by Carmen Reid
‘How are you guys?’ Gina asked.
‘We’re fine but you need help,’ Paula replied.
‘I know,’ Gina agreed, delighted that they’d responded to her email so quickly. ‘How’s your sister, Ria?’ she wanted to know.
‘She’s doing well, but she’s still in hospital. It’s going to take a really long time for her to get better. It’s so awful,’ Ria told her, ‘but I think it’s also kind of embarrassing. She was beautiful and healthy and she made herself so sick, she nearly died. She could still die.’
‘Oh, Ria,’ Gina said quietly. ‘I had no idea how bad it was.’
‘No . . . we didn’t either,’ Maddison added.
‘So you have totally got to help your friend,’ Ria went on, ‘before it gets anything like as bad as it was with Megan.’
Gina gripped the receiver tightly. They were scaring her. How could she help Amy? Why was it down to her?
‘What should I do?’ she asked her friends nervously.
‘We’re going to send you as much help as we can,’ Paula told her calmly. ‘We’ll email you loads of website addresses and links, for on-line advice you can give to Amy. Ria’s put a self-help book in the post and we’ve even looked up British helpline numbers. But you’re the one who’s going to have to give all this to Amy.’
‘Just do it gently and kindly,’ Maddison suggested. ‘Tell her that other people know how she feels – there is plenty of help out there; she just needs to go find it. She just needs to ask. No one else even needs to know apart from the people she really trusts.’
‘Oh . . . this is too scary,’ Gina admitted. ‘What if I get it all wrong? What if I make everything much worse? She could get really, really sick, like your sister, Ria.’
‘No one noticed what was going on with Megan,’ Maddison said. ‘Maybe if someone had seen it earlier, it wouldn’t have got so bad.’
Gina stared at the blue walls of the phone booth. She wanted to stay in here. She didn’t want to go upstairs and do this really difficult thing: confront her friend about her problem again. It hadn’t worked the first time – plus she and Min still hadn’t been able to get Amy and Niffy back together again. If she couldn’t even help them to do that, how on earth could she help Amy face the fact that she no longer knew how to eat normally?
‘Guys,’ Gina began, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’
‘You can!’ Paula insisted. ‘We’ll help you. You can call us, you can email us – you can even get Amy to speak to us if you think that will help.’
‘Thank you,’ Gina said, and felt a lump in her throat. Her friends were so far away, but all three of them were also right here. She could hear them talking and breathing, sounding so close; willing her to do OK, wanting to help out in any way they could.
‘Cool books, leaflets and anything else we could think of are in the post,’ Maddison assured her.
‘They’ll take a few days,’ Ria added. ‘Until then, you need to talk to Amy and maybe get her to check out the websites we’ve emailed you.’
‘Right . . . OK,’ Gina heard herself agree, although she still didn’t know how she was going to do this.
‘This is serious, Gina,’ Ria told her. ‘You have to help her!’
Chapter Thirty
ON THURSDAY MORNING Gina watched Amy eating her breakfast of two small oatcakes with a scrape of honey and no butter.
For several days now, she had been watching her friend and noticing all sorts of things – but she still hadn’t summoned up the courage to talk to her about the problem.
Gina had spent three whole lunch breaks waiting for Amy to show up in the dining room – to no avail. Plus, she noted that Amy would come back from school, drink two glasses of water and lie down for the hour and a half before supper.
At supper, Gina saw how slowly Amy ate her small main course and tiny helping of pudding. Sometimes she had to marvel at her friend’s amazing restraint. But mainly she just felt sorry for her.
Amy looked so pale and tired now. She’d become moody and sulky. She didn’t talk much in the evenings – she fretted about her performance in the play and went over her lines anxiously. She didn’t turn up at hockey lessons any more. She went to the library, instructing Gina to tell the teacher that she had a bad stomach.
Gina wasn’t sure what it was about hockey practice that Amy disliked most: the fact that Niffy now played on Penny’s team, or the fact that she’d eaten so little, she didn’t have the energy to run around.
