“Nooooo!” I shout as my friend falls off the rooftop, gravity pulling her towards her death. I peer over the rooftop while she falls screaming. Suddenly, I slip off the roof and fall. “CUT!!” screams the director, “No, no, no, no, NO! How many times have I told you? Do NOT stand on the very edge of the rooftop!” “Sorry” I reply, knowing that if I fail again I could lose my chance to become famous. “Ugh” the director sighs, “That’s a wrap people! Meet me here tomorrow at 8am SHARP! And Grace, if you get this wrong again, you’re fired, I repeat, FIRED!” “Yes sir, director sir.” I reply. All the studio people smirk behind my back.

By the time I get home it’s 9:30pm. I make myself some chicken nuggets and watch The Spy Next Door, my favourite movie. Half way through the movie I feel weird, like I was being pulled into something. I start to panic when I realise I’m being sucked into the T.V. I fall onto a rooftop, just like the one in the movie I am starring in. I see a thug trying to shoot my friend so I run over to him and karate kick him in the back. “Ow. Why did you do that? That’s just mean” he says. “Mmm, okay…” I think. He pushes her off the rooftop, and he flies away in his helicopter. “Nooooo!!!” I scream and run to the edge of the rooftop. I see my friend hanging on for dear life. I lean over the edge of the rooftop to pull her up, when I slip and fall. I’m wearing my bungee belt, I use it to shoot a rope up onto the rooftop and it automatically wraps itself around something. I grab my friend and pull us up to safety. My friend opens her mouth, I know she is about to thank me and say I’m awesome, but she doesn’t. “Beep, beep, beep, beep!” she repeats annoyingly. “Stop! that’s really annoying!” I protest. “Beep, beep, beep!” she carries on. “Stop… that is.. annoying” I mutter, half-asleep. My eyes widen. I look at my phone. “7:30am!” I scream realising it was all a dream. I quickly get up and get dressed before driving to the studio. By the time I get there it’s 7:59am.

The director comes towards me and glares suspiciously at me. “Grace is one minute early…” he says in a confused voice. “That’s… different. Well, come on! Let’s get into the studio and start the movie! Films don’t film themselves you know!” We start with the scene where my friend is falling off the roof top. I quickly grab her but I still need to practice my balancing skills as I slip again. The director is about to yell “stop!”, just as I get my bungee belt and shoot out a rope which automatically wraps itself around a pole. I pull us up onto the rooftop. “And… CUT! Grace, you were amazing!” Says the director surprisingly. I smirk knowingly. “This is going to be a great movie” I say to myself and feel very satisfied.

Cotton is a soft fibre that grows from the seeds of the cotton plant. The fibre is long and thin, like hair. After the cotton fibre is gathered from the plant, it can be made into thread. The cotton thread can then be made into cloth. The cloth can be used to make clothes for people and many other things. Cotton clothing is very nice to wear, especially in hot weather, and is easy to move around in.
There are different types of cotton plants. Some cotton plants grow wild in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. This is how cotton was discovered many years ago. Most of the cotton gathered to make cloth comes from crops grown on cotton farms. Cotton farms can be found in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas. All parts of cotton plants are useful.

Cotton is a natural fibre harvested from the cotton plant. Cotton is one of the oldest fibres with traces of cotton over 7,000 years old recovered from archaeological sites. Cotton is also one of the most used natural fibres in existence today, with people everywhere wearing and using cotton for various purposes. Millions of acres globally are used to produce cotton, whether it be new world cotton, with longer, smoother fibres, or the shorter and coarser old world varieties.

In our second Planet Money T-shirt podcast we hear the interesting story of a Brazilian cotton farmer called Pedro.

Planet Money is a joint project of National Public Radio (NPR) in the USA and This American Life, the Chicago weekly public radio show which focuses on coverage of the global economy.

Planet Money is making a very special t-shirt, unlike any other.  It’s a t-shirt that can tell you the story of its own creation.

Almost every single t-shirt out there is the result of a complicated global journey. We will follow NPR on that journey. We’ll research the people who grow the cotton, spin the yarn, and cut and sew the fabric. We have ordered a t-shirt and we will follow the cargo ships that bring our t-shirt from factories in Bangladesh and Colombia to ports in the USA and on to Ireland.  We’ll also examine the crazy tangle of international regulations which govern the t-shirt trade the whole way. Click the play button below to listen to our first t-shirt podcast.