The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love by Dyan Sheldon

afternoon,” says Cody. And suddenly his smile is on Waneeda. “See you later.”
    Looking at Cody, it’s actually possible to believe that you’ve never seen anyone smile before. “Yeah,” says Waneeda. “See you later.”

Chapter Eleven

“Come on, gang! Let’s save the planet!”
    “What do you mean, you’re not coming?” Kristin laughs, on the off-chance that Sicilee is making a joke. “It’s Monday.”
    Every Monday after school, Sicilee, Kristin, Loretta and Ash go to the Nature’s Way Fitness Centre, where they alternate their time between aerobics, dance and hanging out at the juice bar, looking like an advertisement for low-fat cereal in their designer spandex and sports bras.
    Though not this Monday, it would seem.
    “I know what day it is, Kris.” Sicilee slams shut the door of her locker. “But I can’t make it. I have something else to do this afternoon.”
    Loretta’s eyebrows go up. “Like what?”
    “It’s no big deal.” Sicilee’s smile shrugs. “There’s just this meeting I want to check out.”
    Ash tilts her head to one side. “What meeting? I didn’t hear about any meeting.”
    “Sweet Mary… It’s for this club, that’s all.” Sicilee’s hair swings like golden blades. “I didn’t think I had to get your permission.”
    Loretta points out that she’s already in a club – Diamonds, the club they all belong to.
    “This is Mrs Skelly’s idea.” Sicilee makes a bored, put-upon face. “She says that if I belonged to something more, you know, serious than Diamonds it would look good on my record.”
    “Nobody ever listens to anything Mrs Skelly says,” scoffs Kristin. “Why don’t you just — ” She breaks off as her eyes fall on the flyer on the wall behind Sicilee’s head. Appearing to sprout out of Sicilee’s shining hair are the words: “ Come on, gang! Let’s save the planet! Monday at 3.45 p.m. ” Most clubs meet on Friday afternoon. “Oh, God! Sicilee! You’re not going to that Environmental Club meeting, are you?” Kristin is clearly a lot better at deductive reasoning than is generally supposed.
    Sicilee ignores the shocked expression on Kristin’s face and focuses on the small gold hoop in Kristin’s right ear. “Why not?”
    “ Why not ?” Ash’s shriek ends in laughter. “Because it’s, like, the most pathetic club in the whole universe, that’s why not! Everybody in it’s an industrial-strength freak.”
    “They’re super freaks,” adds Kristin. “You know that munchkin Joy Marie whatshername is in it, right?”
    “And that total dork Clem the Clunk,” adds Loretta. “I mean, like, really , Sicilee. He wears saddle shoes ! Saddle shoes! Like some reject from Grease ! For God’s sake. I mean where does he even buy them?”
    “They probably still make them on his planet,” offers Ash.
    “And the glasses !” Loretta rolls on. “I mean, like, why doesn’t he wear contacts like everybody else?”
    “And what about all the dumb things they do?” Kristin wants to know. “Remember when they wanted us to drink water instead of Coke? Water! And it wasn’t even bottled!” Her smile becomes just a little serpentine. “And in case it’s slipped your mind,” she adds, “you did once threaten him.”
    Bizarre though this may sound (rather like a lioness threatening a flea), this statement is true. Sicilee did, in fact, once threaten Clemens Reis. “You’d better hear what I’m saying, Geek Boy,” Sicilee warned him. “Because if you don’t stop this fascist campaign against my constitutional right to drink whatever I want, I’m going to put a curse on you. I’m going to make you wish that you’d never been born as much as the rest of us do.”
    “And those disgusting pictures they put up in the hall of tortured animals?” Ash wrinkles her nose in disgust. “They were, like, so totally gross they made me want to barf. I mean, who wants to know about stuff like that?”
    “You have got to be kidding, Sicilee,”