Dawn Saves the Planet Read online

  That was partly my fault, I guess. Once the project had been taken away from me, I hadn’t felt like doing anything to help create the recycling center. In fact, for a while I thought if I even heard the word recycle again, I’d scream.

  Mrs. Gonzalez did ask me to be in charge of the newsletter and I couldn’t very well have said no. I mean, she was my teacher, and pretty soon she’d be grading my science project.

  “The newsletter is the most important part of this project,” she had told me. “It will go to all of the parents of students at SMS, and be distributed to the library, banks, and the grocery stores and merchants downtown. I know you can make it a good one.”

  She didn’t add that it was one project that didn’t require me to work with anyone else. But I got the picture.

  I worked really hard on the newsletter, anyway. I wanted to show Cokie and Grace and all the students at SMS that they couldn’t defeat me. But I didn’t volunteer to do anything else for the center. I didn’t paint signs or distribute fliers. I didn’t even offer to help out on opening day. And nobody asked me to. I guess that was what was bugging me.

  “Dawn?” Mary Anne stuck her head into my room. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure.” I turned around to face her and plastered a smile on my face. I held up my brush. “I was just trying to comb a few knots out of my hair.”

  “Oh.” Mary Anne came into the room and sat on the edge of my bed, watching me carefully. “I thought you might be feeling a little, um, weird about today.”

  Leave it to Mary Anne to know what I was thinking.

  “I mean, this was your idea,” she continued. “And they didn’t even put your picture in the paper.”

  The Stoneybrook News had sent a reporter and a photographer to our school on Friday. They’d interviewed Mrs. Gonzalez and the vice-principal and asked a few of the students who were putting last minute touches on the recycling bins to pose for them. Mrs. Gonzalez had mentioned my name to the reporter but hadn’t suggested they photograph me, too.

  That hurt. I didn’t want to admit it, though. Not even to Mary Anne. So I tried to laugh it off.

  “My name was already in the article three times,” I said. “I guess they figured a photo would go to my head.”

  Mary Anne gave my shoulders a squeeze. “Well, if it means anything to you, I think your picture should have been in the paper. I also think you should be the one cutting the ribbon today.”

  I shrugged. “The students elected Mrs. Gonzalez to head the project. She really should do it.”

  “Dawn!”

  This time it was my mother calling from the kitchen. “Do we have to separate the plastic bottles from the glass?”

  “Yes!” I called as Mary Anne and I came down the stairs. “And it would help if you separated the clear glass from the brown and green.”

  My mother was standing in the center of the kitchen surrounded by paper bags and cardboard boxes. “This is a lot of work,” she said, blowing a strand of hair off her forehead.

  “Not really,” I said, tossing a green bottle into a separate box. “Once you have the proper containers, recycling should only take about fifteen minutes of your time a week.”

  The kitchen door opened and Richard came inside. “Well, the trunk’s full,” he announced. “It looks like we’ll have to put the rest of this stuff in the backseat.”

  “Oh, dear.” My mother wrinkled her nose. “Won’t that be messy?”

  Richard (who is Mr. Neatnik) shook his head. “I’ve covered the seat with trash bags.”

  I patted my mother on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mom, it will never be as big a load as this again. Now that the recycling center is open, we can make one trip a week.”

  Richard picked up two more boxes and paused as he passed me. “Dawn, you should be very proud of yourself. This recycling center is good for the entire town.”

  I smiled but didn’t say anything. I hadn’t told a soul about what I’d heard in the hall the day the election results were announced. I was too embarrassed.

  In fact, my mom and Richard had no idea how hard it was going to be for me to watch the opening ceremonies.

  “Now according to this newsletter,” my mother said as the four of us headed for the car, “all we have to do is drive into the parking lot at SMS, and students will take care of the sorting. Is that right?”

  “I think so,” I said. “Then later on today, parent volunteers will move the bins over to the main recycling center downtown, and empty them.”

  “Somebody had to do a lot of planning to make this happen,” Richard said.

  “You can thank Dawn for that,” Mary Anne said, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. “She drew up the entire plan and gave it to Mrs. Gonzalez.”

