“That’s what I call an overload.” Petra gasped.
“I know,” Bev agreed, “and I haven’t even mentioned what he has for lunch and dinner. Altogether he consumes twelve thousand calories a day.”
“But Mr Glasshouse told us an adult’s only supposed to have about two thousand calories,” Tabinda said, “and that guy has that for breakfast, just about. He should be massive.”
“He should be a whale, not a dolphin,” Dylan suggested.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, remembering Shell’s comment about whales on Saturday. I glanced across at Megan but she was staring at the photograph, absorbed.
Bev shrugged. “He should. Why do you think he isn’t?”
Lucy’s hand shot up. “He burns it off.”
“Give that girl a gold star. Phelps trains six hours a day, six days a week, and swims fifty miles in that week. Fifty miles! That’s like swimming the English Channel and back.”
“Wow! Respect!” Lucy said.
Bev began delving into her case again. “Obviously Mr Phelps’s calorie intake is an extreme example. Us mere mortals can survive on slightly less than that…” For a second she stopped foraging and looked up. “By the way, what I don’t want is for any of you to get obsessed with the word ‘calorie’. A calorie is just the unit used for measuring energy, OK? Like metres and centimetres for length, and seconds and minutes for time. It’s not anything to be scared of. Same with the word ‘diet’ – when I use it, it just means the food we eat and isn’t anything to do with losing or gaining weight. OK?”
“OK,” we muttered back.
“Good, because say the words ‘calorie’ and ‘diet’ to some people – women and teenage girls, especially – and they have a panic attack. If I had my way I’d ban every fashion magazine in the world.”
“Not Sweet Fifteen! That’s my favourite!” Amy protested.
“Especially Sweet Fifteen,” Bev said firmly. “Try Fair Game instead. You’ll be much better off.”
“I read that. My mum gets it for her PE department,” Lucy said. “It’s cool.”
As Bev went back to rummaging in her briefcase we began comparing magazines we all read. Amy was still protesting about Sweet Fifteen, but Eve made us laugh by saying that Fireman Sam was loads better, and Megan was swearing by The Simpsons. I caught her eye and grinned, to show her I was OK and that she was right – I was finding all this interesting. She grinned back. I was so glad I’d made her my Players’ Player of the Season.
Bev now began dealing out laminated A4 sheets, telling us to take two or three each. “These pictures are all of athletes or sportsmen and -women. Their pictures are on the front, their typical diets on the back. Have a look through them and tell me what you notice. Work in small groups if you prefer.”
All around me I could hear squeals when someone got a picture of a person they recognized. “Oh! I’ve got Rafa Nadal!” “Mine’s Kelly Holmes!” “After you with Karen Carney!” “Tom Daly! Tom Daly is gorgeous!”
I had Paula Radcliffe, Stevie Gerrard and Barbora Spotakova, a javelin-thrower from the Czech Republic. It was really interesting looking at what they all ate. Grilled fish and chicken seemed most popular – but Paula Radcliffe preferred ostrich meat. Ostrich? Yeuw!
“That’d be like eating a big budgie,” Lucy said when I showed her.
“OK,” Bev said after a while, “let’s talk.”
Despite how we had reacted at the beginning, everyone did now seem eager to talk. First up was Amy. I expected her to say something flippant – but she didn’t. “I can’t get over how different all their body shapes are. I mean, you kind of think of athletes as all looking the same, but they don’t, do they.”
“Exactly, exactly,” Bev said, sounding delighted, as if Amy had hit on some amazing discovery. “Their physiques vary according to their discipline. And because their physiques differ, so do their nutritional needs. A male heavyweight boxer’s intake will differ from a female gymnast’s, for instance.”
“For sure,” Amy agreed.
“But what about in football?” Lucy asked.
Bev cocked her head to one side. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I get what you’re saying about different shapes for different athletes, but in professional football they’re all doing the same thing – but they’re still all different builds. You only have to look at them when they’re all lined up at the beginning of an international.”