It was clear that Amy was conserving energy. She kept quiet in class. She walked slowly. She saved up all her strength to come alive on stage during her lunch time and evening rehearsals.
Today, Gina went to the rehearsal after school and watched in awe as the words she’d so carefully crafted came to life on stage. Amy, Peta and Jamie were really good, really convincing. Gina watched them with an amazed tingle: her words were suddenly real – and the biggest change was in Amy. When she was up there on the stage, with the bright lights illuminating her blonde hair and white skin, she glowed just like her old self again.
But as soon as the rehearsal was over, she seemed to shrink and collapse again. She shuffled back to the boarding house, hugging her coat around her, totally spent by her performance.
Walking back from the rehearsal with her, Gina had almost found the courage to say the words: ‘Amy, you’re not eating enough – you’ve got to talk to me about it.’
But at the last moment she’d chickened out.
All the next day, Friday, in every single class, Gina watched as Amy sat listless and quiet, and told herself that today was going to be the day. She promised herself that she would not go to bed tonight without having the conversation.
She’d followed the links herself now; she’d been on the websites and she’d read much of the advice. Amy had to face up to what was going on. She was getting dangerously thin: her body was no longer being properly fed; soon her mind was going to be affected too. Then it would be much, much harder to bring her round.
The last lesson of the day was history. The classroom was hot, the lesson dull, but even so, Amy was looking unusually exhausted. She held her head in her hands as if her neck didn’t have the strength to support it by itself.
Somehow, Gina lost Amy in the locker rooms. She looked around, planning to walk back to the boarding house with her, but then Amy had disappeared.
Gina hurried out of the school building, hoping to spot her friend. As she emerged, she saw Amy’s blonde head through the railings. She was heading off in the opposite direction to the boarding house.
Without giving it much thought, Gina buttoned up her coat and began to follow her. Boarding-house girls weren’t allowed out of the school grounds without the express permission of the Neb, but this afternoon Gina would have to ignore that rule. This was an emergency. If she had to, she would explain it all later.
Amy was walking quickly. Her collar was turned up and her head was down, as if she didn’t want anyone to see her.
Gina kept a safe distance away, but she had Amy well in her sights. She was hurrying down the side streets towards the busy main road that passed close to the school.
As she rounded the corner, Gina saw Amy turn into the mini-supermarket. Now she wasn’t sure what to do. Cross the road and watch to see when Amy came out? Follow her into the shop?
Gina decided to cross the road. She picked a doorway with a deep recess and stood there, hoping she would be able to see Amy without being spotted herself.
Several long minutes passed. Gina stared at the entrance of the shop, hoping she’d not somehow missed her friend coming out. She glanced at her watch. Hopefully, in all the bustle of Friday afternoon at the boarding house, she and Amy wouldn’t be missed. But if they were . . . A weekend of being gated loomed.
There was Amy! She was coming out of the shop with a huge, bulging carrier bag in her hand.
Keeping a safe distance, Gina followed her friend back towards the school again. Once Am
y had passed through the gates, Gina let the distance between them widen. She was almost certain Amy was heading back to the boarding house now, so there was no need to follow her so closely.
Gina came in through the front door, prepared to tell the Neb that she’d had to stay behind and help tidy up the biology lab after a spill, but she wasn’t questioned. A group of Year Fours was packing up for a Duke of Edinburgh hiking trip, which was monopolizing all Mrs Knebworth’s attention.
Gina unloaded her coat and bags, then went straight up to the dorm, expecting to find Amy and her mysterious bag of groceries.
But there was just Min in the dorm; she was smiling a welcome.
She couldn’t wait to tell Gina her news. ‘My mum is really pleased for me! She says Greg sounds lovely and she’ll ask the Neb for permission for me to go out to the cinema with him. An evening date! Maybe if she emails it, we could even go out tomorrow night!’
Gina smiled too. She was happy for her friend, but she had Amy and the bulging bag of groceries on her mind.
