The Making of Mia Read Free

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Cosmopolitan
, just out today. It’s got a great piece where they give a girl a make-over … You should email them and see if they’d do a
     make-over for you – could be a great chance to make some contacts for when you start your career.’
    Jo shook her head, but Amelia dragged her over to the mirror and forced her to look at herself properly. Jo cringed.
    Her mousy-brown hair lat flat against her head and limp on her shoulders, and her eyes, set against the frown of her face,
     were dull. Apart from her wide nostrils, her nose wasn’t too bad, as noses went, but her lips were too thin, her eyebrows
     too thick, and Jo knew that even if she lost some weight she’d be one of those girls who are lost in the crowd. She was average
     – not ugly, not pretty, just nondescript. Jo wished with all her heart that she was stunningly beautiful like Amelia.
    ‘I bet the beauty department could made you look great in just a couple of hours,’ Amelia said, lifting Jo’s hair fromher shoulders to see what it would look like if it was up. ‘And you could pitch them that idea you were telling me about the
     other night – about how girls should be made-over and PhotoShopped so they look like celebrities, so they don’t feel so bad
     about themselves.’
    Jo shook her head, and her hair fell from Amelia’s hands. She’d be too terrified to have a magazine make-over – because no
     matter what they did to her, she’d still be overweight and she’d still be plain old Jo Hill who didn’t have class and never
     would. She refused to look at her reflection any longer – it hurt too much. Jo eyed
Cosmopolitan
longingly, and Amelia got the hint.
    ‘Shall I leave you to fawn all over your magazine, then,’ she joked, and after she’d gathered her bags and had gone Jo breathed
     a sigh of relief – not because she didn’t like Amelia’s company, but because by picking up the magazine she could finally
     escape real life and disappear into the glamorous world of models, make-up and fantasising about what it would be like when
     she was finally an editor of a glossy magazine. She would wear Manolo Blahnik heels, Versace suits and, as well as being thin
     and beautiful, she would be powerful.
    As Jo settled down with the magazine she instinctively analysed it – memorising how to write pithy features and learning what
     worked on fashion shoots. She opened her bedside drawer and found some Jaffa Cakes, and as she ate her way through the packet
     she read the top make-up tips from her favourite beauty editors, and worked out what colours she’d use on her eyelids if she
     were going to a celebrity-packed party. In reality she would never dare use make-up – she believed she was so ugly that a
     touch of shimmering colour wouldn’t make any difference, or worse, would make it look like she actually cared – but when Jo
     retreated into the glamorous world of fashion magazines she could pretend she was just like any other girl: carefree, young,
     pretty and slender.
    Because the truth was that Jo was more than just overweight. She was sixteen stone and she was finding that even her extra-large
     school uniform was straining at the seams.
    Jo knew she had to go on a diet – she wasn’t stupid – but she couldn’t seem to stop herself eating, and even though she hated
     the rolls of fat that collected sweat under her uniform, she was always hungry. The kind dinner ladies didn’t help matters
     either. Every day they piled more and more food on her plate in the hope of getting her to smile, and even though Amelia frowned
     at the heaped plates of food, she never said anything about Jo cutting back, not even when the bitchier girls laughed as Jo
     went up for seconds. She was the one person at school who didn’t seem to mind too much that Jo was more than chubby, the one
     person who could see Jo for who she was: a sweet, fun, bright girl who was driven by ambition and the desire to succeed. But
     even Amelia