

  “No, we’re all over the details, Sabine,” Finn said calmly. “It’s all good.”

  “It’s dangerous, but mostly it defeats the purpose of everything we’re trying to achieve. To change,” I said. Someone had to at least suggest this was outrageous and it obviously wasn’t going to be one of them. “The only message we end up sending is that we know how to destroy things. Doesn’t that make us as bad as they are? As bad as all the corporations and politician people destroying the planet?”

  “You don’t know fuck, Sabine,” Eric sighed. “And you’re not here to lecture us about things you know nothing about. I told Vray to keep you out of this, that you’d try to fuck us over.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing,” I insisted. I’m trying to stop it, I thought, but didn’t bother saying since it was obvious and obviously not working.

  “You’re getting wound up for nothing, babe,” Vray assured me. “We know what we’re doing and we know it’ll work.”

  “And I know all that will happen is an insurance company will swoop in and replace all the stupid SUVs we trash. And that’s if we don’t get caught, hurt anyone or get killed!”

  “Me and you both know you can find just as many reasons to talk yourself into it as talk yourself out,” Vray said logically.

  “I was a bit spooked at first, too,” Finn confessed with a smile, like having solidarity in the shitting-my-pants department would help. “Nervous is good. We have to stay on our toes.”

  I looked from Vray to Finn to Eric and back to Vray again. They were obviously unmoved by my comments. Whether I was in or out, I was still complicit. I had started this avalanche and listening to them, to their certainty and conviction, I wasn’t sure if I had the power I needed to stop it.

  “We’re doing it,” Vray said defiantly. “We’ve been doing things for ages and it’s time to graduate to the next level.”

  “What things?” I wanted to know and at the same time, not know. Not that I could possibly be in any deeper.

  “Don’t tell her shit,” Eric hissed. “If she can’t commit, she sure as shit doesn’t need to know anything else.”

  I looked back at Vray, who shrugged.

  “Look, if you’re too scared, bail now,” he said softly. “But this is happening. With or without you.”

  “It’s a snowball coming down the mountain, Sabine,” Finn agreed. “If you’re not riding it, you better run like fuck.”

  I wanted to run, but it was icy and slippery and steep. So instead I just froze.

  “How can we be sure we won’t hurt anyone?” I asked, realizing some of the things that were obvious concerns of mine hadn’t even seemed to cross their minds.

  “Because we’re not stupid,” Eric sighed. “If you were paying attention, little girl, you might notice we’re meticulous about every detail.”

  “Yeah, we’re about inflicting economic damage,” Finn said. “The E-L-F has done over forty million bucks’ worth in over six hundred attacks without ever hurting anyone.”

  “What about that woman back in the eighties, the one with the Squamish Five gang? They injured ten people when they bombed the Litton plant in Scarborough. And they even phoned in a warning,” I said, hoping that stupid Eric would see that I had done my homework and was in the loop more than he thought.

  “We’re us,” Finn assured. “We’ll be more careful. Besides, these aren’t bombs, just small incendiary devices.”

  “What’s the difference?” I asked.

  “A few hundred pounds of dynamite,” Vray said. “We’re much lower tech. Water bottles full of gas with wicks.”

  “Yeah, but won’t the cars explode after they catch fire?” I visualized the pop, pop, pop, bang followed by the wall of flames.

  “Hopefully,” Eric said. “And I’m not totally sold on the low-tech approach. I think we should look into timing devices. Plant ‘em and run.”

  “I’ll do another web search,” Finn offered. “If we can put something together with untraceable parts from a dollar store or something, we could reconsider.”

  “Remember, only at the reference library on a drop-in computer,” Vray said. “Never at home.”

  And so they went, on and on. Like they were doing a school project or planning a canoe trip or sharing cookie recipes. Except they were sharing a recipe for destruction. If O-Zone ever made a CD, that could be the title, a thought that almost made me laugh.

  And that was about the only thing that kept me from crying.

  •••

  “I always knew you’d do it,” Vray said after the guys had left to do more planning. “That you’d do whatever it takes.”

  “How? I didn’t even know.”

  “Because I know you better than you know yourself.”

  I probably should have been flattered. His remark was so intense and knowing, like some powerful declaration of love.

  Instead it made me squirm.

  “I’ve gotta go,” I said, kissing him quickly as he saw me to the door.

  “Remember, we only talk about this face to face. No phones, emails, nothing,” he said, tugging on my braided pigtail.

  “Cone of silence,” I answered. “I get it.”

  “I know you do,” he said softly. “That’s what I love about you. You totally get it, me, the cau
se, all of it.”

