The Year I Didn't Eat

by Pollen

  Then, right before I get to the end, there’s a bump: Something or other juts out below the bench. I’m so surprised, I actually jump.

  Robin smiles, like he was waiting for this reaction. “Take a look,” he says.

  I have to pretty much lie on the ground to see under the bench. In a puddle. I’m plotting ways to pay Robin back when I realize what I’m looking at: a box the same shape as mine, only a bit smaller, and made out of black plastic.

  “Robin,” I say. “Did you steal my present from a park bench?”

  He laughs. “Pass it over here, then,” he says.

  I pull the box off the bench. It comes away more easily than I thought it would. I turn it over and look at the four little magnets in the corners. “What is it?” I say, getting up and passing the box to Robin.

  He looks at me, grinning like an idiot. “That’s what I want you to tell me.”

  December 27

  Dear Ana,

  Congratulations, you ruined Christmas.

  Okay, so I was expecting you to screw it up one way or another. But you really outdid yourself. Now Auntie Jess and Uncle Rich and Gran and James and Louise are all in on the secret: Max is a psycho. And you know what the worst part is? They were all super-nice about it afterward. I guess Mum must have said something. Come to think of it, she definitely said something, because Auntie Jess didn’t offer me any chocolates all afternoon, which has literally never happened before.

  It’s a week until school starts again, and at this point, I’m almost looking forward to it. If Ram and Stu actually still want to talk to me, maybe it won’t be so bad. At home, you kind of hang over everything. Don’t let this go to your head Ana, but … even when we’re not talking about you, we’re thinking about you. Mum and Dad tiptoe around me, like at any moment, I’m going to tear them a new one.

  But at school, it’s totally different. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still pretty sure that, if you asked anyone, they’d confirm that I was a 100 percent certified freak. But most of the time, people don’t even notice me. I’m invisible—like the world’s worst superhero. Max, The Disappearing Man.

  Hmm. I guess that works in more ways than one.

  3

  “So, did you have a good Christmas?”

  I see Lindsay once a fortnight, at the hospital. There’s a separate building for outpatient appointments, and the room we meet in feels more like my mum’s office than a doctor’s surgery. I guess that’s deliberate. Some anorexics are weirdly proud of all the times they’ve been hospitalized, all the drugs they’ve been given, all the psychologists they’ve seen. In my experience, eating disorder forums are mostly full of people boasting about how ill they are. So yeah: sending us to the most boring, non-medical office building in the world makes total sense.

  I’m sitting in a plastic chair that was probably made for a ten-year-old. I’m sitting very upright, with my hands clasped together in my lap. I keep swallowing, because I don’t know what to say. The roof is made of those gray-white tiles you get in offices, to hide all the cables. I count in one direction, then another, and multiply to get a total.

  Anorexia is definitely good for your mental math.

  We sit in silence for what feels like ages. It’s probably like a minute. My sense of time is completely screwed.

  “Max?” Lindsay says eventually.

  I look at her. I’m not trying to be rude, but what does she want from me? It was horrible. I ruined Christmas for my whole family.

  “It was fine,” I say.

  “Any good presents?”

  For a moment, I consider telling her about Robin’s present. But I don’t know what I would say. I still haven’t figured out what it is myself yet. “I got some new binoculars,” I tell her.

  “Oh, brilliant!” She beams at me, like me getting a new pair of binoculars has made her week. I can’t help but smile. I think 75 percent of Lindsay’s treatment technique is just to smile at people until they feel better. She kind of reminds me of Auntie Jess. “And how was the day itself?”

  I gulp. “It was fine,” I say again.

  “Are you sure?”

  “It was …” I breathe in, out, close my eyes. I don’t really want to talk about it, but it’s not like I have anything else to bring up. How do you change the topic when your whole life revolves around one thing? “Dinner didn’t go as planned,” I say. I pull my feet up onto the chair and hug my knees. I feel like a four-year-old.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Max. Tell me what happened.”

  So I do. I figure I might as well do something to pass the time. I tell her about the plan, and the roast potato, and the Christmas pudding. I tell her how I stormed off. I leave out the part about trying to make myself sick.

