How to spell catastrophe, p.17
How to Spell Catastrophe, page 17
Ted mysteriously being at our place on a Monday two weeks ago, both of them looking like they’d just had a serious talk.
Now the banana smell.
‘You’re not. You’re pregnant?!’
She nods, smiling.
I cannot believe it.
‘When?’
‘The baby’s due in April.’
I sit down.
Big news?
Understatement of the century.
But she’s looking at me with a worried face, so I step up. ‘Will it be a McPherson person? Like me?’
‘It will be a little Fry, like us.’
A small Fry.
‘I’m – wow – shocked. This is such a – big – surprise.’
‘For both of us!’
‘I think I’ll be so happy. When it sinks in.’
‘I hope so. I am.’
‘Is this why you want us to move in with Ted?’
‘We were planning that before we knew.’
‘No way out of it now, I guess.’ But I make myself say it with a smile, not a frown.
I think of what Cecily said to me about it, You’ve always wanted a bigger family, Nell.
I remember longing for some siblings, pretending that Cecily was my twin sister.
I get a glimpse of understanding that Mum’s new chapter doesn’t have to mean my dad gets scribbled out.
‘I think we’re all going to love living together.’ Mum gives me a sympathetic hand squeeze. ‘Eventually.’
‘Eventually,’ I agree.
In this exact moment the big knot of resistance inside me unravels.
All it took was one little baby who’s not even born yet.
‘Oh, there’s a parcel for you from Map.’
‘Thanks. Can I help with dinner? Aren’t pregnant people supposed to rest a lot?’
‘Sweetheart, thank you.’ She kisses me on each cheek and gives me a huge hug. ‘I’m fine, but I’d love some help.’
I cut up the fennel while Mum chops garlic and an onion. We are having a prawn and fennel risotto, which is a delicious and easy-to-make dinner.
The main trick is having approximately double the amount of stock to rice, having the right starchy rice, like arborio or carnaroli, and remembering that it will take about twenty minutes to cook.
The prawns themselves go in for the last few minutes only.
I flash forward, imagining a bigger group of people making dinner in a different kitchen, one of us holding a baby. It looks like – fun, and a smile floats up through me like a bubble of happiness.
The pregnancy news has so completely filled my mind that I don’t end up opening Map’s parcel and unwrapping my father’s copy of Northern Lights until I’m in bed.
I kiss the book’s cover and flip through to find the surprise.
My heart somersaults as I see the inside of the back cover.
My dad has drawn a picture of a dog.
A black dog with fine, pointed ears.
Next to it, the words, Swift, my daemon.
Climate Change, Walking the Walk
The day of the School Strike 4 Climate is a perfect spring day – limitless icy blue sky, thin air, a bare scrape of clouds.
With the whole class going, it feels official: we are a delegation.
I’m proud of us.
A couple of parents were initially resistant to the idea, but Sofia sent the best letter home.
She put everything in a curriculum context and said this is an excursion no less informative than our trip to Canberra in first term.
We will be exercising our democratic right to be heard on an issue that affects us.
She also mentioned that we are being encouraged to look at science, look at evidence such as that reported on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and in addition we have studied political change brought about by protest movements this year.
When you have Nelson Mandela in your corner, you have a good chance of winning.
It feels like an accurate description of what we are doing, telling our political leaders that we, the kids, the ones who will inherit this mess, care very much about fixing the climate crisis.
Cecily, Omar, Gus, Plum, Rhianna and I sit together on the train holding our signs.
Gus has gone with the classic ‘There is no PLANet B’.
Cecily’s sign says ‘I’m Voting in Six Years’, with an angry face emoji on one side and a really lovely polar bear on the other side.
Omar has painted a picture of planet Earth on fire with the words ‘Stop Burning Our Future’ written in flame shapes in red and orange.
Plum made her sign in the shape of a big sunflower and it says, ‘We’ll go to school when you listen to scientists’.
Rhianna’s message is, ‘Don’t be a fossil fool’.
My sign says, ‘Can You Hear Me?’ on one side and the other side is my picture of Greta-who-did-not-look-away.
