by Ann Bryant
“Someone had a party?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh, right. And what are you doing with the rubbish?”
“Taking it to be recycled… When I’ve cleaned the plates.”
“So how come you’re the only one doing the work?”
“Dunno… I think it’s…quite important…you know…to recycle stuff.”
I glanced sideways and noticed Juliet’s embarrassed eyes, then looked back at the film. The next thing we saw was me walking right into the distance with the bin liners, on and on and on, with not a sound. And there wasn’t a sound in the hall either, but Bryony was still squeezing my hand tight, thank goodness. And then the film suddenly stopped and Ms. Carmichael was back in the middle of the platform again.
“Emily, would you like to come up, please?” she said quietly.
And my heart banged against my ribs as I slowly got up. Then, as I began to walk to the front, the whole hall burst into applause, which made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
“I won’t ask you to make a speech or anything,” said Ms. Carmichael, which was a big relief, because there was no way I’d be able to speak to the whole school. I was far too nervous. “But Mrs. Pridham has something to say, I think.”
And then Mrs. Pridham came out to the front and stood beside me. “I’ve actually got something to show you. You have Miss Gerard to thank for this. After I mentioned your original plan for the money raised at your clothes sale, she persuaded me that this was just what the school needs.” Mrs. Pridham gave a little chuckle as she lifted pieces of cardboard off some sort of box that had been on the platform all the time, but which I hadn’t really paid any attention to. And there, right before my eyes, was a huge wormery.
“Oh, thank you! It’s amazing, Mrs. Pridham! I can’t believe it!”
Mrs. Pridham looked as happy as I felt, but lots of people were calling out to ask what it was.
“You explain, Emily,” whispered Mrs. Pridham.
So I did.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming to our clothes sale,” I began. “With the money that we raised we’ve bought this wormery. There are about five hundred composting worms in here…” One or two people made disgusted noises, but I just ignored them and carried on. “The way it works is that you throw in apple cores or banana peel, and even things like the hair from your hairbrushes, and newspaper and stuff, and the worms will make the best ever compost, which will help the new vegetables to grow in the garden, and the peelings will be recycled into compost too, and so it will go…on and on. Everything in nature works in cycles like this and the secret is to keep in tune with nature’s plan. And Silver Spires will be helping that cycle. It will be truly…recycling.”
I stopped and looked at Mrs. Pridham to see if that was all right and she broke into a big beaming smile, and then someone was clapping, and I looked across to see Stan standing up and clapping his hands right out in front of him, as though he was trying to reach all the way to me. The next minute, everyone was joining in. I tried to find Bryony’s face in the sea of faces in front of me, but all I could see was Juliet. I noticed her cheeks were very red as her eyes met mine.
“Can I go?” I asked Mrs. Pridham, which made her laugh for some reason.
Ms. Carmichael then raised her hand for silence and asked for a show of hands, so she could get a rough idea of how many people would be interested in joining me in my gardening club. “There will be a sheet on the noticeboard in the main reception hall for everyone who is interested to sign their name.”
Immediately, it seemed like at least half the school raised their hands, even the teachers. And that was when I saw that one of the other cameramen was filming away, and I realized that he had been recording all through the whole assembly.
As I made my way back to my friends, loads of people kept patting me on the back and congratulating me as I passed.
“This is mad! I feel like a film star or something,” I whispered to Bryony when I was finally back beside her and everyone had sat down again.
“You are,” was all she said. My best friend never says loads of words when two will do.
This time I squeezed her hand. And inside my shaky self, my heart squeezed with happiness as I thought about Mum and Dad watching the film.
From little seeds grow big results.
Yes! I’d actually made it happen.
Emily’s Top Ten Eco Tips
Growing your own veg is just one way of helping to protect our fab planet. Here are my top ten tips for being a gorgeously green girl!
* Invest in a cool canvas shopping bag and say goodbye to nasty non-biodegradable plastic.
* Don’t throw your old clothes out to rot in landfill sites. Donate them to charity shops, or swap them with your friends for a fun – and free – new look!
* Always recycle paper, glass and cans and check for the recycling symbol on your plastic. Try to buy products made using recycled materials too.
* Get on your bike! It’s greener and cheaper than getting lifts in cars or catching the bus all the time, plus you’ll get fit too!
* Save water by turning the tap off in between gulps when you’re brushing your teeth.
* If you get a new mobile phone, remember to recycle your old one – many charity shops will take them, and it stops chemicals from the phone ending up in the earth.
* If you’re not using your TV or computer, turn it off – a computer monitor left on overnight wastes enough energy to microwave six dinners!
* Think twice before asking your parents to turn the heating up. Try sticking on an extra-cosy jumper and some snuggly socks instead.
* Why not adopt or sponsor an endangered animal for yourself, or as a present for your friends? You’ll often get cute pics, and a certificate too.
* Never, ever litter. It can harm animals, damages the environment and it looks…well, rubbish!
If everyone does their little bit to look after our amazing planet, we can really make a difference. Good luck, green girls!
Now turn the page for a sneak preview of the next unmissable School Friends story…
Chapter One
“Don’t let me see it!” squealed Emily, covering her eyes dramatically.