  My mother checked her watch. “We’d better get a move on if we’re going to make the opening ceremonies.”

  “There’s no need to hurry,” I said. “The band plays first, and you know how terrible they can be.”

  Mary Anne giggled. “They have to announce the name of the song before they play it. Otherwise no one would ever recognize the tune.”

  Our car was so packed with bottles and newspapers that the four of us had to cram into the front seat. I sat in Mary Anne’s lap. We arrived at the school with two minutes to spare.

  As we pulled into the parking lot, my stomach felt as if it were tied in knots. Colorful flags waved from poles bordering the recycling station, with a banner stretched between them. It looked like a carnival, or a county fair. The recycling bins had been painted in reds, yellows, blues, and greens. On either side of each bin stood a student volunteer, ready to help people sort their trash.

  “Hey!” Mary Anne leaned forward and peered through the windshield. “There’s Claudia and everyone!”

  The members of the BSC were gathered around a health food stand that had been set up by the entrance to the parking lot. They were clutching large bran muffins, laughing and joking together as they ate.

  “Dawn, do you want me to drop you off here?” Richard joked. “It looks like there are enough muffins at that table to last you a week.”

  I tried to laugh but only a weak chuckle came out. “No, thanks. I’ve already eaten.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see my friends. It’s just that I didn’t feel much like socializing with anyone.

  Mary Anne shot me a worried glance. She knew what I was going through. “We can catch up with them later,” she whispered to me.

  Richard backed the car up to the bins and got out to open the trunk. He was met by Pete Black, who said, “Here’s a raffle ticket, sir. Thank you for recycling.”

  “A raffle ticket?” my mother’s ears perked up. “What’s the prize?”

  “A dinner for two at Chez Maurice, plus two tickets to the movie of your choice at the Stoneybrook Cinema.”

  “Sounds great,” Richard replied.

  Then Emily Bernstein stepped forward. “Here’s a pamphlet explaining why recycling is so good for the earth and a form to fill out if you want to subscribe to P3.”

  “P3?” Mary Anne tossed a box of colored glass in the red bin. “What’s that?”

  I answered before Emily could. “P3 is a terrific environmental magazine for kids.”

  “What does the ‘P3’ stand for?” Mary Anne asked.

  Emily started to reply, then shrugged. “You know, I’m not really sure.”

  “Planet-3,” I answered. “Which is Earth, the third planet from the sun.”

  Richard looped one arm across my shoulders and beamed proudly at me. “Hey, you really know your stuff!”

  I should have felt wonderful but I didn’t. I watched the student teams from SMS working together, smoothly directing parents to the different bins and handing out pamphlets. I felt like a total outsider.

  This had been my idea. I was the one who had talked the vice-principal and the school into having a recycling center. Now I wasn’t even a part of it.

  “May I have your attention, please!” Mr. Kingbri
dge’s voice came over the loudspeaker system that had been set up in the parking lot. “I’d like to welcome you to Stoneybrook Middle School’s brand new recycling center.”

  Mr. Kingbridge looked strange. Usually he wore a black or gray suit, a white shirt, and some dull tie. Today he was dressed in a striped rugby shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes (but he still looked like a man who should have been in a suit).

  “We are thrilled with the turnout today,” Mr. Kingbridge continued. “Everyone, give yourselves a big hand!” He paused and squinted out at the crowd as we applauded. “The mayor of Stoneybrook is here because she believes what we are doing is very important to our school, to our community, and to the world. Isn’t that right, Mayor Keane?”

  The woman in the brown suit standing next to Mr. Kingbridge nodded pleasantly.

  “And now, as we cut the ribbon, I’d like to introduce the person responsible for this project. If it hadn’t been for her, today would never have happened.”

  That had to be me! I was going to be introduced after all. Mary Anne turned and smiled in my direction and my heart started beating faster as I waited for Mr. Kingbridge to announce my name.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give a big round of applause for Estelle Gonzalez.”

  The smile slid off of Mary Anne’s face and she blurted out, “But what about Dawn?”