My mum has taken a once-in-a-million-years day off work, and Heather is coming with us and will be taking photos with her proper camera to accompany a news piece she is writing on the rally.
Getting off the train at Parliament station, I have to blink quickly so I don’t cry. It’s amazing to see so many kids, so many teenagers, and so many adults supporting the strike.
My heart is bursting as we all stream up the escalators wearing our masks and holding our signs.
Every train must be full of people coming out to demand climate action.
I’m a small part of something big and important.
Something that will be on the news – today we are the news.
It’s not a film, we don’t have superpowers or magic dust, we’re just kids making something happen in real life.
‘I want us all to stick together,’ Alex says. ‘I’m not joking – it’s going to be very crowded out there.’
As we hit ground level at the Macarthur Street exit, I can’t believe my eyes. It’s the biggest crowd of kids I have ever seen.
The sound is a happy roar.
We make our way slowly to the Treasury Gardens.
The walk will start from there once everyone has arrived.
Slowly is the only way we can move through this many people. Someone is saying stuff through a speaker system but we can’t make out the words.
There’s a group of percussionists playing a sound that echoes my mood. I imagine the urgent beat is saying, listen to us, listen to us, LISTEN TO US.
What I can’t get over is how a crowd of people this big can feel so – friendly. It’s like we’re all in this together. And we are.
Kids are nodding and smiling at each other as they walk along. We’re admiring each other’s signs and making sure everyone has space.
A whole lot of older kids using wheelchairs are heading along one of the wide paths, flags and signs attached to their chairs.
Another group of people have signs about helping the climate by not eating meat. Featuring a lot of swear words. Would not have passed the Alex test.
I take pictures to send to Map; she’s been a vegetarian for twenty years.
Cecily and I had already decided that we’d start a chant if we had the guts and something contagious in the crowd is definitely giving us the guts.
Cecily jumps up on the base of a statue of some old dude that we’ve stalled in front of due to extreme concentration of humans. She scrambles further up the statue and holds out her hand to me.
I clamber up beside her. We look at each other.
We’re really going to do this?
Cecily cups her hands around her mouth and starts at top volume: ‘What do we want?’
‘Climate Action,’ I call out in response, just as loudly.
‘When do we want it?’
‘NOW!’
It starts off being just the two of us, and then our group, but pretty soon it builds to a roar from everyone who’s around the statue.
From up here, in the clear air, with all the strength of the rainbow flowing river of climate school strikers and everyone else who has come out to support us, I can believe that things are going to get better.
Heather is taking photos of us from a little way away, and my mother is nearby keeping a close eye on things.
But I feel free and fierce and strong.
I’m leaping across rooftops.
Metaphorically.
Friday, so it’s pizza night.
Everyone is allowed to come back to our place. We order plenty of pizza and instead of a film, we get to see ourselves on the news!
Plum and Viv arrive with waffle cones and a huge tub of gelato.
Looking at the aerial views of the rally shot from drones, and our whole city – block after block after block – flooded with people who care about the planet, my eyes brim again with happy tears.
We did something.
We spoke up.
We will be part of the solution.
friday note from under the doona
word
replete – filled or satisfied with something
My body is replete with pizza and happiness.
problem
nil
plan
• sleep in (which really is a teenage way to feel and does have something to do with hormones)
• ask Cecily and Plum over if allowed
fruit ranking
a bowl of perfect cherries
gratitude
• we’re having a baby
• blending families is feeling more okay
• got to strike 4 climate – felt powerful
• loved feeling powerful
• friends are merging a bit – good!
Daemon Dreams
I’m under the desk with my phone torch and laptop camera pointing to the drawing of my daemon that is pretty much identical to the drawing my dad did of his daemon inside the back cover of his book.
‘Wow,’ says Map. ‘That’s – uncanny.’
‘It feels like being this age together and knowing each other as kids.’
‘A little time-slip.’
‘I dreamt that exact dog, Map. Do you think my dad – visited my dreamland?’
‘A moment of magic. Why not?’
‘Maybe like two dimensions bumping into each other.’
We have let ourselves read ahead, because we couldn’t wait, but we’ve saved the last two chapters for tonight.
At the end of the book, Lyra is going into a new land, a new dimension, and she is feeling scared and alone.