  I nodded and walked toward the street to catch my bus home. And as I rewound the long, complicated memory spool of our relationship, I realized that in many ways I did get him but in so many others he was a complete stranger.

  After all, he’d once been Matthew Rudolph, spoiled private school boy with clever but ridiculously busy intellectual parents. So what if he insisted he was also Vray Foret, high school guy, musician, eco-warrior? Just because he’d created this new, radical, green persona for himself didn’t mean he actually inhabited it.

  Maybe he snuck into Mickey Dees once in a while to cheat on his vegan diet. Or shopped for Made in China boxers and socks at Wal-Mart. Or left the tap running when he brushed his teeth.

  I mean, I knew as well as anyone that full on green and clean living was difficult. And for all I knew, Vray’s beat-up second-hand leather jacket was like that school blazer Ruby said he’d worn when he was younger. All about image instead of integrity.

  When I really thought about it, it was pretty obvious that I didn’t know Vray at all. I didn’t really, truly know him. Not deep down. And it’s not that I wasn’t completely interested or absolutely in love with him or didn’t try to find out every single solitary thing there was to know.

  It’s just, how can you begin to know someone else when you barely know yourself?

  e a r t h g i r l

  [ Jan 28th | 06:14pm ]

  [ mood | focused ]

  [ music | mazzy star - fade into you ]

  THE MORE YOU KNOW THE LESS YOU NEED.

  — Aboriginal saying, seen on a bumper sticker stuck to a bike fender.

  It’s soooo beautiful. Unfortunately, there will always be so much more that we don’t know than we do know. So really, we will always NEED to know more.

  I only hope that kind of NEED is okay.

  link read 3 | post

  www.planetfriendly.net

  “What happened to hip, hip, hoo-Vray?” Dad asked. “Your mom said he was coming for dinner.”

  “He’s busy,” I said, even though the truth was I hadn’t invited him.

  I just couldn’t bear the thought of him making happy talk with the parents while silently plotting nefarious eco-attack-tics and groping me under the table. It was too deviant to make things seem huggy when they were FUBARed.

  “Too bad. We haven’t seen him for a while,” Mom said, unpacking the bags of Thai take-out.

  “I said he was busy, okay? He has a life, you know.”

  “You’re a total hottie hog,” Clare blurted. “Bet you didn’t even give him the CD I burned for him.”

  She was right. There was way too much going on for some perky aside like, “Hey babe, I know you’ve got arson on the brain and yes, I absolutely am seriously ready to go for it and oh yeah, Clare thought you might like this lame band!” On top of that, I didn’t want to encourage her annoying little crush on my boyfriend. Bad enough she always grabbed the phone when it rang and chatted him up before passing it to me.

  With everything happening right now, the last thing I needed was her snooping into my business. Our business. So I ignored her and her stupidity as much as possible. The way I was ignoring and avoiding the units.

  “Give this a zap, honey, will you?” Dad said, passing Clare a container of food. Clare scooted up from the table and plopped it into the microwave.

  “Not in the Styrofoam,” I huffed. “It’s toxic.”

  “Toxic this,” Clare answered, flipping me the bird.

  “It’s fine, Sabine,” Dad said. “It just needs twenty seconds.”

  I let out a long dramatic sigh. Wouldn’t these people ever learn?

  “Mr. Butler called,” Mom said casually. Too casually. “And I felt a bit stupid not knowing about the D on your math test.”

  “No big deal,” I said. “It was one little test.”

  “But you’ve been doing so well lately,” Mom said. “Your A plus then suddenly this? It’s a bit schizo, honey.”

  “We can get you a tutor,” Dad said with his mouth full.

  “I had period cramps and I choked. That’s all. I’m not flunking, promise.”

  “Okay, if you say so. But remember, D is for the doghouse and we don’t want you there,” Dad said.

  “Yeah, I get it,” I said, digging in the bag for chopsticks even though the meal wasn’t veggie, or organic, or even in recyclable containers. I was famished. And not in the mood to talk.

  “Speaking of choking, carnage on the court today. Stan Stewart played like he was drunk, which he might actually have been,” Dad gloated. “So you lucky ladies are dining with a semifinalist.”

  “Way to go, Dad,” Clare cheered.

  “Yeah, congrats,” I chimed in, like there was nothing more exciting in the universe than my dad advancing in a rinky-dink squash tournament.

  His face lit up like fireworks he was so thrilled. And suddenly the slipping grades and pending delinquency of their eldest daughter were forgotten as we all celebrated his small victory and mawed down like we’d never seen food before.

