your dog. And in the papers there’d be a picture of me holding him and it’d say I was a heroine in the true sense of the word.
I went downstairs to get a drink then, being quiet because I didn’t want Mum, or especially Gary, to come out of the sitting room and catch me with a glass of his secret Coke stash. Fizzy drinks are strictly forbidden on my diet plan (along with Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Turkish Delight and chocolate Hobnobs, in case you were wondering). Apparently I should drink water instead. Dr Bhatt says it’s nice when you get used to it. In his Indian accent he goes, ‘. . . and with a bit of lemon or lime squeezed in it’s really something rather special’, his eyebrows all high like he actually believes it! I love Dr Bhatt. He’s my dietician. He’s sort of spiritual in the way he says things. He’s kind as well, even though he’s got to deal with me, which must be frustrating because I’m bigger now than when I first started going to him a year ago.
Anyway, I managed to get the Coke out from behind the Pledge Furniture Polish and Mr Muscle Window & Glass Cleaner without making too much noise. Mum and Gary think I don’t know he keeps it there under the sink, and even though, when he’s having a go at me about my weight (like he’s not pretty rotund himself), it’d give me great pleasure to be able to point out what a bloody hypocrite he is – I want to keep it that way. I poured myself a glass and drank it down quick, then had another one. It’s not as nice when it’s not cold but it was too risky to faff about getting ice out of the freezer. Then I rinsed the glass under the tap and filled the bottle up with water to the same level it was before, because Gary, I bet you anything, makes a mental mark on the bottle of exactly how much is left every time he’s had some. That’s the kind of person he is, which is why, normally, I buy my own drinks.
I heard Mum and Gary arguing, then – or rather Gary delivering one of his lectures, his voice raised. When I was going back down the hall, I heard him say, ‘It’s a bit more than just puppy fat, Jen! I hate to say it, but it seems to me like she growing into it, not out.’
I stopped outside the sitting-room door. I suppose you just do that, don’t you, when someone’s talking about you, even if you really don’t want to hear? Even if you couldn’t care less what they’re going to say.
‘She’s been much better recently,’ Mum said. ‘She’s definitely lost a few pounds. Let’s just wait until she’s been to the hospital.’
‘OK, fine. But I think you’re avoiding the issue. You’re burying your head in the sand.’
‘And I think you expect too much.’
‘It’s not about what I expect, Jen. I want her to be happy.’
‘She is happy.’
‘Have a normal teenage life,’ Gary went on. ‘You know – friends. Boyfriends. I mean, come on! Who’s going to want to date her like . . . like she is?’
‘Well, we’re dealing with it, aren’t we?’ Mum said, her voice raised as well now. ‘She’s losing weight. Honestly, Gary, she’s only fifteen. I don’t really want her doing anything with boys.’
There was another silence. Then Gary, wanting to have the last word like always, said, ‘OK then. Let’s just pretend she’s losing weight and everything’s hunky-dory, shall we?’
‘Everything is hunky-dory, Gary. Let’s just wait and see.’
I did a silent cheer for Mum for beating Gary to the final word and started up the stairs, but she wasn’t finished. She said – the words clipped like she was accusing him – ‘You weren’t there.’
Yeah, I thought. You weren’t there, Gary Thornton – Gary Thorn-in-my-bum. You weren’t there.
School felt different the next day, and it wasn’t anyone else. Everyone was the same – basically either ignoring me or calling me names.
I was different, though. And I knew why. It was because I had a purpose now, because I had to save Alice. It put a new angle on everything. It’s like the perspective thing we did in art last year: far away = small, close up = big. It’s obvious, I know, till you’ve got to draw it (unless you’re Alice, of course, who could even make rotting fruit look lush). What I’m trying to say with the perspective thing is that I’ve always felt like I’m far away, like I’m the dot in the distance, and that everyone else is close up – big – living. But suddenly that day I didn’t feel like the dot anymore. I felt like I was the one that was close up – the one who knew the score, who could see the big picture – and I walked around the place like Bring it on!
I didn’t get much of a chance to look for you, other than out of the top corridor windows on the way to History. For one thing, it was raining all morning and I wasn’t so desperate to see you I’d get wet for the privilege, then there was a GCSE Drama meeting at lunch. I’m not really any good at drama. I only took it because I thought it’d be easy. And because I knew Alice would take it. And because I knew none of the Klingons like Katy or Sophie would choose it, meaning I could look at Alice without getting evils off them all the time.
Anyway, when I walked into the drama studio, Alice was in there on her own, sitting at one end of the semi-circle of chairs, drawing in her sketchbook.
Normally I’d have sat at the other end, or maybe in the middle somewhere. I’d definitely never have had the guts to sit next to her. But with my new perspective I just strolled over like it was the most normal thing in the world and plonked myself down beside her. ‘Alright?’ I said, like no big deal.
She said ‘Hi,’ but she was a bit surprised, I think. She closed her book and did that leg-crossing thing where if you cross them away from the person, it means you don’t like them. (She crossed her legs away, if you were wondering, but I wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop my rocket.)
‘That’s good,’ I said, meaning her drawing. I wasn’t just saying it either, although I’d only caught a glimpse, because everything Alice drew was incredible. ‘Can I see?’
She hesitated and I thought I’d gone too far then. I thought she’d get up and move away – sit over the other side. But she didn’t. She put the book in my hand. In my hand – just like that! And I thought of that saying that Dad used to tell me: If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Everyone else at school plasters their sketchbooks with things cut out of magazines, like words and dismembered bits of models and any other stupid stuff they can find to stick on. Alice’s cover was blank, though. Black – just how it was when Miss Trainer handed them out. I loved that. It was like she didn’t need to impress anyone; like she was telling the world that all the good stuff’s on the inside and it’s up to you to find it, like it didn’t matter to her if you did or you didn’t.
I flicked through with my thumb, catching colours and sketches and words written in fine pencil lines, and the beautiful delicate flowers she’d drawn in the corners with the page number in the centre of each – some in colour, some in pencil, some just in black ink, depending on whatever she had in her hand I suppose. I wanted to stop on every single page of course and stare at it all – at every line – but obviously I couldn’t. Not with her there. I got to the drawing she’d been working on. It was a girl, like a Manga girl, that glared out at me from the paper with gleaming eyes beneath a thick, black fringe. She was standing defiantly, like she should have a sword in her hand or something, though what she was actually holding was an apple.
Alice’d spent time on it, you could tell. The shading was brilliant – cross-hatched