When we get to the part where the whole snow bridge falls down with a soft whoosh after Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, have crossed it, I feel a bit the same way, as though the bridge behind me has gone with a whoosh, too, and all I can do is walk forward.
I’m about to enter a new world, and it’s not possible to go back.
Lyra and Pantalaimon are alone and scared and stepping into the sky.
My unknown land is just a house move one suburb away and two families joining forces, but it still feels scary.
Changes
We make a patchwork of our picnic rugs in the Botanic Gardens.
Amelia sits down next to me. ‘I can’t believe I get to be a big sister.’
‘How amazing is it?’ Honestly, I’m still in shock that I’ll be a big sister. Twice.
‘You’re so lucky, Nell. You get to be with the baby – and my dad – all the time. I have to keep going backwards and forwards between two houses.’
I hadn’t even given that a second thought. Selfish.
‘I want to tell you something I did that I’m really sorry about,’ I start.
She looks at me sternly. ‘I’m seven, not stupid. I know you left me alone. And then I heard Dad and Anne talking about it.’
‘It was a terrible thing to do.’
‘I would have rung my dad if I was scared. I thought you’d probably gone out with mean old Plum. And you’d be back soon. And you were.’
We both look over at Plum. ‘Plum is more – careless – than mean, I think. She needs practice at being a friend, like I need practice at being a sister.’
I make eye contact with Amelia.
I don’t look away.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been mean to you, and I’m sorry I left you alone.’
‘But last time you looked after me, you gave me the EpiPen shot, so you’re not in trouble with the parents anymore.’
‘But are we okay?’
‘We’re okay.’
What does a family look like?
For a long time it’s been a small picture, just me and Mum. Map too.
A good little family.
But it also looks like this.
Map with her wild hair and boots, not here in person but always with me.
Amelia and me. And next year, the baby.
My mum and Ted, and Ted’s sister Ivy, and Amelia’s mum Bec, and her partner Sadie, and Sadie’s son Will.
I am not imagining this: Will looks like a young Tom Holland.
I should know.
And Will’s dog, Birdie.
A black dog, with fine, pointed ears and a face that he tilts to one side as he listens with great concentration.
I nearly fainted when I saw him.
And Cecily and Omar arriving on their skateboards.
And Gus who, from the look of delight on his face as he talks to Plum, has found someone who appreciates the Minecraft colour palette, or speaks the language of Star Wars.
It looks like lying on this picnic rug, staring up through the oak tree branches, a dog called Birdie sniffing into my neck, and settling down right next to me with a big soft sigh, me closing my eyes and hearing chat and laughter thread and weave its way around me like a nest.
I turn my head sideways and whisper to Birdie, ‘No pressure, but it looks like you’re my pretend daemon.’
I imagine Map lying down next to me and saying, ‘He would have loved to see the way you’re growing up, Nell, he’d be so proud,’ because that’s exactly what she said to me on Sunday and I have played those words over and over in my head.
My dad will always be in the picture.
And Ted, Amelia and our new baby won’t take that away.
Because families grow and change shape, ready or not, like a tree.
Right now I close the door on my worries and – eyes full of sky – let myself float up, up above the picnic rug, not crashing, flying, not looking at what I’ve lost, but at what I’ve found.
A Note from Nell
The trouble with climate change, our biggest catastrophe, is that it’s made up of millions of fragments.
It’s a mosaic of catastrophes, small and large.
When they are dealt with, one by one, some people think the job is done.
The job is not done.
As Map says, we need global action, and that means every country playing its part, and we need it now.
But
the
good
news
is
there is also lots we can do in our everyday lives to help.
It can be as quiet as planting a little seed.
As loud as attending a rally.
As persistent as writing to politicians.
As big as planning a career in climate science.
As simple as converting to solar power.
As easy as eating less meat.
All of our actions have consequences.
And Greta has shown the world that no one is too small to make a difference.
Important To Me handout
Nell McPherson
Grade six blue
CATASTROPHE ACROSTIC
Clean energy.
Action – have a plan, don’t just talk. Call a politician to let them know what you think. When I ring I give my name and postcode, and say I’m a future voter. Join your local climate action group.
