Free Girls Under Pressure by Jacqueline Wilson Page A

so selfish,” says Nadine, nearly in tears. “You’re letting me down just for some stupid boy. That’s just typical of you, Magda.” She turns to me. “Ellie?”
    “No! I’m not going with you, Nadine. I can’t. I won’t.”
    But she keeps going on and on at me. So on Saturday morning I go with her to Magda’s. Magda is already carefully got up in her version of football-watching gear: scarlet sweater that clings to every curve, label-to-die-for jeans and high-heeled boots, with her beautiful fur jacket to keep her cozy.
    “OK, Nadine, let’s get cracking,” she says, rolling up the sleeves of her sweater.
    “I don’t want anything too bright,” Nadine says anxiously.
    “Just leave it to me, OK?”
    “I mean, I can see that my usual look isn’t quite right—”
    “Your chalk-white just-stepped-out-of-your-coffin look? Yeah, you’d frighten them to death.”
    “But I can’t be too colorful. Look at the way all these girls look in the magazine.” Nadine stabs her finger at various models in
Spicy
magazine. “They look . . . natural.”
    “Right. Natural,” says Magda, scraping Nadine’s hair back.
    “You can
do
natural, can’t you, Magda?” says Nadine.
    “I won’t do anything at all if you carry on. Now lie back and shut up.”
    It takes Magda nearly an hour to get Nadine looking natural enough. I can’t help being riveted. It’s so weird seeing her blossom beneath Magda’s deft fingers.
    “There!” Magda says at last, holding the mirror up for Nadine. “You like?”
    “Well . . . I don’t know. I look ever so pink and girly. Can’t we rub off some of the blusher?”
    “Don’t you dare touch it! It’s perfect. Now, your hair.”
    “Yes. What am I going to
do
about it?” says Nadine, running her fingers through it despairingly.
    “What’s the matter with it?” I say. It looks lovely. It always does. It’s a long black shiny waterfall, glinting almost blue when it catches the light.
    I’ve always loved Nadine’s hair and wished that my own hair could somehow be shocked out of its corkscrew curls. When we were little girls I’d brush Nadine’s glossy long hair until it crackled. When we slept at each other’s houses I’d cuddle up close to Nadine and pretend that the shiny dark hair on the pillow touching my shoulder really belonged to me.
    I remember
that
—and yet I
don’t
remember longing for Nadine’s body to set off her long glossy hair. I knew that I was quite a fat little girl and Nadine a thin one—but it didn’t really bother me then.
    It’s really weird—the me
then
won’t match up with the me
now
. I wish I could still be the old Ellie. It’s so hard being this new one. It’s such a battle all the time. I feel so sick now because I didn’t dare have anything for breakfast and I don’t know what I’m going to do about tea this evening because we always have takeaways on Saturdays and they always smell so good and yet they’re all hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of calories, flaky white fish in golden crunchy batter with mounds of salty savory chips, or a great Catherine wheel of pizza sizzling with cheese, or tangy tandoori chicken, ruby red and hot, with pearly rice to fill my empty aching stomach . . .
    “Ellie!” says Magda, busy parting Nadine’s hair. “Is that your stomach rumbling?”
    “I can’t help it,” I say, going red.
    “What about a little plaity bit on top?” says Magda.
    “I was wondering about lots of little plaits,” says Nadine, holding her head on one side and fiddling with wisps of her hair.
    “Plaits!” I say. “Come on. How childish can you get.”
    “Not childish. Cute,” says Magda, starting to plait.
    “Look at this girl—
she’s
got little plaits,” says Nadine, stabbing her finger at
Spicy
magazine. “Yeah, plaits, please, Mags.”
    The plaiting process takes forever. I yawn and sigh and fiddle and clench my stomach to shut it up.
    “This is s-o-o-o-o boring,” I moan. “What are you going to