“Listen, Ms. Greene,” I say, “save those papers for the school pickup, and they can be made into new paper. Save aluminum cans, too.”

=> Sure it is hard to get people to work for ecology. Everybody is in favor of it but nobody wants to do anything about it. At least I’m doing something, going around telling people what they should do. But all I get is a lot of backtalk.
=> Mr. Williams says “Well don’t you take a little more trouble with it, but enough dirt on top of each layer? Then we wouldn’t have this noise pollution.”
=> “Listen, Ms. Greene,” I say, “save those papers for the school pickup, and they can be made into new paper. Save aluminum cans, too.”
=> Of course not,” he says, “And no grass either. Because you made a path there taking a shortcut from Mrs. Greene’s. There was a little tree just starting to get bigger there until you killed it by trying to jump over it every day. Remember?”