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barely turn up. Sarah’s smiles are getting skinnier by the day.
    After roll call Ms. Roberts reminds us to sign up for clubs by Friday. I peek into my backpack. I see a wad of papers and, yes, there’s the list of clubs. I pull it out. Photography? Maybe. Knitting? No. Running Club? No. Volleyball? Maybe.
    The bell rings. Sarah mutters a “See ya” and scuttles off. I gather up my stuff and head for the next class, music appreciation.
    The room is packed. There’s only one seat left in the back. I hurry toward it. It’s right beside Zoe.
    â€œYou’re in this class too?” she says. She inches her chair away from me. I try to ignore her. I glue my eyes to the front of the room. Zoe keeps moving her chair farther and farther away from me as if I had bad breath. Mr. Munroe asks us to sing in rounds as an icebreaker. I can’t sing in key, so I sing as low as I can.
    â€œDon’t sing,” hisses Zoe just loud enough that the kids in our row can hear. A couple of kids snicker when Zoe clutches her chest like she’s been stabbed in the heart. “You should never sing. You have an awful voice. I thought fat people were good singers. So many opera singers are fat.”
    I want to slap her. I want to call her names much worse than snake or gerenuk. I bite my tongue to stop the tears from welling up. I will not let Zoe or anyone see how I feel. I try so hard not to cry I cannot hear a sound in the room.
    How dare Zoe make me feel like this? I take a deep breath. I force myself to listen to Mr. Munroe. He’s talking about how to hit high and low notes. I just want to hit Zoe.
    When the bell rings, I dash down the hall and into the bathroom. No one is there. I walk into a stall, yank off a handful of toilet paper and sob.
    I hear someone coming in. I muffle my tears, wipe my eyes with more toilet paper and flush it down.
    By lunch I’m calmer. I shove Zoe to the back of my mind. I laugh with Denise and Carolyn. I joke about my fruit lunch and my crazy diet. I tell them my diet plan for the week. They can’t believe I can stick to it. I assure them I will. I look longingly at their sandwiches. I want cheese. I want bread. I want eggs, chicken and chocolate. I want real food, not seven-day-diet food.
    How can I eat vegetables all day tomorrow? I’m already sick of fruit after only half a day.

“Bigger snacks mean bigger slacks.”
    â€”Author Unknown
    chapter six
    â€œI bought lots of fruit and vegetables for you,” Mom says when I get home from school.
    The fruit bowl is a pyramid of pears, peaches, bananas and plums. Two cantaloupes are ripening on the counter beside a basket of tomatoes.
    I open the fridge. It’s bursting with apples, grapes, carrots, broccoli, string beans, lettuce, cucumbers, radishes and zucchini. How can I eat all this stuff?
    I know Mom is trying to be helpful. She didn’t say anything about my weight all summer, but I caught her eyeing me up and down a few times. It was like she was mentally weighing me. I could almost hear her think, How many pounds has Eve gained today? How can I make her stop eating? Should I hide the food? Should I only buy sprouts?
    I don’t want to have to talk to my mom about my diet, so I head to my room. There’s a magazine on my bed. It’s open to an article about the increase in obesity and diabetes in teenagers. I walk into the bathroom. The magazine in the wicker basket is opened to an article on weight gain and self-image. Beside it is a book called Just Do It . I read the back cover of the book. The book is about changing habits. It says you can change a habit in six easy steps. And the first habit is food addiction.
    I don’t want to read articles about being fat! I’m not a food addict! At least I wasn’t till I started dieting. Now all I can think about is food. And these articles just make me think about food more.
    I charge out of my room and into the kitchen.