  Luckily the clapping was so loud that nobody but me heard her. Otherwise I would have died of embarrassment.

  The rest of the ceremony seemed to last for hours, though I know it was only a few minutes. At the end of the ribbon cutting the band played “America the Beautiful.” Then the crowd broke up.

  I couldn’t wait to get back to the car. Mary Anne, after saying a quick hello to Kristy and the rest of the BSC, joined me in the backseat. “You should feel very proud of what you’ve done,” she said as our parents got into the car.

  “Maybe I should,” I mumbled, folding my arms across my chest and slumping down in the seat. “But I don’t. So let’s just get out of here, okay?”

  Neither of us said another word the entire trip home.

  Kristy baby-sits for the Kormans often because they’re neighbors. The Kormans live across the street and one house down from the Brewer mansion. Their house is really huge, too, but much fancier than Kristy’s. It used to belong to the Delaneys, who spent tons of money on really outrageous things. For instance, they put this big fish fountain in their front hallway. They also installed an immense swimming pool and a clay tennis court in their backyard. They put gold faucets in the bathrooms and fancy furniture in all of the rooms. And there are a lot of rooms!

  Anyway, the Kormans live there now and they are really nice. Mr. and Mrs. Korman have three great kids — Bill (who’s nine), Melody (who’s seven), and little Skylar (who is one-and-a-half). Not too long after they moved to Stoneybrook, Melody became good friends with Kristy’s stepsister, Karen.

  The kids are a lot of fun and have active imaginations. Usually that’s good, but now and then it makes for some unusual problems. Right after they moved in, Bill and Melody decided that a monster lived in their bathroom. (Actually, Mary Anne had sort of helped them come up with the idea the first time she baby-sat for the Kormans.)

  In the beginning the kids had had fun inventing goofy monsters, like the hot dog monster, the tickle monster, and the tiptoe monster. But the toilet monster created all sorts of problems. The kids were afraid to go near the bathroom. They’d hide in their rooms listening to the gurgling sounds coming from the toilet and be too scared to go to sleep. Luckily for everyone, the Kormans finally called a plumber and got the pipes fixed. That took care of the toilet monster forever.

  On this Tuesday afternoon, the Korman kids weren’t thinking about monsters of any kind. They were too busy cutting up milk cartons and painting them.

  “Hi!” Mrs. Korman greeted Kristy at the front door. “We’re in the kitchen making a huge mess. Come on in.”

  “It’s not a mess,” Bill said as Kristy entered the kitchen. He was kneeling on newspapers that had been spread across the floor. “We’re building bird houses. These are very important.”

  “That’s right,” Melody said as she squeezed a bottle of white glue onto the edge of a milk carton. “We’re saving the animals of the planet.”

  “Let me guess,” Kristy said, flipping the brim of her baseball cap up as she knelt beside the kids. “This is for Dawn and Stacey’s class. Am I right?”

  “Right!” Bill and Melody said at the same time.

  Another voice joined in the chorus, shouting, “Wight!” That was Skylar. She was sitting in her high chair, with a handful of Cheerios on the tray in front of her, eagerly watching her brother and sister.

  “This class has been great for the kids,” Mrs. Korman said as she gathered her purse and sweater and pulled out her car keys. “Melody and Bill have made a lot of new friends and they’re learning some really valuable lessons.”

  Kristy nodded. “Dawn and Stacey’s class has changed a lot of people’s lives.”

  Mrs. Korman put one hand over her mouth and whispered, “Of course, at times it’s been a little awkward. The children watch us like hawks. Last week I threw an aluminum can in the garbage and Bill spent three days lecturing me about it.”

  “I know what you mean,” Kristy whispered back with a grin. “Karen and Andrew and David Michael have been acting the same way at our house. They’re driving everyone crazy. But I guess it’s good for us.”

  “I guess so.”

  Mrs. Korman gave Kristy the number where she could be reached, and left instructions for dinner. “There are applesauce and cottage cheese in the fridge, and you can make the kids —”

  “Hot dogs.” Bill finished her sentence without even looking up.

