Girls Under Pressure

by Jacqueline Wilson

  I wish I had the courage to contradict her. She’s the one who’s sick, only she can’t see it. Or is she? She’s extremely fit so she must be healthy. She’s top of her class. Best at everything. Especially art.

  “Do you still paint, Zoë?”

  “Well, just my entrance exam work.”

  “You don’t do any art just for fun? You know, like when we did that mural together in the art room?”

  Zoë shakes her head, looking pitying.

  “I don’t really have time for that sort of stuff nowadays,” she says, as if I’m a toddler wondering why she won’t do finger-painting with me.

  She disappears inside the pool. I hang around waiting for Magda. I see a tall dark hunky guy in a very stylish black sweatsuit go through to the gym. I wonder if he’s Mick? I can’t really ask. The bunch of boys who were all over Magda the other day are here too. The fair one asks me where my friend is.

  “She’s coming,” I say.

  One of them mutters and they all snigger.

  I blush, hating them. I’m not going to stand about any longer. Why should I always wait hours for Magda? And I must see Zoë.

  I push past the boys and go through to the changing rooms. Zoë is already undressed, bending over her bag looking for her goggles. Her back is alarmingly ridged with her vertebrae. It looks as if her spine could snap straight through her skin. She hasn’t got any flesh anywhere. I can see all the cords and tendons in her legs as she stretches. She straightens up and I see there’s a gap between her thighs now so that she looks bowlegged. When she reaches up to put on her goggles her breasts are two little puckers on her rib cage, nothing more. There are great ugly grooves around her throat and collarbone. Her face is so shrunken in on itself you can see the shape of her skull. She is seriously starving herself to death.

  But when she shivers through the shower, raising her fragile arms, her tummy totally flat in her skintight Lycra costume, I still feel a stab of envy. I must lose weight. I want to be thin. All right, not as thin as Zoë. Not sick. But she’s shown me you can change yourself. Last year Zoë might have been nearly my size. Now she’s much thinner than Magda, thinner than Nadine, thinner than anyone I’ve ever seen, apart from those poor starving children you see on the news on television.

  I’m going to be thin too. It’s simple. I just won’t eat. And yet all the time I’m thrashing up and down the pool I think Danish pastry—golden, succulent, oozing jam. Magda turns up at last, in her strawberry swimsuit and matching red waterproof lipstick. She smiles her oh-so-jammy smile and all the boys hurtle down to her end of the pool and surround her.

  When I can get her on her own for half a second I tell her that a guy exactly her description of Mick is busy pumping iron in the gym. Magda’s own muscles clench excitedly.

  “Great! Well, we’ll get out soon, right, and go for breakfast.”

  “There’s no point coming here and swimming like crazy, just to make myself even fatter,” I say.

  “You’re not fat,” Magda says automatically. Then she glances down at me as I hunch under the turquoise water. “And you’re getting thinner now anyway.”

  “What? Really? How much thinner? Or are you just saying it to get round me?”

  “Ellie, you’re paranoid. Yes, you’re thinner. How much weight have you lost?”

  “Only about five pounds so far.”

  “Well, there you go. You look five pounds thinner. That’s heaps. So you can come and have a yummy Danish pastry with me and help me go Mickspotting.”

  “There! I knew you were just saying it.”

  “It’s true. Look, you’re going to go seriously anorexic if you’re not careful. You’ll end up a bag of bones like that poor sad Zoë.”

  “You think Zoë’s almost too thin then?” I ask eagerly.

  Magda stares at me.

  “Wake up, Ellie. She looks terrible. I’m amazed they don’t cart her straight off to hospital. I don’t know how her parents can let her get like that.”

  “Her dad’s taking her away at Christmas to feed her up.”

  “He’ll have to give her twenty meals a day, then—she’s like a skeleton.” Magda drops her voice as Zoë zips to our end of the pool and hauls herself up the steps.

  I stare at her stick limbs. She’s shivering, her hands pale purple with the cold. I watch the papery skin across her ribs as she gasps for breath. I know Magda is right—and yet I jog to school with Zoë rather than have breakfast in the café with Magda.

