Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots(4)
Author: Abby McDonald

“Can I be excused?” I finally abandon my food, appetite gone. “Olivia’s picking me up soon.”

“Are you going out?” Mom pauses.

I nod, already out of my seat. “Miriam Park is having a girls’ night in,” I lie, naming a girl from my lit class who drives around in a gas-guzzling SUV and wears heels to class. Heels! Mom, of course, loves her.

Just as I hoped, her face relaxes. “Oh, that sounds like fun.”

“I’ll be back by eleven thirty!”

3

I grab my purse and head out to the front of the house to wait, balancing back and forth along the edge of the sidewalk like I used to when I was a kid. We live at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, with neat front lawns and new-grown trees spaced twenty feet apart, looking as thin and pathetic as they did when we first moved in. I long for grass that isn’t mowed down to an inch high, and wildlife beyond a few birds and a stray fox. Olivia’s parents were going to take us on vacation, camping out in a national park so we could actually enjoy the nature we’re working so hard to save, but I guess that’s out now.

I sigh, kicking a pebble along the curb as I think of the summer that awaits me instead. Grandma’s development in Florida is paved in sand-colored tile, with bright fake turquoise pools sunk into the ground and lone palm trees potted at the edge of every pathway. There are panic buttons in all the pastel rooms and motorized golf carts whirring down the streets, bussing the residents to early-bird dinners and bridge at the community hall.

I don’t think I’ve ever laid eyes on another teenager there.

By the time Olivia’s third-hand blue Honda rattles into view, I’m past gloomy and into wallowing.

“Go to Disneyworld, learn to play bocci, and completely lose my mind,” I tell her, wrenching open the door. I collapse into the passenger seat.

“What?” She stalls, then lurches back into gear as we make a messy three-point turn. Well, five-point.

“Things I can do in Orlando.” I sigh. “My mom is dragging me down with her. For the whole summer.”

“Orlando!” Her dismay is gratifying. “But —”

“I know.”

“And —”

“Yup.” We fall silent in joint horror as I rummage in the glove compartment for a new CD. The Polaroid Kids: they know about loneliness and pain.

“What am I going to do without you?” she wails, making an illegal left turn. “We were going to picket the Chamber of Commerce about fair trade! And hang out by my pool! And sneak into all the graduation parties!”

“I guess you’ll have to do all that with Cash now.” I slump lower.

“We’ve been dating like, three weeks,” she protests, but I catch her blush all the same.

“You really liiiike him.” I use a singsong voice, happy to change the subject. “You wanna kiiisss him. You’re gonna do it with him.”

“Jenna!”

Cash (as in the late great country singer, not the capitalist tool of ownership) is the handsome dreadlocked boy who came to her rescue last month. We were handing out leaflets at the mall when this burly middle-aged man started arguing with Livvy — towering over her and ranting about natural progress and human achievement through landfill sites and pollution. Just when things were getting kind of scary, Cash stepped in, making the man back off and Livvy practically swoon at his feet. He’s a senior at a school across town and the founding member of their Earth Activism group. In other words, he’s perfect.

“Come on, you’re lucky,” I say, with only a (completely reasonable) hint of jealousy. “The most eligible guy down in Orlando is probably, like, fifty.”

“I don’t know,” she pretends to muse. “I can see you with a silver fox.”

“Ewww!” Now it’s my turn to blush. “Livvy!”

She laughs, reaching over with one hand to grab her purse and rummage for the bag of jelly beans she always carries. “No, but seriously, we’ll find someone for you tonight. I bet Cash has tons of cute friends, ready to quote Thoreau at you and gaze dreamily into your eyes —”

“Right before I leave the state.” I take a handful of candies and divide them up by color on my palm.

“Hey, this way you can have a crazy, reckless fling!” Livvy is still flushed by thoughts of Cash.

“I’ll settle for a normal, boring date,” I tell her wryly. She makes a face as we stop at a traffic light.

“That only works if you actually let them ask you out. Or, you know, say yes!”

I eat another jelly bean and change the subject. It’s not that simple — as any teenage girl would agree. Finding a guy who’s cute, smart, and actually likes me is hard enough, even without the basic requirement that he be into environmentalism, too. I mean, the last guy to ask me out was Jaz Simpson, and he spends all weekend at monster-truck rallies!

By the time we pull up outside Cash’s house, on the edge of town, our list of ways I can avoid the summer in Florida is still empty, but I refuse to wallow anymore. “Let’s face it: I’m doomed,” I declare brightly, climbing out of the car and surveying the tangle of teenagers milling around in the front yard. Groups are sprawled on blankets on the ground, and some kind of punk music blasts out from the house every time the door opens. “So let’s just have as much fun as possible before I go, OK?”

“Deal!” Olivia agrees.

The party turns out to be pretty fun. Even when Olivia abandons me to go hang out with Cash, I don’t mind. That’s what’s so great about the Green Teen project and eco stuff in general: even though I don’t know any of the kids here, we’ve got some common ground to talk about, so I don’t feel like an outsider. Just like guys on the football team can talk about plays and practice all the time, and the indie kids always have music as their fallback topic, I have environmentalism. Soon I’m relaxing with a group in the living room, chatting about our favorite books, and — sure enough — Thoreau.

Suddenly, Olivia comes tearing into the room. “Jenna!” She grabs my arm, bouncing up and down with delight. “I’ve got it!”

“What? Wait, calm down.” I laugh. She’s so excited, you’d think her parents just bought her a hybrid.

“Your summer!” she squeals. “I totally have the answer.” Without even pausing for breath, she launches into a complicated story. “. . . and Cash was talking about his plans for next year, because you know how he’s taking time off before college, and he said that his friend Kris said that his cousin was doing, like, a volunteer road trip across the country working at farms and co-ops and stuff, and that he — Cash, not Kris’s cousin — might do the same, either here or up in Canada. Canada! You see?” She beams at me expectantly. “I really am a genius.”