Dreams at Silver Spires (9 page)

When Bryony said that I felt much better. Of course I should just keep working away in the garden to make it look amazing. And better still, I must definitely go ahead with trying to get other people interested in joining the gardening club.

“I should have asked Stan if I could hang on to his photo, shouldn't I? Then I could have made photocopies and put them up all over the place with information about the gardening club. I'll ask him next time I see him, because I need to spread the word, don't I?”

I looked round at my friends, feeling myself cheering up like mad, but the looks on their faces sent me right back into the doldrums. “What?” I asked Bryony. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Jet's already been spreading the word,” explained Izzy, giving me a sad smile. “She casually asked where you were just now before you got here, and Bryony told her to mind her own business, but she's got a thing about you for some reason, and since she heard about your gardening idea…well…”

I felt myself getting cross as I looked round the dining hall for Juliet.

“She's gone now,” said Antonia quietly.

“What did she say about me?” I had to know.

“Oh…she was just horrible and…sarcastic,” said Sasha. “But don't worry, we all stuck up for you.”

I could tell that my friends were trying to be kind by not telling me and in the end I turned to Bryony. “Tell me what she said. Please, Bry.”

Bryony took a deep breath. “Okay, I'll tell you, but you mustn't get upset. She's not worth it.”

I nodded and waited.

“She said something like, ‘Emily's probably single-handedly digging up the whole grounds and making the school into one massive vegetable garden so we can all be the greenest people on earth. Maybe we should all take mudbaths.'” And as Bryony spoke, I could just hear Juliet saying something mean and nasty like that.

I sighed a deep sigh. “Do you think she'll put people off joining the club?”

“Maybe some people…at first,” said Bryony. “But
we'll
all help you, so you don't have to worry.”

“Yes, you can count on us,” said Antonia, which I thought was sweet.

After that our conversation turned to the TV people, because apparently they'd been filming in the hall at Forest Ash when the others had left for breakfast, and some Year Nine girls further along our table were talking about how they'd even been filmed in lessons.

“Imagine if they'd come into the history lesson that I missed,” I whispered to Bryony, feeling myself tensing up at the thought.

“Was it hard to act naturally?” Izzy asked the Year Nines.

“It was at first,” a girl called Lottie said. “But after a bit, you just forget the camera's there,” she added. “So it was okay, I suppose.”

I started to wonder whether I'd acted naturally on the times when I'd been filmed myself. I knew I definitely had done when I'd been with Emily and Stan, because I was so interested to hear all that they were saying. I wasn't so sure that I'd seemed natural on Sunday morning before breakfast, though, when Bryony and I had been looking for Tony. And as for when the cameraman filmed me in the garden… At least I'd been wearing my tracky bums at the time, and not my school uniform, thank goodness. I would have looked really stupid in the middle of a great big patch of old wasteland, digging away, getting myself all messed up.

Mum and Dad would probably be pleased with me, though, if they saw me in the film. I could just picture our family crammed into Aunty Mandy's little living room, all eyes on her TV screen, watching me crouching over a pile of weeds. Aunty Mandy would definitely think I was completely bonkers. She's the complete opposite of Mum and Dad. She lives in a first-floor flat in a bustling little town and she doesn't have any garden at all, just a big balcony…

Wait a minute… Something was straining to get out of my mind into the open. What was it Mum said to Aunty Mandy on the phone in the Christmas holidays?
“You ought to get yourself a wormery, Mand. Then at least you'd be doing something green. You can recycle all your food waste into compost, and then you can grow lovely herbs in pots on your balcony.”
I can remember Mum explaining to Aunty Mandy that a wormery is a plastic or wooden container that's full of composting worms, which eat and live on the decaying foods on the surface, and turn it into compost, just like that.

Yes! That was it. That's what Silver Spires needed. A wormery. And Miss Gerard might approve of that idea. It didn't take ages for the compost to develop in one of those, after all, and I was sure it wouldn't smell because Aunty Mandy would never put up with something smelly. A wormery might be quite popular too, as it would be interesting to watch the composting actually happening before our eyes. And people would realize that gardening is more fun than they thought, and then Juliet wouldn't get away with saying horrible sarcastic things any more. Plus, even better, we'd have loads of compost to grow more vegetables with.

Yes, a wormery was what Silver Spires needed. And
I
would be the one to get them one. I'd wait till the end of school, then I'd go and research them thoroughly on the internet.

Yes!!!

All through lessons that day I could think of nothing but my latest composting idea. I had four tellings-off for not concentrating and I deserved every one of them because my mind was a million miles away from square roots and litmus tests and tectonic plates and the Tower of London, as my brain space was totally being used up on wormeries.

I thought it would probably be best to try and get Mrs. Pridham interested and then she could ask Miss Click about it, because there was no way I'd dare to go back to see Miss Click so soon after my last meeting with her. I'd been tempted to rush back to Forest Ash at lunchtime to look up wormeries on the internet and talk to Mrs. Pridham about getting one, but I knew there wouldn't be time, as I also wanted to go over to my garden just in case Stan happened to be around, so I could ask him if I could borrow one of his photos. I knew from what he'd said about only doing very few hours' work at school each week that he wasn't likely to be there, but I was still disappointed when he didn't show up.

It was a relief when the bell for the end of afternoon school finally went, and I was free to shoot out of the classroom and over to Forest Ash at top speed.

