10 YOU’VE GOT TO STOP!

CHAPTER 10 YOU'VE GOT TO STOP! The kids running the car wash were cleaning up for the day. We'd caught them just in time. We got out of the car and walked over. As we got closer, I

realized they were big kids. Maybe even high schoolers. One of the kids turned to us, and my mom sort of pushed me forward. Ummm, she expected me to talk to them? But they were so... tall. The tall girl smiled down at me. "Oh, hi. We're all done for the day, sorry. But we'll be here again next Saturday." I swallowed. I glanced back at my parents, who nodded at me to go ahead. I took another step forward and cleared my throat. "Uh, you can't do your car wash anymore," I squeaked out. Now all the kids turned and stared at me. One boy laughed. He looked at my parents, but they didn't say anything. So he bent down to me and asked, "Oh? Why not?"

"It's hurting the stream. It's killing the stream bugs, and it's really bad for the, um, creatures that live in the stream." A few of the kids looked around. The girl who'd first talked pointed up and down the street. "But there's no stream here. See? It's just a parking lot. If anything, it's making the ground nice and clean."

I turned to my parents again, but they only smiled at me. They really weren't going to help me out here, huh? Well, OK then. "I know it sounds weird," I continued, "but here, come with me." I gestured and the kids, now curious, followed me. "If we follow the soapy water from your car wash, you'll see what I mean." I led them to the sidewalk and pointed down in the gutter, where a stream of soapy water was still traveling. We all walked along the sidewalk until I spotted the storm drain. The soapy water disappeared into the pipe right before our eyes. "See? The soapy water travels in pipes underground, and then it pours into our stream. The soap foam from your car wash is polluting the

water. The things that live in the stream aren't used to the soap chemicals. It's killing them." "Whoa," said the boy. He looked up at my parents, who'd followed us to the storm drain. "Does this really go to the stream?" "Yes, everything she said is true," said my mom. "We do need you to stop the car wash." "Aw, man," said the boy. "We were doing such a good job raising money for our class trip, though." "We're almost halfway to our goal." The girl sighed. "But we don't want to pollute the stream. We had no idea." "Honest, we didn't," added the boy. I looked up at my mom and dad. "Isn't there something they could still do? Like maybe they could move their car wash to the parking lot at Sam's Car Wash. It has the special drains that don't take the soapy water to the stream, right?" Mom thought for a minute. "Well, I don't think they could use the parking lot at Sam's Car Wash. Although I seem to remember hearing that Sam's offers a fundraising program. Something about selling coupons." She turned to my dad. "Does that

sound familiar?" "I think I saw an article about that in the paper," he said. "Do you want me to call Sam's and check?" The kids and I all said, "Yes!" at the same time. This would be great. A solution that helped the stream and the kids! My dad called and talked to someone at Sam's.