Free The Mag Hags by Lollie Barr Page A

anything.’
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Mand, who liked to fight against anything unjust. ‘We’ve got to stop that walking cliché of an evil stepmother.’
    â€˜I need hard evidence,’ said Belle. ‘My father is so into Reanne that he’s blind. I don’t think he’d believe me without it.’
    â€˜Look, my mother is the fount of all knowledge in this town,’ said Mand. ‘She could win an Olympic gold medal for the best small talker and idle gossiper on the planet. Her clients feed her the stuff. I’ll drill her later.’
    â€˜And my mum and dad know everyone’s financial business,’ said Wand cautiously.
    â€˜I’ve got sisters in their twenties. They’d know Reanne for sure,’ added Maggie, feeling as though she was in some real-life crime show.
    â€˜It’ll be fine, Belle, we’ll get something on her,’ saidMand. ‘How hard can it be? The woman’s a walking, talking Barbie doll, for god’s sake. And Barbies are hardly renowned for their brains … or their vaginas for that matter.’
    â€˜Why don’t Barbie dolls have vaginas? Just those little plastic mounds,’ said Cat. ‘What’s that about? We should do a story for The Mag Hag . I can see it now – “In search of Barbie’s lost vagina!” It would be hilarious!’
    The girls were all laughing so hard at Barbie’s lack of genitalia that they didn’t notice the tears that welled in the corners of Belle’s eyes. But Belle knew that if she started crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop. So, she took a deep breath and gave a funny half-smile that meant she was being brave and tried to forget that her life sucked.
    â€˜Okay, girls,’ said Maggie when the laughter had died down. ‘We’ve got to get down to serious work on the mag. When shall we meet next?’
    â€˜We’ve got double English on Wednesday. Let’s meet at someone’s house after that,’ said Belle, feeling in control again. ‘Who’s next? What about our esteemed editor, Maggie?’
    â€˜Um, well, er, well, I suppose –’ Maggie was suddenly blushing the colour of the Baywood Devils jersey, which was so red their nickname was the Tomatoes.
    Â 
    In the days leading up to the girls’ visit Maggie was freaking out. She had been planning on coming up withan excuse to put the girls off, but lying was never her forte and she couldn’t come up with anything plausible. She could have just said no, told the girls that her house was complete and utter chaos, and even if she did have friends she’d never invite them over because she was so embarrassed.
    With five children – Bet, Caro, Lisa, Maggie and Billy – there wasn’t room to swing a cat. Although Maggie’s mum, Dario, was a member of Baywood Cat Lovers’ League so there would often be stray moggies mooching around the house, but thankfully nobody was into swinging them.
    The family lived on Lucia Road, just beyond the centre of Baywood in a ramshackle terrace house, said to be one of the original Baywood houses dating back one hundred and seven years. Maggie’s parents were continually renovating, trying to bring the house upto-date, so it always resembled a building site. Maggie’s dad, Lex, was a builder, which is probably why the house remained in such a state. The last thing he wanted to do with his time off work was work. So jobs just never seemed to get finished. Like the kitchen with the hole in the wall where Lex planned to put in double doors, or the second toilet that had only a shower curtain with just an aquarium scene to protect everyone’s modesty after Caro punched a hole in the door during a fight with Bet – Lex had been meaningto fix the door for the past four months.
    To add to the confusion, Dario was the messiest mother you could ever imagine. Maggie called her the