Trees. We need to plant lots. New Zealand has a target of planting a billion trees by 2028. Trees create oxygen and they remove carbon dioxide from the air and store carbon. We can start a tree propagation program at school and we can hand it over to next year’s school leaders, the grade fives, at the end of the year.
Anthropocene. This is the age of human impact on the earth, the sixth mass extinction, with record global warming and record rates of plant and animal species becoming extinct. A disaster!
Seaweed for cows. Simple things can have a big impact. Just feeding cows some asparagopsis seaweed in their daily diet reduces the methane they produce by more than 90 per cent!
Turn down the heat thermometer in winter, turn up the air-conditioner temperature in summer, turn off the lights, turn down the water pressure.
Reduce the amount of meat we eat.*
O pretending it’s a zero, lol. Net zero carbon emissions. Soon, sooner, soonest.
Plant gardens for bees, birds and insects, and remember to leave water out for them in summer.
Help countries in our region. Some island nations are suffering right now from rising sea levels.
Energy – we need it, but we have to be smart about it. Clean, renewable energy will save our planet. To look at it another way, using fossil fuels is like pulling your house to bits and burning it to stay warm. You wouldn’t do that. You need to live in your house.
* I have posted my simple chilli beans recipe on the grade six portal for anyone who would like it.
Acknowledgements
This book would not exist without having been being read in wobbly form by friends and family, without certain very helpful conversations, without being acquired, supported and nurtured, without superb editing, without age-group advice, without its beautiful cover, without encouragement along the way.
For their kindness, expertise, generosity and friendship – variously, and with considerable overlap – I thank Brianne Collins, Kaz Cooke, Claire Craig and the whole Pan Macmillan team, Cath Crowley, Katelyn Detweiler, Emily Gale, Philippa Hawker, Astred Hicks, Rose Hutchinson, Simmone Howell, Ruth Jones, Julie Landvogt, Emma Leslie, Jo Lyons, the OMGF (Obsessed with Middle Grade Fiction) reading group – Ailsa Wild’s brainchild, Niff Scales, Penny Tangey, Jane Weaver, Nova Weetman, George Wood, Zoe Wood and Jamie Wood.
Now the banana smell.
‘You’re not. You’re pregnant?!’
She nods, smiling.
I cannot believe it.
‘When?’
‘The baby’s due in April.’
I sit down.
Big news?
Understatement of the century.
But she’s looking at me with a worried face, so I step up. ‘Will it be a McPherson person? Like me?’
‘It will be a little Fry, like us.’
A small Fry.
‘I’m – wow – shocked. This is such a – big – surprise.’
‘For both of us!’
‘I think I’ll be so happy. When it sinks in.’
‘I hope so. I am.’
‘Is this why you want us to move in with Ted?’
‘We were planning that before we knew.’
‘No way out of it now, I guess.’ But I make myself say it with a smile, not a frown.
I think of what Cecily said to me about it, You’ve always wanted a bigger family, Nell.
I remember longing for some siblings, pretending that Cecily was my twin sister.
I get a glimpse of understanding that Mum’s new chapter doesn’t have to mean my dad gets scribbled out.
‘I think we’re all going to love living together.’ Mum gives me a sympathetic hand squeeze. ‘Eventually.’
‘Eventually,’ I agree.
In this exact moment the big knot of resistance inside me unravels.
All it took was one little baby who’s not even born yet.
‘Oh, there’s a parcel for you from Map.’
‘Thanks. Can I help with dinner? Aren’t pregnant people supposed to rest a lot?’
‘Sweetheart, thank you.’ She kisses me on each cheek and gives me a huge hug. ‘I’m fine, but I’d love some help.’
I cut up the fennel while Mum chops garlic and an onion. We are having a prawn and fennel risotto, which is a delicious and easy-to-make dinner.
The main trick is having approximately double the amount of stock to rice, having the right starchy rice, like arborio or carnaroli, and remembering that it will take about twenty minutes to cook.
The prawns themselves go in for the last few minutes only.
I flash forward, imagining a bigger group of people making dinner in a different kitchen, one of us holding a baby. It looks like – fun, and a smile floats up through me like a bubble of happiness.
