Sophie was bored. The meeting was dragging on and she had heard all the arguments before. The sun blazed through the glass walls of the building, making her warm and sleepy. She knew that she would have to do something to stop herself falling asleep.

The Chairman was making notes and looking wise, but Sophie knew that he had just come from a good lunch with some friends. She started covering her paper with doodles. They began as wavy lines, loops and lozenges.

She stopped listening to Bob, who would do anything to win promotion.

“We want to encourage community enterprise intitiatives. Give the local people a real sense of ownership, ” he said, his face shiny in the sunshine.

Sophie gave her loops eyes and smiling mouths, while the lozenges grew feet and antennae.

“Do you realise how low the skill base is in some of these inner city areas ?” said Celine, who was black with braids. She claimed to be a community activist but had a degree from Oxford.

Sophie gave her worms hair and hats.

“It’ll take a riot before people will listen to the poor,” grumbled Mary, grey haired and gloomy.

Sophie’s page was disappearing under patterns of worms and caterpillars.

Then the Chairman spoke to her. ”What’s your opinion.?”

She sat for a moment confused, having lost track of the argument. Looking at her page of doodles, she had a brainwave.

“I think we need a campaign. A simple slogan, even a cartoon character. Something like ‘Be the Worm that Turned.’”

The Chairman nodded. “That’s an interesting idea. But they would have to be multicultural worms.”