What If ... Your Past Came Back to Haunt You (4 page)

EYE-OPENER

You can catch more flies with honey than you can with, um . . . bullhorns.

“T
he problem with all you jolly green jokers is you claim to be open-minded, but you're actually unwilling to listen to any argument that doesn't fit your agenda,” Alex Martin said. “You're all totally close-minded.”

“That's not true,” Haley said. “I'll prove it to you. I want to hear your side—really.”

After the first Planet Please meeting, Haley left the headquarters to find Alex still pacing the hall with his
GLOBAL WARMING IS A MYTH
! sign. Annie Armstrong had looked stunned when Haley stopped to talk to him.

“He's all yours,” Annie said with a shrug as she and the others left.

But Haley had a secret plan: she was going to change Alex's mind about the state of the planet. She was sure she could do it; he was intelligent, after all, and in spite of his inflammatory rhetoric, she sensed that a thoughtful, sensitive soul was longing to breathe free beneath the conservative bluster. At least, she hoped so.
No one that cute should be so . . . wrong,
Haley thought.

“What are you doing now?” she asked him.

“Now?” Alex let his sign fall. There was no one left to protest to. The school was emptying, and he and Haley were two of the last people left in the hall. “You mean, now?”

“Right now,” Haley said. “Would you like to come over to my house? We could have a little snack and you could explain to me why global warming is a myth. It's quiet there; we'll be able to talk.”

“Well . . . sure.” Haley had caught him off guard. All part of her plan. “Why not?”

“Excellent. Let's go.” Haley's dad wasn't teaching that afternoon and was sure to be home working on his new film. Haley would play devil's advocate, listening to Alex's arguments while her father presented the heart-wrenching evidence of environmental devastation he'd captured on film. Surely, she thought, Alex hadn't thought the whole thing through. There were aspects to global warming he wasn't aware of. Perry Miller was the perfect person to help Haley open Alex's eyes. And once open, maybe Alex would relax a little, soften and become someone Haley could get to know a little better. She certainly wanted to.

In the parking lot, Alex opened the passenger door of his preppy-looking but not very efficient wagon for Haley and helped her in. Kind of old-fashioned, but Haley couldn't help being charmed. They drove to the Miller homestead near Hillsdale Heights. She led him inside, and upstairs, where sure enough, her father was in his study.

“Hi, Dad,” Haley said. “This is Alex.”

Perry looked up from his work. “Nice to meet you, Alex. How was school today? Did they try to teach you anything about creationism? I have my doubts about that biology teacher. You two want something to eat? There's leftover bulgur salad in the fridge.”

“Thanks,” Haley said. “Where's Mitchell?” She didn't want him around to distract her from her mission. All she needed was for annoying little brother to start taking apart Alex's cell phone or something and the subject would effectively be changed for good.

“In his room,” Perry said. “Building a space station out of spare radio parts, last I checked.”

That should keep him busy for a while, Haley thought, leading Alex downstairs and into the kitchen. She offered him some sparkling water. He turned down the bulgur salad. “I totally understand,” Haley said. “I wish I could offer you cookies or something in the way of a normal after-school snack, but this is a No Refined Sugar zone.”

Alex nodded. “Makes sense. Now I see where you get your left-leaning tendencies.”

“Well, that's exactly what I don't want,” Haley confessed. “I mean, I know I'm influenced by my parents, but I'd like to hear the other side too. I'd like to think I can make up my own mind.”

“That's very refreshing,” Alex said. “You have no idea how rare that kind of thinking is these days.”

Haley smiled and squeezed lime into his fizzy water.

Alex began to tell her about the evidence contradicting global warming—the places that had gotten cooler rather than warmer, the cycles of warming and cooling that the earth had undergone over the eons, the signs that erratic weather patterns predicted not warming but a coming ice age. Haley listened intently and nodded. “Very interesting,” she said.

Then he talked about American coal, oil and lumber interests, how U.S. power depended on the strength of its industries and how the current high standard of living so many Americans enjoyed was at risk if the United States cut down on production or demand. “Even your own family drives an SUV,” he said, nodding toward the driveway.

“It's a hybrid,” Haley pointed out.

“Still,” Alex said. “Look at this house. Do you really want to live without a dishwasher, a washer/dryer, air-conditioning and heat? Would you want to live in a smaller house and share a room with your brother?”

“Ha!” Haley scoffed. “Now that would be a nightmare. But I don't really see what that has to do with climate change.”

“It has to do with the economy,” Alex said. “With our resources and our wealth, and how they're distributed. It's all connected. The climate isn't just about climate. It's about everything.”

“I totally agree,” Haley said. “On the other hand, would I want to live in a big comfortable house while outside the air is unbreathable and the plants and animals are dying?”

“But there's no reason to believe that would happen,” Alex said. “People are just trying to scare you. There's no factual basis for global warming—that's what I've been trying to tell you.”

“Oh,” Haley said. “I get it.” She got it, all right. Alex was living in a conservative dream bubble, a bubble that needed to be popped.

With perfect timing, Perry walked into the kitchen in search of a cup of tea. “Hey, kids,” he said. “How's that bulgur salad?”

“Dad,” Haley asked, “how's your new film?” She turned to Alex. “He's a documentary filmmaker.”

“Oh, it's coming along,” Perry said, suddenly sensing a receptive audience. “Would you like to see what I've got so far?”

This was exactly what Haley had hoped would happen. “Sure, I'd love to,” she said innocently. “Alex?”

“Of course.” Alex rose to his feet, ready to go into the den. Haley had counted on his polite interest in her father's work. Though he could well be genuinely interested, Haley thought.