“Oh sorry!” I said, quickly whipping the mask I’d almost finished painting away from my face, and hiding it behind my back.
Maybe this was another English thing I didn’t know about. Perhaps there’s a – what do you call it? – yes, a superstition that it’s bad luck to wear a mask inside a building or something.
My best friend, Nicole, quickly reassured me. “Don’t worry, Antonia,” she said. “It’s just that Emily likes surprises.”
Across the room I could see Mr. Cary, the art teacher, shaking his head at Emily as though she was mad. But his eyes were twinkling.
“It’ll be tons more fun when it comes to the Italian evening if we haven’t seen each other’s masks before,” Emily added.
I agreed with Emily really, and that was why we six friends had been quite secretive when we’d been making and decorating our masks so far. But I just hadn’t been able to resist showing mine off, which was stupid of me when I already know how exciting it is to see a mass of masks and have no idea whose faces are behind them. I can so clearly remember the thrill I felt when I set eyes on all the thousands of people dressed up in their masks at the Carnevale I went to with my family last February. The word “carnevale” is Italian for “carnival”. And for Italian people like me, the one that takes place in Venice is the best one, not only in Italy, but in the whole world. Mamma and Papà and my two brothers and I had what I think you would call “the time of our lives” when we were there last year.
It feels so strange thinking about it now, here in the art room at Silver Spires Boarding School for Girls. Of course, I had absolutely no idea back then that I’d be coming to a school in England in September.
“Why don’t we each just show our mask to our best friend so that they can check it’s al
l right?” suggested sensible Sasha.
The rest of us thought that was a brilliant idea, except for Emily, who had nowhere near finished hers. But all the same, we went off in pairs with our masks into different corners of the art room.
“Hey, that’s brilliant!” Nicole said when she saw mine properly.
Her eyes were all shiny and I could tell she really liked it, which was a big relief, as I was the one who came up with the idea of making masks in the first place. It all started when we came back to school after the spring half-term holiday, and Mrs. Pridham, our housemistress, announced that Forest Ash boarding house (which is where we live and is definitely the best boarding house, by the way) was to have an Italian evening during this half of term. I know she chose Italy because that’s my home country, and I feel very – how do you say it? – yes, very touched.
“I’d like you to take a leading part in helping to organize the evening, Antonia,” were Mrs. Pridham’s exact words, spoken with her usual bright smile. “I need to pick your brains for ideas.”
Then we’d both laughed, because I’d wrinkled my nose in disgust at the thought of her picking my brains. I’d never heard that expression before. There’s still so much English for me to learn, but at least now I can understand most things and I can usually manage to say whatever I want to say.
As it happened, I was bursting with ideas, because we love parties and festivals and carnivals in Italy, especially in my own family. Mio papà – sorry, my dad – owns a restaurant. He employs two chefs to do all the cooking there. Papà is a very well-known TV chef in Italy, so he doesn’t have much time to cook at our lovely Ristorante Alessandro himself. He only does it on special occasions – usually when we’re celebrating a birthday in our family or something like that, and then we decorate the whole restaurant and often dress up in fancy dress, and play Italian folk music, so the atmosphere is brillante – sorry, brilliant!
When I first came here last September at the beginning of Year Seven, if ever my mind slipped off into thoughts about my family and our lovely house in Milan, I would feel so homesick it was almost unbearable. But then Nicole and I became best best friends and that changed everything for me. I didn’t feel alone any more. The other four girls in the dormitory – Izzy, Sasha, Emily and Bryony – had been very friendly and kind to me, but Nicole just hadn’t seemed to like me at first. It all turned out to be a great big misunderstanding, thank goodness, and from the moment we got it all sorted out I felt like a new person. A person who could cope with all the differences between my old life in Italy at a day school and my new life in England at a boarding school.
When I came back after Christmas I realized I truly loved Silver Spires. Nicole taught me the expression It’s like a home from home, and that’s a good way of explaining how I feel now.
Nicole was touching the braid that I’d stuck on my mask around the holes for the eyes. Then her fingers moved to the part on one side that I’d painted gold. The paint was all dry because I’d done that bit first. “How did you get it to look like real gold, Antonia?” she asked me, frowning.
“By using many layers of paint,” I told her.
“Lots of layers,” she corrected me.
“Lots of layers,” I repeated, feeling grateful, as I always do, that I’ve got someone to help me get better and better at English. I could hardly speak it at all last September, because Mamma and my grandparents on Mamma’s side are all Italian, and Papà is half-Italian. His mum is English, so he speaks both languages, but we only ever speak Italian at home.
“Anyway, show me your mask, Nicole,” I said, feeling excited as a sudden picture of the whole of Forest Ash wearing masks at the Italian evening flashed through my head.
“It’s quite boring compared to yours,” she said, quietly.
But it wasn’t. For a start, her mask covered more of her face than mine did and it was in the shape of a cat’s face, with whiskers and everything.
“It’s totally fab!” I said. Then we both burst out laughing, because I’d only just learned that word and I was so proud of it I couldn’t stop using it. “Fab, fab, fab!”
