Save the Planet! – Day 1

‘Well, football’s over for a while, but that music gives me an idea!’

*****

‘Ah, stop that noise will you…I’ve got a headache!’

Hardy carried on drumming on the log in front of him.  Tap, tap, thunk, thunk,  tappety tap.

‘You’ve been doing that for hours, just give it a rest!’

‘I’m thinking.  It helps me’,  said Hardy, ignoring Freddy’s pleas.  He tapped some more.

*****

They were sitting, doing nothing in particular.

Or rather, half sitting, half standing, doing something, but not much.

Actually, Hardy was standing, crouched over his log.  Drumming.

Freddy was walking a little further away, clutching his ears and massaging his head.

Wil actually was sitting.  Doing nothing.  Waiting.

They were waiting for Michael and Jaz…

Who appeared, with a crashing of leaves and branches.  They burst into the clearing from one of the several paths that led off into the thick woods.

‘Yo!  How’re you doing?’  said Michael breezily, leaping off the saddle of Jaz’s bike, leaving Jaz standing astride the crossbar, looking cool and confident.

‘Where’s your bike?’  said Hardy, momentarily stopping his drumming in order to speak.

He started drumming again.

‘We left it at home.  Just doing our bit, y’know’,  said Jaz.

‘Doing your bit…for what?’

‘Don’t you know?’   said Jaz dismissively, ‘we’re doing our bit for WED tomorrow.  Y’know, doubling up’.

‘What?’  said Wil.

‘Eh?’   said Freddy.

‘Tomorrow’s Tuesday!’ said Hardy.

‘I know that!’  said Jaz, laughing.

‘What is WED anyway?’   said Michael quietly.

‘Well, you should know, you’ve been doing your bit!’  said Hardy sarcastically.  Drumming louder.

‘Well, he just picked me up’,  said Michael, motioning over to a smirking Jaz, ‘he wouldn’t let me bring my own bike’.

‘What’s that got to do with Wednesday?’

‘It has nothing to do with Wednesday.  It’s an acronym’.

‘A whatonym?’  said Wil.

‘An acronym.  It’s when you take the first letter of each word in a phrase, and put them together.  Like SOS, or B&Q, or MUFC, or WED’,  explained Jaz.

‘Oh I see,’  said Wil, probably not actually getting it.

‘Wednesday is England’s Destiny…’  said Michael, changing the subject.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if they win, even draw, they could be OK…but if they lose…’

‘What, Early Departure?,’  said Freddy.

‘Too right, we even don’t know whether we eventually do qualify with eight draws!’

‘Why eight draws?’

‘Because, I’m trying to think of as many things starting with WED as possible’,  said Michael.

‘You One Eyed Dog!’ said Hardy, staring surreally at Jaz.

‘One doesn’t start with a W!’

‘Whatever, Dude!’, muttered Hardy.

‘I’ll put you out of your misery, you wild-eyed devil!’  said Jaz to Hardy.

‘You Wouldn’t Even Dare!’ replied Hardy, picking up one of his sticks.

‘C’mon, you know, it is World Environment Day!’  said Jaz, getting to the point at last, ‘that’s why we came on one bike’.

‘Bikes don’t mess up the environment!’  replied Freddy, laughing, ‘you can bike as much as you like.  Just don’t drive cars!’

‘Well that’s OK for us, isn’t it!’

‘Wow!  It’s hot today!’   said Hardy, taking off his Chelsea hooded top.

‘Yes!  Global warming, you see…’  said Jaz.

‘Well, it is June’,  said Freddy, ‘it usually is hot in June!’

Jaz reeled off a bunch of figures about how the earth was warming up by so many percent, how the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the highest for 600,000 years, and how we are throwing away too much rubbish, so the icecaps are melting.

Hardy got out his lunch box, opened his packet of crisps, emptied them out, and lobbed the empty packet into the bushes.  He winked at Freddy, who smiled.  Jaz exploded.

‘Don’t drop that!  Don’t even throw it away!  Recycle it!  We can use it again!’

‘So where is this World Environment Day anyway?’  said Hardy, picking up the packet.

‘Well, it’s everywhere, isn’t it?  It is all around us.  The forest here, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the oceans.  We just have to look after it.’

‘My sandwiches are volcanic!’ said Wil suddenly, biting into a large hunk of rough brown bread.

‘I think you mean organic, bro’, replied Freddy, ‘organic.  It means the farmers don’t put any chemicals on them’.

‘Very good’,  said Jaz, ‘Tastes better too!’

‘Mmm, you’re right’,  said Wil, spitting out a little mud, and pulling some grass out from between his teeth.

Hardy was still tapping.  Quite rhythmically.  Different patterns.  Freddy gave in eventually,

‘Great tapping H.  Gives me an idea actually’.

*****