Jemima Small Versus the Universe

by Tamsin Winter

  “Just relax, Jemima,” Gina said. “Close your eyes.”

  I took a deep breath and covered my eyes with my hands. “Imagine you are lying on a soft cloud…”

  I tried to ignore Gina’s voice and do my fifty-three times tables, but it was impossible. Gina’s got this soothing kind of voice. I wished humans had a way of closing our ears, like crocodiles.

  “You are floating on a cloud…”

  I imagined a cumulus cloud. They’d probably be the comfiest. I took a deep breath and let my hands fall down by my sides.

  “You can feel a warm and gentle breeze, and sunlight on your face. Let every part of your body completely relax into the cloud. You feel at peace. You feel at ease. You feel comfortable in your body…”

  I don’t know what happened next exactly. Gina must have the psychic gift like Luna and my nana. Because I was lying on a mat in the sports hall, in a body that usually felt heavier than Jupiter. But it felt like I was floating. Past the clouds, right up to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere, to the Karman line, where space begins. I felt like I was bathing in sunlight. And every single cell in my body felt peaceful, like it was supposed to be there. Like it was okay.

  Gina counted us back down to Earth, and I sat up. I rubbed my eyes to keep them open. She said meditation restored your energy, but it made me want to nap.

  “Now,” Gina said. “I have some homework for you.”

  Brandon groaned, then apologized as soon as Gina looked at him.

  “Firstly, I’d like you to take a thirty-minute walk. Get some fresh air! Go with a friend or family member if you like, maybe along the seafront. Everyone think they can do that?”

  I nodded and pulled my homework planner out of my rucksack.

  “And secondly” – Gina handed each of us a small, red notebook – “over the next week, any negative thoughts you have about your body, I want you to write them down in here.”

  “Like a list?” Maya asked, writing her name in big swirly letters on the front of her notebook.

  “Yes, a list or a diary. It’s up to you. If you hear any negative comments about your body, I want you to write those down too.”

  I flicked through the blank pages of my notebook, wondering if there’d be enough space.

  “But won’t that just make us feel worse?” Nate asked. “Writing down all the bad stuff you think?”

  “I hope it’s going to make you feel better.” Gina smiled. “Trust me.”

  Maya stood up. “Well, I’ll start with all the stuff my mum says!” She was laughing, but that way you laugh when you really want to cry.

  “Like what, Maya?” Gina asked.

  Maya sat down again and her bag dropped to the floor. “She’s put us both on this diet. We’re only allowed to eat green leaves and raw vegetables. And when I say I’m hungry she makes me this special drink and tells me to concentrate on what I want to look like.”

  Gina’s eyes widened. “Right, maybe she misunderstood when I spoke to her last week. I’ll give her a call this afternoon, okay? Now listen, I want to make this very clear: nobody here should be on a diet. Diets go against everything I believe in. And besides, who wants to eat only green leaves and raw vegetables?”

  “A tortoise?” I said.

  “Exactly!” Gina’s smile stretched back to the usual seventy per cent of her face. “You must be absolutely starving.” She went over to a table by the wall. “Look, everyone, this class is about having a healthy lifestyle. There is nothing healthy about cutting out vital food groups! Here.” She picked up a big tub and pulled off the lid to reveal chocolate brownies. “Help yourselves! A little treat from GGB for being such an awesome group!”

  “Thanks, Gina!” Brandon said, taking a brownie in each hand. He bit into one and said, “Mmm mmm!” then stuffed the rest into his mouth.

  I took a bite from mine. It was okay, but it didn’t taste that chocolatey. There was something a bit grainy about it too. Maybe Gina didn’t mix the ingredients up very well. I could feel bits of it getting stuck in my teeth.

  “We all deserve a treat once in a while!” Gina said, taking a brownie for herself. “I mean, who doesn’t like sweet potato?”

  That weekend, Miki was staying at his dad’s in London, so on Sunday I put the notebook from Gina and my Brainiacs pen in my coat pocket, started my phone timer, and headed towards the sea.