Perry led them into the study. “The footage is very rough, so I apologize,” he said. “I'm looking at the effects of climate change on migratory birds. Birds all over the world have been confused by the speedy rise in temperatures, and their migrations reflect that. Some of them don't bother to migrate at all anymore, because their nesting habitats have gotten so warm they don't need to fly south for winter.”

“Doesn't sound so bad to me,” Alex said. “I hate commuting.”

“Well,” Perry said, “they end up fighting for scarce resources, not having enough food to eat, falling victim to predators. And their schedules don't sync with plant growth anymore, so pollination doesn't occur, and then the plants stop growing. . . . The problem is spreading throughout the ecosystem. Watch.”

He started showing some of his footage. Alex sat back with his arms crossed over his chest, as if nothing Perry showed him could change his mind.

The film began with a small, beautiful songbird, with a yellow head and belly, looking for a place to land on a coastline filled with highways and beach development. “This used to be marshland, a resting stop for these birds on their way from New England to the West Indies,” Perry said. “But development has left them no safe place to stop.” One of the birds dropped into the ocean, looking exhausted. A larger, predatory seabird swooped down to snatch it up. “Their numbers are diminishing fast.”

“What kind of bird is it?” Alex asked.

“The Cape May warbler.” The film showed the bird in a spruce tree, chirping.

“Cape May?” Alex said. “My family has a house in Cape May. I've heard that chirp when we're down there on fall weekends.”

Aha,
Haley thought.
Got him.

Perry talked over the raw footage of the beautiful little bird struggling for survival. Global warming was predicted to drive up to thirty percent of all animal species to extinction by the year 2100, he explained. And the change in bird migration patterns—which meant that birds arrived at their destinations weeks earlier than in previous years—was just an early warning sign, incontrovertible proof that the climate was warming up. Alex watched the bird, so familiar from his childhood beach vacations, with growing alarm on his face.

“As you said yourself, it's all connected,” Haley said. “The birds to the plants and insects, to the food supply, to human life on earth. How can there be any economy if there's no food to support the population? Who needs a job when there's nothing to eat?”

“I have to admit, this is disturbing,” Alex said. Haley had to stop herself from smiling in triumph. Disturbing! His face had turned white.

The front door opened and Joan Miller stumbled in with armloads of groceries. “Anybody home?”

Perry hurried over to help her with the bags, as Alex jumped up and offered to assist too. “Thanks, both of you,” Joan said, casting an approving glance in Haley's direction.

“Mom, this is Alex Martin,” Haley said.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Miller,” Alex said. “We were just admiring your husband's work-in-progress.”

“Were you?” Joan headed into the kitchen, and the others followed with the grocery bags. “Alex Martin? I know that name. Aren't you captain of the debate team? With Annie Armstrong?”

“Guilty as charged.” Alex set the bags on the counter and leaned against it, his confidence returning.

“That's funny,” Joan said. “I work with Annie's mother, Blythe.” She paused, glancing from Alex to Haley as if she wasn't sure whether she should continue.

“What is it?” Haley asked.

“Well, I suppose you'll hear about it from Annie eventually,” Joan continued. “It seems that Nora Metzger has moved in with your art teacher—Mr. Von, is it?”

“Mrs. Metzger and Mr. Von?” Haley tried to take in this news. Nora Metzger was Dave Metzger's mother. Dave Metzger was Annie Armstrong's boyfriend. Mrs. Metzger was pretty much the most neurotic and uptight person Haley had ever met. She saw danger everywhere and had Dave convinced he was allergic to just about everything under the sun. She would have kept him in a bubble if she could. She was the last person Haley would imagine getting serious with anyone, much less the eccentric loosey goosey Rick Von, with his rumpled clothes, stubbly beard, whispery rasp of a voice and oddly lopsided walk.

On the other hand, maybe they made a weird kind of sense as a couple. They were both oddballs; at least they had that in common.

“So wait,” Alex said. “You're saying they moved in together? So that means Dave Metzger is . . . living in Mr. Von's house now?”

Joan nodded. “Blythe told me that Annie's been over to visit several times.”

“I can't believe Annie hasn't told us about this yet,” Haley said.

“You know Annie and her obessions,” Alex said. “Right now she's so obsessed with saving the planet that she sometimes forgets to go to the bathroom.”

“Apparently the house is very rustic,” Joan said. “Full of fascinating antiques and relics from the sixties.”

Haley tried to imagine the household: Dave Metzger, nervous, sweaty, breaking out in hives at even the thought of strawberries, blueberries, apples, shellfish, regular fish, milk, all dairy products—in fact, pretty much anything but rice cakes—holed up in his new bedroom in Mr. Von's cobweb-filled house, taping his podcast, “Inside Hillsdale,” and spouting his bizarre conspiracy theories while his mother and Mr. Von made out or whatever downstairs. How would Mr. Von treat Dave at school? Would he act all fatherly or pretend nothing had changed?

Haley looked at her own mother and shuddered. Thank God her parents were still married. There'd been plenty of strange parental pairings in Hillsdale over the past year or so, some of them not so bad, like Sasha Lewis's father and Whitney Klein's mother. But a few of them struck Haley as crimes against nature. She couldn't imagine having to move in with one of her teachers—especially Mr. Von.

“So what did you think of Perry's movie so far?” Joan asked Alex, mercifully changing the subject.

“Impressive,” Alex said. “And a little scary. I have to admit he makes a good case.”

Haley smiled at him. “So you're going to rethink your whole global-warming-is-a-myth stance? Maybe forget about the club? Maybe even join Planet Please?”

“I didn't say that,” Alex said, grinning wryly.