Free Girls Under Pressure by Jacqueline Wilson

balanced.
    “Because you’re a perfectly healthy normal ordinary size, Ellie.”
    “Ordinary—for an elephant.”
    “I
mean
it. What’s brought all this on, hmm?” Mrs. Henderson looks at me. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with Nadine suddenly acting as if she’s the second Kate Moss?”
    “No!”
I say, perhaps a little too fiercely.
    “Do
you
want to be a fashion model, Ellie?” says Mrs. Henderson.
    “Me?” I say, snorting at the idea.
    How could I ever get to be a model? OK, I could staple my lips together for good and starve myself slim. But what could I do with my mane of frizzy hair, my little owl glasses, my dumpy five-foot-two physique?
    Mrs. Henderson misunderstands the true meaning of my snort.
    “Ah! At least you haven’t dieted away your basic common sense, Ellie. You seem to share my feelings about fashion models and their ludicrous strutting and vacant posing. Why can’t girls ache to be scientists or surgeons?”
    “Count me out, Mrs. Henderson. I come nearly bottom in science—and I can’t stand the sight of blood so I doubt I’d make a very good surgeon either.”
    “
You’re
going to be an artist,” says Mrs. Henderson.
    I blink at her, going red.
    “Wh-what do you mean?” I stammer. I didn’t have a clue Mrs. Henderson knew I even
liked
art.
    “We teachers do talk among ourselves, you know. It sounds as if you’re Mrs. Lilley’s pet pupil.”
    “Yes, but she’s leaving.”
    “Then you’ll doubtless be the new art teacher’s pet pupil too,” says Mrs. Henderson.
    “She’ll probably think I can’t draw for toffee,” I say.
    Stupid word. I think of soft gooey buttery brown toffee and my mouth drips with saliva. Do I like toffee best—or fudge? No, nougat, the sort with the cherries. I open my lips and imagine chewing a huge sticky slab of nougat. . . .
    “Ellie? Are you listening to me?” says Mrs. Henderson.
    “Yes, of course,” I say, swallowing my imaginary sweets. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Henderson. I swear I don’t want to be a model. I couldn’t care less about Nadine and her big chance. Honestly.”

dolly girl
    I was going to keep right out of it on Saturday. Magda had promised to go with Nadine. It was all settled. But then Mick
un
settled everything. Magda shared her Danish pastry with him at the leisure center—and now has him eating out of her hand.
    “He’s asked me to go to this football match on Saturday,” she says.
    “Oh, wow! Date of the Century,” I say.
    Magda is eating a Mars bar. She’s been nibbling along the top with her little white teeth like a chipmunk, and now she’s licking the exposed caramel with her pointy tongue. The smell of the chocolate is overpowering. I want to snatch it from her so badly I can barely concentrate on what she’s saying.
    Nadine is looking at her with laser beam eyes.
    “Not
this
Saturday?”
    “Mm.”
    “But you can’t. You’re going to make me up.”
    “Yes, yes, well, I can still do that, can’t I? The match is in the afternoon,
right
?”
    “But you’re coming
with
me.”
    “Well . . . you don’t really need me there, do you?”
    “We’re supposed to go with someone. It
says
. Relative or friend.”
    “They probably mean an adult friend, as a chaperone. So you’d really better go with your mum.”
    “I’m not going with my
mother
. Are you crazy? What sort of an idiot would I look, trotting along with her? I haven’t even told her about it. You know what she’s like. Dear goodness, she’d get me to perm my hair in ringlets and put me in a frilly frock!”
    “OK, OK, point made. Go with Ellie.”
    “What?” I say, snapping to attention. “No!”
    “But I can’t go on my own! Magda, you can’t stand me up to watch a lousy football match!”
    “Mick’s
playing,
Nadine. He said I’d bring him luck. I
can’t
stand him up. We’re going out after, too. It’s my big chance with him, I just know it is.”
    “It’s
my
big chance on Saturday. I can’t believe you could be