given a ride, as well as clothing, breakfast, and lunch in exchange for helping the captain fix his broken radio.
“Didn’t you say fixing radios and mechanical equipment was useless?” Travis asked his sister.
“No,” said Hallie.
“Yes, you did. It was when we were at the beach, and I said . . .”
“I didn’t mean it couldn’t serve some purpose . . .”
“Well, that’s what useless means,” said Travis. “Useless means . . . ”
Hallie’s and Travis’s voices were getting louder. “Wait a minute!” Wesley shouted. “Hallie, tell Travis about the meeting.”
So, Hallie told Travis everything, and it was agreed that all three cousins would go to New York City instead of going home. They would phone their parents from New York, and get into that meeting no matter what.
3. A Meeting Interrupted
The kids’ plan actually worked better than Wesley expected. They traveled to a swimming pool in New York City. They found a phone and used a code to make the calls. They told their parents that they were all together and had gotten up early to look for insects — which is also what the notes said that they had left in their rooms. The kids’ two houses were almost next-door to each other.
They were all going to be in a lot of trouble when they got home, but they wouldn’t give away the secret of Tube World. People over 10 years old couldn’t believe anything they heard about Tube World. But it was safer if they didn’t hear anything. Even 6 to 10 year olds had to be told very carefully.
The three kids stood in their swimming suits on the street in New York City outside an enormous building. In front of the building were limousines, police cars, guards, soldiers, and television cameras.
“Brrr!” said Travis, “It’s cold here!”
“Yeah,” said Hallie, “lucky for us. Come on!”
“Lucky?” said Wesley and Travis. But they followed.
The three of them made their way quickly to an entrance. People with suits and coats and cell phones and brief cases were going in to attend the meeting. A short line formed in front of a metal detector where people were taking their keys and coins out of their pockets and then walking through.
Having nothing but swimsuits, the kids had nothing to hand to the guards. However, one of the guards stopped them and said, “Where do you think you’re going?”
Hallie smiled at him. “We’re here for the movie shoot, the global warming movie. I’m Kimberly Thornton Cassandra. This is Richard Ruff. You may have seen him in Dude, Where’s My Bicycle? It’s cold here, by the way.”
The guard smiled at Hallie. “Hurry up,” he said. “And who’s that one who can’t stop laughing?”
“Oscar?” Hallie replied. “Oh, he’s doing the voice of the baby sea turtle. The sea turtle laughs a lot. Come on, guys!”
And, easy as that, they were in.
When they’d walked down a hallway and turned a corner, Travis said to Hallie, “You shouldn’t tell lies.”
“I had to,” Hallie said.
“You didn’t have to. We’re already in trouble. We could have thought of something. Lying will get us into more trouble. And now we’re at the meeting but we have no clothes.”
“We couldn’t have thought of something. And I didn’t hurt anybody. And what do you need clothes for?”
“What are both of you waiting for?” Wesley whispered at the top of his lungs. He was 50 yards away, next to a door propped open with his foot. “This way,” he breathed.
In the next minute, the three of them were in the back of a large hall that was filling up. A group of several speakers was taking seats on a stage in the front.
The meeting was not as exciting as they had hoped. It was a lot of boring talking, actually. Nobody ever clapped or cheered. The audience just sat there, as the speakers droned on and on. Every once in a while, Hallie would nudge her brother and her cousin and whisper, “Soon.” But then nothing else would happen. Wesley started drifting off to sleep.
Then Hallie elbowed him and whispered, “Now!”
The three children began walking down the aisle in the middle of the room. They were the only children in the place, and the only people in bathing suits. They began attracting attention.
By the time they’d reached the front of the room, next to the stage, the man speaking had gone silent. Everyone was staring at the kids. They climbed the steps up onto the stage. They walked right up to a microphone, which Travis quickly lowered. Hallie spoke: “We’re sorry to interrupt your meeting,” she said, “but the planet you’re ruining will last for your lives, and maybe your children’s. It won’t last for our lives or our children’s. So we have a right to speak.
“We’re sorry to come in our bathing suits,” Hallie continued, “but we were just swimming in the Maldives. And what we saw doesn’t fit with what you’ve been talking about. It’s not all right. People are not adjusting. The climate change is not opening up new doors for every one it closes. It’s swallowing up islands into the sea. It’s not changing them. It’s ending them.
“Balancing people’s lives with growing your economy is wrong. The growing economy is the problem. Why don’t you grow a garden? Grow your schools? Grow your solar panels? Grow your arts? There are a lot of things you can grow while economies and populations shrink.
“Nobody has to suffer at all. Nobody in the Maldives wants anyone else to suffer. Nobody has to make a trade. We just have to stop letting oil and gas and coal companies run our lives. Or the Maldive islands will sink into the sea.”
Travis and Wesley were amazed at how Hallie was talking, but not nearly as amazed as everyone else. Finally, one of the men running the meeting said, “Thank you, young lady, for sharing your views. Now we have an agenda.”
“No you don’t,” said a man walking up the aisle together with two other men and two women. “The world has an agenda more important than yours.” He spoke with the same accent Eva had spoken with. “Please continue,” he said to Hallie.
By this time a couple of guards had come into the room and were moving to block the five men and women from reaching the stage. The guards seemed unsure what to do about the children in bathing suits.
“If I’m not mistaken,” said Hallie, “these people are from the Maldives. It is their islands that will be lost. It is their 300,000 people that will have to ask the rest of you for a place to live. I believe they have a right to speak to this meeting.”
Hallie took a deep breath. Then she said: “If you agree with me, stand up.”
Hallie, Travis, and Wesley, looked around the room. Wesley was afraid nobody would stand up. But a few did. Then a few more. They heard a chair scrape the floor behind them. One of the speakers seated on the stage stood up. Then another. Then half the room was standing. And more. And they were clapping. The guards backed away. The men and women from the Maldives stepped up onto the stage, greeted by loud applause.
When the cheering stopped, Hallie introduced each of the men and women by name. This amazed them, since they’d never seen her before. Hallie picked up a bottle of water off a table on the stage. “Imagine,” she said, “if you couldn’t drink this because the ocean had filled