The Year I Didn't Eat

by Pollen

  Mr. Edwards is talking about evolution now. “Lamarck’s theory was popular for a long time,” he says. “What’s the key problem with his version of evolution?”

  I’ve got some salt-and-vinegar chips in my bag that I was supposed to have for lunch. I was actually going to eat them today. Maybe. But I decide I should give them to Ram to say sorry. I pull them out, keeping them hidden under the bench so Mr. Edwards can’t see. “Here,” I whisper. “Present.”

  Ram looks at me like I’m offering him a Porsche. He stares at my hand.

  “Take them,” I hiss. “Before …” I nod toward Mr. Edwards.

  “Are you sure?” Ram says.

  “Max, is everything okay over there?”

  I freeze, like a chicken who’s been spotted by a T. rex. Mr. Edwards sidles toward us.

  “Everything’s fine, sir,” I mumble.

  “Good, good. I’d ask you to share those around, but we all know it’s dangerous to eat in the laboratory.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say. I’m thinking, He must have bat ears. (Fun fact: Bats can change the shape of their ears to hear better. Sort of like having a built-in ear trumpet.)

  “So instead, I’ll look after them until the end of class,” Mr. Edwards continues. He holds out his hand. I give him the chips. “Thank you. Now, can you explain to everyone how a kidney nephron works?”

  I swallow. “Um … the blood gets pumped into the Bowman’s capsule, which forces everything out of it.”

  “Good.” Mr. Edwards nods, in that way teachers do when they’re slightly annoyed that you’ve given them the right answer, because they know you weren’t listening properly. “Then what?”

  “Then the liquid travels along the convoluted tubule. And anything we need is absorbed back into the blood at the loop of Henle.”

  Ram gives me a look, like, How do you know all this stuff? Trust an anorexic to know everything there is to know about the human body. Even if that knowledge makes him faint sometimes. Right now, for instance, I’m pretty nervous because everyone’s looking at me, and my body’s gone into a fight-or-flight response. My sympathetic nervous system is going haywire, the pituitary gland, at the base of my brain, is pumping out a hormone called ACTH, and my adrenal glands are releasing cortisol and epinephrine. These things are working together to speed up my heart, release sugar into my blood, increase the blood flow to my muscles. There’s a hollowed-out feeling in my stomach, because all the blood’s been diverted elsewhere.

  Of course, if Mr. Edwards makes me go into any more detail, things will change. Fast. My vagus nerve will dilate my blood vessels and slow down my heart until there isn’t enough oxygen going to my brain. Then, BAM! I’ll black out and fall over: my body’s way of getting blood back into my head. Fainting may be super-annoying, but it’s pretty clever. Well done, evolution.

  “And what is that process called?” Mr. Edwards asks.

  “Um …”

  I know the bad stuff, too. The stuff that keeps me awake at night, about how anorexia is slowly ruining my body. I don’t eat enough meat, which means I’m short on iron. That’s why I sometimes can’t breathe properly. I have to wear gloves at this time of year, even on warm days, because my circulation is so rubbish. And I’m not going to grow a beard anytime soon—unlike Ram, whose chin is already fuzzy—because of the whole puberty-slowing-down shebang.

  But the thing that scares me most? My kidneys. My kidneys don’t work quite as well as the ones in our textbook, the ones I’m currently telling the whole class about. My ion balance is screwed up, so they get a little more damaged every day. According to Dr. Singh, they’re okay for now, but kidney failure kills hundreds of anorexics every year.

  The thing is, knowing stuff only helps if you can do something with that knowledge. Otherwise it just sits there, like some kind of mental bowling ball you have to carry with you everywhere you go. Making you feel like fainting and throwing up and crying, all at the same time.

  Sometimes, I feel like I know too much. About calories. About kidneys. About all kinds of stuff. I need, like, a lobotomy or something, so I can carry on living my life, without all these thoughts getting in the way.

  “Selective reabsorption,” I say eventually, trying not to think about what the words mean.

  “Correct,” Mr. Edwards says. “All of you, please make sure you use that phrase. Selective reabsorption. And what’s the main thing that’s reabsorbed in the loop of Henle, Max?”

