Girls Under Pressure Read online

  “Promise. Four o’clock, John Wiltshire’s. I can’t wait!”

  But when we meet up we’re both so distracted by Magda we forget Nadine’s revelations. My weight loss goes unremarked. We are just utterly jawpunched by Magda’s appearance.

  I don’t even recognize her at first. I spot Nadine hunched at one of the twee pink-clothed tables with some mousy short-haired girl in a gray jacket. Then this same girl smiles wanly at me. I do a triple take.

  “Magda! What have you done?”

  Nadine signals to me frantically with her eyebrows.

  “You look so different, but—but it looks . . . great,” I lie desperately.

  “It looks totally crappy and so do I,” says Magda, and she bursts into tears.

  “Oh, Mags, don’t,” I say, putting my arms round her.

  I stare down at her poor shorn head. It isn’t just the new brutal haircut. It’s the color. Magda’s been a bright bottle blonde right from our first day in Year Seven when she was eleven years old. I’ve never been able to picture her any other way. But now she’s had it dyed back to what is presumably her natural pale brown. Only it doesn’t look natural on Magda. She looks like she’s taken off her own jaunty flowery sunhat and borrowed an old lady’s Rainmate by mistake.

  Nadine orders us all pots of Earl Grey and toasted teacakes. I am so distracted by Magda I munch teacake absentmindedly. It’s only when I’m licking the butter from my lips that I realize I’ve chomped my way through hundreds of unnecessary calories. Oh, God. I wonder about a quick dash to the ladies’ but the cubicles will be in full earshot of everyone, and I don’t want to miss out on anything when Magda and Nadine spill the beans.

  “Sorry about the sniveling,” says Magda, wiping her eyes. She’s not wearing any makeup either, so she looks oddly unfinished, as if someone has already wiped half her face away.

  “Your hair really looks quite . . . cute when you get used to it,” I try again.

  “That sort of gamine look is actually very hip now,” says Nadine.

  “You liars,” says Magda. “It looks awful. And the color is the end too. Not even mouse, more like molting hamster with terminal disease. I’m going to get it dyed again before school but how the hell can I grow it again in a week?” She tugs at the limp little locks in despair.

  “So—why, Magda?” says Nadine. “Did the dye go wrong so you had to cut it all off or what?”

  “Or what indeed,” said Magda. “No, it was just . . . Oh, it’s so stupid. I thought I was over that night with Mick, you know, but I went into town last Saturday—remember I phoned you and asked you to come, Nadine, but you said you were busy?”

  “Don’t!” says Nadine. “Oh, God, I wish I had come with you. Anyway. Go on.”

  “And you were still stuck in Wales, Ellie, but I thought never mind, I’ll go round the sales anyway, as I had lots of lovely Christmas lolly to spend. I went with my brother Steve because his girlfriend Lisa works at the Virgin record store so she’s tied up on Saturdays and so Steve and I had a good look round the Flowerfields Shopping Centre and I got some new shoes and he did too and we went into La Senza, you know, that nice nightie place, and I bought this cute little nightshirt with teddies on and Steve bought this cream lacy negligee for Lisa because she’d said she liked it ages ago and now it was down to half price. Anyway, we were a bit tired by this time and I was wearing my new shoes and they were making my feet ache a bit so Steve suggested we go and have a milkshake in the Soda Fountain and . . .”

  “Were Mick and his mates there?”

  “Not Mick himself, but some of those guys he hangs out with, Larry and Jamie and several others. I sat right the other side with Steve and we were just clowning around. You know what fun our Steve can be. He took Lisa’s negligee out of the carrier and held it up against himself, and I was laughing away at him when I suddenly looked up and all these boys were staring at me and then they all started mouthing Slag at me and I just about died.”

  “Oh, Magda, you mustn’t take any notice of them. They’re just pathetic scum,” I say fiercely.

  “But I just couldn’t stand the way they were looking at Steve and me. They’d obviously got completely the wrong end of the stick.”

  “You should have told your Steve.”

  “Yes, and he’d be locked up for grievous bodily harm right this minute. Anyway, I tried to work out why all these boys have got the wrong idea about me.”

  “It’s simple, you nutcase. You look a million dollars!”

  Used to look a million dollars. Now it’s down to thousands. Hundreds. Several dollars.

  Magda reads my expression. “Exactly. It was my blond hair and the makeup and the showy clothes. So I thought, Right, I’ll stop being blond, so I went to this hairdresser with the rest of my Christmas dosh and said I wanted it all cut off and dyed back to its original color. They didn’t think it a very good idea, but I insisted. Oh, God, why am I such a fool? Look at it!” She runs her hands through her hair.

  “It’ll grow,” says Nadine. “Give it another month or so and it’ll look great, you’ll see. And maybe you can go back to being blond again. I can’t quite get used to you as a brunette, Magda.”

  “And what’s with this old gray jacket? You’ve got a red fur coat to die for,” I say. “Honestly, Magda, I think you’ve had half your brain cut off as well as all your hair. How can you possibly let a sad little bunch of schoolboy prats affect the way you look?”

  “Hello?” says Nadine. “Do you hear what you’re saying, Ellie? Just one kid calls you fat at that Spicy mag do and you go totally anorexic overnight.”

  “That’s nonsense,” I say, blushing hotly. I didn’t realize Nadine actually heard. “And I’m not anorexic. Look, I’ve just eaten a huge great buttery teacake. I bet that’s four hundred calories gobbled up already.”

  “You’re proving my case,” says Nadine. “And look at yourself, Ellie. You really are getting much thinner.” She flattens my sweater against my stomach. “Look, Mags. The incredible shrinking girl.”

  “Oh, Ellie. You’re mad too. It doesn’t suit you going all skinny,” says Magda.

  Skinny! Ow wow. SKINNY! I’m not, of course. I’ve still got a long long long way to go before I could possibly be called skinny. But still . . .

  “You’ve no idea how scary this is,” says Nadine. “It’s like my two best friends have been taken over by aliens. The X-Files have got nothing on this.”

  “You looked different the day you went to the Spicy girl heat.”

  “Don’t remind me,” says Nadine, and she flicks her last piece of teacake in my face.

  “So anyway, what’s with you, Nad? What was this seriously awful thing that happened to you?”

  “Oh, God,” said Nadine. “Do I have to?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, it’s just . . . last Saturday, when I couldn’t see you, Magda, it was because I went up to town to this place.”

  “What place?”

  “A studio.”

  “Oh, no! A photographer’s studio? You went to see that creepy guy who gave you his card, didn’t you? Oh, Nadine, you nutcase. What did he try to do? Did he want to take sleazy glamour shots?”

  “No, he didn’t, Ms. Clever. He took entirely respectable totally fully clothed photos,” says Nadine. “I’ve got a proper portfolio. And he did only charge me half price. Though I hadn’t realized quite how much it would be. It used up all my Christmas present money.”

  “So what’s the big deal?” says Magda. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “That’s the good part. The bad part—the truly infuriating awful part—was that my mum and my horrible little showy-offy sister came with me. Mum caught me sneaking off on Saturday morning, see, and wanted to know where I was going and asked why did I deliberately make myself look a sight wearing all the black and the goth makeup and stuff, I looked a total laughingstock. She was being really irritating, totally getting at me and trying to put me down, so I found myself telling her I’