The Forever Crush by Debra Moffitt Read Free Book Online Page B

running out. END THE PLS NOW! This stuff just shouldn’t be up here. It’s privit. From Your Worst Enemy
    So there it is, we have a classic period question (Answer is No! BTW), we have an encouraging pink chain message (Go, Jeanette!), and another lovely anonymous threat with its telltale mispelling. Contrary to the message, the threat-sender did not ask nicely before. She called us “trashy,” but whatever. I was getting fed up. Can you tell?
    â€œMaybe whoever is writing these pink chain messages could ease up on the history lessons and help us get rid of this stalker,” I told Piper and Kate.
    â€œOh Jem, that person’s not stalking us. It really could be just prank stuff,” Kate said.
    Piper asked what I was so scared of. Maybe she was right and it was just some jokester in library club. She had a point, but I did, too.
    â€œIt’s no joke that this person is leaving anti-PLS bookmarks in the library,” I said.
    â€œTrue,” Kate said.
    â€œOkay,” Piper said. “Let’s ask Russo to get us some backup here—and to see about getting back our old office.”
    â€œLike that will happen,” I said.
    â€œWell, as my mom says about selling houses, ‘If you want something, you gotta ask,’” Piper said.
    Piper pushed us back toward our regular business. While we had answered a bunch of easy questions in the last week (bra-size issues, leg-shaving dilemmas), neither Kate nor I had answered our more complicated questions. That is, I hadn’t answered the weight question and Kate hadn’t answered my pretend boyfriend question.
    â€œI’m ready to go on that one,” Kate said. “I’m going to tell her to come clean to her friends and to break up with the guy.”
    I held my breath.
    â€œWhat if she doesn’t want to?” Piper asked. “What if she likes being in a fantasy world, pretending that she’s this guy’s real girlfriend?”
    â€œRight,” Kate said. “It could be hard for her. But you can’t live a fake life with a fake boyfriend and mislead your friends.”
    I cleared my throat. They both looked at me, waiting for me to say something. But I just smiled meekly and looked back at my notebook, where I pretended to write something down.
    â€œOnward then,” said Piper. “Jemma, what have you got on the Fat or Not thing?”
    I gave them my recap, saying that I now understood what BMI was. I talked with Bet and I asked both the school nurse and Mr. Ford.
    â€œIt’s complicated, but basically BMI is a number that tells whether you’re underweight, at a good weight, or overweight. You put your height and weight in a formula and it gives you your number. You can do it online,” I said.
    â€œThat’s good,” Kate said. “We can just put the link in there so she can do it herself.”
    â€œBut I’m worried that if she does that it will just spit out a number that says ‘You’re fat,’” I said.
    Kate winced a little, like she had just taken a punch. I needed to remind myself that this was a touchy subject for Kate, too.
    â€œYou’re kind of plotting yourself on an X-Y axis, like in geometry,” I said. “Your weight, over time, are like points on the graph. If you connect the dots, they make a curve. That’s why my doctor says I’m ‘consistent on the curve’—I’ve always been thin and though I gain weight I’m still in the same percentile,” I said.
    â€œYou’re losing me,” Kate said. “What did the nurse say?”
    â€œShe said you can get your BMI number, but you need a doctor or nurse to really make sense of it all,” I said.
    â€œAnd what about the losing-weight-fast part of her question?” Kate asked.
    â€œWell, there’s no simple answer there either,” I said. “People younger than eighteen shouldn’t really diet. You know, like,