“That’s the tenth time today!” Nicole said, giving me one of her teacher looks. “Sei pazza!” she added.
That means “You’re crazy!” in Italian. Nicole wants me to teach her as many words as possible in Italian, and she’s a very fast learner because she’s so clever – definitely the cleverest in our group of friends.
“Right, everybody!” said Mr. Cary. “Looks like you’ve had a good lunchtime session. But let’s have a bit of a clear-up, yes? The bell for afternoon school will be going in a minute.”
He was right. And we all had to rush around tidying everything away, because the first lesson of the afternoon was PE and it’s quite a way from the art room to the netball courts, and we all needed to get changed.
As we hurried off, with our school bags hanging from our shoulders and bashing against our hips, we changed the subject from the Italian evening to the bike ride that was coming up. It was Izzy who started it off.
“I can’t wait till Sunday,” she said. “It’s going to be so cool going on an outing all together.”
“Aren’t we lucky that we’ve got two things to look forward to in this half of term!” said Sasha, who’s Izzy’s best friend. Then she pulled a face. “Well actually I’m not totally over the moon about the bike ride, to be honest. I mean, I used to go out on my bike quite a lot when I was younger, but I haven’t done it for ages, and I can’t imagine I’ll be fit enough.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Izzy. “Mrs. Mellor said we’d be stopping roughly every half hour for a break, remember.”
“Yes, they’re called ‘pit stops’, those breaks,” said Bryony, who is definitely the fittest and the most adventurous of us all. She and Emily are best friends because they both love to live outside. Oh, that’s not very good English. Let me think… Yes, they both love the outdoor life – that’s better. In fact, Emily’s family have got a farm in Ireland, so she’s used to being outside most of the time. She told us we were very honoured to have her with us in the art room at lunchtime, when she really wished she was gardening in her special patch of land behind the school kitchens where she’s starting to grow vegetables. We all knew that was true but not one of us took offence, because Emily didn’t mean it horribly. She just speaks her mind and we’re used to it.
“I’m looking forward to the lunch on Sunday,” I told the others. “I’ve never had a picnic indoors before!”
“I know!” squeaked Emily. “It’s in a barn, isn’t it? With hay bales to sit on!”
“I think it’s the parents of a Year Nine girl from Beech House who own the barn,” said Bryony. “Mrs. Truman said it’s huge, which is lucky ’cos she also said there are about thirty of us who’ve signed up for the bike ride!”
“What’s that?” came Mrs. Truman’s voice as we went into the changing room to get ready for netball. “What did Mrs. Truman say?” she added in a pretending-to-be-strict voice.
“We were just talking about the bike ride,” Sasha explained. “Are there about thirty of us going on it?”
“That’s right! And mainly Year Sevens like you lot, so you’ll need to be fit!” Mrs. Truman was hurrying us all up. “Get a move on now, girls!”
Get a move on. That sounds really funny to me. Like I said, I’ve still got a lot of English to learn!
After lessons finished for the afternoon, Nicole and I went back to Forest Ash to get our bikes from the outhouse behind it. Sasha and Izzy decided to come with us, but Bryony went off with Emily to work in her garden.
“I wish we could go off the premises,” said Izzy. “I really want a proper practice, not just a ride around the Silver Spires grounds.”
“It’s quite a long distance if we go up the main lane and down all the side paths, though,” Nicole pointed out. “And round the tennis courts and everywhere.”
I knew I’d be perfectly happy to ride around the grounds h
ere – I love every centimetre of it. “And the grounds are so beautiful,” I added.
“I know. It’s just that I really wanted to have a chance to get used to riding with traffic – and obviously there’s none of that here,” said Izzy.
“Mrs. Truman said she’d organized a route that hardly touches main roads for Sunday,” said Sasha.
But I agreed with Izzy about the traffic. I’m used to riding a bike because I’ve done it on holiday at our little house in the mountains ever since I was about four, but that’s a really quiet place with hardly any traffic. Also, I have to remember to ride on the left-hand side of the road when I am in England.
“It must have seemed a bit weird putting your bike on the plane!” Nicole said to me, as we got our helmets on.
I nodded as I remembered how I felt when we picked it up from the special collection point in the airport. A part of me was really excited of course, but there was still a little part of me feeling sad, because this would be the first time I would be on a bike ride without my family.
In the end, the four of us rode round the Silver Spires grounds about three times and it was great fun. We didn’t want to run anyone down so we couldn’t go fast, because after school there are always loads of people milling about, either on their way to clubs or just…what’s the phrase? Oh yes, just hanging out. I like saying that!
“What else is happening on the Italian evening, Antonia?” said Sasha, as we put our bikes away and went over to Emily’s garden so the six of us could all go to supper together.
“Well, Nicole, Matron and I are going to perform a little play in Italian,” I said. “We’re going to mime a lot, and at the end we’ll see if anyone could understand what it was about!”
Nicole’s eyes widened with worry. “Only don’t tell anyone about it yet, because I might be rubbish and then we’ll have to abandon it.”
“You won’t be rubbish!” I promised her.