  I stepped out onto the promenade and walked uphill towards the lighthouse. I went past the brightly coloured beach huts, the harbour where the steamboat pulled in to pick up tourists, a little row of shops, then up the concrete steps that were always covered in pebbles. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pressed stop on the timer. Thirty-eight minutes. I wiped the seat of the bench behind me and sat down. If I took the same time walking back, I’d have done 153 per cent more walking than Gina told us to do. Dad couldn’t say I wasn’t making an effort now. I was probably her best student.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t already have loads of homework. I was doing an extension project on light refraction and dispersion for Mr Shaw, and Mrs Lee had given me some A level algebra questions to try as well as the regular ones. Gina’s homework was only writing thoughts and things down. And she’d given us a whole week. It should have been easy. But it felt harder than everything else. I stared down at the empty page, feeling like anything I wrote would sound stupid.

  I pulled out my phone and messaged Heidi:

  Hey, started your notebook hw yet for GGB?

  Heidi replied:

  Yeah started it when I got home on Friday.

  A few minutes later my phone beeped and a photo popped up. It was Heidi’s list. Although it looked more like an essay. As I started reading, this horrible feeling spread from my stomach to my heart.

  1. A Year Nine boy said “Shut up, fatty” to me on the bus and I wasn’t even talking to him.

  2. Harry’s friend said “Woah, don’t squash me!” when the bus went round a corner. I don’t know if it counts because he said it to Harry, but it still made me feel bad. His friends always say stuff to him and it feels like they mean it about me too, even though Harry says they don’t.

  3. It was my cousin’s birthday party last weekend and when it was time for the cake, my uncle looked at my mum as though he didn’t think I should have any. It was really awkward so I said I wasn’t hungry. I felt left out and embarrassed and wished I could go home.

  4. As we were leaving my uncle said, “Next time we see you two, I hope we don’t recognize you!” That just made me want to cry.

  5. My gran texted saying she was proud of me for not having cake at the party and she’ll give me a pound for every pound of weight I lose. My mum said she was just trying to encourage me, but I feel like she thinks there’s something badly wrong with me and that she’s not proud of me the way I am.

  I blinked a few times, and the breeze blew one of my tears across my face. Words out loud are just sound vibrations that travel through the air. Bits of energy that eventually run out. Like someone shouting, “Earthquake!” at you across a car park. Words written down are permanent. You can’t just act like you didn’t hear or pretend they don’t exist. And the worst thing about reading Heidi’s list was: I knew exactly how much it hurt.

  I wiped another tear from my eye, and put my pen to the paper. It wasn’t difficult knowing what to write. It was knowing where to start.

  When I got home, I could hear hammering coming from the garage, so Dad must have been in there. I went straight upstairs to my room, pulled my cardigan off and closed the door. I don’t know how long I stayed like that. Sitting against the door with my cardigan at my feet. But I think it was a long time. I heard Jasper practising his magic show about a hundred times. Writing that list up by the lighthouse was a stupid idea. I’d walked all the way home with my head down, so no one would see the tears that kept falling down my cheeks.

  I heard Dad come in, and Jasper running downstairs. I dried my eyes on my sleeve and looked at my phone. A message from Heidi w
as on the screen.

  Hey, my cousin just sent me this. It’s a JK Rowling quote: Is fat really the worst thing a human being can be? Is fat worse than vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain, boring or cruel?

  They were only words on a screen. But they felt like magic. Maybe because JK Rowling said them. Or because Jasper’s magic show music was still playing in the background. Or maybe it was having a friend like Heidi who understood what the stuff in my notebook felt like. Luna had told me ages ago about this feeling she gets sometimes while she’s telling someone’s fortune. She says it makes her soul smile. Well, I still hadn’t exactly located my soul, but wherever it was, I could feel it smiling.

  My phone flashed Heidi’s name again and there was the Brainiacs lightning bolt logo.

