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even stopped feeling frightened and started feeling almost normal, if not accepted. I stood up tall again and stopped trying to hide my boobs under my arms. I spoke up in class. I let myself laugh out loud when Joy was being funny. I really thought that I’d come through the worst and that everything was going to be all right.
    But all of that changed after everyone found out that I’d had sex with Luke Goddard.

Eight
    â€œ D on’t screw your eyes up!” Beth yelled at me.
    â€œSorry!” I said, but it is hard not to screw your eyes up when your twelve-year-old is coming at you with a mascara wand. I didn’t usually let Beth do my make-up, but she’d shown me this article in one of her magazines about how to make your eyes look bigger.
    â€œYour eyes are a bit small,” she’d said, cocking her head to one side as she looked at me. “I’ll do your eyes for you.”
    Several layers of color later I caught my mum’s eye as Beth studied my old and tatty make-up collection. Mum winked at me.
    â€œYou haven’t got any pink,” Beth said. “Pink is totally the best color for bringing out blue eyes, it says here.” She waved the magazine article at me and I looked at the face of the model with her perfectly smooth, blemish-free skin.
    â€œOr making you look like you’ve got an eye infection,” Mum said, chuckling into her cup of tea.
    â€œIt’s fashion, Nan,” Beth said, shooting Mum a look over her shoulder. “You must have had fashion too when you were alive!”
    â€œI’m not dead yet,” my mum said, but she wasn’t cross.
    â€œAm I going to look like her?” I said nodding at the model. Beth laughed.
    â€œDon’t be mad,” she said. “She’s about sixteen and anyway it’s all done on computers now. She’s probably got bags under her eyes and loads of spots. Everyone knows that magazine models aren’t real.” She turned back to me and surveyed my face. “You need pink. I think I’ve got some pink in my room,” she said brightly. “I’ll get it.”
    I turned to my mum.
    â€œWhat’s it like?” I asked her, pointing at my face.
    â€œIt’s like you’ve had one of those extreme makeovers from off the telly and it’s gone really wrong,” Mum said, her voice wobbling with a hidden laugh. I picked up my make-up mirror.
    She was right.
    â€œI’ll redo it later,” I said. “When I get to the pub.”
    â€œWhat, go out of the house like that?” Mum exclaimed. “I don’t know why you let her do it in the first place,” she said, handing me a cup of tea. “Sometimes I think she’s too bossy for her own good, that girl. You shouldn’t let her bully you.”
    A flash of anger shot across my face.
    â€œShe is not a bully,” I said sharply.
    â€œNo, no. I didn’t mean that,” Mum said quickly. “You know what I mean.”
    â€œI know that she likes to feel involved. She likes to feel a part of it,” I said. “I would hate her to think I was going out there to find a bloke without her having any say in it.”
    Mum sat down at the kitchen table and looked at me. “You have to do some things just for you,” she said. “That’s what I thought all this computer dating stuff is about.” I stared at the reflection of the kitchen light shimmering in the surface of my cup of tea.
    â€œYou think all this is stupid, don’t you?” I asked Mum. “All this dating stuff.” I looked up at Mum’s face, but her expression did not change.
    â€œI don’t think that, love,” she said carefully. “I want you to get someone in your life. It’s just . . . you haven’t always made the right choices, Sam. I just want you to be careful. And so does your father,” she added, because she thought I paid more attention to Dad