Nothing seemed to excite her any more. Watching her favourite vloggers on YouTube, listening to Ariana’s new album, the tickets Mum got to see Mariah at the Arena in town. It all seemed so… pointless.

All she really wanted to do was stay in her bedroom 24/7 watching films with the curtains closed. She felt safe there, in the dark.

But she’d been starting to feel really unwell. Light-headed and sick, and sometimes her eyes couldn’t seem to focus on anything.

She had always liked watching movies, and she still did. She liked the way you could escape your own horrible life and get caught up in the story, in the lives of other people. For an hour and a half, you could actually be someone else entirely.

She could choose the movie she wanted to watch. At school you got told what to do from the moment you arrived until the moment you left. Then when you got home, your parents took over… well, her mum did. Dad lived with Joanne and Piper now.

Every day, it felt like she lost another little piece of him.

When Maisie emerged from the school gates after attending the art after-school club, she had all of twenty seconds before she got into her mum’s waiting car, with the questions that never changed from day to day.

How did it go? What did you have for lunch? What lessons did you have?

Maisie knew all the stock answers.

It went OK. I had a jacket potato and salad. Maths, English and science.

Her mum didn’t want the truth. Not really.

She didn’t want to know that Maisie’s whole day had been an ordeal, that she no longer had anyone to sit with at lunch and so didn’t even bother going into the food hall these days.

It made Maisie feel sick to think how she used to easily sink a burger with sweet potato wedges and then wolf down a creamy yoghurt and possibly a chocolate bar. Her body had got so fat and flabby, it was no wonder that nobody liked her any more. She couldn’t blame Dad for preferring the perfectly slender Piper for a daughter.

Mum and Gran had spent her whole life telling her what to eat, when to eat and how it was vital she had three meals a day. Feeding her greed, storing the surplus calories up like lard under her dry, flaky skin.

She wasn’t a little kid any more. Although no one seemed to realise it, she could think for herself and make her own decisions in life.

Yet the more she tried to take control, the more adults seemed to tighten their grasp. She’d tried to explain to Mum that she didn’t want to go to Joanne’s house or her dance classes any more, and she’d tried to please her dad by being as perfect as Piper.

Nothing she said worked, because nobody ever listened.

The one person who took an interest in her, who pretended in front of others that she was her friend, hated her. At first, when she started being so nasty, Maisie had tried not to listen to the horrible things she said.

But after a short time, she began to see her own ugliness when she looked in the mirror. She noticed her dad didn’t seem to want to spend time with her any more. Even her mum got angry at the least little thing.

Literally, the only thing she felt like she had full control over any more was what she put into her mouth.

Maisie felt sure it would solve everything if she wasn’t so fat.