  Lindsay listens to me, making notes as I talk. She doesn’t say anything until at least thirty seconds after I’ve finished speaking. I think this is something they teach you to do when you train to be a psychologist: wait until the tap’s run completely dry.

  Eventually, she says that the plan was very smart, and that there will always be setbacks. Which is exactly what I expected her to say. And it’s nice. Having a cheerleader is nice. But I don’t see how it helps. I feel better—but I know that it’ll only last about thirty seconds.

  She’s getting fatter, I swear. Are you really going to take advice from someone that weak?

  That’s another thing about Ana. She doesn’t only try to bring you down: She has a pop at everyone around you, too. And you end up feeling bad, because her thoughts are your thoughts. You can’t help it. It’s all happening inside your head.

  Shut up, Ana.

  I only started seeing Lindsay in October. She hasn’t given me a diet plan or anything yet. Apparently, she wants to observe me for a while first, to figure out what will work best.

  The only thing that’s changed so far is the running. As in, me not being allowed to. According to Lindsay, this isn’t about calories—or at least, it isn’t just about calories. My bones are now so weak they might break, plus there’s a chance I’ll have a seizure or a heart attack. It’s amazing how many different ways Ana tries to kill you at once.

  We talk some more about how things are at home, and at school, though because of the Christmas holidays, I’ve barely been to school since my last appointment.

  “You’ve been keeping your food diary up to date?” Lindsay asks me.

  “Yes,” I reply.

  As part of my treatment, Lindsay’s asked me to keep a journal of everything I eat. This is pretty easy, because I was already keeping one for myself. When I gave her my first two weeks’ records, with all of the calories totals already added up, she was delighted.

  She scans my food journal, nodding approvingly, as if it’s healthy for a fourteen-year-old boy to eat this little …

  “Okay,” she says. “For the next two weeks, I’d like you to eat one Mars bar a day, on top of your normal meals. Or a Snickers or something if you prefer. As long as it’s this size.” She reaches into her desk drawer and pulls out a Mars bar. She obviously sees my look of terror because she adds, “Just give it a try.”

  She hands it to me. I take it from her like it’s a nuclear bomb.

  I can’t believe she said it like that, as though asking me to eat a whole extra chocolate bar every single day is nothing.

  As soon as I leave the outpatient building, I take the Mars bar out of my pocket and look at the nutritional information. I stare at it for a moment, amazed there can be so many calories in something so small. It’s like it’s a neutron star, or a black hole. A calorie TARDIS.

  I find today’s page in my journal, and write in:

  2:00 p.m. Mars bar x 1

  I throw the Mars bar in the bin. I hate wasting food, but I don’t have another option. Then I run toward the parking lot to meet Dad.

  January 1

  Dear Ana,

  I finally figured out what it is.

  Okay, I didn’t. Robin told me. After I’d made about a million stupid gue
sses—some kind of beehive, a binocular box, a USB hard drive—Robin told me that my present is called a geocache. Geo as in “earth,” cache as in “place where you hide stuff.” He showed me how the lid slides off, and how there’s a logbook and pen inside. Most people use an app to find them, but you can use any kind of GPS.

  Apparently, there are thousands of geocaches, all over the world, in parks and city centers and World Heritage sites. Anyone can start one. Some of them are tiny, as small as a penny. Some of them are ten times the size of mine.

  When you look up a cache online, there are GPS coordinates, and a name, and some kind of riddle that hints at its exact location. Robin showed me the listing for the one under the bench. The cache was called Lake View. The description was, “This bench has a secret!” He said that it was a pretty dumb one.

  We left a message in the logbook together: “TFTC. Merry Christmas!” TFTC means Thanks for the Cache. It’s, like, the default thing to write in people’s logbooks, apparently. That was yesterday. Today, I took Sultan out for a walk to find one of the other two caches that are on the Common. This one is by the entrance to the golf course, and the clue is “Score a birdie.” It took me a while to find it: an empty nest box on the side of the clubhouse with a little film pod tucked inside. I made sure no one was looking, and took out the film pod. Inside was a pencil stub and a neat little scroll of paper. I unrolled the paper. There were dozens of messages, dating back to 2016. I found the last one—from four days ago—and wrote, “01/01/18 TFTC. Happy New Year! Canorus04,” below it. Canorus04 is my username. Canorus is the species name of the common cuckoo, which is my favorite bird.