On the internet I found loads of sites about wormeries and I studied them all carefully so Mrs. Pridham would be impressed with my thorough research. It was a question of finding the most suitable type of wormery for Silver Spires. We needed something really big to go outside at the back of the kitchens so the dinner ladies could compost all the food scraps, and then we also needed two or three small wheelie bins in central places around the Silver Spires grounds for us girls to chuck our apple cores and things into. It would be easy to wheel the bins round to the wormery. And then I read that you could recycle old newspapers in wormeries too. Yes, of course, because paper comes from trees. I'd never thought of that.

“Hi, Ems, I've been looking for you all over the place!” Bryony had come into the internet room and was trying to see what was fascinating me so much on the screen. “I never thought I'd find you in here!”

I jumped up and grabbed her hands. “Good news!”

She gave me one of her frowns. “Why do I get the feeling I'm about to hear about a brand new crazy Em-plan…?” She pulled her hands away, peered at the screen and started reading. “
These worms differ from normal garden worms in that they eat and live on the decaying food on the surface
… Mmm…sounds charming. So their pooh is the compost?”

I couldn't help laughing at the look of disgust on Bryony's face. “Yes – it's no different from using horse manure as a compost.”

“So what does the actual wormery look like?”

“Like a dustbin or a big bucket and you can get ones that look like trays stacked up. There are all different kinds and it's exactly what we need here at Silver Spires!” I told her in a gabble. “I'm going to order one off the internet. Everyone will love it, because you can see it working right before your eyes, and the worms leave behind a fantastic compost, really high in nutrients. That means that when it gets dug back into the ground to grow more vegetables, they'll be so much better for us all to eat than the stuff we usually have…”

Bryony suddenly put her hands up like a policeman stopping traffic. “Ems, Ems, hang on a sec! How are you going to afford it?”

It was actually quite a nice surprise when Bryony said that, because what I'd thought she was going to point out was that Miss Gerard had already told me she wasn't changing the way Silver Spires worked, and hearing that out loud would have really spoiled my dream for good.

“Er…” How
was
I going to afford it? I hadn't thought about that. I racked my brains hard. “Er…”

I felt myself starting to deflate, but I so wanted to stay on my high, so I blurted out my thoughts as they jumped into my head. “I could save and save… No, that'd take too long… Mum and Dad might agree to raising my allowance…” Bryony was shaking her head. She must have known I was clutching at straws. “What about if I sold something?” It felt as though I'd caught a glimpse of a little chink of light at the end of the tunnel. “Yes, I could sell that pink top that Aunty Mand got me when I was into pink. It's too tight now anyway.”

Bryony was frowning again.

I had to think harder. “And I'm sure I could find other stuff to sell… Wh…what about you, Bry? Have you got any clothes you don't really want?”

Bryony's frown lifted when I said that, which was so lovely, because I hadn't really thought it was much of an idea at all, but she started nodding slowly and thoughtfully. “Yes, that's a good idea. We could have a clothes sale. I bet people wouldn't mind donating clothes they didn't like any more or whatever. And everyone would definitely love buying new clothes for themselves, and all the money could go towards your wormery.”

“Bry, you're a genius!”

“No,
you
thought of it!”

I could have pretended that was true, but I'd never lie to Bryony, not even a white lie. “No, I was actually only thinking of you and me selling our clothes. I never thought about anyone else!”

“Well, I've got nothing and your top's very nice, Ems, but I doubt it would raise enough for a wormery! How much does one cost anyway?”

“Depends. Small ones are about twenty-five pounds, I think it said on one website, but we'd need a really big one – plus the wheelie bins.”

We were looking up prices on the internet when Antonia and Nicole came in and asked us what was so interesting.

“We're researching Emily's latest plan,” Bryony replied, looking mysterious. “Listen to this!”

She did a grand gesture with her hands and grinned at me as though I was about to make a big announcement.

“Well,” I began excitedly, “I've been finding out about wormeries, and they're brilliant for recycling food waste and I reckon the school could do with at least one. And we're going to hold a clothes sale to raise the money!”

“Hey, great!” said Nicole straight away.

“Yes, great…” echoed Antonia with a puzzled look on her face. “Er…I've got quite a few clothes I can sell for your wormery thing.”

It was so sweet of her to want to help me when it was obvious she didn't really understand where the money was going, and probably hadn't ever come across the word “worm” before. So I explained a bit more and she wrinkled up her nose in disgust.

“What does Mrs. Pridham think about it?” asked Nicole.

There was another silence while I took in what she'd just said and realized that, actually, I had a long way to go before I could get my wormery.

Nicole was really frowning now. “You
have
asked her about the clothes sale, haven't you?”

I shook my head. “I've only just thought of the plan.” I glanced at my watch. It was nearly time for supper.

“Better leave it till later,” said Bryony, reading my mind. “I'll come with you if you want.”

“Thanks, Bry.”

There were a few minutes between supper and prep and I couldn't make myself wait till prep was over, so I persuaded Bryony that we should go to see Mrs. Pridham straight after we'd eaten. I was a bit nervous when she opened the door looking flustered, because I needed her in a good mood, not a flustered one, when I talked to her about wormeries and the clothes sale. On the other hand, perhaps if she was a bit distracted and busy she might just quickly say, “Yes, that's fine” to get rid of us.

Her glasses were on the top of her head, kind of stuffed crookedly in her hair, making it stick up on one side.

“Yes, girls, what can I do for you? Is it something that can wait? It's not the best time right now…”