Pumpkin Pie (14 page)

What did she mean, I would end up like Pauline Pretty? How dare she say such a thing! I wasn’t anorexic. I could stop any time I wanted, just like that! I said so to Saffy. I told her that I could stop
any time I wanted.

“So when are you going to?” said Saffy.

I said, “As soon as I’ve reached my target weight.”

“Which is what?”

Blusteringly I said, “Well! Whatever I decide.”

I couldn’t give her an exact weight because I didn’t have one. I didn’t have a target weight! I just had this fixed idea that I would go on slimming until I could finally look in the mirror and like what I saw. It wasn’t a question of weight. It was a question of how I looked.

“I wish we’d never started drama classes if this is what it’s done to you!” cried Saffy.

I said, “It was you that wanted to. Don’t blame me!”

“I’m not blaming you,” said Saffy.

“Sounds like you are.”

“I’m not, but ever since that stupid woman came you’ve got all miserable and cranky and obsessed with yourself!”

“I’m just thinking of my future,” I said. “If you don’t mind! I’m just exercising a bit of
willpower.
You’d think,” I said, “being my
friend,
you’d want to help me. Not go nagging on at me the whole time!”

Saffy pursed her lips, making them go into a narrow line. “What about your mum and dad?” she said.

I said, “What about them?”

“What do they say?”

“They don’t say anything.
They
don’t nag!”

The truth was that Mum and Dad still hadn’t noticed. I was being that cunning! Plus Dad isn’t the most observant of people, except when it’s food. Plus Mum was always working. But I was developing new strategies all the time. I’d not only learnt how to avoid eating but when I was at home I’d deliberately wear clothes that made me look the same plump Pumpkin that I’d always been. I’d wear long baggy T-shirts over big saggy jeans, and when I dressed for school I’d wear my blouse outside my skirt. As soon as I left the house I’d tuck it back in and pin up the waistband. I didn’t want to go out and buy new clothes until I’d reached my target body image. That’s what I was calling it.
Target body image.
I think I knew, deep down, that Saffy was right. I had to have some aim in view; I couldn’t just keep slimming indefinitely. It was a question of knowing when to stop. And the answer to that was… when I was thin as a pin!

Sometimes on a Sunday me and Dad and Pip, and Petal if she doesn’t have anything else to do, go and visit my gran. That is, Dad’s mum. (The one I sort of based my old cranky person on for
Sob Story,
though as I believe I said before, my gran isn’t really cranky. She just reckons that life is not as good now as it used to be when she was young.) Mum doesn’t very often come with us when we visit as she and Gran don’t get on awfully well, mainly because Gran thinks a mother’s place is in the home. She thinks it is terrible that it was Dad who looked after us while Mum went out to work. So Mum usually stays behind while the rest of us go off, which is just as well for me since otherwise, on this particular occasion that we went to visit, I might have been found out!

Gran has very sharp eyes for an old lady; she notices things. She noticed
immediately
that I wasn’t looking as gross as I had been.

“Jenny,” she said. “Have you lost weight?”

Fortunately, although we were all together in the kitchen, Dad was busy checking the contents of Gran’s cupboard – he always checks the cupboard, to make sure she’s properly stocked up with food – and when Dad is counting tins of baked beans or jars of marmalade the rest of the world simply passes him by. If Mum had been there, she would have pounced! Even Petal might have looked twice, but she’d gone to spend the day with Helen Bickerstaff, one of her friends from school, and Pip didn’t because what did he care if I’d lost weight?

“Well,” said Gran. Like in these accusing tones.
“Have
you?”

I said, “I wish!” Flapping my hands in my T-shirt.

Gran said, “What do you mean,
you wish?
What kind of foolish talk is that?”

“Gran! Everybody wants to be slim,” I said.

“Well, everybody shouldn’t,” said Gran. “Everybody should have a bit more sense. We’re human beings, not stick insects!”

Dad then turned round from the cupboards to ask why Gran didn’t have any pasta in stock, and the talk swung off in another direction, but I noticed Gran looking at me every now and again with narrowed eyes so I made sure to really
glut
when it came to teatime. I knew I’d have to pay for it later, but the last thing I wanted was Gran going and putting ideas into Dad’s head. As we left she said in a loud voice, as she kissed me goodbye, “And no more of that
I wish
nonsense, thank you very much!” This time, Dad heard.

“What was that about?” he said.

I was about to say “Nothing,” in a vague and meaningless kind of way, when Pip had to go and pipe up.

“She wants to be slim!”

I could willingly have strangled him. But Dad just said, “Oh! Is that all?” Obviously not taking it seriously. Phew! Relief. It did set me thinking, though. I thought, what is the point of losing all this weight if I still have to go round pretending to be fat in front of Mum and Dad? I decided that as soon as I had reached my target body image I would REVEAL ALL. By then I wouldn’t need to diet any more, so it wouldn’t matter what they said. After all, not even Dad could
force
me to eat pizzas and pasta and Black Forest gateau.