  Fingers crossed for you tomorrow xHx

  My eyes went kind of blurry again as I looked down at my legs squashed against the carpet. I thought about school tomorrow. Mrs Savage would be announcing who’d made it through to the Selection Day in assembly. What would happen if she did call my name? I’d have to stand up at the front. People would gawp at me. Or maybe laugh. They’d probably wonder how somebody like me could be clever enough for Brainiacs, or why I’d even put myself forward.

  But still, there was a tiny part of me – maybe only one of the 37.2 trillion cells in my body – hoping she would call my name. And that if she did, maybe I wouldn’t feel like the worst thing a human being could be.

  The next morning, Mrs Savage was standing at the front of the assembly hall with her finger over her lips, waiting for complete silence. I was sitting in the middle of a row, with my feet on tiptoes and my thighs pressed together so my legs didn’t squash into Miki or Erin too much. I knew Miki wouldn’t care, and Erin had never said anything bad to me. I guess it had just become a habit. Trying to take up less space.

  “Good morning, Lower School!” Mrs Savage’s voice echoed around the hall. “I have a very special announcement this morning! It’s the news you have all been waiting for! Has anyone from Clifton Academy qualified for the next stage of the Brainiacs competition?”

  A murmur went round the hall and Miki squeezed my arm. “You got this.”

  My heart was beating so fast it felt like it was about to explode through my chest. Which in assembly would be totally embarrassing.

  “Places at the Brainiacs Selection Day are reserved for people who scored the very highest percentage on the qualifying test.” A smile stretched across Mrs Savage’s face. “So, without further ado, I am very excited to announce that three of our brilliant Clifton Academy students are on the list!”

  Everyone broke into applause and Mrs Savage had to wait for ages for it to go quiet again. I took deep breaths and rubbed my sweating palms on my skirt.

  “Our three students will join over two hundred others from all over the country to take part in a special day of mental challenges in London, in just four weeks’ time. Only one student from each school can get through to the show, so, not only will our three students be competing against other schools, they will also be competing against each other! We shall, of course, be rooting for all of them! So, who are they?”

  The hall buzzed with excitement and Miki squeezed my arm even harder. My heart pounded against my ribs. I wanted to hear my name, but my cheeks were already burning at the thought of standing up in front of everybody.

  “If I call your name, come to the front so we can give you a special Clifton Academy cheer!” Mrs Savage waved at the IT person. “We’ll need a photograph for the school website!”

  My palms were still sweaty even though I’d wiped them loads of times. If Mrs Savage called my name, I knew someone would whisper “Big”. I knew I’d see people’s eyes going from my head down to my feet, like when I collected my certificates and prizes at the end of last year. As though they were judging every kilogram. They say you can never know people’s thoughts, but you can. You just look at their faces, and you can hear them. A thousand voices all saying the same thing: Jemima Big.

  “Jemima Small!”

  People started clapping and everything seemed to slow down, like I’d fallen into a space-time vortex. My stomach dropped and my head was spinning and Miki had to practically push me out of my seat. I carefully made my way to the end of the narrow row, trying my best not to tread on people’s feet or bump into their legs, which was impossible. I could feel my cheeks burning bright red, and my heart thundered with fear, and my hands were shaking, but somewhere, deep down, there was the tiniest fizz of excitement.

  But, a few minutes later, as I stood onstage next to the other two people who had qualified, I didn’t feel happy or excited or proud like Mrs Savage was saying I should. I barely listened to her talking about the extra studying we’d be doing after school, or telling me to stand up straight for the photograph. I didn’t even care what people in the audience were thinking.

  Because standing right next to me, grinning like she’d just won the Nobel prize, was Lottie Rat Face Freeman.

  When I got home, Dad was waxing a surfboard on the kitchen table.

  “Hey,” I said, and he practically jumped out of his skin.

  “Jemima!” he said, putting his hand to his chest. “I didn’t hear you come in! Is that the time already?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Thought I might go for a surf at the weekend!” he said. “Haven’t been in years! What with our health kick and considering the weather’s still pretty mild, I thought we could go to Dolphin Bay. See if I’ve still got the moves, you know?” He bent his knees and pretended to do what I assume was supposed to be surfing. “Where’s Jasper?”