The pregnancy news has so completely filled my mind that I don’t end up opening Map’s parcel and unwrapping my father’s copy of Northern Lights until I’m in bed.
I kiss the book’s cover and flip through to find the surprise.
My heart somersaults as I see the inside of the back cover.
My dad has drawn a picture of a dog.
A black dog with fine, pointed ears.
Next to it, the words, Swift, my daemon.
Climate Change, Walking the Walk
The day of the School Strike 4 Climate is a perfect spring day – limitless icy blue sky, thin air, a bare scrape of clouds.
With the whole class going, it feels official: we are a delegation.
I’m proud of us.
A couple of parents were initially resistant to the idea, but Sofia sent the best letter home.
She put everything in a curriculum context and said this is an excursion no less informative than our trip to Canberra in first term.
We will be exercising our democratic right to be heard on an issue that affects us.
She also mentioned that we are being encouraged to look at science, look at evidence such as that reported on by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and in addition we have studied political change brought about by protest movements this year.
When you have Nelson Mandela in your corner, you have a good chance of winning.
It feels like an accurate description of what we are doing, telling our political leaders that we, the kids, the ones who will inherit this mess, care very much about fixing the climate crisis.
Cecily, Omar, Gus, Plum, Rhianna and I sit together on the train holding our signs.
Gus has gone with the classic ‘There is no PLANet B’.
Cecily’s sign says ‘I’m Voting in Six Years’, with an angry face emoji on one side and a really lovely polar bear on the other side.
Omar has painted a picture of planet Earth on fire with the words ‘Stop Burning Our Future’ written in flame shapes in red and orange.
Plum made her sign in the shape of a big sunflower and it says, ‘We’ll go to school when you listen to scientists’.
Rhianna’s message is, ‘Don’t be a fossil fool’.
My sign says, ‘Can You Hear Me?’ on one side and the other side is my picture of Greta-who-did-not-look-away.
My mum has taken a once-in-a-million-years day off work, and Heather is coming with us and will be taking photos with her proper camera to accompany a news piece she is writing on the rally.
Getting off the train at Parliament station, I have to blink quickly so I don’t cry. It’s amazing to see so many kids, so many teenagers, and so many adults supporting the strike.
My heart is bursting as we all stream up the escalators wearing our masks and holding our signs.
Every train must be full of people coming out to demand climate action.
I’m a small part of something big and important.
Something that will be on the news – today we are the news.
It’s not a film, we don’t have superpowers or magic dust, we’re just kids making something happen in real life.
‘I want us all to stick together,’ Alex says. ‘I’m not joking – it’s going to be very crowded out there.’
As we hit ground level at the Macarthur Street exit, I can’t believe my eyes. It’s the biggest crowd of kids I have ever seen.
The sound is a happy roar.
We make our way slowly to the Treasury Gardens.
The walk will start from there once everyone has arrived.
Slowly is the only way we can move through this many people. Someone is saying stuff through a speaker system but we can’t make out the words.
There’s a group of percussionists playing a sound that echoes my mood. I imagine the urgent beat is saying, listen to us, listen to us, LISTEN TO US.
What I can’t get over is how a crowd of people this big can feel so – friendly. It’s like we’re all in this together. And we are.
Kids are nodding and smiling at each other as they walk along. We’re admiring each other’s signs and making sure everyone has space.
A whole lot of older kids using wheelchairs are heading along one of the wide paths, flags and signs attached to their chairs.
Another group of people have signs about helping the climate by not eating meat. Featuring a lot of swear words. Would not have passed the Alex test.
I take pictures to send to Map; she’s been a vegetarian for twenty years.
Cecily and I had already decided that we’d start a chant if we had the guts and something contagious in the crowd is definitely giving us the guts.
Cecily jumps up on the base of a statue of some old dude that we’ve stalled in front of due to extreme concentration of humans. She scrambles further up the statue and holds out her hand to me.
I clamber up beside her. We look at each other.
We’re really going to do this?
Cecily cups her hands around her mouth and starts at top volume: ‘What do we want?’
‘Climate Action,’ I call out in response, just as loudly.
‘When do we want it?’
‘NOW!’
