support the campaign. I’m just not very good at statistics and campaigning methods and international organizations. I try and concentrate but my brain starts clouding over and I find myself thinking about next semester’s designs for my pencil case or the ideal color combinationfor my next pair of Converses. I wish I wasn’t so superficial but it’s obviously genetic, so I don’t think it can really be my fault.
But I do discover one interesting thing. I happen to be googling Jenny one evening after homework (OK, instead of homework—it’s become a bit of a habit to watch the search results grow each week) and I notice that one of the most popular sites for people looking for stuff about Jenny is Edie’s blog. It turns out that Edie’s been describing Jenny’s TV and magazine appearances alongside snarky comments about my outfits and general information about world peace and her own do-gooding.
I can’t help wondering how many of the hits are down to Edie’s limpid prose and biting political analysis, and how many are down to Jenny’s taste in shoes.
I ask Edie about it as we’re leaving school one day and she somehow manages to change the subject to how much publicity she’s raised recently for Invisible Children, swiftly followed by the number of displaced people in camps in ten African countries. By the time she’s finished quoting a series of very large numbers at me, I’ve forgotten what my original question was.
“I need to do more, though,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “I mean, if we could get a million signatures,say, on a petition, then the Prime Minister would have to take the problem more seriously. And he could raise it at the next G8 Summit. And they’d have to do something.”
“Do what, exactly?”
“Give more money to people who are trying to put families back together. Stop supporting the governments who keep the conflicts going so they daren’t return home. Build more schools. Just imagine: You spend years and years in a camp with hardly any food, no education, people dying around you. There’s thousands of them living like that and hardly anybody’s helping them. Just because they’re not being shot at anymore, it doesn’t mean they’re out of trouble.”
I try to look encouraging.
“Oh, come on,” Edie complains. “It’s not that impossible.”
I must practice my encouraging look more.
“ You care, don’t you, Nonie?” she asks, looking doubtful for the first time.
“Of course I care,” I protest. “But I don’t know these children. They’re so far away.”
Edie looks irritated.
“Huh! Jenny only has to put on a pair of silver shoes and half the country seems to know her.”
We’re back on that subject again. I make an excuse that I’ve got an essay on a Brontë to finish and head for home as quickly as I can. Edie goes on and on about saving the world, but if she carries on like this it’s going to be practically impossible to save a friendship.
Chapter 18
I t’s not all celebrity and saving the world. Summer vacation is a distant memory and we have normal school things to think about, too. All our teachers have been careful to explain that we have less than two years before we’ll be TAKING SOME OF THE BIGGEST EXAMS OF OUR LIVES and that we should be suitably, and increasingly, stressed. It’s working for Jenny and me.
Edie, on the other hand, is in the zone. Take Eng Lit. By now, she’s read all our assigned texts for the whole year and an additional three books by each author, just to become “fully conversant with their style.” I think that means being able to copy them at will, which she can. Her only regret is that Emily Brontë didn’t write enough books to enable such thorough research. Emily Brontë is a bit feeble and lazy, in Edie’s opinion, and should have done less wandering on the moors getting a chill and put pen to paper more often.
Oh, and there’s shopping. Obviously, Edie doesn’t shop, so far as I’ve
But I do discover one interesting thing. I happen to be googling Jenny one evening after homework (OK, instead of homework—it’s become a bit of a habit to watch the search results grow each week) and I notice that one of the most popular sites for people looking for stuff about Jenny is Edie’s blog. It turns out that Edie’s been describing Jenny’s TV and magazine appearances alongside snarky comments about my outfits and general information about world peace and her own do-gooding.
I can’t help wondering how many of the hits are down to Edie’s limpid prose and biting political analysis, and how many are down to Jenny’s taste in shoes.
I ask Edie about it as we’re leaving school one day and she somehow manages to change the subject to how much publicity she’s raised recently for Invisible Children, swiftly followed by the number of displaced people in camps in ten African countries. By the time she’s finished quoting a series of very large numbers at me, I’ve forgotten what my original question was.
“I need to do more, though,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “I mean, if we could get a million signatures,say, on a petition, then the Prime Minister would have to take the problem more seriously. And he could raise it at the next G8 Summit. And they’d have to do something.”
“Do what, exactly?”
“Give more money to people who are trying to put families back together. Stop supporting the governments who keep the conflicts going so they daren’t return home. Build more schools. Just imagine: You spend years and years in a camp with hardly any food, no education, people dying around you. There’s thousands of them living like that and hardly anybody’s helping them. Just because they’re not being shot at anymore, it doesn’t mean they’re out of trouble.”
I try to look encouraging.
“Oh, come on,” Edie complains. “It’s not that impossible.”
I must practice my encouraging look more.
“ You care, don’t you, Nonie?” she asks, looking doubtful for the first time.
“Of course I care,” I protest. “But I don’t know these children. They’re so far away.”
Edie looks irritated.
“Huh! Jenny only has to put on a pair of silver shoes and half the country seems to know her.”
We’re back on that subject again. I make an excuse that I’ve got an essay on a Brontë to finish and head for home as quickly as I can. Edie goes on and on about saving the world, but if she carries on like this it’s going to be practically impossible to save a friendship.
Chapter 18
I t’s not all celebrity and saving the world. Summer vacation is a distant memory and we have normal school things to think about, too. All our teachers have been careful to explain that we have less than two years before we’ll be TAKING SOME OF THE BIGGEST EXAMS OF OUR LIVES and that we should be suitably, and increasingly, stressed. It’s working for Jenny and me.
Edie, on the other hand, is in the zone. Take Eng Lit. By now, she’s read all our assigned texts for the whole year and an additional three books by each author, just to become “fully conversant with their style.” I think that means being able to copy them at will, which she can. Her only regret is that Emily Brontë didn’t write enough books to enable such thorough research. Emily Brontë is a bit feeble and lazy, in Edie’s opinion, and should have done less wandering on the moors getting a chill and put pen to paper more often.
Oh, and there’s shopping. Obviously, Edie doesn’t shop, so far as I’ve
Similar Books
