It's a Green Thing (3 page)

“Don't get so worked up, Maya.” But she took a couple of steps back like she thought I was going to hit her. Okay, maybe I felt like hitting her, but I would never do something like that.

“And quit being so mean to Brooke.” This came from Amanda, who was standing by her friend now.

“I'm not being mean,” I said as calmly as I could. “I just think we should show some respect for the environment.”

Brooke laughed. “What are you? Some kind of environmental freak? A green bean?”

“A tree-hugger?” added Amanda.

Well, all I could do was just walk away. Still, I plan to stand my
ground on not contaminating the environment. To my surprise, Marissa, Spencer, and Jake all backed me on this—although it's possible that it was simply their way of standing against Brooke and Amanda. I think Matt was afraid to say anything. Mostly I'm hoping that Brooke and Amanda won't show tomorrow.

After Marissa dropped me at Kim and my uncle's house (I still have a hard time calling it home, although I want to), I was still feeling grumpy. And when I saw Kim putting something in the garbage can, well, I kind of lost it.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?” Her dark eyes grew large. “Taking out the trash.”

“But is that really trash?” I pulled an empty tomato soup can off the top of the bag in her hands. “This can be recycled.”

She shrugged. “Yes, I know that.”

“And this.” I grabbed an empty peanut butter jar.

“Yes…” She frowned.

“And these newspapers?” I pulled a section of the news out, sending garbage tumbling onto the garage floor. “I can use these to compost with.” I've already been scavenging items for the compost station out in the garden. Although my uncle has been forgetting and throwing his used coffee grounds down the sink. But this morning I told him that coffee grounds can mess up his plumbing, and he seemed to listen.

Kim made a face at me. “Looks like I've been arrested by the EP.”

“EP?”

“Environmental Police.” She set down the garbage bag. “Do you plan to lock me up, or can I get off with just a fine?”

I forced a smile. “Sorry, I guess I came on a little strong.” Then I told her about Brooke. “I guess I'm hypersensitive today.” I looked down at the spilled trash. “And this is your house. I really don't have any—”

“Look, Maya…” Kim paused. “You're absolutely right to care about the environment. And I totally agree with you.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Except that recycling takes time. And I work all day. And then there are household chores and dinner and—”

“And I should help out more,” I said, feeling guilty.

“No, you've been helping a lot.”

“How about I take over the trash detail? I could separate recyclables and make a system that's easy for everyone to use.”

She nodded. “That would be awesome, Maya. I'm sure Dad would appreciate it too.”

So that's just what I did. And it probably sounds crazy to some people, but getting everything all organized actually felt really good to me. Okay, maybe it was one small step for Maya Stark, but it was one giant leap for the Peterson household—and not bad for the environment either. To start with, I retrieved several old five-gallon buckets from my aunt's garden shed. I cleaned them up and clearly labeled them. One for glass. One for metal. One for soda cans that can be returned to the store for a refund. One for newspapers. Then I called the garbage service to find out
if and when they pick up these things. As it turned out, they don't. And I thought that was wrong. So I approached my uncle.

“I can't believe your town doesn't encourage recycling,” I said as I showed him my new system. “Lots of sanitation businesses offer special boxes for their customers to use to separate their recyclables.”

To my surprise he wholeheartedly agreed with me. And he appreciated that I'd set them up to recycle. “Maybe there's a way we can encourage this through the newspaper,” he said. “Because you're right. We need to catch up with the times here.”

And so, despite the irritation of people like Brooke Marshall, I am feeling hopeful. There are people who are concerned about the planet. And really, shouldn't Christians be extra concerned? I mean, they know the God who created the planet. Doesn't that make them want to take special care of it?

T
oday, the third day of the mural project, my patience wore extremely thin. Not only were Brooke and Amanda making me miserable, but they also managed to drive off Spencer and Jake. Now I'm not terribly surprised that Spencer left, since he didn't really seem to get the work ethic, plus he wasn't making any headway with Marissa or me. But I was disappointed that these two girls were able to offend Jake. Because he is actually a Christian too. I'm pretty sure he got fed up with their “preaching” and as a result never returned after our lunch break. Who could blame him after they actually questioned his faith?

“Why do you have that evil-looking tattoo?” Brooke asked when Jake rolled up his sleeve and she caught sight of the dragon image on his arm.

“What makes it evil?” Marissa paused from mixing a can of paint and glared at Brooke. “I happen to think dragons are pretty cool.”

“Yuck,” Amanda said. “Dragons are a sign of the devil.”

“Says who?” Jake said.

I was perched on a piece of scaffolding, trying to focus on my sketching. Not that it was easy to ignore them.

“Everyone knows that dragons are satanic,” Brooke said. “The Bible says so.”

“Where in the Bible does it say that?” Jake said.

“I don't know where exactly,” spouted Brooke. “I just know it's there.”

“Besides,” Amanda said, “I can't imagine why anyone would want a dragon permanently imprinted on his body.”

“Or any image, for that matter,” Brooke added. “Tattoos are evil.”

“So dragons are evil, and tattoos are evil,” Jake said. “Does that mean I'm evil too?”

“It means you're inviting evil in,” Amanda declared.

“How can you possibly know that?” I questioned from up high. I glanced at Marissa now. She just rolled her eyes and dabbed on a spot of magenta. But suddenly I wanted to apologize to her for questioning her dragon sketch on Monday. In fact, I almost wished we had decided to use it after all. Brooke and Amanda certainly wouldn't have offered to help with something that “evil.”

