Free Four Degrees More by Malcolm Rose Page A

four-by-four or a dirty great lorry without letting its tyres down. One in the back of the net for the environment. And itwas me who did the graffiti at the airport, power plant and petrol station. I phoned a bomb threat to Stansted airport as well. ‘Stop polluting the skies or the bomb goes off.’ That worked a treat. The place went into meltdown for twenty-four hours.
    When I was little, I always said I was going to be famous. Well, I was right. I’m headline news now. It’s a bit much for the telly to call me a terrorist, though. I’m one of the good guys, trying to save the planet. That makes me the opposite of a terrorist. The local newspaper gets it right. They call me the Cooler. Get it? Someone who fights warming is a cooler. Not bad. And definitely not a terrorist.
    I let rip about carbon dioxide and climate change at school, but no one knew I was the Cooler. I didn’t let on until I couldn’t keep it to myself any more. When I told mymate Keir, he looked at me with his mouth open.
    ‘You? The Cooler?’
    ‘Yes. Because of my bedroom. Because some whole islands are going to go underwater. They’ll be wiped off the map.’
    Keir shook his head.
    ‘They’re miles away. Nothing to do with us. Anyhow, I’ve said this before. You can’t prove anything. Global warming might be down to cows farting and belching. And the sun getting hotter.’
    ‘No chance,’ I replied. ‘It’s us. I mean, adults. It’s the way we live. Burning too much petrol and stuff.’
    ‘But the Cooler’s going a bit far. What does your mum say?’
    ‘She doesn’t know. But she’d be up for it. She went on all sorts of protests when she was young. Still does. Nuclear weapons,animal rights and stuff. She’s always out marching for this and that. Tonight it’s poverty, I think.’
    ‘There’s a bloke on a bike over there, watching you,’ said Keir.
    ‘What? Where?’
    The man was on the other side of the road, outside the shops. Probably in his twenties. And, yes, he might’ve been looking at me. But he might not. Just in case, I gave him the finger and walked away.
    Keir followed me, laughing.
    ‘Even if you’re right about the planet warming up, one boy with a spray-can doesn’t add up to anything.’
    ‘I know. But someone’s got to take a lead and show the way. That’s my job.’ I flexed my muscles and puffed out my chest. ‘The Cooler. But I’m not the only one really. 

    There’s the GreenWatch people. They chained themselves to the gates of the oil refinery. And some of them were camped outside the power plant when I gave it a fresh coat of paint.’
    ‘Big deal,’ Keir muttered. ‘The cops took them away.’
    I looked behind me, but couldn’t see the strange cyclist. ‘I’m thinking of doing the oil refinery myself.’
    ‘Doing? What do you mean?’
    I tapped the side of my nose. ‘That would be telling.’

    Mum was out at one of her endless protest meetings. I changed into black clothes, waited until after midnight, and then sneaked out of the house. Grabbing the wire-cutters from the garage, I set out on the Cooler’s next mission.
    It couldn’t be that difficult to avoid the oil refinery’s security cameras and snip a way into the works through the wire fence. I knew what the place was like on the inside, because I’d seen it on telly. It was a tangle of pipes and tanks – like a climbing frame for giants. The oil in the pipes was controlled by those big valves with steering wheels on top. I reckoned I could screw the whole thing up if I closed a few taps that were open and opened a few that were closed. Simple.
    Our housing estate was right at the edge of the massive oil refinery. Not a great view and not a nice smell for people like me, Keir and plenty more from school. Good cover for the Cooler, though. Peering round one house, I checked out the road. It was quiet and empty. But not dark. The factory’s floodlights made the place look like afootball stadium in winter. But I didn’t