The Bag That Lasts

Kamila's mum always had a folded cloth bag in her pocket. Wherever they went, if they needed to buy something, Mum took it out, and they didn't take a plastic bag at the shop.

The bag was folded into a tight little square, no bigger than a biscuit. Mum would pull it out of her pocket and give it a shake, and the square would open into a big, strong bag with long handles. To Kamila it looked like a real magic trick.

One day at the shop the cashier asked if they needed a bag. Mum shook her head and took out her own. Kamila tugged at her sleeve.

"Mum, what's wrong with one bag?" she asked. "It's only a little one."

Mum packed the bread, apples and milk into her cloth bag and answered, "You use a plastic bag for about ten minutes, just to carry the shopping home. Then it gets thrown away, and it lies in the ground for hundreds of years. Longer than many trees live. And our cloth bag has lasted three years already."

Kamila thought about it. Hundreds of years! That was longer than her great-grandma and great-grandpa had lived, put together.

At home she opened the cupboard under the sink. Out tumbled plastic bags with a great rustle: big ones, little ones, crumpled ones, every colour. There were so many that Kamila got tired of counting at forty-three.

"Those are all from the old days," Mum laughed, "before I had my cloth bag."

Kamila looked at the heap of bags, and then at Mum's bag. Suddenly she wanted one of her own very much.

"Mum, can I have one too? But mine, a special one."

Grandma happened to be visiting. She took an old pillowcase out of the cupboard, covered in tiny blue flowers. It was soft from many washes and smelled of lavender. Grandma showed Kamila how to fold the fabric, where to cut and how to stitch the edges. Kamila sewed a few stitches herself. They came out a bit crooked, but they were real. Grandma made the handles from an old belt.

Then Kamila took her fabric pens and drew a cat on the bag. It came out ginger and stripy, with long whiskers and sly eyes. Now Kamila had a bag of her own, with a cat on it.

The next day she went to the shop with Mum and proudly took out her bag. The cashier smiled. "What a wonderful cat! Did you draw it yourself?"

Kamila nodded and turned pink with pleasure.

The bag turned out to be roomy. It held a loaf of bread, a carton of milk, three apples and even a small melon, which Kamila carried all by herself, very carefully.

Soon the whole family went shopping with their own bags. Dad's was big and grey, Mum's was blue, Grandma's was checked, and Kamila's had the cat. The rustling heap of plastic under the sink stopped growing. Mum folded the old bags neatly to use again instead of throwing them away.

One evening Kamila counted how many times her bag had been to the shop. Twenty times! That meant twenty plastic bags that never ended up in the ground.

Before bed Kamila folded her bag into a little square, just like Mum, and tucked it into her backpack for tomorrow. The ginger cat on the fabric seemed to wink at her. Kamila smiled, snuggled under her blanket and closed her eyes.

Goodnight.