‘That’s great . . . but have you seen Amy?’
Min shook her head.
‘I need to find her,’ Gina said, and hurried out of the dorm.
She ran into Niffy, but when she asked her if she’d seen Amy, she met with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders.
Gina went in search of Rosie, but when she found her in the Year Four sitting room, she didn’t have any news about Amy either.
Gina tried the study, the bathrooms, the laundry room – even Mel’s room. There was no trace of Amy.
There was nowhere else left in the boarding house. Where had Amy and her large bag of shopping gone?!
Gina felt anxious. She felt responsible. She should have told someone else what she’d seen. Maybe she was out of her depth here. Maybe she should call on an adult to help . . .
As she walked along the ground-floor corridor, planning to go back upstairs to her dorm and confide in Min and Niffy, she happened to glance down the small passage that led to the visitors’ toilet.
There was a small gap under the toilet door and Gina thought she saw a flash of bright orange. The same orange as the mini-market carrier bag!
Taking several very quiet steps down the corridor, Gina bent down to take a closer look. Yes, there was no doubt in her mind now. That was definitely the same bag.
Gina had spent enough time on the eating disorder websites to understand immediately what was going on. Amy had locked herself in the visitors’ toilet with a bag full of food. She was going to binge and maybe even make herself sick afterwards.
Gina wanted to bang on the door. She wanted to shout for help. She felt sweaty with fear for her friend . . . but she remained frozen to the spot, with no idea what to do.
Chapter Thirty-one
AMY SAT ON the toilet seat lid and looked around the little room. It was neat and white and smelled of the rose-scented pot pourri that Mrs Knebworth had placed on the small windowsill. It was a very old-fashioned bathroom – the only one in the Victorian boarding house that hadn’t been updated with modern fittings. The toilet seat was pale wood, bleached almost white with decades of scrubbing and cleaning. The enamel of the porcelain basin on the wall was decorated with a web of faint grey cracks, and the chunky silver taps had old HOT and COLD labels enamelled on top.
It was peaceful here; one of the quietest, most private places in the whole house. Amy was grateful to be in here, safely locked behind the thick brass bolt which she’d pulled firmly shut. Even if someone hammered on that door for her to come out, she wouldn’t. She was safe here.
She held her head in her hands, realizing how tired she was. But she had managed it. She had gone from Monday through to Friday without eating a single full-sized meal, and missing lunch every day. All through the week she had promised herself a reward. A really big treat for such good behaviour.
She had thought all week about what the treat would be: a chocolate bar, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, a thickly buttered slice of white bread, or a Kit Kat, her favourite biscuit. All week she had thought about food. That was the problem when you didn’t eat much: you obsessed about it. You thought about it, imagined it, even dreamed about wonderful buffet spreads.
She had meant to go to the mini-market and choose just one or two treats, but somehow when she was in the shop, she couldn’t choose, couldn’t decide, seemed to lose all control, and had found herself stuffing her basket absolutely full of things she hadn’t even thought about since she was a little girl: Tunnock’s teacakes, chocolate digestives, Eccles cakes, fruit loaf, smooth white bread . . . She hadn’t been able to stop herself.
Only the thought that she might not have enough money to pay for it all had finally brought the spree to an end.
Then she’d carried this great bulging bag of goodies back to the boarding house without much of an idea what she was going to do with it.
That’s when she’d thought of locking herself in the toilet and thinking. Peace and quiet. She needed peace and quiet to try and make some sense of the jumble in her mind.
She wanted to be thin. Just like Peta. No. Thinner than Peta. She wanted to be the thinnest person on the stage, the thinnest girl in the year. If she couldn’t be the prettiest or the best actress, then at least she could be the thinnest. That was under her control.
She wanted the feeling of fury with Niffy to go away. Amy had somehow linked ridding herself of fury with ridding herself of weight. As if somehow she could purge the two from her body.
