Just Grace Goes Green (7 page)

MIMI AND ME

When school finally ended Mimi and I were feeling the exact same way. Tired of it! Me because I wanted to use my energy to think of a really great way to help save the earth, and Mimi because she didn't like cursive writing and fractions and could hardly wait to get home to see Gwen.

When she said that I couldn't believe that I had forgotten all about Gwen. My superpower is like that: once it starts working I can't even think about anything else at all, except if I have to go to the bathroom. I never forget about that. It must be the same for all superheroes, because none of them
ever wear diapers, even though you never see them going into bathrooms. Astronauts are the only grown-up people who sometimes wear diapers, and it's easy to know why. There's no other way.

MIMI AND I BEING SEPARATE

Mimi wanted to walk home super fast. It was hard to talk about our recycling project because she was too looking forward to seeing Gwen to concentrate on anything else. When you are excited about something it can be frustrating if you are in that excited place all by yourself, especially if you are
trying to have a conversation with someone else.

GWEN

Gwen was so amazingly happy that we were home. She was waiting outside at the end of Mimi's sidewalk. That way she could look all the way to the corner and see us as soon as we turned onto our street. She must have been at Mimi's house all day, because all her stuff was put away and it looked like she had lived in Mimi's room with Mimi forever.

Of course we had to stop talking about our project as soon as we saw Gwen. Sometimes it's hard to change over to some
thing new when you are still really full of energy about the old thing. Because of this happening I was a little grumpy at Gwen for about a minute ... but I got over it pretty fast.

Once we had all talked for a while, Mimi was a little more excited to be thinking about our superheroes of conservation project. Gwen said that she had done a recycling project about plastic bottles last year. I was pretty surprised that Miss Lois's great idea about doing projects to save the earth was also someone else's idea too. Gwen said everyone in third grade did projects about recycling and conservation. Sometimes she knows more about stuff than we do, but that is only because she is a year older than us. As soon as Gwen said "plastic bottles" Mimi said, "We have to do our project about plastic bottles too!"

WHY I COULD BE MAD

1
Mimi was totally being bossy about the project and not talking to me about it before so we could decide together like a team.

2
She was being with Gwen more than she was being with me.

WHY I WASN'T MAD

1
A plastic bottles project was perfect for us because we both felt guilty about just throwing them away.

2
It was nice of Mimi to make Gwen feel like she was important, because she was probably feeling all alone.

3
It was great to have Mimi feel full of energy about the project like I was.

WHAT IS EASY

Saying, "Let's do an amazing, totally important project about plastic bottles that will help save the earth!"

WHAT IS HARD

Figuring out what that amazingly totally important project about plastic bottles that will help save the earth will be.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IF YOU CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING

A parent or a teacher would say, "Read a book." Mimi or I would say, "Time to watch
Unlikely Heroes,
" which is what we did right away.
Unlikely Heroes
is our most favorite show ever, and it was the perfect show to be watching when we were thinking about how we could be heroes ourselves. I couldn't believe it, but Gwen had never seen it before. Because of that Mimi and I decided that she needed to see the tape of our top five favorite episodes. That way Gwen would love it for sure.

TOP FIVE EPISODES OF UNLIKELY HEROES

1
Girl saves man from drowning by using her clothes as a rope. She helps pull him out of the water.

2
Pet pig saves his family from a burglar by trapping the burglar in a closet.

3
Man lifts car off of dog who was run over. Dog only has a broken leg.

4
Cat meows and wakes up family when there is a fire.

5
Baby calls 911 and he can't even walk yet.

I had to go home before the end because it was a school night and I'm never allowed to stay over at Mimi's house for dinner on a school night. Mom has lots of rules about stuff like that. It was super hard to leave because Mimi and Gwen were still watching
Unlikely Heroes
and my favorite part was
about to be happening. I love it when the baby pulls the phone onto the floor and the noise scares the cat.

WHAT SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING

Mom and Dad were being funny at dinner, and we were having artichokes, which is my most favorite vegetable ever, but still I was not 100 percent completely feeling normal. I could not stop thinking about Mimi and Gwen over at Mimi's house having lots of super-type fun without me. I was thinking about it so much, I almost forgot to do my one conservation thing for my chart.

I was just going to turn off the lights like before, but Mom was in her bedroom using the laptop computer and that was the only extra light that was on. She likes to take the computer in there when she is thinking
about buying stuff online. That way Dad can't know about it and be grumpy about her spending money. It's always a good time to try to get her to buy me something new too, so I said, "What are you buying?"

"I'm throwing this ugly thing away and getting myself a new one," said Mom, and she pointed to her old gray fleecy jacket. "I can't decide between getting a new brown one or a black one." I was shocked. "Mom! You can't buy a new fleecy! You have to keep this one. If you throw it away, that's like throwing twenty-five plastic bottles right into the garbage can!" I didn't know if this next part was true, but I said it anyway. "Plus, that fleecy is probably going to take over five hundred years to disintegrate! It's going to be sitting in the earth forever!"

Of course Mom was pretty surprised. "Who told you that?"

"We learned it at school," I said. "And if you loved the earth then you would keep your old jacket and not buy a new one. It's important to be green!" Suddenly I was a superhero of conservation right in my own house, and it felt great!

Mom does not like to be told that she can't buy stuff. "Okay, Little Miss Green Pants, what if I donate it to charity so someone else can wear it, or make a pillow out of it? Would that be okay? Can I buy a new jacket then?" Sometimes you have to take what you can get, so I said, "I'd get the brown one—it's totally cuter," and then I did a
Green Pants victory dance all the way to my room. Now I had something to write about.

Saved one fleece jacket from the garbage.

I was so filled with good feelings that I decided to make a comic about it to show Mimi and Gwen, and now I was not feeling sad about them being together without me anymore.

SAVE THE EARTH