  “He got a different bus. Said he needed something for his magic show from that Hocus Pocus shop on the pier. He said he’d messaged you. Is surfing a good idea at your age?”

  Dad stopped waxing, picked up his phone, then looked at me. “What do you mean ‘at my age’? I’m only forty-six! It’s hardly ancient.”

  “Oh my God, Dad, FORTY-SIX? You’re practically geriatric. It’s probably why you’re in a stress all the time.”

  “Jemima, I am not geriatric. Your nana’s geriatric. And I’m not in a stress all the time either, thank you very much! Which is a miracle, considering.” He leaned the surfboard against the wall, washed his hands then took a watermelon that was the size of a beach ball out of the fridge. “Gina suggested trying some different fruit and veg this week, so…”

  “Gina?” I said. “You spoke to her again?” I put the cloth back on the table and placed the newly filled fruit bowl in the centre.

  Dad’s cheeks turned pink. “I just wanted some advice, you know.”

  I stared at him. “You phoned her?”

  “She said to phone if I had any questions!” Dad smiled awkwardly. “I just want to get this right.”

  “Okay, well first of all stop phoning my teachers.” He handed me a plate with two tiny slices of watermelon on it. “And second, don’t starve me to death.”

  “Ha! Right, no, of course. Sorry. Here.” He sliced another tiny piece of watermelon and handed it to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, sitting down. “Watermelon is ninety-two per cent water, you know.”

  “Who’s starving to death?” Jasper appeared through the bead curtain. His uniform still looked as immaculate as it had this morning. He must secretly iron his clothes at school or something.

  “Dad’s trying to starve me to death,” I said, pointing to my plate.

  “Jemima, that’s the last thing I’m trying to do.” Dad handed Jasper a plate with two tiny slices of watermelon on it. Maybe watermelon was just really expensive.

  “It’ll take a long time,” Jasper whispered, then whistled as he spotted the surfboard. “Hey, you got your board out!”

  “Dad, did you hear that? Jasper called me fat.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Dad sighed. “Jasper, we’ve had this conversation so many times. Leave your sister alone. She’s at a sensitive age.”

  “Y
ou’re at a sensitive age,” I mumbled.

  Dad gave me a tight-lipped smile. Like he was covering up how much of a stress he was in because he’d only just claimed he never got in a stress. “Yeah, I thought we could go to the beach at the weekend.” He lowered his voice. “Just go easy on your sister, okay?”

  “Sure, Dad,” Jasper said, in full suck-up mode. He sat down opposite me, reached his hand out to mine and patted it. “I’m sorry, sister.”

  “Good!” Dad said. “Now, can we all just sit nicely and eat this watermelon together like a normal family?”

  “I got one hundred per cent in my French test today, Dad,” Jasper said, raising his eyebrows at me. “Mr Picard thinks I could take my GCSE at the end of this year if I want.”

  “Wow, Jasper! Very good! Or should I say très bien?”

  Jasper laughed really loudly and for ages. I waited for him to blurt out about me qualifying for Brainiacs and make a sarcastic remark, but he carried on talking about his major French achievements as though passing a test on conjugated verbs made him Napoleon or something. Then I realized. Mrs Savage must have only made the announcement about Brainiacs in Lower School assembly. Jasper had no idea I’d qualified.

  When he’d finally finished talking I said, “Well done, brother. That is a remarkable achievement,” and reached across the table and patted his hand. “By the way, I just got through to the Selection Day of the popular TV show, Brainiacs.”

  Dad almost choked on his watermelon. “Jemima! That’s fantastic!” He jumped up, gave me a massive hug, then shouted to Luna to come inside. He grabbed his iPad and moved his chair right next to mine as he looked up the Brainiacs website to see what the Selection Day would be like. He booked train tickets for us, saying how brilliantly I’d done and how I didn’t have to do any chores while I revised for it, and said how proud he was exactly sixteen times.