It starts off being just the two of us, and then our group, but pretty soon it builds to a roar from everyone who’s around the statue.
From up here, in the clear air, with all the strength of the rainbow flowing river of climate school strikers and everyone else who has come out to support us, I can believe that things are going to get better.
Heather is taking photos of us from a little way away, and my mother is nearby keeping a close eye on things.
But I feel free and fierce and strong.
I’m leaping across rooftops.
Metaphorically.
Friday, so it’s pizza night.
Everyone is allowed to come back to our place. We order plenty of pizza and instead of a film, we get to see ourselves on the news!
Plum and Viv arrive with waffle cones and a huge tub of gelato.
Looking at the aerial views of the rally shot from drones, and our whole city – block after block after block – flooded with people who care about the planet, my eyes brim again with happy tears.
We did something.
We spoke up.
We will be part of the solution.
friday note from under the doona
word
replete – filled or satisfied with something
My body is replete with pizza and happiness.
problem
nil
plan
• sleep in (which really is a teenage way to feel and does have something to do with hormones)
• ask Cecily and Plum over if allowed
fruit ranking
a bowl of perfect cherries
gratitude
• we’re having a baby
• blending families is feeling more okay
• got to strike 4 climate – felt powerful
• loved feeling powerful
• friends are merging a bit – good!
Daemon Dreams
I’m under the desk with my phone torch and laptop camera pointing to the drawing of my daemon that is pretty much identical to the drawing my dad did of his daemon inside the back cover of his book.
‘Wow,’ says Map. ‘That’s – uncanny.’
‘It feels like being this age together and knowing each other as kids.’
‘A little time-slip.’
‘I dreamt that exact dog, Map. Do you think my dad – visited my dreamland?’
‘A moment of magic. Why not?’
‘Maybe like two dimensions bumping into each other.’
We have let ourselves read ahead, because we couldn’t wait, but we’ve saved the last two chapters for tonight.
At the end of the book, Lyra is going into a new land, a new dimension, and she is feeling scared and alone.
When we get to the part where the whole snow bridge falls down with a soft whoosh after Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon, have crossed it, I feel a bit the same way, as though the bridge behind me has gone with a whoosh, too, and all I can do is walk forward.
I’m about to enter a new world, and it’s not possible to go back.
Lyra and Pantalaimon are alone and scared and stepping into the sky.
My unknown land is just a house move one suburb away and two families joining forces, but it still feels scary.
Changes
We make a patchwork of our picnic rugs in the Botanic Gardens.
Amelia sits down next to me. ‘I can’t believe I get to be a big sister.’
‘How amazing is it?’ Honestly, I’m still in shock that I’ll be a big sister. Twice.
‘You’re so lucky, Nell. You get to be with the baby – and my dad – all the time. I have to keep going backwards and forwards between two houses.’
I hadn’t even given that a second thought. Selfish.
‘I want to tell you something I did that I’m really sorry about,’ I start.
She looks at me sternly. ‘I’m seven, not stupid. I know you left me alone. And then I heard Dad and Anne talking about it.’
‘It was a terrible thing to do.’
‘I would have rung my dad if I was scared. I thought you’d probably gone out with mean old Plum. And you’d be back soon. And you were.’
We both look over at Plum. ‘Plum is more – careless – than mean, I think. She needs practice at being a friend, like I need practice at being a sister.’
I make eye contact with Amelia.
I don’t look away.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been mean to you, and I’m sorry I left you alone.’
‘But last time you looked after me, you gave me the EpiPen shot, so you’re not in trouble with the parents anymore.’
‘But are we okay?’
‘We’re okay.’
What does a family look like?
For a long time it’s been a small picture, just me and Mum. Map too.
A good little family.
But it also looks like this.
Map with her wild hair and boots, not here in person but always with me.
Amelia and me. And next year, the baby.
My mum and Ted, and Ted’s sister Ivy, and Amelia’s mum Bec, and her partner Sadie, and Sadie’s son Will.
I am not imagining this: Will looks like a young Tom Holland.
I should know.
And Will’s dog, Birdie.
A black dog, with fine, pointed ears and a face that he tilts to one side as he listens with great concentration.
