New Beginnings by Laurie Halse Anderson

down on her side next to me and lets me pet her. Mom has already left, and I wish she could see how sweet Cuddles is when she’s had plenty of exercise, but I don’t want to disturb or move her. So I just pet her and I’m so happy that she’s content. Tomorrow I’ll look for a phone book and some other things to keep her occupied. But for now—all is well. Mom seems to like Cuddles. Just a few more days and she will be convinced that Cuddles can stay. Maybe moving to Ambler will turn out okay after all.

Chapter Fifteen
    O n Thursday, I still try to avoid Maggie on the bus ride to school. Josh is best buddies with David now, so my former strategy of sitting with my twin is shot. Josh jabbers away with David as we get on the bus, then they both pretty much forget all about me. So I sit by myself behind the bus driver. I wish Sunita took the same bus to school.
    At lunch I go to the library for Brenna’s Save Our Streams meeting. The library is so packed with people, students are sitting on the tables and floor. It’s way too crowded, so I have to stand in the back. Mr. Hart calls the meeting to order and says that the whole school will be studying ecology and water systems in the next month. Then he introduces Brenna Lake.
    Everyone claps. I hear David off to the side making some dumb joke about why Brenna
Lake
is cleaning up a stream and not a lake. David gets a few chuckles, but most everyone, including Brenna, ignores him. Brenna asks for the lights to be turned down and shows slides of all kinds of local wildlife at the Gold Hill Nature Preserve, where she lives with her family. The lights come back on, and she stands at the podium and asks the students to help out at the community-wide Save Our Streams Cleanup Day on Saturday.
    â€œLast year we had over fifty volunteers,” Brenna says. “In just half a day, we collected fifty-seven bags of trash, three tires, various car parts, and an old washing machine out of the stream. This year we hope to at least double the number of volunteers and clean up an even longer stretch of stream. We’ll sort the junk we collect from the stream and recycle all the plastic, glass, metal, and aluminum. We really want to get the message out to keep our streams clean. Here’s why.”
    Brenna holds up a big photo of a duck with its neck stuck in a plastic six-pack ring. It’s hard to look at. Next she shows a beaver tangled in fishing line and a baby raccoon with its head stuck in a dirty glass jar. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to see these injured animals. I’m not the only one who feels that way. There are gasps and silence.
    â€œAt the wildlife center, we see so many injured animals. Birds and foxes and other animals end up eating all kinds of dangerous things that people have left behind. Like the defenseless little raccoon I showed you with its head stuck in a jar. They can’t get themselves free, and sometimes they die of starvation. Innocent animals are trapped, injured, suffocate, and die because of plastic bags, fishing line, and plastic six-pack rings. I’ve seen birds and mammals with cuts on their feet from broken glass. It has to stop. Our local wildlife is depending on us for clean, safe, and unpolluted water. So who can help us clean the stream this Saturday?”
    Everyone’s hand goes up, including mine.
    â€œGreat,” Brenna says. “Stream Cleanup Day is just a beginning. When we’re done for the day, we’ll report back in the newspaper and on our new blog to make people aware of recycling and how to prevent polluting our streams.”
    Wow, she has it all planned out.
    â€œI have sign-up sheets for general volunteers, sorters, photographers, and reporters. And we’re still looking for businesses to donate snacks and drinks. Can anyone think of anything else we need?”
    Before I realize what I’m doing, my hand shoots up and Brenna nods to me. “Yes?” she