Earth Day: 

Veggies Suck

Jessy and I walk through the school's quad in complete and utter boredom. Our feet carry us at a depressing pace as our mind skim through any sources of entertainment.

"We can mess with the goths." Jess pipes up, but as soon as she does I strike her down.

"We do that everyday, we need to do something different."

"Hmm," she replies. Both of us put a finger over our lips. We've spent so much time with each other we're practically the same person.

"Let's go bully the tree huggers. There's this little rally at the park that we can crash." I smirk, satisfied.

We share a smile that clearly confirms our future intents. This quickly changes though. The enthusiasm leaves Jess' eyes as she frowns.

"What?" I ask, raising a brow.

"That's way later, Shanna. I'm bored now."

"Then let's go kick down a crippled or something." I wave her off sarcastically.

"Shanna," she whines in aw. "That was actually really fucking mean."

"Seriously, don't act that dumb." I roll my eyes and give up on my attempt to explain her stupidity. "If we're gonna do this we need to prepare."

"Posters, slogans, the whole shebang."

I smile and nod. "The whole shebang."

We lock arms as we give each other a deadly smirk. My skirt bounces and her dress twists as we damn near skip off of school campus.

We're going to be the Brick Stone to their Westboro Baptist Church, and we're gonna love every bit of it.

Two hours later we're at the park. The tree huggers skipped school today so they're already here. Groups of them hold signs and chant.

A guy walks past a group of "protesters" as they say, "It's Earth day, appreciate the Earth."

"Appreciate this." A guy says, dropping a piece of litter on the ground causing me to laugh. Jess jogs up and high fives him before they begin to walk off together. She's probably trying to get him in on the fun, and -I know for sure- she's going to give him her number.

"That can kill a native specie." A girl speaks up.

"These can to." One of his friends says as he grabs his nuts.

I laugh lowly, trying to cover up my smile. I step up, playing as if I'm apart of their movement.

"Hey, you need to take care of your environment, it's critical to the Earth's health and to ours." I say causing confusion to flash across the boy's face. I smile and wink at him before turning to the brunette with the glasses.

"Uh- thanks. I- I didn't know you cared about the Earth."

I want to say, "I don't," but that would just blow it.

"Of course I do. This is my home, plus trash is like... yuckie." I say as we start walking away.

The girl laughs. "That sounds like something you would say. Oh, I'm Sabrina by the way." She says holding a hand out to me.

"I know your face." I say seriously as I take her hand. "And you know my name."

She laughs a bit. "Yeah. So- uh- what made you come here. I mean, when did you become an environmental philanthropist?"

"Meh, about twenty minutes ago." I laugh causing her to laugh to.

"You're funny." A small laugh leaves her slightly chapped lips. "Should I show you around?" She asks, and I simply shrug.

I'd rather not, but Jess isn't here to keep me company so why not? My intent was to pretend to be on there side while holding up signs that mocked their pathetic efforts. But, what can I say. I get bored easy.

Glasses girl begins to lead me toward -let's call them- the gardeners. They're on their hands and knees, digging into the dirt with shovels. They're probably making little holes to put, like, midget trees in, I guess.

"This is where we're planting Sissoo trees this year." She points a pretty far distance away. "That is where we planted Chinese Elms last year. High demand for the Indian Laurel is over shadowing some of the others."

What even is she talking about? They must be really bored to be doing all of this. Trees plant themselves. They've done it long enough without us bothering them... right? Plus, the ones from last year are taller than me! After a year I was barely off the ground. At this rate humans should be endangered.

"We're trying to get our hands on some Huachuca Water-umbel for next year's rally." She laughs lowly before nudging me. "Try saying that five times fast."

"I'd kill myself before I even attempted to say that one time fast." The words spill out before I can catch them. I try to pass it off as a joke. And it works. Thank God for socially incompetent morons.

A nervous chuckle leaves her lips. "Well, along with that we're attempting to get some Arizona Cliffrose and Willows. In addition to trees were trying to expand our efforts to other plant species and even animals. But the plants alone will take a lot to get our hands on, and a small road trip to accomplish."

"Oh, cool." I reply trying to sound preppy but even with my efforts my personality makes it come out bored.

"You've seen nothing yet." She says with a smile. We begin to walk in the other direction. "As you know the pickers are over there and right over here are we're handing out flyers, stats over there. We have a petting zoo, recycling bins, and the vegetarians. They're really admirable, most people couldn't give up meat even if they wanted to."

There are a few small squirrels, a pig, a pony, and a few common and exotic animals at the petting zoo. Barely any people are there though. They don't want to cause conflict within their children. I'm starting to realize that they just don't want their kids to be the ones telling them what's right.

People are using the recycling bins though. Except, most of them are throwing away the flyers. But a lot of people are listening to the vegetarians, astonished by what eating meat can cause them. I doubt any of them will do anything about it anytime soon though.

"They're so... hot!" I gawk at the veggie eaters. "God, they look better than me."

Sabrina smiles. "I know! That's all of them too. They're healthy, happy, and the most caring people I know."

"Wow." I say in genuine awe. "Y'all really do this, because you care? Why? Why care about people you don't know and things that have nothing to do with you, stuff that might not even affect you?"

"I don't know, really. Most of us were born this way, I guess. When you look at and see all the harm we can do to the world, including ourselves, some of us just have the heart to try to prevent it. Fix the mess we made, or learn not to do it again."

"Like the vegetarians with eating meat." My voice comes out in a realizing tone.

"Yeah, eating meat is harmful to the planet, to our food and water supplies, and to ourselves. Don't mention the fucked up crap meat eaters are paying to be done to those animals."

I almost gap in awe. "The goodie -goodie nerd cursed?" I laugh.

"It's the only way I can describe it." She shrugs.

"You guys have balls, I give you that." I say. She only nods in reply.

"You're not bad yourself, even though you did come here to taunt us."

My mouth opens a bit as I grow slightly wide-eyed. Bria, just laughs.

Whoa, I'm giving geeks nicknames now. I need some alcohol in me, pronto.

Before I can ask how she knows she replies. "I saw the signs."

I chuckle. Oh God, don't ask me why because I don't even know. "Sorry about that." I say shrugging.

"It's fine." She shrugs also. "I guess, now, you should leave."

My heart sinks. I feel almost saddened by that... When I should feel offended! God, what's wrong with me?

"Your friend is coming." She gestures to Jess who's coming up behind me.

"Hey, wassup?" Jess says after finishing her jog. Her faces gross slightly confused. "What- what's going on?"

"I'll see you later, Shanna." Sabrina says getting the hint I never sent. I guess she thinks she knows how the popular people work.

"Bye, Bria." I wave before turning back to Jess with a smile.

"Bria?" She asks with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

"A lot has happened since you ditched me." I laugh and softly punch her arm.

"Like what?"

"It's a long story." I tell her as I lead her to the car. "I'll tell you on the ride to the bar."

Jess nods, smiling.

"Did you know that eating meat can give you up to a 50% higher chance of getting cancer."

"Wow. I didn't know that." She says letting the 'w' in 'wow' linger. "Yeah, we definitely do need a drink." We laugh.