  My head’s starting to go fuzzy. The edges of my vision go dark, like someone’s applied a photo filter directly to my eyes. I just want it to be over. But this time, I don’t know the answer. “Sugar?”

  I’m pretty sure I see Mr. Edwards smirk, like, Finally, I caught you out. “Actually, glucose is almost all reabsorbed in the proximal convoluted tubule.”

  “Yeah, idiot,” whispers someone across the room. I think it’s Darren, but I’m not sure. I hear a few stifled giggles.

  “Thank you,” says Mr. Edwards, in a warning voice.

  “Oh. Ions?” I say.

  Mr. Edwards smiles. “Yes, ions. And with them goes …”

  “Water.”

  “Exactly. Thank you, Max.” He turns and loops toward the back of the class, raising his voice. “Water is sixty percent of your body weight, folks. The renal medulla is hypertonic to the fluid in the nephron. Who can tell me what that means, and why it’s important?”

  He walks on, looking for someone else to pick on. I can’t believe I made it through that without fainting.

  I try to tune him out, now I don’t have to listen. But something he said sticks in my mind. Sixty percent of your body weight is water. Sixty percent of me is water: ordinary, comes-out-of-the-tap water. I mean, I guess it makes sense. Cells are basically tiny water balloons, and we’re made up of thirty-five trillion of them. So are other animals. So are plants. If you are a plant, you survive on water, sunlight, and air, and basically nothing else. It sounds a lot easier—like an even-better version of Gran’s nursing home.

  But 60 percent seems nuts.

  I feel a tug on my sleeve.

  Sorry, Ram mouths to me.

  I shake my head: Don’t worry about it. He looks relieved. Jesus, I think. Are my friends scared of me too now? Did he think I was going to flip out at him?

  I take another look at the doodle in front of me. The hollow sort of looks like a mouth. I don’t have a better idea, so I write underneath it, in block capitals: THE MOUTH IN THE SKY. Then below that: How does a tree eat?

  Okay, so it’s not the greatest riddle ever. But it’s something. I’ll put the cache online this weekend; all I have to do is add the info and hit the button. There’s this weird twisted feeling in my stomach, and suddenly I clock what it is: I’m nervous. Maybe it’s just leftover nerves from being quizzed in front of the whole class. Maybe it’s a kind of oh-god-I’m-going-to-faint hangover. But it feels different.

  January 18

  Dear Ana,

  Waiting for stuff sucks. I put my cache online five days ago, and so far, no one’s visited. I’ve been to check it like eight times already. I keep imagining something’s gone wrong, like maybe a muggle—that’s what you call someone who doesn’t know what geocaching is—has found it, and decided it must be a bomb or a drug stash or something, and reported it to the police. Or a squirrel’s knocked it out of the tree.

  But each time I go back, it’s still there.

  I asked Robin about it. He shrugged and told me sometimes it takes a while to show up in everyone’s app, and also, it’s not like there are that many people in Bolford out searching for geocaches in the middle of January. “It was 20C yesterday Max, for crying out loud,” he said. I guess he has a point.

  Hey, at least when I’m worrying about my geocache, I’m not worrying about food. I’ve finally found a way to shut you up.

  Talking about weird girls who won’t leave me alone … I swear Evie (yes, I finally found out what her name is) is crazy. Yesterday me, Stu, and Ram were on our
way to music, and she ran up behind us and was like, “Hey, guys! Time for music!” To be absolutely clear: This is the first time she’s ever spoken to us. None of us had a clue what to say. Eventually, Stu asked her if she played any instruments, which I reckon was pretty nice of him. She said no. That was it. We let her walk to class with us, but she didn’t say anything else. And she went and sat on her own. Now that I think about it, I feel kind of bad we didn’t ask her to sit with us. But there’s not exactly a lot I can do about it now.

  7

  At Deanwater High, there’s a zero-tolerance approach to mobile phones. If a teacher sees you using one or even just holding one, they confiscate it and you have to go to the assistant principal at the end of the day to get it back. No excuses. If it happens twice, they keep it for a week. Every parent has to sign an agreement saying they’re fine with this policy before their kid gets a place at the school. It’s a big deal: Our principal does interviews with national newspapers where she talks about the menace of distraction. She’s kind of a phone-hating celebrity.