  Zoë might be seriously ill but she’s far fitter than me. I’m staggering in agony by the time I get to school. Mrs. Henderson finds me in a state of collapse on the cloakroom floor.

  “Ellie? What is it?”

  “I’m . . . just . . . out of . . . breath.”

  “I thought you were having an asthma attack. Have you been running? And you’re not even late for school!”

  “I’ve run all the way from the leisure center,” I gasp.

  “My goodness. I think I need to sit down. Eleanor Allard on a fitness kick!”

  “I’ve actually never felt less fit in my life,” I say, clutching my chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

  “Maybe you need to come to my lunchtime aerobic session,” says Mrs. Henderson.

  “OK, maybe I will,” I say.

  It’ll burn off two or three hundred calories—and stop me craving lunch. It’s a special lunch today, the cook’s traditional Christmas dinner treat for the end of term. Turkey, one chipolata sausage, two roast potatoes, a dollop of mash and garden peas, and then mincemeat tart with a blob of artificial cream. We’re talking megacalories per trayful.

  I can’t risk setting foot inside the canteen. I go to the aerobic session. It’s hell. Total burning hellfire.

  I feel such a fool among all the seriously fit muscle girls leaping about in their luminous Lycra. I stand behind Zoë, who is bunched up in a huge T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. She looks hopelessly weak and weedy, but she’s fighting fit. She never misses a beat, her lips a tight line of effort.

  I get so hot I can’t see out my glasses and the spring goes out of my hair. I’ve got such a stitch I have to fight not to double up. I still try to swing my arms and stamp my legs but they’ve turned to jelly.

  “Take two minutes’ break, Ellie,” Mrs. Henderson calls.

  I crash to the floor. Gasp gasp gasp. But I’m not going to lose any weight lying here going wibble-wobble. I drag myself up and get going again. I last to the end of the session . . . just.

  I’ve got to take a shower, obviously, but I seriously hate the school showers because there aren’t any curtains at all. I hunch in a corner, trying to keep my back to everyone, taking envious peeks at all the taut thighs and flat tummies surrounding me.

  Zoë avoids this ordeal. She runs off in her sweaty T-shirt, clutching a sponge bag, obviously going to have a little wash in the toilets.

  I shove my school uniform over my sticky pink pudding body as quickly as possible. Mrs. Henderson catches hold of me.

  “Can I have a word, Ellie? Come into my changing room.”

  Oh, God. The only times I’ve been invited into her inner sanctum it’s to get severely told off for pretending to have a permanent heavy period to get me out of games. She’s surely not going to tell me off for volunteering for extra games?

  “So, Ellie, what’s going on? First it’s swimming, then running, now aerobics. Why?”

  “You told me to come along this lunchtime.”

  “I was joking—though it was certainly a pleasant surprise when you turned up. But I just wonder what you’re playing at, Ellie.”

  “I told you. I’m trying to get fit. I thought you’d be thrilled to bits, Mrs. Henderson. You’re always nagging at me to take more exercise. So I am.”

  “Do you want to get fit, Ellie—or thin?”

  “What?”

  “I’m not stupid. I know why poor Zoë comes to aerobics. I’m very worried about her. I’ve tried talking to her umpteen times�
��and her parents. She’s obviously severely anorexic. But I want to talk about you, Ellie, not Zoë.”

  “You can hardly call me anorexic, Mrs. Henderson,” I say, looking down at my body with loathing. “I’m fat.”

  “You’ve lost weight recently.”

  “Only a few pounds, hardly anything.”

  “You’ve done very well. But you mustn’t lose weight too rapidly. You girls go on all these crazy diets but all you really have to do is cut down on all the sweets and chocolate and crisps and eat sensibly. Lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, fish, chicken, pasta. You are eating a reasonably balanced diet, aren’t you, Ellie?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Henderson.”

  One apple. Two sticks of celery. Half a tub of cottage cheese. One Ryvita. Fruit, veg, protein, carbohydrate. Brilliantly balanced.

  “Because you’re a perfectly healthy normal ordinary size, Ellie.”

  “Ordinary—for an elephant.”

  “I mean it. What’s brought all this on, hmm?” Mrs. Henderson looks at me. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with Nadine suddenly acting as if she’s the second Kate Moss?”

