Free The Sound of Your Voice, Only Really Far Away by Frances O'Roark Dowell

brilliant idea.”
    “We have to grow herbs, too,” Lorna said, pulling a notebook and a pen out of her backpack. She started making a list. “Basil and tarragon would be totally great.”
    “Maybe we could grow chickpeas and make hummus. And garlic. We could grow garlic.” Kate reached across the table and tore off a piece of Lorna’s bread. “We could grow wheat for bread.”
    Without looking up from her notes, Lorna said, “I think you’re starting to get carriedaway here, Kate, but I like your thinking.”
    “Me too,” Kate agreed. “I am a very profound thinker.”
    “Incredibly, super profound,” Lorna added, skewering a piece of rotini from the Tupperware container with her fork. “Most profound-from-on-high thinker.”
    Kate gnawed at the crust of her bread. “I wonder what the other ideas are going to be? Probably sports equipment for the gym and more computers for the library.”
    “Doesn’t matter. Ours is the best. All we’ve got to do is submit it. Which means all you’ve got to do is write up the proposal.”
    Kate’s mouth dropped open. “Me? Why me?”
    Lorna smiled and handed Kate another chunk of bread. “No such thing as a free lunch, babe.”

    That night Kate sat at the kitchen table and worked on the school garden proposal. It had to be five hundred words or less, which was the sort of writing challenge Kate liked. She thought she should focus mostly on the foodangle, since most middle schoolers she knew were obsessed with eating. Not the way Lorna was—she read Bon Appétit and could talk with authority about different kinds of olive oil—but just about everybody she knew was concerned with where their next snack was coming from and what it would consist of. If Kate really wanted to win this contest, she’d write a proposal for a new vending machine that dispensed only sour cream potato chips and kiwi-flavored bubble gum.
    But Kate liked the idea of a school garden. She wasn’t a gardener herself, but she could see how growing your own food was cool. Her mom usually had a few pots of cherry tomatoes growing on the patio, and it was always fun to take out a bowl and pick a bunch for a salad. It kind of made you feel like a farmer, or some kind of a hippie.
    Her dad walked into the kitchen, carrying a plate. “Did you try some of Mom’s raspberry pie?” he asked, putting his plate by the sink. “Amazing.”
    “You better rinse that plate off and put itin the dishwasher,” Kate warned him. “Mom’s going ballistic every time she sees a dirty dish in the sink or on the counter. She says she’s not our maid.”
    “She’s not,” Mr. Faber agreed. He reached over to turn on the faucet. “The problem is, she cares more than everyone else about the house being clean. I keep telling her she just needs to lower her standards.”
    Kate raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? And what does she say about that?”
    “Nothing I can repeat in mixed company,” Mr. Faber put his dish in the dishwasher, then sat across the table from Kate. “You working on homework?”
    Kate told him about the What’s Your Big Idea campaign and her and Lorna’s proposal for a school garden. “I don’t know if I should emphasize the importance of fresh food or tasty food.”
    “Go with taste, definitely,” Mr. Faber advised. “I doubt kids care that much about freshness. You could take a ‘tired of bland cafeteria food’ approach, make everyone think about how much better their food could be. Don’t worryabout the vegetarians; you’ve got their vote already. Focus on the kids who have to eat cafeteria food every day. Would they rather eat some soggy broccoli or a great Caesar salad?”
    “Do you think kids even care that much about salad?” Kate suddenly felt worried that no one would vote for her proposal because hardly anyone her age actually liked vegetables. She suspected that even the vegans didn’t really like vegetables all that much; they just liked having something to argue