As she spoke, Dan pulled on Phillip’s arm.
“Dude, you’d better look at this.”
Dan had started a Save the Worcester Woods Facebook page. It had over 1,000 members, and it had only been on-line one hour.
“Look at the comments.”
“Hello, this is Channel Nine News, we’ve just heard of your protest and would like to interview you….”
“Hi, this is your local representative. I’d like to speak to you about your campaign to save this forest.”
“Hello, this is NPR. We read your blog post on Huffington Post Youth and would like to interview you for our radio program. . . . ”
“Greetings, my name is Amy from the Forest Stewardship Council. We want to support your work to preserve this forest. . . .”
And the list went on and on.
Phillip and Dan read, jaws dropping.
Meanwhile, as Cedar closed her comments, the crowd erupted in applause.
Mr. Bausch approached quickly with two other adults.
“Phillip, Cedar, I am so glad to see that you are all right! You gave us quite a scare.”
Phillip smiled his small smile. Mr. Bausch continued, “I want to introduce you to two of your town select board representatives. They granted the approval of this development and are interested in hearing more about your side of things.”
With that he winked.
Phillip knew Mr. Bausch was a good guy.
The town representative spoke first, combed dark hair bobbing, “While we appreciate your efforts here, this development is perfectly legal, and, unfortunately, the forest clearing will begin today.” He looked in physical pain to be standing in the woods with all of these people.
Cedar’s eyes were burning holes in the representative, and Phillip stammered, put off by the condescending tone of the man and struggled for words. Dan looked up and smiled.
“While we appreciate you coming out here, you are going to have to answer to all of these people who want to save this forest,” he waved his hand to the cheering crowd, “and to all of these people, too.” He held up his computer, showed the town selectman the page and the comments. Then someone else tapped the representative on the shoulder, and a video camera was shoved in his face.
A news reporter had pushed her way into the scene, her videographer right beside her. “Are you a town representative who voted on having this development? What do you plan to do to save this girl and preserve this forest? Will you ignore the will of the people here today?”
Visibly stunned, the representative said “No comment!” and started walking briskly away. Dan smiled. The news media was here, and they weren’t going away. While the fight ahead to save the forest might be long, today, they were winning.
Cedar, Phillip, and Dan sighed in relief, and laughed a little. They hugged their parents, who were now, at last, accepting what was happening.
They looked up at the mighty Stella, and all of her tree family, bathed in late morning light, surrounded by hope and beauty and change.