“Like Peter Crouch and Shaun Wright-Phillips,” Megan added.
“Oh, these two, you mean,” Bev said. She whipped out a picture of the two England players standing on the touchline, with Crouchy – or Two-metre Peter as my dad calls him – grinning down at titchy Shaun. “I know what you mean,” she told Lucy, “but in professional football you all have different positions. Each position favours a certain type of frame. Look at all of you, for example…”
Oh no, I thought. Please don’t.
11
“There’re your small but nippy wingers…” Bev continued. She nodded to the twins, who leaned across Hannah and high-fived each other. “And then there’s your solid defender at the back…” She looked straight at me.
I knew she’d single me out! Knew it! I felt my cheeks flame with embarrassment. My eyes flew across to Megan’s for help, but she just pointed to her hair.
“What’s your name?” Bev asked me.
“Holly,” I mumbled.
“Right, everyone. Why is Holly perfect in defence?”
Perfect? What was she talking about? I began to squirm in my seat, while all around me hands shot up with “ooh-ohh-oh”s coming from all directions.
“Because she doesn’t get bundled off the ball.”
“She’s strong.”
“She scares the pants off ‘em,” Jenny-Jane declared.
“Precisely!” Bev laughed. “In football you need someone strong and more substantially built at the back. That’s why that number 5 got so frustrated on Saturday. She couldn’t get past Holly so she threw a wobbly. But Holly can also move well. Did any of you see the ground she covered to make the tackle?”
I felt Lucy nudge me on the arm. I nudged her back.
“We did,” Hannah said, winking at me; “that’s why we love her! She’s our little Wonderwall.”
Blimey. I never thought I’d get compliments for being the biggest on the team! I went even redder, if that was possible, and I had to focus on the tips of my trainers to get myself together.
“So,” Bev said, returning to her point, “athletes can be tall, short, wide or narrow, but the one thing they have in common is that they all need to be fit. And choosing the right things to eat is a massive part of that fitness.”
She returned to her briefcase and dished out more pictures – this time of meals from around the world. Each picture had a tiny flag in the corner to show its nationality. There were pictures of German sausages with sauerkraut and Polish bigos and Italian pizzas and Jamaican jerk chicken. It made my mouth water just looking at them. “Right, choose a country,” Bev instructed.
I grabbed the pictures of Chinese food.
“Snap!” Lucy grinned at me as we pounced.
For this task, we had to see which were the healthier choices from each nation by looking at the protein, sugar and fat content of each dish. To help us, there was like a traffic-light spot next to each choice, with red being high in fat or sugar, amber being medium and green being low. I nearly fainted when I saw that battered sweet-and-sour pork (red) had twice as much fat as chop suey (green-amber), and my dad’s favourite, spare ribs (red), had three times as much. And that was without the fried rice and sesame triangles, which were red as well. Oops!
“So, any thoughts?” Bev asked after we’d all been through several menus.
Gemma put her hand up this time. “I’m really surprised that some meals that I thought were bad for you are not that bad, but some I thought were OK kind of aren’t.”
“Exactly.” Bev nodded. “Tha
t’s why reading labels is important. Look out for high sugars in carbohydrates especially. They can really catch you out. Or, better still, use only fresh ingredients. Then you know the meal hasn’t got any grotty additives chucked in. Any other observations?”
When Eve stuck her hand in the air, I couldn’t help glancing down at her feet. They didn’t look that big to me, just normal. I glanced away again and listened.
“Yeah. You say all that,” Eve said, “but the man I’m going to marry, Usain Bolt, right, trains on chicken nuggets…”
“Uh-huh.”
“… and that Phelps dude eats fried-egg sandwiches…”
“Yep.”
“That’s not exactly what you’d call healthy eating…”
“I agree.”
“… but they’re both world-record holders.”
“And Paula Radcliffe eats chocolate pre-training,” I piped up, remembering what else had been on her list apart from the ostrich meat.