  According to Robin, part of the fun of geocaching is that you have no idea who looks after each one, or who else is searching for them. He said, “You feel like a spy.” So now, Ana, I’m not just invisible: I’m an invisible spy. If I could get rid of you, I could actually have some fun with all these superpowers.

  4

  It’s the first day back at school, and I’m standing in the playground, trying to explain to Ram why I don’t want to trade half of his cheese sandwich for half of my ham sandwich.

  “But it’s ham,” he pleads.

  Ram is actually called Ehtiram, but no one calls him that except his mum. His parents are divorced, and he lives with his mum, who doesn’t let him eat pork. But his dad gives him bacon for breakfast every other weekend. The rest of the time, he’s on the lookout for extra pork products to supplement his diet. I used to be his go-to.

  “Sorry,” I tell him. And I am sorry. I don’t want to be a weirdo. I want to switch sandwiches with my best friend, if that’s what he’s into. I don’t want it to be a big deal.

  “It’s the same size,” Ram says. Then he adds, “You stingy bastard.”

  Stuart, our other best friend, snorts.

  “I know,” I say to Ram.

  “Fine,” he says, in a voice that makes it seem very not-fine. He tears the corner off one half-sandwich. “I’ll give you extra.”

  “It’s not about that …,” I start to say.

  “Do you want me to starve? Is that it?” asks Ram.

  I flinch at that word: starve.

  “No, Ram, I don’t want you to starve,” I tell him.

  “She’s looking at us,” Stu says. We both give him funny looks, like, What are you on about? He nods beyond us. We turn and look.

  It’s the new girl, the one who just joined this term. Evie or Evvy or something like that. People hardly ever join our school partway through the year. It only happens when something big has happened—like with Shinji, who came last spring after the earthquake in Kobe. I wonder what happened to Evie. Or Evvy.

  She’s standing across the yard, staring at us, like she doesn’t give two hoots if we notice. I guess she doesn’t really have anyone to hang out with yet. But even so: why would anyone pick us?

  “What was her name again?” I ask.

  “Elvis,” says Stu confidently. “I think.”

  “Ignore her,” says Ram, with a wave of his hand, like he’s swatting away a fly. He’s given up on bartering with me and is now munching his cheese sandwich. He doesn’t look like he’s enjoying it very much. “She’s weird. Hey, have you guys got to the bit where—”

  The second he starts speaking, Stu raises a hand to silence him. “No spoilers. My nan was at our house all Christmas, so I’ve barely had any time to play yet.”

  Zelda. We all got it for Christmas. Every time we get a new game, Ram is desperate to talk about it, and Stu is desperate not to.

  “You’re no fun,” Ram mutters. He turns to me, catches me looking at Evie/Evvy/Elvis, and sighs. “Oh, for God’s sake. See you later, losers.” He slings his rucksack onto his shoulder and stomps off toward the music building.

  After lunch it’s PE, aka the worst two hours of my week, unless we’re doing cross-country, which is the only sport I’m not terrible at. (Cross-country is technically running, but Lindsay doesn’t mind me doing it, as long as I’m with other people who’ll take me to the hospital if I trip over and break a leg or whatever.) Unfortunately, we only do cross-country when the fields are too wet to use, and today, it’s clear and dry. And bloody freezing.

  I hate getting changed. Our changing room is basically a corridor with a bench on either side. People run up and down the middle, flicking one another with towels, and shouting, Get your willy out! repeatedly, and sometimes going up behind people and pulling their boxers down. It’s also freezing, even when it’s not that cold outside. One of the side effects of being anorexic is that you’re cold all the time. Stripping down to your boxers in an unheated, concrete-floored PE building in January doesn’t help with that particular problem.