“Because it's obvious,” Brooke said. “Just look at dragons, and you'll know they're evil.”

“Who made you the expert on dragons?” I shot down at them. “And what about Puff the magic dragon? Was he evil?” Then I started loudly singing the old folk song, and Marissa and Jake
joined in with me, and I hoped that would be the end of it. But as soon as we stopped singing for lack of lyrics, Brooke started in again.

“You see?” she said in that superior tone. “Puff was magic, and everyone knows that magic is evil.”

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” I demanded, ready to engage.

“It's a well-known fact that dragons and magic and witches and all those things are evil,” declared Amanda.

Fortunately, it was around noon by then, and Matt, who until then hadn't said a word, suggested we take a lunch break. I was actually hoping that Brooke and Amanda would be offended enough by our dragon position to call it a day and not come back. But as I mentioned, it was Jake and Spencer who didn't return. And for Jake's sake, and ours, I felt sorry.

“If we weren't so desperate to get this project done, I'd tell those two girls to take a hike,” Marissa whispered as we both stood on the scaffolding scrutinizing the mural's progress this afternoon. I was drawing, and she was following behind me, keying in the paint colors. Our new time-saving strategy was to sketch the outlines, then put dots of color so the “painters” knew what color to paint the various shapes. So far, other than religious differences, it all seemed to be turning out just fine.

“I know,” I muttered. “And if it makes you feel any better, I'm sorry I called in the church people.”

“See, you should've listened to me.”

“But Matt is nice.”

“I think he's an anomaly.”

“And me?”

She nodded. “Yes. Both of you.”

“Another thing,” I said quietly. “I'm sorry about something else.”

“What?”

“That I rejected your dragon suggestion.”

She snickered. “Can you imagine Brooke and Amanda painting that evil image?”

“My point exactly.” I glanced down to where the preacher girls were working on a section of varying shades of purple.

Marissa shrugged. “Well, whether we like them or not, they've actually turned out to be fairly good painters.”

“I suppose.”

“So if we can just avoid talking about dragons and witches, maybe we'll survive this and be done with it in a few more days.”

“Hello up there,” called a guy's voice.

I looked down to see Dominic and another guy I didn't recognize waving at us.

“Dominic!” Brooke ran over and threw herself at him in a big hug. “I'm so glad you came.”

Okay, I have to wonder why some girls think it's acceptable to literally throw themselves at a guy that way. Is it because they're cute and petite and assume that every guy can't wait to get his
arms around them? I'm just not comfortable acting like that. Plus there's always the chance for rejection.

But Amanda was right there too, hugging Dominic with equal enthusiasm and warmly greeting his friend, who was actually rather good-looking too. Not as handsome as Dominic, who could pass for a young Johnny Depp with blue eyes, although I think Dominic's taller.

“Are you guys here to help us?”

“You bet,” Dominic said. “Hey, Maya, how's it going?”

“Pretty good. You're really here to paint?”

“Of course,” Brooke said in that I-know-it-all voice. “I'm the one who called and invited him in the first place.”

“And this is my new friend, Eddie Valdez.” Dominic introduced Eddie to everyone, including Marissa, which surprised me. I didn't know Dominic actually knew her by name. “Eddie's family just moved next door to us. And I coerced him to come and help with this project.”

“Cool,” Brooke said. “We're in need of some
good
workers.”

I wanted to point out this was only because she and Amanda had driven the others away, but I managed to bite my tongue. Still, as the afternoon wore on, it wasn't easy to keep my thoughts to myself. From the way Brooke spoke to Dominic and Eddie, you'd have assumed that she was in charge of the entire project. It's like she wanted to take the credit for everything. And that irked me.

“The children who use this building are really going to like this mural,” she said when Dominic complimented the design.
“It's colorful and fun, and of course you probably know that the rainbow is a Christian symbol.”

“What's that you're saying about the rainbow?” Marissa said from up high on the scaffolding.

“That it's a religious symbol,” Brooke said. “Surely you know that.”

“I know that it's a symbol used by the homosexual community,” Marissa said in a slightly smug voice. “Also there's the human rights Rainbow Coalition.”

“Well, that's only because they stole it from the church.”

“They
stole
it?” said Marissa. “Wow, how does someone go about stealing a rainbow? And how does someone else claim ownership of a rainbow in the first place?”

“You should try reading the Bible,” said Amanda. “It explains a lot of things.”

“Along with the dragons, I suppose,” said Marissa.

“You guys don't want to pay too much attention to Marissa.” Brooke directed this to Dominic and Eddie. “She's not a Christian, you know. And she thinks dragons and magic and all that are perfectly fine.”

“Yes,” said Marissa. “You little girls better watch out. I'm probably a witch too. I might cast a spell on you.” She waved her paintbrush like a wand as if to prove her point.

Okay, I couldn't help but laugh at that. Although Brooke and Amanda didn't think it was very funny, and I'm not sure what Dominic and Eddie thought. But I decided the best thing to do
was to return my focus to my drawing. What was the point in arguing with people like Brooke and Amanda? Who knows how their minds work? Or if they even do.

But I do know this. The sooner that mural gets done, the happier I'll be. Still, I can't help but wonder about “Christians” who act like that. I mean, aren't Christians supposed to love everyone? That's what I recall the members in my grandmother's church saying, back when I was little. At least I think that's how it went. Perhaps I've gotten things mixed up over the years. Anyway, it seems I have lots of questions… I just hope I can find some answers.