“Busted!” Bev laughed. “That’s the trouble with role models – they can let you down! OK, let’s look at the chocolate issue. Paula, like many long-distance runners, needs the iron and the quick energy boost that chocolate provides.”
“So we’re allowed chocolate?” Eve asked.
“Of course. If you fancy chocolate, eat chocolate. You’ll only crave it more if you don’t.”
“Good,” Eve said, “because chocolate is my life.”
Tabinda raised her hand. “So what you’re saying is, we can eat most things but we’ve got to make sure we exercise too?”
“Got it in one.” Bev looked across at Hannah. “Bright girls, these.”
Hannah held out her hands. “What can I say? They’ve learned from the best!”
Bev began collecting in all the pictures and photographs. “Well, I hope you’ve all got something out of this. I’ve belted through it, but I’ve got a website with advice and tips – including healthy recipes – if you want to know more. Hannah will give you the address.”
“I will,” Hannah said.
“Right, I’d better get going. I’ve got food plans for a paraplegic archer and two women’s cricket teams to complete by tomorrow.”
“We really appreciate your time, Bev. You’ve been awesome. What do we say to Bev, you guys?” Hannah asked us.
“Three cheers!” Megan bellowed, and we all obliged.
“Thanks,” Bev said. “Got to dash.”
Nika rushed to open the door for her and we all waved goodbye.
Hannah reached for her crutches. “We’d better all scat too before we’re booted out.”
Everyone began to gather their stuff. I bent down to reach for my bag at the same time as Lucy did for hers, and we almost bumped heads. Seeing her so close reminded me of something. For a second I couldn’t remember what, but then it hit me – the voting slips! I pulled mine from the top of my bag, making sure it was folded flat so Lucy couldn’t peek, and began waving it in the air. “Hannah! The votes for the Players’ Player,” I yelled.
Her eyes flew wide. “I’d totally forgotten. Honestly, what am I like? Holly, you’re not just Wonderwall, you’re wonderbrain, too. You know what? We might as well just call you Wonder and have done!”
12
I clattered down the clubhouse steps but slowed when I reached the bottom, remembering that Tracie was picking me up. We hadn’t exactly parted on a high. I took a deep breath. Let’s get it over with, I thought – but when I spotted Dad waiting in the car instead of Tracie my heart soared. I pelted towards him. “Hi, Dad!” I said, jumping in on the passenger side. “How’s things?”
“So-so.”
“Nice day at the office?”
Dad glanced at me, his face long and serious. “Let’s cut the small talk.”
Uh-oh.
He tugged at his seatbelt in irritation. “Do you need three guesses why I’m here instead of Tracie?”
I didn’t reply.
He reminded me anyway. “Slamming doors? Telling her to get lost? That’s not like you, Holly. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Pull the other one! You’ve been in a mood since the weekend.”
“I don’t like being bossed about, that’s all,” I said, staring out of the window as Dad headed towards the main road.
“Bossed about? Who by?”
“Tracie.”
“Tracie? Name me one time!”
“Putting me on a diet without even asking.”
“Putting you on a diet? What are you talking about?”
“I heard her in the kitchen on Saturday. Banging on about the fat content in fish and chips. Well, fish and chips can be fatty, but fish is really good for you and if you burn it off afterwards…” I was going to explain about Michael Phelps, but Dad didn’t let me finish.
“Holly, you muppet – Tracie’s not putting you on a diet, she’s putting me on a diet!”
“What?”
He grunted. “I had a medical for work the other week. Basically, I’m overweight, have high cholesterol and am at risk of diabetes.”
“That’s not good!” I exclaimed. “In fact, that’s dead bad!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. The doctor’s read me the riot act already, thanks, and so has Tracie. Don’t you start nagging me as well. One woman in the house is enough.”
“I know, but…”
“Seriously. It does my head in. I’m a grown-up; I can sort it.”
“OK.”