  “No!” I say, perhaps a little too fiercely.

  “Do you want to be a fashion model, Ellie?” says Mrs. Henderson.

  “Me?” I say, snorting at the idea.

  How could I ever get to be a model? OK, I could staple my lips together for good and starve myself slim. But what could I do with my mane of frizzy hair, my little owl glasses, my dumpy five-foot-two physique?

  Mrs. Henderson misunderstands the true meaning of my snort.

  “Ah! At least you haven’t dieted away your basic common sense, Ellie. You seem to share my feelings about fashion models and their ludicrous strutting and vacant posing. Why can’t girls ache to be scientists or surgeons?”

  “Count me out, Mrs. Henderson. I come nearly bottom in science—and I can’t stand the sight of blood so I doubt I’d make a very good surgeon either.”

  “You’re going to be an artist,” says Mrs. Henderson.

  I blink at her, going red.

  “Wh-what do you mean?” I stammer. I didn’t have a clue Mrs. Henderson knew I even liked art.

  “We teachers do talk among ourselves, you know. It sounds as if you’re Mrs. Lilley’s pet pupil.”

  “Yes, but she’s leaving.”

  “Then you’ll doubtless be the new art teacher’s pet pupil too,” says Mrs. Henderson.

  “She’ll probably think I can’t draw for toffee,” I say.

  Stupid word. I think of soft gooey buttery brown toffee and my mouth drips with saliva. Do I like toffee best—or fudge? No, nougat, the sort with the cherries. I open my lips and imagine chewing a huge sticky slab of nougat. . . .

  “Ellie? Are you listening to me?” says Mrs. Henderson.

  “Yes, of course,” I say, swallowing my imaginary sweets. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Henderson. I swear I don’t want to be a model. I couldn’t care less about Nadine and her big chance. Honestly.”

  dolly girl

  I was going to keep right out of it on Saturday. Magda had promised to go with Nadine. It was all settled. But then Mick unsettled everything. Magda shared her Danish pastry with him at the leisure center—and now has him eating out of her hand.

  “He’s asked me to go to this football match on Saturday,” she says.

  “Oh, wow! Date of the Century,” I say.

  Magda is eating a Mars bar. She’s been nibbling along the top with her little white teeth like a chipmunk, and now she’s licking the exposed caramel with her pointy tongue. The smell of the chocolate is overpowering. I want to snatch it from her so badly I can barely concentrate on what she’s saying.

  Nadine is looking at her with laser beam eyes.

  “Not this Saturday?”

  “Mm.”

  “But you can’t. You’re going to make me up.”

  “Yes, yes, well, I can still do that, can’t I? The match is in the afternoon, right?”

  “But you’re coming with me.”

  “Well . . . you don’t really need me there, do you?”

  “We’re supposed to go with someone. It says. Relative or friend.”

  “They probably mean an adult friend, as a chaperone. So you’d really better go with your mum.”

  “I’m not going with my mother. Are you crazy? What sort of an idiot would I look, trotting along with her? I haven’t even told her about it. You know what she’s like. Dear goodness, she’d get me to perm my hair in ringlets and put me in a frilly frock!”

  “OK, OK, point made. Go with Ellie.”

  “What?” I say, snapping to attention. “No!”

  “But I can’t go on my own! Magda, you can’t stand me up to watch a lousy football match!”

  “Mick’s playing, Nadine. He said I’d bring him luck. I can’t stand him up. We’re going out after, too. It’s my big chance with him, I just know it is.”

  “It’s my big chance on Saturday. I can’t believe you could be so selfish,” says Nadine, nearly in tears. “You’re letting me down just for some stupid boy. That’s just typical of you, Magda.” She turns to me. “Ellie?”

  “No! I’m not going with you, Nadine. I can’t. I won’t.”

  But she keeps going on and on at me. So on Saturday morning I go with her to Magda’s. Magda is already carefully got up in her version of football-watching gear: scarlet sweater that clings to every curve, label-to-die-for jeans and high-heeled boots, with her beautiful fur jacket to keep her cozy.

  “OK, Nadine, let’s get cracking,” she says, rolling up the sleeves of her sweater.

