Free The Mag Hags by Lollie Barr

Belle.
    â€˜I think Maggie will look amazing in this,’ said Wanda, holding up the boob-tube dress.
    â€˜I was going to suggest to Mand she ask her mum to come and do the hair for the shoot. What do you think?’
    â€˜Wicked idea!’
    Wanda pulled a coathanger out of her wardrobe with a cute silver pleated skirt and a tiny white top held together with huge silver safety pins. ‘Do you like this outfit? I thought it would really suit your figure’.
    â€˜Are you serious? You made this?’ Belle peered at the detail in the pleats.
    Wanda nodded.
    â€˜You are so talented!’ asked Belle, holding the outfitagainst herself. ‘You should be a fashion designer.’
    â€˜My parents don’t think of fashion as a … career option. They want me to have a stable profession like theirs.’
    â€˜At least your parents have dreams for you,’ said Belle. ‘I don’t know if my father even knows I exist any more. He’ll probably be quite happy to get rid of me.’
    Wanda tried to imagine what it would be like to feel so unwanted. ‘Are you an only child too?’
    â€˜No, I have a brother who’s sixteen – Zeb … Zebadiah.’ Belle suddenly looked misty-eyed. ‘We used to be close until we were both packed off to boarding school. Now he rarely bothers to come home. Dad found it hard to cope with two kids, after Mum died …’
    Belle left the sentence suspended in the air like a kite tangled in telegraph wires, but Wanda was sensitive enough not to push her. After all, losing your mum, that was so, so heavy, Wanda couldn’t even imagine life without hers, even if she could be a nagging control freak sometimes.
    Belle sat on the pink bed, lost in thought. ‘I’ve got to work out a way to make my dad realise what Reanne is up to.’
    â€˜Look, Cat knows what’s going on, so I reckon it’s worth telling Mand and Maggie,’ said Wanda. ‘After all, with our five brains, I’m sure we can come up with something. Let’s call a Mag Hags meeting.’
    Although she never would have said it out loud, just having Wanda there made the burden a little easier to bear, especially as Belle knew that she faced a lonely weekend ahead, trying to avoid her Dad and Reanne.

Monday was the slowest day of the week at Baywood High. It seemed to last an eternity. The boredom began with school assembly; Mr McTavish would start the day with ‘Good morning Baywood!’ like he was a rock star on stage at a stadium concert, which he secretly felt like with nine hundred and forty-eight pairs of eyes staring up at him. The eight periods of the day felt like twenty-four, and to think that there were another four whole school days until the weekend. No wonder of all the days of the week, Monday felt the most persecuted.
    When the final bell rang, it was like being released from a prison of boring boringdom. The five girls made their way to Hoolio’s and settled in. Jez, the cute waiter whose sparkly hazel eyes mesmerised all the girls in town, was working. The girls spent a long time deciding on their order, primarily as a way of keeping Jez nearby, and in the end settled on a jug of tropical fruit cocktail.
    â€˜Nice bum!’ said Cat as the six-foot-one-inch thing of hotness walked away.
    â€˜Second that motion,’ said Mand, her eyes following Jez’s bottom all the way to the kitchen.
    â€˜Okay, we’ve called this special meeting because Belle’s got a problem,’ declared Wanda. ‘Reanne’s planning on ripping off Belle’s dad and sending Belle to boarding school.’
    â€˜Oh, Belle!’ said Maggie. ‘That’s so crap!’
    â€˜No way!’ said Mand. ‘That skinny bitch!
    â€˜I don’t want to burden you girls with my problems,’ said Belle, suddenly feeling exposed. ‘It’s not like, you know, we’re mates or