  Stu’s in the same class as me. While I try to put my PE kit on under my clothes, he tells me about his Christmas.

  “It was rubbish. My nan wanted to play Scrabble in the morning, and then we went for a walk. I didn’t get to open my presents till three p.m.”

  “What did you get?” I ask, sliding my jersey under my shirt.

  “A Raspberry Pi. Zelda. FIFA. That new Stephen King book I wanted.” He sits down on the bench and shrugs philosophically. He’s not even started getting changed. “Not a bad haul.”

  Stu’s a certified geek but gets a pass because he also happens to be really good at football. He’s a striker for the school and the county. Last year, he had a Discworld-themed birthday party, and pretty much the whole football team dressed up as wizards and elves. It was hilarious.

  It gets darker all of a sudden, and we hear a booming voice from the end of the corridor: “Mr. Swindells, will you be joining us on the field today?” I look up. Mr. Stott is silhouetted in the doorway, blotting out the sun like a supervillain.

  Mr. Stott is like a cross between a beer barrel and a military general. He cares about two things—football and rugby—and anyone who doesn’t share at least one of these interests is in big trouble.

  Luckily, Stu does. “Yes, sir,” he mumbles meekly, pulling his shirt and sweater off in one go.

  “Anyone who isn’t outside in two minutes gets detention,” Mr. Stott says. He turns and marches out. Step, two, three, four.

  I’ve got my jersey on. All I need to do now is take off my trousers and put on my shorts. I take a deep breath, but before I can start, Darren taps me on the shoulder.

  “Gonna show us your dick, Max?” he asks, laughing as if this were the funniest thing anyone has ever said in the history of humanity. Darren bugs me and not because he’s a bully. He’s thin. Like, crazy thin. He’s one of those kids who eats pies continuously and somehow still looks like a rake. He’s also the only person in my year faster than me at cross-country.

  When he asks if I’m going to show him my dick, I’m supposed to turn around, so someone—probably—can come up behind me and pull my boxers down. Instead, I carefully sit down on the bench before replying. “I’m all right, Darren,” I say. “Cheers, though.”

  “Knob,” Darren says, with
an irritated sniff. He stomps off.

  When most of the group have gone outside, I whip my trousers off and put my shorts on as fast as I can. Okay, so no one wants their whole class to see their junk, I don’t want it on a whole different level. Anorexia slows down puberty. Your pubic hair stops growing, and everything sort of … pauses. I don’t know if it’ll happen to me, but I’m scared. I stand in the mirror sometimes and look at my dick and balls. They look small. But everyone thinks that, right? I don’t exactly have anything to compare them with.

  My dick is probably the only bit of my anatomy that I want to be bigger.

  Stu and I are the last ones to leave the changing rooms. He elbows me as we walk outside. “Nicely played with Darren, mate.”

  I grin. “Thanks.”

  We’re playing rugby today. I mean, everyone else is. As well as running, Lindsay has decided contact sports are probably a bad idea for someone whose bones are like twigs. So my parents wrote to the school, asking if I could be excused from tackling—which, if you’ve never played rugby, is kind of a major part of the game. I’m allowed to do the drills and warm-ups, but that’s it. It’s like they’re trying to make me look like the biggest freak possible.

  This happened right before Christmas. Today’s the first time it’s come up. So far, Mr. Stott hasn’t said anything. Maybe no one told him, or maybe he forgot. I’m certainly not going to mention it. Oh, by the way, Mr. Stott, not sure if anyone told you, but due to my being a massive freak, I can’t play rugby anymore. Sorry. Here, look. I’ve got a note.

  On balance, I’d rather risk breaking all my bones.

  We start with a warm-up jog, which is fine. Then we do a passing drill. Everyone runs down the field in a line, passing the ball and then running around to the other side. I’m so nervous, I drop the ball literally every time someone passes it to me. On my last go, I catch it, but then forget to pass it on, and run around the back with the ball in hand. The other boys in my group are almost in tears. “Nice job, idiot,” Shinji says when we reach the end of the field.