  Anyway, the main outcome is that every toilet cubicle in school is occupied throughout break time and lunchtime because everyone goes in there to check their phones. Like, it would be a real problem if you actually needed to use a sit-down toilet. I don’t know what the girls do.

  Who knew that trying to stop 1,200 11–16 year-olds from using their phones wouldn’t work?

  I sprint out of history as soon as the bell goes and reach the nearest toilets before anyone else (which is a pretty big achievement, actually—there are at least five classrooms that are closer). I close the door, pull out my phone, and open up the listing for my cache.

  And guess what? Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

  I do have a text from Ram, though.

  Where did you zoom off to? LOL. Meet us in the usual place. I need your help!

  I’ve met Ram and Stu in the usual place for three years, since we first came to Deanwater High, so I’m not exactly sure what else he was expecting me to do.

  When I get there, he beams. “Max! So glad you could make it.”

  I turn to Stu. “Why’s he being weird?”

  Stu frowns. “No idea. It’s making me pretty nervous actually.”

  Ram shakes his head. “Fellas, there’s no need to be nervous. I want to pick your brains.”

  “About what?” Stu asks.

  “My birthday, of course.”

  I look at Stu. He raises an eyebrow.

  “Your birthday’s in May,” I tell him.

  “Exactly,” he says enthusiastically. “We have plenty of time to figure it out.”

  “Figure what out?”

  “My dad says I can do whatever I want this year. It’s going to be, like, the biggest social event of the year. So, what do we want to do? Oh, you’re both invited by the way.”

  “This would’ve been a pretty awkward conversation if we weren’t, frankly,” says Stu.

  Ram ignores him. “So, what do you reckon?”

  I’m about to suggest he has his party at the zoo because that’s definitely where I’d have a birthday party, if I ever actually had one: My birthday’s in August, so no one’s ever around.

  But before I can say anything, Ram’s off again. I think he’s already forgotten that he asked a question. “At first, I thought Laser Quest, but then I thought, maybe we’re too old for Laser Quest.”

  Stu strokes his chin. “Is anyone ever truly too old for Laser Quest?”

  “We might be,” says Ram, deadpan. “Keep up, Stu.”

  Stu gives me another look.

  “How about the zoo?” I say.

  Ram snorts at this, which I guess means no.

  “Bowling?” Stu offers.

  Ram scowls. “Everyone goes bowling, Stu. I’ve been bowling like twenty times in the last year.”

  “It’s almost as if bowling is fun,” mutters Stu.

  I haven’t, I think. I can’t remember the last time I went bowling. I can’t tell if Ram’s exaggerating, or if there are all these parties I don’t get invited to. Parties I don’t even know about.

  Probably. Who’d want you at a party?

  Yeah, okay, Ana. You may have a point there.

  The bell goes for third period, which today is PSHE—Personal, Social, Health, and Economic education—aka the lesson where we all have to pretend we’ve never heard of condoms.

  “You two are about as useless as an inflatable dartboard,” Ram concludes.

  “Glad to help,” says Stu brightly.

  “Anyway, keep thinking about it. I want to brief Dad at the weekend.”

  “Brief?” Stu says. “You’re not a spy, Ram.”

  “That’s exactly what a spy would want you to think,” Ram says, touching his index finger to his head, like, Think about that for a moment. Then he groans. “Oh, look who’s back.”

  You guessed it.

  “Um, hi,” Evie says. “So, what’s PSHE?”

  “Personal, Social, Health, and Economic education,” we all chant in unison, like the world’s worst barbershop quartet. Barbershop trio, I guess.

  “O-kay,” Evie says, like we’re insane. She wrinkles her nose. “And what the hell is that?”

  “Basically, they tell us stuff we already know about how sex works. The videos are good, though.”

  Evie grins. “Cool.”

