Read Online Girls Under Pressure by Jacqueline Wilson - Free Book Online

shoulder.
    I make sick noises myself. Nadine isn’t half getting on my nerves at the moment. I ask her privately what she thinks of Zoë, pointing her out in Assembly.
    “How do you mean?”
    “Well, don’t you think she’s sort of weird now?” I don’t want to prompt Nadine in any way, I want her honest opinion.
    “Zoë’s
always
been weird. She’s such a swot. All those prizes every year. Why doesn’t she get a life?” Nadine says heartlessly.
    “Yes, but don’t you think she
looks
weird now?” I say. “Haven’t you noticed she’s got a lot thinner?”
    Nadine glances at Zoë again. She’s bunched up in her baggy school uniform. Her skirt’s much longer than anyone else’s and she’s wearing very thick woolly tights. There isn’t really much of her on show.
    “I suppose she’s got a bit skinny, yeah,” says Nadine, as if it’s no big deal.
    Maybe it isn’t. Maybe Zoë is a perfect size now. After all, she really did have a biggish bum before. But now she’s worked as hard as always and she’s won the slimming stakes too.
    I struggle to remember exactly what she looks like without her clothes. Different-sized Zoës dance in my head like reflections in a crazy mirror show. I can’t work out which is the right one. I need to know.
    “Coming swimming tomorrow, Magda?” I say.
    “There’s not much point. Mick wasn’t there, was he?” says Magda.
    “Still, look at all those other boys who started chatting you up.”
    “They were OK, I suppose. Larry, the fair one, asked me out, as a matter of fact. I said I might meet up with him this weekend.”
    “
When
?” says Nadine. “Oh, Mags, you’ve got to help me with my hair and my makeup and everything. It’s the
Spicy
heat!”
    “You still like Mick best, don’t you?” I persist. “Come swimming tomorrow. You come too, Nadine—you want to be in good shape for Saturday.”
    “Yes, but I don’t want my hair all mucked up with chlorine,” says Nadine. “And I’m trying to get eight hours’ sleep every night this week. I don’t want bags under my eyes. I can’t get up ultra-early.”
    Magda can’t get up ultra-early either. She keeps me hanging around outside the pool for ages. Zoë arrives when I do, jogging along the path, her face screwed up with concentration. She carries on jogging on the spot while she’s in the queue, as if her trainers are fitted with springs.
    “How can you be so energetic so early in the morning, Zoë?” I say.
    “I’ve been up since five,” says Zoë, panting a little.
    “What?”
    “I have to, to get everything done. I do some stretching and some sit-ups, and then an hour’s studying. I’m desperate to get my own exercise bike at home and then I could set up my books so I could read
and
work out. It’s mad, my mum and dad are forking out a fortune to spend Christmas in this posh hotel in Portugal and I’ve begged them to let me stay at home and with the money they save on my fare they could buy me the bike, but they won’t
listen
.” Zoë talks faster than she used to, as if her thoughts have speeded up. “My dad’s just doing this to spite me. He’s admitted it. He wants to fatten me up. He’s
sick
.”
    I wish I had the courage to contradict her.
She’s
the one who’s sick, only she can’t see it. Or
is
she? She’s extremely fit so she must be healthy. She’s top of her class. Best at everything. Especially art.
    “Do you still paint, Zoë?”
    “Well, just my entrance exam work.”
    “You don’t do any art just for fun? You know, like when we did that mural together in the art room?”
    Zoë shakes her head, looking pitying.
    “I don’t really have time for that sort of stuff nowadays,” she says, as if I’m a toddler wondering why she won’t do finger-painting with me.
    She disappears inside the pool. I hang around waiting for Magda. I see a tall dark hunky guy in a very stylish black sweatsuit go through to the gym. I wonder if he’s Mick? I can’t really
ask
. The