  “Well … yes.” Mrs. Korman blinked her eyes in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “We always eat hot dogs when baby-sitters are here,” Melody groaned.

  “But I thought you liked hot dogs.”

  “We do,” Bill said. “But not all the time.”

  Mrs. Korman pursed her lips. “Well, there’s a frozen pizza in the refrigerator. Would you rather eat that?”

  “Yay!” Bill raised his paintbrush and cheered.

  Their mother shrugged. “Then pizza it is. I’ll see you later.”

  After Mrs. Korman left, Kristy removed the pizza from the freezer, checked the cooking instructions, and set the oven to 350° to preheat it. “It looks like we only have twenty minutes before we’ll need to clean up and eat dinner,” she warned Bill and Melody.

  “That’s okay,” Melody said, sprinkling glitter on the glue design she’d made on the outside of her bird house. “My bird house should be finished by then.”

  “I want to cut out one more bird house before we stop,” Bill said. “Kristy, would you help me?”

  “Sure.” Kristy knelt beside him. “Just tell me what to do.”

  “Okay.” Bill handed her a milk carton. “What you see before you looks like an ordinary milk carton, but wait and see what can happen with a pair of scissors, a roll of tape, a piece of wire, and two nails.”

  Kristy turned to Melody. “It sounds like he’s rehearsed this speech.”

  “He has,” Melody said, rolling her eyes. “Over and over again. He’ll be giving it at his booth at the Green Fair.”

  Bill held the carton upside down. “First we make sure the carton is clean — that there’s no trace of milk left inside. Then we tear open the top. Then we take the scissors and cut out a hole about the size of a doorknob.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “That’ll be the birdies’ front door.”

  “Tweet! Tweet!” Skylar cried.

  “Now we turn the carton around,” Bill continued, “punch two holes in the back, and loop this wire through them.”

  Kristy was impressed with how skillful Bill was.

  “And then we seal up the carton.”

  “Wait!” Melody cried. “You forgot the most important part —
the dried grass.”

  “Yikes!” Bill grabbed a handful of the grass clippings piled on one corner of the newspapers and dropped them inside the carton. Then he said, in a much louder voice, “Now we tape the top of the carton closed.”

  “You can decorate the outside any way you want,” Melody said, pointing to her own handiwork.

  “And then you pound two nails into a tree,” Bill added, “and tie the wires around the nails.”

  “Then what?” Kristy asked.

  Bill smiled. “Then you sit back and wait for a bird family to move in.”

  “Make sure you hang the carton high enough on the tree that cats can’t get at it,” Melody warned.

  “Tat!” Skylar squawked. “No tats. No tats.”

  Kristy remembered then that Skylar is afraid of cats. Just hearing one mentioned could set her off for fifteen minutes. Kristy hurried to the high chair and smoothed Skylar’s hair. “Don’t worry. There aren’t any cats here.”

  “No tats!” Skylar whimpered.

  “Right,” Kristy said. “And just to be on the safe side …” Kristy crossed to the Kormans’ back door, opened it, and yelled, “Go away, cats. We don’t want you here.”

  Skylar stared wide-eyed at Kristy, who explained, “I’ve just told all the cats to leave. No cats will come here again.”

  As she spoke, Kristy crossed her fingers behind her back, silently hoping that Boo-Boo, Watson’s seventeen-pound tomcat, would never make his way into the Kormans’ yard.

  “My bird house is finished,” Bill announced, holding the carton in the air. He’d drawn blue stars all over it with a colored marker. “That makes six.”

  “Great!” said Kristy. “Now I’ll put the pizza in the oven while you kids clean up.”

  “We can’t clean everything up,” Melody said. “Because we have to make the tree feeders for my booth — the plant sale booth.”

  “Tree feeders?” Kristy repeated. “Are they made out of milk cartons?”

  “No!” Melody laughed. “They’re made out of trees and food.”

  “Twees and foo!” Skylar repeated.

  This time it was Melody’s turn to demonstrate. “You see, during the winter, the birds get really hungry. And they don’t have any bird grocery stores that they can go to for food. So by using our garbage we can feed them.”