  She is kind of pretty. Her hair is chocolate-brown, and her bangs hang right down over her eyes. It must be kind of annoying, but it looks cool. And she has about 18,000 freckles on each cheek.

  There’s an awkward pause where no one really knows what to do. Then Ram picks up his rucksack and blurts, “See you there.”

  I see a little flicker in Evie’s face.

  “You can come with us if you want,” I say. I don’t actually look at her when I say it. I just stare at my feet.

  She frowns at me. “As if. See you later, dickheads.” Then she marches off across the courtyard.

  Robin’s already there when I get home from school. He’s normally at work till six, but apparently some delivery got rescheduled or something, so he could clock off early.

  “I’m taking Sultan out,” he announces as soon as I walk through the door. “Wanna come?”

  “Yep. Just … give me a sec,” I say. I stumble into the kitchen.

  Um, confession time: I didn’t eat lunch. Our PSHE class ran over because they had this guest speaker, who was a nurse from a sexual health clinic in Manchester, and he got stuck in traffic. By the time I got out, there were massive queues to even get into the toilets, and I really wanted to check my phone. Maybe if I was less of a wimp, I’d subtly check my phone wherever I was. But I’m not. And anyway, I kind of like having an excuse to be on my own.

  Unsurprisingly, no one had visited in the two hours since I’d last checked.

  By the time I got out, there was only, like, five minutes of lunch left. So I skipped it.

  Now I’m feeling pretty woozy. My arms are actual custard, and my stomach feels like it’s being vacuumed from the inside. I should eat something—but the thought of eating now scares me. I feel like I could eat twenty cheeseburgers. What if I start eating and can’t stop myself?

  Better not risk it. The hunger will go away soon. You’re not that weak, are you?

  One thing you learn when you’re anorexic is that hunger doesn’t go in one direction. It peaks and it dips; you can be ravenous one moment and then, an hour later, you barely feel like eating.

  And if you ride the wave, you can get away with eating less.

  I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. For a second, I’m tempted by the carton of orange juice, but instead, I grab the jug of chilled water and fill up a pint glass. I down it in one gulp. I fill it back up and down it again.

  “Max?” Robin calls from the hallway.

  “Ready!” I shout back.

  I’m super-bloated. I know water doesn’t make me put on weight, but I still feel disgusting.

  You are disgusting.


  I’m not hungry anymore, though. That’s something.

  “So, have you found somewhere for your cache yet?”

  It’s too dark to go back to the Common, so we’re walking into town. We’ve just passed Silk Dragon, the Chinese takeout we always go to. The smell kills me. Chinese is my absolute favorite food.

  I shrug.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me where,” he says, grinning. “Anyone visited yet?”

  “No,” I say. “It sucks.”

  “They’ll come,” he says. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Bolford isn’t exactly New York City.”

  The bloated feeling gets better as I walk. In fact, I feel okay, or as okay as I ever feel. Okay-ish.

  “Hey, did Mum tell you about the weekend after next?” Robin says.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Uncle Rich and Auntie Jess are going to Brighton, so I’m going to stay at their place and look after James and Louise. You can come with me if you like.”

  James has this thing about staying over at other people’s houses. The thing being, he can’t stand it. He says it disrupts his routine. James is kind of … particular. For example, he has his own plate and cutlery, which he uses for every single meal. When he goes on holiday, or around to anyone’s house, he takes them with him. I used to think this was kind of ridiculous, but these days, I’m not exactly one to judge.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Might be nice to give Mum and Dad some time to themselves.”

  I look up at him. A lump forms in my throat, about the size of a tennis ball. I’m not upset exactly. More embarrassed. He means, it might be nice to give Mum and Dad a break from me.

  “It’s up to you, little bro,” he says quickly. “But I wouldn’t mind the company. I might even let you pick the film, as long as you don’t pick some documentary on bird migration again.”

  We carry on walking. Neither of us says anything for a while. We have one of those extending leashes, and Sultan’s way out in front of us, looking for stuff he can scarf down before we notice it. Sultan likes walking down the high street best, because there’s always discarded food about. He treats it like one of those sushi restaurants with a conveyor belt, where you reach out and grab whatever you want.