Looking at the grocery bag, she felt absolutely desperate for something to eat. But she didn’t want to eat. She’d worked so hard at it all week. She’d been so strong and she’d resisted so much. Now, all her efforts might be wasted. She might start on one thing in that bag and not be able to stop.
She knew that some dieters made themselves sick, but she didn’t know if she wanted to do that. It was . . . well, she hated being sick. It was horrible, disgusting.
Slowly she opened up the bag and looked inside. Her hand was on the packet of Tunnock’s teacakes. Her gran’s favourites. Almost every day her gran had one of these super-sweet chocolate-coated mallow cake things for elevenses, along with her cup of super-sugared tea. When Amy was little, she had loved these teacakes, but as she grew older, she’d found them too sweet, and now it was years since she’d eaten one.
Her hand ripped open the plastic packaging and her trembling fingers tore into the silver wrapping. She stuffed one whole teacake into her mouth, bit down on it and swallowed.
Oh! It was delicious! It was absolutely delicious – it was the best thing she’d ever, ever tasted!
She opened another one and crammed that in too. Now she spotted the white loaf of bread. She pulled open the packet and ripped a slice in half, cramming it into her mouth on top of the teacake.
Mmm! Mmmmm! She could barely chew fast enough. This was so good, so scrumptious . . . heavenly. Another piece of bread quickly followed.
She had never, ever felt so ravenously hungry before. Her body was absolutely starved! It craved food. It craved great greedy mouthfuls of everything in the bag. She couldn’t open the packets quickly enough to answer the screaming Feed me! inside her head.
But then she thought of her gran . . . Oh, what would her gran think of her now? Starving herself all week, then ramming food into her gob like this. Her gran would be absolutely horrified!
Her gran, who had always scraped to give her family enough. Her gran, who never, ever let you leave even a mouthful on your plate because it was a waste; who saved every butter wrapper in a compartment in the fridge to grease the baking tins.
Amy was greedy.
She was wasting food.
She was going to be huge, fat, hideous.
But she couldn’t stop now.
Her body was screaming like a ravenous, starving baby for food.
It was out of control.
But she had to feed it.
With both hands she stuffed a slice of bread and two
digestive biscuits into her mouth, feeling hot, helpless tears of hatred roll down her face.
She didn’t want to be sick. She didn’t want to make herself sick. She’d never done it before – it must be horrible.
But she couldn’t have all this food in her stomach.
Help me! Please, someone . . . Please – please help me!
These were the words roaring in her head now. But all that came out through the crammed mouthful of food was a stifled, muffled sob.
Chapter Thirty-two
GINA TURNED AND ran.
She’d heard the wrappers being torn open, she’d heard the sounds of eating, chewing, more eating . . . Then she’d heard the sob.
Just the one, pained and heart-rending – then silence, as if Amy had managed to stifle everything else.
That single sob had frightened Gina more than anything else she’d seen or heard so far.
Now she knew she had to go and get help, so she ran back to her dorm.
Min was in the room with a scatter of outfits across her bed: she was obviously trying to decide what to wear for her cinema date. She looked up and saw Gina’s shocked and anxious expression. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.
‘It’s Amy – she’s in trouble,’ Gina blurted out.
Just then the door opened and Niffy stood hesitantly in the doorway. She gave the room a quick once over to make sure Amy wasn’t there, and only then did she come in.
‘What is it?’ she asked, catching the worried expressions on both Min and Gina’s faces.
‘It’s Amy,’ Gina said, and when Niffy just shrugged at this, she went on, ‘She’s in real trouble.’
‘What do you mean?’ Min asked.
‘You know how she’s not been eating properly and it’s been going on for weeks now? Well, she’s downstairs, locked in the visitors’ toilet with this great big bag of food – and I think she’s stuffing herself and maybe planning to make herself sick or something. But she’s crying’ – Gina heard the crack in her voice, but she stumbled on – ‘and she’s so upset and unhappy and . . . Guys!’ She appealed to them both. ‘I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it, but I know that she needs us to help her!’