I nearly fainted when I saw him.
And Cecily and Omar arriving on their skateboards.
And Gus who, from the look of delight on his face as he talks to Plum, has found someone who appreciates the Minecraft colour palette, or speaks the language of Star Wars.
It looks like lying on this picnic rug, staring up through the oak tree branches, a dog called Birdie sniffing into my neck, and settling down right next to me with a big soft sigh, me closing my eyes and hearing chat and laughter thread and weave its way around me like a nest.
I turn my head sideways and whisper to Birdie, ‘No pressure, but it looks like you’re my pretend daemon.’
I imagine Map lying down next to me and saying, ‘He would have loved to see the way you’re growing up, Nell, he’d be so proud,’ because that’s exactly what she said to me on Sunday and I have played those words over and over in my head.
My dad will always be in the picture.
And Ted, Amelia and our new baby won’t take that away.
Because families grow and change shape, ready or not, like a tree.
Right now I close the door on my worries and – eyes full of sky – let myself float up, up above the picnic rug, not crashing, flying, not looking at what I’ve lost, but at what I’ve found.
A Note from Nell
The trouble with climate change, our biggest catastrophe, is that it’s made up of millions of fragments.
It’s a mosaic of catastrophes, small and large.
When they are dealt with, one by one, some people think the job is done.
The job is not done.
As Map says, we need global action, and that means every country playing its part, and we need it now.
But
the
good
news
is
there is also lots we can do in our everyday lives to help.
It can be as quiet as planting a little seed.
As loud as attending a rally.
As persistent as writing to politicians.
As big as planning a career in climate science.
As simple as converting to solar power.
As easy as eating less meat.
All of our actions have consequences.
And Greta has shown the world that no one is too small to make a difference.
Important To Me handout
Nell McPherson
Grade six blue
CATASTROPHE ACROSTIC
Clean energy.
Action – have a plan, don’t just talk. Call a politician to let them know what you think. When I ring I give my name and postcode, and say I’m a future voter. Join your local climate action group.
Trees. We need to plant lots. New Zealand has a target of planting a billion trees by 2028. Trees create oxygen and they remove carbon dioxide from the air and store carbon. We can start a tree propagation program at school and we can hand it over to next year’s school leaders, the grade fives, at the end of the year.
Anthropocene. This is the age of human impact on the earth, the sixth mass extinction, with record global warming and record rates of plant and animal species becoming extinct. A disaster!
Seaweed for cows. Simple things can have a big impact. Just feeding cows some asparagopsis seaweed in their daily diet reduces the methane they produce by more than 90 per cent!
Turn down the heat thermometer in winter, turn up the air-conditioner temperature in summer, turn off the lights, turn down the water pressure.
Reduce the amount of meat we eat.*
O pretending it’s a zero, lol. Net zero carbon emissions. Soon, sooner, soonest.
Plant gardens for bees, birds and insects, and remember to leave water out for them in summer.
Help countries in our region. Some island nations are suffering right now from rising sea levels.
Energy – we need it, but we have to be smart about it. Clean, renewable energy will save our planet. To look at it another way, using fossil fuels is like pulling your house to bits and burning it to stay warm. You wouldn’t do that. You need to live in your house.
* I have posted my simple chilli beans recipe on the grade six portal for anyone who would like it.
Acknowledgements
This book would not exist without having been being read in wobbly form by friends and family, without certain very helpful conversations, without being acquired, supported and nurtured, without superb editing, without age-group advice, without its beautiful cover, without encouragement along the way.
For their kindness, expertise, generosity and friendship – variously, and with considerable overlap – I thank Brianne Collins, Kaz Cooke, Claire Craig and the whole Pan Macmillan team, Cath Crowley, Katelyn Detweiler, Emily Gale, Philippa Hawker, Astred Hicks, Rose Hutchinson, Simmone Howell, Ruth Jones, Julie Landvogt, Emma Leslie, Jo Lyons, the OMGF (Obsessed with Middle Grade Fiction) reading group – Ailsa Wild’s brainchild, Niff Scales, Penny Tangey, Jane Weaver, Nova Weetman, George Wood, Zoe Wood and Jamie Wood.