  Faking out my parents was getting way too easy. I wondered if maybe it was a sign or cosmic wink or something. A sign that with careful consideration and the right preparation, maybe anything, however outrageous and radical and extreme it may seem on the surface, was actually possible.

  And meant to be.

  e a r t h g i r l

  [ Feb. 2nd | 11:38pm ]

  [ mood | numb ] [ music | this mess we’re in — PJ Harvey with Thom Yorke ]

  How sad is it that eco-activists and earthkeepers have to hide and cover their faces when they head out in public to defend the mother earth. As if they should be ashamed of knowing and doing what’s right. And in need of protecting.

  Shouldn’t the greedy C-E-Os who put profit ahead of the planet be the ones hiding? Instead they’re practically celebrities. The world has seriously gone crazy.

  link read 4 | post

  lacklusterlulu 02-02 22:42

  I’m not crazy. And neither are you. So let’s save the world sistah!

  www.wwf.ca

  Vague-a-bond 02-03 01:01

  I’ll help in anyway I can and promise do my very best (and least) every single day.

  I was in charge of getting gloves, balaclavas and nondescript packs. Vray had given me a hundred bucks (in small bills he’d had broken at a corner store, “just in case”) to get everything on the memorized list. They wanted everything on hand if we moved up the plan. So the next day after school, I took the subway and streetcar to Kensington Market.

  Amidst the food stalls and second-hand boutiques were a bunch of rag-tag shops that sold reflective construction-worker vests, knitted dockworker toques, woolie socks and other sensible low-tech stuff. Basically everything necessary to disguise us so we could wreak havoc and make our grand environmental statement.

  Instead I found myself wandering into one of those old-style taverns and ordering a beer. I didn’t even think I liked beer, but it felt like the thing to do at that particular moment. The moment when I felt more like an actor in a movie than a sixteen-year-old wannabe activist trainwreck. So really, I wasn’t surprised when the grizzled guy behind the bar deposited a bottle in front of me without blinking. Maybe he knew I was underage and didn’t care. At this point it was the least of my law-breaking activities.

  I moved to a seat by the window to watch the world go by. The students with their loaded book bags, the spiky tattooed punkers with their snarling doggies, the old shuffling Asian ladies towing bundle buggies, the hardworking storekeepers. All those strangers going about their lives, totally clueless about the person right beside them. Or watching them. Or maybe even their wife, or kids, or brother, or neighbor, or dad.

  I mean, if we could put on a quasi-costume and fool ourselves into behaving like other people, how hard could it be to fool everyone else?

  I took a sip of the beer. It tasted cold and sour in my mouth.

  twenty_

  “What’s all this?
” Vray asked as I dumped a few cans of spraypaint from my pack onto his bed.

  “Our supplies,” I announced.

  “We’re not tagging anything. We’re in and we’re out,” he explained. “If we want cred, we’ll post a manifesto on the E-L-F site after.” He poked around in my pack and pulled out the two balaclavas I’d also bought. “Where’s the rest of the stuff? There are four of us.”

  “No, there are two,” I answered. “Me and you. I’ll make a bunch of U-SUX posters. I’ve got gloves, glue and spray-paint but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” he said. “This is just nerves, right, babe? Trust me, they’ll pass. They always do.”

  “No. This is the plan. My plan. The only plan.”

  “Or what? You’ll call it off?” he laughed. He went to his desk, grabbed a stack of photos of the dealership and handed them to me. “We’ve spent a ton of time planning this, scouting, taking pictures, playing out scenarios, looking at every angle the way we do every time.”

  “What other times?” I asked calmly, both curious and terrified.

  “You in or out?”

  “I’m calling it off,” I said flatly, suddenly realizing the whole adventure had taken on a life of its own and was raging out of control. And I needed to take that control back. No matter what it took.

  “You can’t,” he said. “It’s not up to you.”

  “Yes I can and I am.”

  “You do and we’re done,” he answered quietly.

  “Go through with it and we’re done,” I snapped back, feeling suddenly strong and absolutely, totally right.

  “You don’t mean that,” he said suddenly, defensive.

  “Stop telling me what I mean and what I want and who I am. Just stop it already!”

  “I’m not, I just...” He stared at me, and for the first time since I’d known him I saw confusion in his eyes.

  “Look, I don’t know what kind of whacked superhero shit you did before we met, or what else you have cooking and I can’t do anything about that,” I said, letting out a long, slow breath. “But this was my idea, my idea you twisted into something ugly and wrong and I’m taking it back.”