  “I don’t want anything too bright,” Nadine says anxiously.

  “Just leave it to me, OK?”

  “I mean, I can see that my usual look isn’t quite right—”

  “Your chalk-white just-stepped-out-of-your-coffin look? Yeah, you’d frighten them to death.”

  “But I can’t be too colorful. Look at the way all these girls look in the magazine.” Nadine stabs her finger at various models in Spicy magazine. “They look . . . natural.”

  “Right. Natural,” says Magda, scraping Nadine’s hair back.

  “You can do natural, can’t you, Magda?” says Nadine.

  “I won’t do anything at all if you carry on. Now lie back and shut up.”

  It takes Magda nearly an hour to get Nadine looking natural enough. I can’t help being riveted. It’s so weird seeing her blossom beneath Magda’s deft fingers.

  “There!” Magda says at last, holding the mirror up for Nadine. “You like?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know. I look ever so pink and girly. Can’t we rub off some of the blusher?”

  “Don’t you dare touch it! It’s perfect. Now, your hair.”

  “Yes. What am I going to do about it?” says Nadine, running her fingers through it despairingly.

  “What’s the matter with it?” I say. It looks lovely. It always does. It’s a long black shiny waterfall, glinting almost blue when it catches the light.

  I’ve always loved Nadine’s hair and wished that my own hair could somehow be shocked out of its corkscrew curls. When we were little girls I’d brush Nadine’s glossy long hair until it crackled. When we slept at each other’s houses I’d cuddle up close to Nadine and pretend that the shiny dark hair on the pillow touching my shoulder really belonged to me.

  I remember that—and yet I don’t remember longing for Nadine’s body to set off her long glossy hair. I knew that I was quite a fat little girl and Nadine a thin one—but it didn’t really bother me then.

  It’s really weird—the me then won’t match up with the me now. I wish I could still be the old Ellie. It’s so hard being this new one. It’s such a battle all the time. I feel so sick now because I didn’t dare have anything for breakfast and I don’t know what I’m going to do about tea this evening because we always have takeaways on Saturdays and they always smell so good and yet they’re all hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of calories, flaky white fish
in golden crunchy batter with mounds of salty savory chips, or a great Catherine wheel of pizza sizzling with cheese, or tangy tandoori chicken, ruby red and hot, with pearly rice to fill my empty aching stomach . . .

  “Ellie!” says Magda, busy parting Nadine’s hair. “Is that your stomach rumbling?”

  “I can’t help it,” I say, going red.

  “What about a little plaity bit on top?” says Magda.

  “I was wondering about lots of little plaits,” says Nadine, holding her head on one side and fiddling with wisps of her hair.

  “Plaits!” I say. “Come on. How childish can you get.”

  “Not childish. Cute,” says Magda, starting to plait.

  “Look at this girl—she’s got little plaits,” says Nadine, stabbing her finger at Spicy magazine. “Yeah, plaits, please, Mags.”

  The plaiting process takes forever. I yawn and sigh and fiddle and clench my stomach to shut it up.

  “This is s-o-o-o-o boring,” I moan. “What are you going to wear, anyway, Nadine?”

  “What I’ve got on!” says Nadine.

  I stare at her. I thought she was wearing dreary old things to save her posh outfit getting mucked up. Nadine usually wears amazing clothes, black velvet, black lace, black leather. Now today of all days she’s got on just an ordinary pair of blue jeans and a skimpy little pink T-shirt.

  “Why aren’t you wearing anything black? You don’t look like you,” I say.

  “That’s the whole point. I want to look like a model,” says Nadine.

  “But shouldn’t you dress up a bit?” I ask.

  “Take no notice of Ellie, she hasn’t got a clue,” says Magda, sighing.

  “This is the sort of stuff models wear when they go on shoots,” says Nadine. “You dress down, see. Though these jeans are French and cost a fortune. My mum’s going to do her nut when she finds out I’ve drawn out some of my savings.”

  “Yeah, but think of the fortune you might be earning soon, Nadine,” says Magda. “And the minute you’ve made it, you’re to start introducing me to all the right people, OK? The rounded voluptuous look is very in too. They don’t just want stringbeans like you.”