So that was what Tracie had wanted to talk to me about. Dad had to – I nearly thought “go on a diet”, but remembered what Bev said and changed it to “start eating healthily”. And I’d jumped to the wrong conclusions because … I took a deep breath … because Tracie could easily have been talking about me, too. I was overweight and I was self-conscious about it. I could joke all I wanted about having chocolate-covered bones, and my team-mates could use words like “strong” and “solid”, but I knew I ate the wrong things at the wrong times and didn’t do enough exercise.
I glanced across at Dad’s pot belly. Dad, too!
As if it were listening in, my stomach rumbled so loudly it made me jump. Dad heard it too, and laughed. “Hey! Fancy a Chinese to cheer us up?” he asked.
I was starving hungry, but I was also wary. “What about Tracie? Has she prepared anything?”
“No. I told her I’d see to us both.”
“OK,” I said. “Lucky Dragon, here we come.”
“Excellent.”
“But only if you let me choose.”
This time when I carried the food over to the bench I had only one carrier bag, but the aroma coming from it was still soooooooo inviting.
“Where’s my fried rice? And my ribs?” Dad grumbled as he lifted the foil lid on his chicken chop suey.
“You’ll get spare ribs when I can see your real ribs.” I grinned.
“Cheek!” He laughed and shook his head before digging into his bean shoots with a plastic fork.
After a few minutes of munching, Dad mentioned Tracie again. “She is trying, you know, Hols.”
I felt bad for getting the whole diet thing wrong. “I know she is,” I said; “and I will say sorry about telling her to get lost.”
“I don’t think she minded that so much.”
“Didn’t she?”
“No. She said it was the first time you’d shown any real emotion towards her.”
“What d’you mean?”
“She sometimes feels that you treat her a bit like a guest who’s outstayed her welcome. You know … polite, but wondering when she’ll leave.”
I couldn’t deny it. It was how I felt about her most of the time.
“I mean, we do realize it’s been difficult, having to share your old dad after years of it being just you and me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We have tried to take it slow.”
“I know.”
“But there’s slow and there’s slow.”
“I know. I get
it.”
“So be nice.”
“I’ll be nice,” I promised.
13
I started being nice as soon as we got back from training. I apologized to Tracie about the car-door-slamming thing and she said it didn’t matter. I said it did, and explained how I’d got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Then we all sat down at the kitchen table and had the longest talk ever about food. I gabbled on and on about Bev’s session and what I’d learned, and they both nodded and smiled – more at my enthusiasm than at what I was saying, I think.
Tracie made us a cup of tea and we huddled round the computer and checked out Bev’s website. We downloaded loads of her recipes. “So if we cut down on the takeaways and eat these meals we’ll be so much healthier.” I beamed, tapping the printouts.
“Exactly!” Tracie nodded.
“Hmm,” Dad said. He sounded majorly underwhelmed.
“And now that the evenings are longer, we could do more stuff at night. Like go for walks together…” I continued.
“Or cycle. I used to love cycling when I was younger,” Tracie suggested.
“Yeah! Cycling. Or tennis or swimming. Anything! As long as we do something – especially now the season’s nearly over.”
“I can’t see myself on a bike.” Dad scowled.
“I can,” I said and went to find the Argos catalogue.
From that night on, Tracie and I were a team. A help-Andy-get-fit-and-healthy team, even though I was getting fit and healthy at the same time and so was Tracie. Now that was weird. You’ll never guess what? It turned out that Tracie’s self-conscious thing – to add to the list of my tum, Megan’s hair and Eve’s feet – was that she hated being so bony. At school her nickname had been Anna Rexic, and when she was a teenager she’d stopped going out because she thought everyone was staring at her.
“Well that’s just dumb!” I said. “As if it’s your fault you’re naturally slim. Everyone has a different body shape.”
“I know that now,” she said quietly, “but it took me a long time.”
“Aw,” I said and gave her my first proper hug.
Lauren was a bit suspicious about it all at first. “It won’t last,” she said, running her fingers across the railings on the way to school. “It’s part of step two. A cunning part, I admit, but it’s still a part.”
Who Ate All the Pies? Page 4