One Saturday – the Saturday after our visit to Gran – Mrs Ambrose announced that we were going to do some improvisation. She said that we could improvise on our own or with a partner, whichever we preferred, and the theme was to be “travelling”.

She said, “You might be on a bus or a train… you might be walking, driving a car… riding a horse. You might be on a plane, you might be at an airport. Anything that takes your fancy! All go away and think about it, then we’ll see what you’ve come up with.”

Normally, me and Saffy would have been partners, but today, for some reason, she didn’t seem to want to work with me. She teamed up with Portia instead. I thought,
Huh! See if I care.
I’d do it by myself.

I was just going off into a corner to think of something when Ben Azariah (whose hair grew to a point like a turnip) poked me in the ribs and said, “Hey, Jenny! Want to do it together?”

I frowned. I’d had this feeling, just recently, that Ben was getting a bit interested in me. Last term I might have been flattered. I mean, what with being so fat and not having much confidence. But I wasn’t fat any more! I wasn’t yet
thin,
but at least I wasn’t bursting out of my clothes. I felt that now I could pick and choose. And I wasn’t going to choose a geeky turnip head!

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

Ben’s face fell. Just for a moment I felt sorry for him and wished I’d been nicer, but then I hardened my heart. People like Zoë and Twinkle didn’t worry about being nice. It didn’t bother them if they hurt someone’s feelings. And
they
didn’t get partnered by geeky turnip heads. Zoë had gone into a huddle with Gareth. Now if
he
had asked me…

“I thought we could do something funny,” said Ben.

I didn’t want to do anything funny! I was sick of being a figure of fun. I wanted to be a figure of romance!

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve got other ideas.”

I swished off towards my chosen corner. Ben came scuttling after me. Some people just won’t take no for an answer.

“It doesn’t have to be funny,” he said. “It can be anything you like!”

Not with a turnip head. How could you be romantic with a boy whose hair grew to a point? It looked ridiculous! Why didn’t he have it cut?

“I want to do something by myself,” I said.

I worked out this scene where I was on the Eurostar, travelling to Paris to meet my boyfriend. I was on my mobile, talking to him. Talking the language of love. When all of a sudden—

“We’re going to crash!”

It was just so dramatic, and so sad. I really didn’t know what people found to laugh at. There is nothing remotely amusing about a train crash.

Mrs Ambrose (mopping her eyes) said, “Jenny, I’m sorry! That was such a good idea. You weren’t quite able to carry it off… but it was a brave attempt. Well done!”

Saffy said later the reason people had laughed was that one minute I’d sounded “all syrupy and slurpy” and then it was “Help, help! We’re going to die!”

I said, “You must have a very warped sense of humour if you think that’s funny.”

“It was you that was funny,” said Saffy.

Angrily I said, “You’re sick! You know that? You are
sick!”

“You’re the one that’s sick,” said Saffy.

We parted on very bad terms. I didn’t like quarrelling with Saffy, but just lately she had been really starting to annoy me. What had come over her? Why did she have to be so picky all the time?

I decided that I would ignore Saffy and concentrate on what I was going to wear for my transformation scene. Everyone knew that I was going to do a transformation scene, because I had introduced it at the last rehearsal; but nobody knew what I was going to wear! Neither did I.
Yet.

I lay awake in bed that night, mentally trying on everything in my wardrobe and rejecting it all as too big, too baggy, too boring. I’d got to look glam! But not what Mum would call “tarted up”. I wasn’t aiming for a fairy-at-the-top-of-the-Christmas-tree effect. I wanted to look more natural and casual, like I hadn’t made any special kind of effort; but at the same time I wanted everyone to think
“Wow.”
A difficult combination!

I knew what I was going to wear as an old lady: an ancient raincoat of Mum’s that came down to my feet, with a scarf tied under the chin and a pair of joke specs with a long rubbery nose that had what looked like a dribble at the end. Truly disgusting! I’d found the specs in the Party Shop last time I’d gone to the shopping centre with Saffy.

The old lady gear was easy. But I spent the whole of Sunday morning desperately trying on clothes. They were just as baggy and boring as I’d feared! How could I ever have worn such stuff? Huge pairs of elephant trousers, and tops like tents. Ugh! It made me feel sick, just thinking of how I used to be. I still wasn’t thin enough, nowhere near. I could still pinch bits of flesh between my fingers, and my thighs still went flomp! like jellies when I sat down. I had a good long way to go before I even approached my target body image, but at least I could now walk down the street without feeling that everyone was looking at me and going, “That is some fat girl!”

In the end, squashed away at the back of the wardrobe, I found a denim skirt that I hadn’t been able to get into for absolutely ages. I’d forgotten all about it. I pulled it out and put it on, and oh, joy! It fitted me. It was quite groovy, I could see why I’d bought it. It had little embroidered stars on the pockets and a zip with a red tassel. And it was
short!
Really no more than a strip, which if I’d worn it a few months ago – if I could have got into it – would have been positively indecent. I mean, who wants to see huge jellyfish thighs slapping and banging against each other? No wonder I’d hidden it at the back of the wardrobe!